Percy didn't intentionally make a habit of working weekends, though it happened more often than not, and while he found most weekends ticking on in the same way his weekdays did, yesterday had been an exception. It wasn't only that it was Bill's wedding, or that Percy had spent much of the morning springing out of his chair to Apparate to the Burrow, only to decide against it by the time he got to the lift. Yesterday, the inner mechanics of the Ministry had been blatantly odd. It'd started the moment Pius Thicknesse had appeared in the office, in fact. He'd needed to speak to the Minister about a private matter, one Percy could only assume had to do with Auror business, and five minutes into their meeting Minister Scrimgeour had poked his head out the door and told Percy to take the afternoon off. He had no patience for Percy's protests, barked at him to leave, and then shut the door again. Percy did what he was told, but when he'd doubled back to retrieve some important papers he'd forgotten, he'd heard raised voices through the door.
Because Minister Scrimgeour was prone to fits of temper on occasion, and because Mr Thicknesse was, well, strange, he hadn't interrupted.
When he'd received the evening Prophet, he wished he had.
It was all very unsettling. One of the reasons he'd shown up to the Ministry today was to find out if the rumors were true. They were of course, and now he wasn't Junior Assistant to Minister Scrimgeour; he was Junior Assistant to Minister Thicknesse. The haste of Minister Scrimgeour's resignation, coupled with how easily Thicknesse had settled into his newly acquired position, was disconcerting; however, Percy could no sooner voice that than apologize to his family.
The door to his office opened and another Auror was standing there. Robards, he presumed, and checked the timetable on his desk to make sure. Yes, it would be Robards.
"Yes," he said. "Auror Robards, good morning." He smiled thinly and gestured to one of the chairs. "Please have a seat. I'll let, ah, Minister Thicknesse know you're in."