A gift for our members and watchers! Title: Six Times Percy Didn't Say What He Thought (and One Time When He Did) Author: TBA Giftee: Our members and watchers Pairing: Percy/Hermione (some off screen R/Hr) Rating: PG Word Count: 3700 Warnings:Het, DH spoilers, overly long and pretentious title, some scenes of a disturbingly fluffy nature. Disclaimer: Not mine, no profit is being made, etc. Summary: In which Percy gets the girl and a happy ending, and the author fixes the epilogue. Author's Notes: Thank you so much, anonymous beta reader, for the encouragement and major hand-holding. ♥
~~~
i.
A knock on his door dragged Percy Weasley out of a pleasant daydream, filled with applause, admiring glances, an Order of Merlin, the Prophet requesting an interview, and an eleven-year-old in Hogwarts uniform asking him which NEWTs he had taken in his path to becoming Minister for Magic.
"Percy? Can I have a word?"
The voice was female, familiar, and one that Percy struggled to convince himself he hadn't been hoping he'd hear. "Come in," he said, and Hermione Granger, soon to be Hermione Weasley, poked her head around his door.
"Hi." She smiled at him, and entered the room, flopping down beside him on the bed and hugging her knees. "How are you?"
He wondered whether Fed up of wanting what I can't have would go down too well, decided that it probably wouldn't, and settled for, "Fine. And yourself?"
"I've got some good news, actually." She grinned. "I've got you your job back."
He stared at her. "What?"
"If you want it." She met his eyes, her own now full of an uncertainty that he had rarely seen since her childhood.
"Yes. Of course I do. How did you…?" He didn't sound as enthusiastic as he had hoped, in fact his tone almost bordered on stuffiness, but it seemed to work and Hermione beamed.
"Pulled a few strings at the Ministry, that's all. Pointed out that you were a war hero and the like. I thought you might appreciate it."
He smiled back at her. Thank you, he thought, and muttered, "I do appreciate it."
"Good. Just… be careful." She left the 'this time' unsaid, but they both heard it anyway.
"I will."
There was a pause, while Hermione contemplated the ceiling and Percy contemplated Hermione.
"The wedding's soon," he observed, trying to keep all trace of emotion out of his voice and almost succeeding.
Hermione nodded and picked at a loose thread on her robes. "So Ron keeps reminding me."
He wondered whether to comment on the fact that she didn't sound particularly enthusiastic, but opted not to. "Have you got everything ready yet?"
"Just about. It's insane at our place, though. Ron's so excited; Harry keeps coming round to visit, and I can't quite feel involved." She bit her lip, guilt clouding her face for a moment. "I can't help wondering if we're rushing into it. I mean, we only left school three years ago. We've got our whole lives to think about. It seems almost too fast. But Ron's so happy and I don't like to…" She trailed off, looking suddenly embarrassed. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't be…"
Percy shook his head. "It's fine."
She smiled gratefully. "I'll calm down, I know I will. It's just that I've seen other people get married and be so blissfully happy, you know? I want it to be like that. I want the fairytale. And I know Ron loves me – I love him – it's just… before Bill and Fleur's wedding, she was so excited. Even Tonks..." She stopped, frowning for a moment before she forced herself to regain control. Her voice grew quieter as she continued, "Even Tonks was so happy about her wedding, and she couldn't even invite her own parents, let alone have a decent celebration. I'm getting the dream wedding, but it still doesn't feel quite right."
Percy patted her arm awkwardly, and she seemed to force herself to meet his eyes.
"I'm sorry," she whispered again. "I shouldn't be telling you this. I'll go now."
He watched as she composed herself, got up, crossed the floor and left, and wondered why it hadn't occurred to him to tell her that everything would be fine.
~
ii.
He knocked on Hermione's office door for the third time that week, a plastic carrier bag containing a Chinese takeaway in one hand, and a pile of paperwork in the other, to remind himself as well as any nosy colleagues that he was there for business rather than (or at least, as well as) pleasure. She let him in, smiling, and they sat on either side of her desk to eat.
"How are the new broomstick regulations going?" she asked him, her tone one of obviously feigned polite interest.
"Fine. How's Magical Law?"
"Boring. I've spent most of the morning dealing with messy divorce cases. Three hours interviewing a wizard whose wife had Transfigured his testicles to kiwi fruit because he had an affair with a Muggle page three girl. He wants compensation; she kept threatening to make a nice fruit salad if he didn't get the hell out of her life. I spent most of my time trying to get them to be civil, with very little success." She frowned and stabbed a piece of chicken rather harder than was necessary. "And now I ought to Obliviate you because I've probably breached Confidentiality Laws, but I'm too hungry and far too annoyed."
Percy smiled sympathetically. "I've got to spend the afternoon in a meeting with Gregory Goyle, if it's any consolation."
She winced. "You win."
He nodded, and changed the subject. "How's Rose?"
Hermione relaxed momentarily. "Starting to crawl everywhere now. She almost got into the cupboard under the stairs last week – Ron had to spend most of the evening putting Locking Charms on everything. I've been telling him to do it for a while – all the books say you should – but he just won't listen sometimes." Her expression had stiffened and her shoulders hunched; this time she took her anger out on a bean sprout that was unfortunate enough to be nearby. "Sorry," she said a moment later, flushing.
Percy shook his head. "It doesn't matter. That's what I'm here for."
"What, whinging at?" She smiled, and her eyes twinkled when they met his and held his gaze for a second.
"If necessary. Whinging at and bringing you food." And certainly not for convincing you that you're too good for Ron.
"Hmm. I knew there was a reason I liked you."
~
iii.
When he walked past her office and heard her sniffing, he almost did what he did best – continue on down the corridor and pretend he hadn't heard. It would be rude, he reasoned, to interrupt her when she was upset; Hermione was normally too composed to want anybody to see her give way to emotion, even for a moment. The sound of her reaching for a tissue, noisily blowing her nose and then muttering the charm to Vanish the tissue, followed by a deep, shaky breath drew his attention. He paused, then knocked on the half-opened door, just once, to check that she was all right.
"Who is it?" she asked, and when he heard her breath catch in her throat he found himself desperate to console her and tell her that everything would be okay.
Instead he just mumbled, "It's Percy."
"Oh." He heard her whisper a couple of charms, and then she called, "Come in," in a close approximation of her normal voice.
He entered, pulling the door completely closed behind him.
"What is it?" Her tone was businesslike and she had magically erased any trace of tears from her face, but when he met her eyes they seemed far too bright.
"What's happened?"
"It doesn't matter."
Percy frowned and sat down in the chair on the other side of her desk. He rested his elbows on the desk and his chin in his hands, adjusted his glasses while he thought, then studied her. "It does."
"I'm being unprofessional. Shouldn't bring my home life into the office. Just ignore me." She sniffed. Percy reached for the box of tissues and offered one to her.
"Home life?" He felt his brow furrow in suspicion. "Does this have anything to do with Ron?"
She shook her head and mumbled, "Of course not," but her expression betrayed her.
"What happened?" he asked again, hoping that his increasing irritation with his brother wasn't evident in his voice.
There was a long pause while he wondered if he was really getting anywhere, and then she pushed a piece of parchment covered in Ron's scrawl across the desk to him. "He's seeing somebody else. He wants a divorce."
Percy stared at her, wondering what on earth one should say in situations like these. He knew what he wanted to say, but somehow, he found himself muttering, "Merlin! I… Um…" when all that was required was I'm sorry.
"It's been coming for a while. We rushed into things far too quickly and we've been growing apart for years. We were just waiting for the kids to get to Hogwarts age before we separated. I should've seen it coming." She reached for another tissue, and blew her nose. "I only wish he'd told me sooner – or at least in person."
Percy stood up and moved to stand behind her. He rested one hand on her shoulder and squeezed it, trying to convey support that he didn’t know how to put into words.
"Thank you," she whispered after a while. "I'll be fine now."
~
iv.
She appeared at his flat three months later, carrying a pile of books and looking determined. When he let her in, she bustled into his lounge, handed him one of the books and opened another. "I'm going to find out how to go about moving on," she informed him. "I've been reading around the subject, you see. Comparing methods."
Percy frowned. "It's your birthday! You should be enjoying yourself, not thinking about Ron." He stood up, suddenly determined, pulled the book out of her hand, and Banished it, enjoying the fact that the stress in her eyes faded for just a moment to shock at his treatment of one of her precious books. "Come on." He pulled her to her feet, ignoring her protests.
"Where are we going?" She seemed resigned, but he noted that she was using her best courtroom voice as a warning not to mess with her.
"To get you drunk." It wasn't what he had intended to say – he had been planning a meal, as friends, during which he would calmly hate his little brother and wish he'd got in first, while imparting a few comforting but stiff words of wisdom and cementing her view of him as her sensible, unemotional friend. This way worked too, though, and Hermione seemed temporarily shocked into silence.
"I, um… what?" she eventually managed, staring at him.
"You haven't been your normal self for ages." I miss the old you.
She nodded resignedly, and allowed him to pull her out of the door and Apparate them both to The Ghoul and Fwooper, the nearest pub that was likely to be free of people who knew either of them. Hermione looked around in surprise, then nodded, found a table, and sat.
"I wouldn't have taken you for the pub-visiting type," she told him, when he sat down and pushed a glass of Firewhisky in front of her.
"I'm not. Not as a general rule, anyway."
"Especially this kind of pub."
Percy looked around; he supposed it was a little on the seedier side of average. "I didn't want to risk seeing people who knew us from work or anything," he explained. "The last time I got particularly drunk I made a bit of an idiot of myself in front of Olive Hornby from HR. It was years ago, but she still asks me if I've fallen off any more tables whenever she sees me."
"Ah." She picked up her drink, tried to hide a grin behind it, and then sipped.
Three shots of Firewhisky, a pint each of Muggle beer, and a strange concoction containing a sticky, syrupy substance that neither of them could quite identify found Hermione giggling uncontrollably and Percy drawing her attention to a cigarette burn on their table and admiring its unique roundness.
"'Nother drink?" she suggested, carefully standing up and steadying herself by leaning on his shoulder. Percy nodded and watched her go back to the bar, suppressing with difficulty an urge to hex the barman for glancing rather obviously down the front of her robes when she leaned over to look through her purse. She came back, carrying two glasses filled with something that was a shade of blue that never occurred in nature, and that in his sober state Percy would never have touched with a barge pole. "Looked nice," she explained. "Nice and blue."
He nodded in agreement and took one.
"We should probably leave," he said eventually. "While we can still Apparate."
She looked suddenly panicked. "Oh shit. Hadn't thought of that. Um… I'm not quite sure I can."
Percy frowned, but decided that the gentlemanly thing to do would be to use Side-Along-Apparition to get her home, and then possibly locate her a bucket. He summoned all of his concentration, prayed that he wouldn't Splinch them, and sighed in relief when they arrived intact outside her flat. Hermione undid the charms that protected it, giggling the whole time, and he led her in, swearing under his breath when she staggered and tripped over the doormat. He pulled her back up, deposited her onto the sofa, and sat down beside her, wondering what to do now, and whether she would kill him when she woke up the next morning and remembered that her hangover was largely his fault.
In the end, he opted to leave her where she was. He Summoned a blanket, bucket and a large glass of water, forced her to drink, and wondered whether she was too inebriated to safely leave. Deciding that she probably wasn't, he crossed the room, reached for Floo powder and went home.
Her head in his own fire awoke him the next morning. "How are you?" she asked him, offering a vial of potion. "Hangover cure," she explained, handing it to him, and he drank it immediately.
"I love being a wizard," he said, feeling the noisy machinery that had taken up residence in his head overnight vanish, and reaching for his glasses.
"I didn't do anything too embarrassing, did I?" she asked, looking suddenly worried. "Didn't throw up on you or anything?"
He shook his head, his relief at his lack of a hangover making him a little more relaxed than usual. "Nothing beyond a long and slurred discussion about just how ticklish Plimpies' feet are. You drank something so blue that your liver may well be permanently dyed, though."
She wrinkled up her nose. "I think I know now why my mother told me never to mix my drinks," she told him, rubbing her temples and wincing. "Not even my best Hangover Potion made much of an impression. I don't think I could read a report today, let alone write one – I'm just glad it's a weekend."
I'm glad you're acting more like you, he thought, but let the conversation drift back to work.
~
v.
"Do you want to go out for dinner?" he found himself asking her, one lunchtime towards the end of December. "Just as friends, of course." He briefly wondered why he felt the need to specify.
She nodded, smiling. "Love to. Just promise me it'll be less awkward than going out with Harry, Ginny and Ron was last week. Ron and I still get on okay, but poor Harry kept trying to talk to us both without alienating the other, and we ended up with nothing to say at all."
"I'll do my best."
"Then that sounds great." She beamed, and Percy realised that he hadn't seen her smile like that for years.
She met him at his flat that evening, politely pretending not to notice when he hid his Head Boy and Prefect badges behind a picture frame but not quite concealing her amusement. He wanted to distract her by complimenting her choice of robes, but instead, he just said, "Shall we go, then?" and let her lead the way out.
"How was work?" he asked when they were seated and waiting for menus, because it seemed like a safe, familiar topic of conversation.
He was sure he must have imagined the disappointment that flickered across her features before she said, "Fine. Boring, but fine."
He nodded and they sat in silence for a moment, Hermione absently twisting a curl around her finger and Percy searching for another safe thing to say. He opted to comment on the weather, but she spoke across him.
"What are we actually doing here, Percy? I have to know. Are we really just here as friends, or…"
"Or?"
"Or are we here because we might want to do this more often? As, maybe, more than friends?" Her voice was low and nervous, and she addressed the vase of flowers on the table rather than him, but he still caught the note of hope.
"I don't know. Would you maybe want to do this more often?" he asked, looking very determinedly at the light on the ceiling above her.
"I'm not sure. Would you?" She finally met his eyes, her own wide and a little fearful. Percy nodded slowly.
"Maybe."
She smiled, and her tone was suddenly confident when she said, "Me too."
Thank God.
~
vi.
"Hello," she muttered, pushing the door to his office open and peering around it. She looked suddenly awkward – as awkward as he felt when he met her eyes and beckoned her into the room. She closed the door quietly behind her and leant on it for a second, eyes closed.
"Good afternoon," he replied, and smiled at her, trying to be reassuring. "How's your day going?"
She smiled back at him. "It seems to be getting better." She crossed the room and perched on the corner of his desk, absently reaching for his desk tidy and starting to sort his quills by size rather than by colour the way he normally arranged them. "Do you want to get some lunch?"
He nodded, stood up, and led her out of the office. Once they left the Ministry building, they inched closer together, and he found himself cautiously reaching for her hand. She shot him an encouraging smile and squeezed his fingers as she led him into the first shop they came to.
They sat down to eat on the nearest bench, watching the world – or at least, their co-workers – go by.
"You've got mayonnaise on your cheek," she told him when they stood up and faced each other awkwardly. He coloured, and she stepped forward, reached up and wiped it off, stopping and blushing too when she realised how close together they were standing. They exchanged awkward smiles. "I suppose we should…." Her hands moved towards him and settled on his shoulders.
Percy nodded. "I suppose so." He shuffled a little closer towards her, reminded himself that he was allowed to do this now, and embraced her. She leaned into him, and he wondered why it wasn't particularly irritating to have a lock of bushy hair tickling his nose and another body invading his personal space. His arms tightened around her when he realised that he actually rather liked it. Very much so.
"This feels weird," she said at last.
Percy stared at her, glanced down at his hands on her waist, and abruptly moved away. "Sorry." It was nice while it lasted.
She looked embarrassed, and pulled him back to her. "That wasn't what I meant," she muttered apologetically, slipping her arms around his neck. "I just meant doing this again. It's been a while, that's all. It's the good kind of weird, I promise. It just feels a little odd."
He nodded, and returned his hands to her waist, still feeling a touch awkward.
"I think I could get used to it pretty quickly." She gave him a coy smile, then reached up and kissed him. She looked almost nervous when she moved away, but he smiled and pulled her back.
"I don't know about you, but I think I could get used to that fairly quickly," he murmured against her lips.
"Me too," she whispered back, and kissed him again.
~
vii.
They spent Percy's next birthday at the Burrow, Molly greeting Hermione with a motherly hug and a muttered, "It’s lovely to see you happy again, dear," and Percy with a kiss and a delighted, "Happy birthday! So do we hear wedding bells?" whispered just loudly enough for Hermione to overhear.
Percy tried to look composed, failed, and spluttered instead; Hermione flushed, and Molly bustled them into the living room with an amused smile.
"What am I supposed to say?" Hermione hissed, when Molly went into the kitchen to make tea and locate Arthur.
Percy stared at her.
"I'm supposed to make polite but embarrassed conversation when I meet your parents for the first time, and desperately try not to make a bad impression. But I think leaving their youngest son and their grandchildren probably created the worst impression I could possibly have made, so now what?"
He slipped a reassuring, if slightly awkward, arm around her waist. "Calm down. They already know and like you, so you get to skip the uncomfortable conversation, relax, and be yourself. Don't worry."
"But…"
"Anyway, you like logic, so look at it this way. If you've already made the worst possible impression, things can only improve."
Hermione laughed. "Is that meant to make me feel better?"
He squeezed her hand. "They like you – they always did. They'd be crazy not to." She still looked doubtful. "Trust me, Ron has nothing to do with it."
He kept his arm around her for the rest of the afternoon, which drew an indulgent smile from Arthur, a wide grin from Molly, and several grateful glances from Hermione. When they finally stood up to leave, Molly presented them with matching jumpers, a large tub of chocolate brownies and a standing invitation to Sunday lunch whenever they felt like it. "We always like having family around," she explained, with a thoughtful smile at Hermione.
"I think maybe I could get used to this," Hermione said when they arrived in his fireplace and brushed soot off each other a little more enthusiastically than was strictly required. She looked up at him and grinned.
Me too, he almost said, but instead he steeled himself, placed a quick kiss on the top of her head and muttered, "I love you."
She beamed, her expression finally back to the self-confident happiness he had missed. "I love you too."