InsaneJournal

Who: Vicky Frobisher and Fabian Prewett
What: Lunch and discussion
When: Lunchtime, Tuesday 14 April, 1998
Where: Wheezes and environs
Warnings: None



Fabian had come down to Wheezes on his lunch break, more for the excuse to get out of the office and say hello to his nephews than anything else. (He tended to get his needs supplied during off hours.) He was rummaging through a bin of mixed jokes when the door opened again; when he looked up, it was Vicky, Percy's girlfriend, whom he wasn't sure he'd had a chance to speak to in more than passing just yet. Though she'd seemed pleasant enough at the twins' party, and gone to take care of Percy after he'd stalked off, before Fabian had a chance to tell any of his surprisingly mild stories about Molly.

He dropped the item he'd been holding back into the bin and waved at her. "Hullo, Vicky. How are you? And how's the state of the world?"

Vicky had finished up the morning stuff at the station a little early and had come to the shop to see if Percy wanted to join her for lunch, but she didn’t see him behind the counter. Before she could go to the back room to look for him, she saw a familiar face waving at her and headed over to say hello. “Fabian, right?” She hoped she was remembering correctly. She’d really only met him briefly at the twins’ party, but he’d seemed friendly enough.

She leaned one hip against the edge of the bin. “I’m good. Looking for Percy. The world… well. It’s been worse, it’s been better. I’ll be happy when the election is over and Ada and I can talk about other stuff during our show.”

Fabian nodded at his name, because Merlin knew how anybody that didn't have his long list of tricks from his solicitorial days of remembering names and faces would have recalled anybody else from the party. Plus he had the advantage of knowing her voice from the wireless, and being acquainted with almost everybody else who had been there. "I can believe that. Merlin knows there have to be other things worth talking about going on. And I think Percy is--" he glanced back at the counter to be sure his impression was correct "--out for a bit but he'll be back soon, I'm sure.”

“Oh.” Vicky deflated a little at the news that Percy was out of the shop. He must be running an errand for the twins, because otherwise he’d never leave before his scheduled lunch break. “I’d hoped to grab him for lunch, but I guess I’ll grab something myself and sit outside somewhere.” It was a rare nice spring day, and she wasn’t going to waste it staying inside.

She walked over to the counter and scribbled a quick note to Percy to let him know she’d stopped by and asked him to ward her later. “How are you?” She asked Fabian as she wrote.

"Oh, pretty good. Last weekend was a little crazy, but things have settled down since Sunday." George, no, that was Fred, was in the middle of a transaction with a customer and Fabian didn't want to interrupt it. "I'm not Percy, but if you'd like some company with your lunch, I'd be happy to join you. I like to get to know the people my nephews are close to. Plus I have a store of embarrassing stories about all of them except Ron and Ginny." He flashed Vicky a grin and ignored the look he was getting from the counter.

“Interesting stories, hmm?” Vicky arched an eyebrow and suppressed a giggle at the glare Fred was giving his uncle. “How could I possibly pass that up?” She added a quick addendum to her note--Having lunch with your uncle. I’ve been promised stories--tucked her hands in her pockets, and headed toward the door. “I’m not sure I have long enough to get all the good stories before I have to be back at the station, but I’m in for a few stories at least.”

Fabian put his most innocent look on and ignored looks from his nephew that suggested any terrible tales might evoke retaliation. He'd already told enough terrible stories on himself in competition with Bilius that he wasn't worried about embarrassing himself, or the twins and Percy embarrassing him. "If I give up all the good stories early, how will I convince you to go out to lunch with me again later?" He winked at Vicky and gave her a cheeky grin.

Vicky laughed and hooked her hand around the crook of Fabian’s arm. “Let’s see how well you entertain me today before we start talking about another lunch.” She led the way out of the shop, away from Fred’s looks and the possibility of George or Percy coming back and putting a stop to Fabian’s tales. “Where should we eat?”

Fabian escorted Vicky out as if he were walking with one of his mother's friends, if at a somewhat faster clip. "There's a sandwich shop a block that way--" which direction Fabian indicated with a tilt of his head "--that I get takeaway from pretty regularly. It's decent quality and lighter than pub fare." If Fabian ate at the Leaky all the time, he was convinced he'd be round as a balloon and end up sleeping half the afternoon at his desk. "And there's a cafe on the old Knockturn side, excuse me, New Diagon Alley, that has some sidewalk seating. Your choice."

“Let’s go to the sandwich shop.” She thought she knew which one Fabian was talking about, and it was one she frequented regularly on the weekends. They had a wide selection and it was early enough that the tables outside shouldn’t be taken yet. “That way we won’t have to fight for outdoor seating.”

"Sure." Fabian wasn't a particularly large man, but he had the knack of getting through the midday crowds on Diagon Alley, or of getting them to part for him and Vicky. In a few minutes, they were in the queue for their sandwiches, and not long after that had a sack in hand with the goods and were heading for one of the benches scattered around the Alley for shoppers and the occasional diners to sit on.

"So I have to say I won't tell terribly undignified stories on Percy, to start with. George and Fred will make a big deal of protesting if the feel like it, but they don't mind so much once you pin them down on it. But I'm fairly sure Percy actually dislikes that kind of family story, and I wouldn't want to do anything to damage his dignity. With that caveat, what kind of terrible stories do you want to hear?"

“Are there even terribly undignified stories of Percy?” If there were, Vicky would ask Percy about them and let her tell them,if he wanted them shared. She couldn’t even imagine him ever doing anything undignified, though, not even as a small child. Fred and George on the other hand… “I’m happy to listen to whatever you want to tell me about the twins, though. Something unexpected.”

Of those stories, Fabian had half a dozen, which mostly consisted of them playing ridiculous pranks, magical and otherwise, on him and Bilius that went wrong somehow and occasionally a return prank that got the better of one or the other of the twins. None of which, in Fabian's opinion, beat the story of Vicky's charming their hair pink and green without them noticing and photographing it, which he freely admitted. "I am not," he admitted, "a prankster at heart. I think you have to be a bit of one to fit in with most of the Weasleys--and it's quite clear you do." Which Fabian said with a bit of a grin and raised his bottle of sparkling water to her.

Vicky blushed as she took a sip of her lemonade. “Did anyone tell you they got me back for the hair thing? I spent a couple hours about three and a half inches tall on their birthday.” She laughed at the memory. “Now I have to think of something else to do to them. I’m not going to let this die.” She’d never really been into pranks before, but it seemed Fabian was right. There was something distinctly fun about it, and it definitely made her fit in with Fred and George better. Percy on the other hand… well, he seemed to enjoy having her prank the twins. “Percy isn’t into pranks, though.”

Fabian had been about to offer his own assistance in getting back at the ickle twins, though he was a likely suspect for troublemaking, when she made the observation Fabian had been hoping for. "No, he's not," Fabian agreed. "I have a hard time with him sometimes. He's not like most of the rest of the Weasleys. Takes less after the Weasleys, and sometimes it seems like--did you go to the dinner? because I could probably explain it a little better if you did, and got a chance to meet my parents."

“No. Percy told me about it, but didn’t ask me to come with him.” She still wasn’t sure how she felt about that. On the one hand, the twins’ party had been a bit overwhelming in terms of meeting new people, but on the other hand, she’d almost felt like he didn’t think she could handle a fancy dress party. “He seemed to have fun, though I know he’s upset with George over some stuff that happened there.”

There was a swift nod from Fabian. "I was unavoidably detained at the last minute so I missed it myself, but I've heard a bit about that. If I understand things rightly, everybody was rather cross. I wish I'd been there to try to keep the peace, though I'm not sure how much that would have helped, to be honest.

"Anyroad, and this is complicated for me because, here I am a grown man, old enough to have children your age, and I still have a bit of a rocky relationship with my parents, my parents value a lot of external markers of success. They were raised, especially my mum, in very traditional families. They believe that their way of doing things is best, that good people are in public service in the Ministry, that Muggles aren't quite as human as wizards and witches and that Muggleborns are at worst quite terrible and at best to be pitied for starting out in life with so many disadvantages. They mean well in their own way, but they have blinders on. That's why they didn't like it when Molly married Arthur, why they took such pains to get me into a solid profession after I washed out of the Aurors, and--" Fabian stopped there. "And a lot of other things that Percy may have mentioned in talking about our family, if he does that kind of thing.

"I know Percy doesn't mean things that way, but sometimes he says things that sound like my parents, and it's hard for me. And I suspect for some of the rest of the family as well. And I'm fairly certain that Percy hears things that we say through a similar kind of filter, in reverse. Does that make sense to you?"

“Percy doesn’t really talk about his family much. I get most of my Weasley news from Fred and George.” The information about Percy wasn’t anything Vicky didn’t already know, but the family background was interesting. “I’m not surprised Percy got along with your parents so well, then. He does say and hear things a bit differently than the rest of the Weasleys, even though what he means isn’t that far off. I’ve been playing translator between him and the twins since we started dating. He and George were getting along much better… at least until that dinner.”

Fabian’s perspective didn’t really make Vicky want to meet Percy’s grandparents, but she’d already agreed to dinner. “I get to meet your parents soon. Percy and I are supposed to have dinner with them. Apparently, they need to meet me.” She rolled her eyes. She understood wanting to be sure a significant other was good for a loved one, but Percy’s grandparents had only met him a few times. They’d hardly be able to tell if she was good for him or not.

"I'm on the hook for either another formal dinner or an outing to the club with Dad myself for having missed Saturday myself." Fabian's smile didn't make it to his eyes and didn't hide the fact that he wasn't much more enthusiastic about the idea than Vicky was. "I'll wish you luck with that. My advice is to treat the whole thing as a formal occasion, but a bit understated, and, while I've given up on trying to apologise to people for the appalling things they say, I hope you won't let any, shall we say, blinkered commentary that they offer feel that any of the rest of us might agree with them. I believe they do want us all to be happy, but have no concept at all of how we might be happy on our own terms."

“I’m not going to judge anybody but your parents by your parents, don’t worry.” Vicky took a bite of her sandwich. While she chewed, she looked at Fabian thoughtfully. “Did you really want to have lunch with me so you could moan about your parents? I mean, I’ll listen if that’s the case, but it kinda felt like there was something else on your mind.” She could have been wrong, of course, but it was a little weird for Fabian to be moaning about family stuff to her. They hardly knew each other.

Fabian nodded, his expression turning a bit wry as the corners of his mouth curled up. "I'm a little worried about Percy," he confessed. "And you seem to have a better insight into him than anyone else. This business with my parents has brought it to the surface, which is a big part of why I'm so preoccupied with them right now, but I think it's been there for a while, and bubbling closer to the surface since he lost his position at the Ministry. I'd like to do something to make it easier or better or something for him. I don't know what to do, though, and I was hoping you could help me with that."

“He really wants to work in the ministry again. That’s why he’s working for Thorfinn Rowle’s campaign.” She pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed. “I don’t know what he’ll do if Rowle doesn’t win, but I hope he at least has managed to get some connections so he can start looking at ministry jobs again. He’s not happy at the shop. Problem is, I don’t know what will make him happier, aside from getting another job. He and I even got into a fight last week.”

"I'm in bad odour over there. The only time I ever set foot in the Ministry any more is when I pay taxes, or if I'm assisting the Auror Office with their enquiries." Which Fabian said as if he actually meant something other than being rousted out of his bed at some ungodly hour of the morning and questioned about business he was otherwise unaware of. "Unfortunately the only person I know who might have that kind of pull any more is ... Dad." He made a noise that wasn't quite a sigh. "I'm sorry to hear you two have been at odds as well. I'd had the impression that you were getting on very well."

“Oh, we are,” Vicky said quickly. That had been a dicey afternoon, but they were fine now. “It was just an argument. He… wrote some things in the journals that, well, he didn’t mean them the way they sounded, but what he wrote…” She sighed heavily at the memory. “He basically wrote that jobs in the ministry were better than shop jobs. Not a better fit for him, ‘cause that would be true, but better in general. Like there was something wrong with working in a shop.”

She laughed, though she wasn’t really amused. “I kinda lost my temper at that. He insulted my parents along with Fred & George there.” And a lot of other people too, though Vicky didn’t care about them as much. “It’s like, he’s so sensitive about how he’s perceived, he forgets that the things he says can be perceived wrong too.”

"There's nothing wrong with working in a shop, or being in trade. I was a solicitor before I went to jail, which is a trade, even if it's a fancier one than selling jokes." Fabian didn't seem to find it particularly amusing either. "As I said, you're not the only one who hears him say things that come out in a way he doesn't mean them and gets upset about them. My understanding is that the row at dinner at Prewett House was over the same kind of comment. That's why I'm hoping I can find some way to help Percy, or to ease things between him and the twins in particular." Without, Fabian thought, telling Percy that he'd done something wrong, or that he needed to think before he spoke or wrote. That last might be true, but Fabian was certain it would do nothing but make Percy more upset.

“I wish I knew what to tell you,” Vicky said when she finished her sandwich. That much was true, though this whole conversation was, well, weird. She hardly knew Fabian, and while she knew he truly cared about his nephews, it also felt a little like she was saying things she shouldn’t. “I generally speak Percy fairly well, but it’s hard to explain him.”

Fabian reckoned that was fair, because he knew people he felt that way about. "You seem to have an insight into--or perhaps just a different view of--him that most of the people around him lack. One of the things about families is that they get very stuck on people being in their assigned roles, and don't know how to deal with them when they don't conform to those roles. You're the person who I thought would have the best view around that error. I appreciate your talking to me about it, even if all you've got to offer is 'help Percy find a new job'." The corners of Fabian's mouth turned up in a rueful grin. "We'll muddle through somehow. We always do."

“Yeah. I just hope Percy and George end up talking to each other when it’s all said and done.” If nothing else, Vicky hoped that once Percy got a new job and put some distance between them that things would mellow out. She’d do what she could, and she thought Fabian would too, but there was nothing they could do now. She dabbed her napkin at the corners of her mouth and bundled it up with her sandwich wrapper. “Anyway, I should get going. I can’t be late for the show. Thanks for joining me.”

Fabian came to his feet as Vicky stood: a habit drilled into him at an early age, still with him even this late in life. "It was my pleasure. And thank you for talking to me about all this. I really do appreciate it. And good luck--with all of it."