 Disclaimer: Hmm. All Harry Potter characters belong to JK Rowling. The rest belong to me. Lady of Spain belongs to all the people who wrote it. The lyrics to "How Can You Mend a Broken Heart?" belong to Al Greene and The Bee Gees. Author's Note: I recently read the Percy fic "Everywhere", got teared up, fell in love with the poor guy, and decided to write a fic about it. Aren't I sweet? Yeah...:) Dear old Perce seemed to cure my bout of writer's block...hee hee hee. "A promotion? Oh, how wonderful, Percy! You're moving up so quickly at the Ministry, you'll be head of your department in no time! So proud of you, dear!" Percy sat and smiled weakly at his gushing mother, whose words poured over him like iced waters, though well-intentioned. He steeled himself against showing any reasonable emotions and put on the mask that was reserved for times like these. How desperately he wished to rush up the stairs and to his humble room! To lock the door, throw away the key, sink onto his bed and cry into his pillow for a thousand years. Mum still didn't know, even though it had been a whole week since Penelope broke up with him. She was getting married, she said, to a nice young businessman in six months whom she had been seeing for 2 years and that she would never see him again. And she hadn't even said goodbye. Just a curt tone of voice and a closed door. The end of another chapter in life. "Yes, Mum, I'll even be getting my own secretary," he said when she finished congratulating and sugar coating and "I'm-so-proud"-ing him. The remark, of course, set off another thundering rush of complements. He hated being put through such things, being the perfect Percy everyone thought he was. How cliche, he remarked to himself. Sure, he liked following rules and good grades and a nice job and salary, but it was like having a double personality disorder. Part of him wanted to climb the corporate ladder and be the Minister of Magic someday, that would be great, but the other half desperately longed to lounge on beaches; drink a good Martini just to see what it tasted like; to fall in love with some recklessly dangerous girl with "come hither" eyes and hair that smelled like bing cherries, oh! to wear tropical shirts and sandals and let the freckles on his skin show like he was proud of them. And Penelope didn't care. She didn't want to listen to him casually mention such things, even though she was such a nice girl, so perfect in her own way. She was a rather unemotional girl, but still. All he wanted was to be truly loved by someone. And his mother didn't count, though he suspected she didn't love him nearly as much as Ginny, the one she always wanted. And his father was just too stressed to really and truly love anyone, his was always the dutiful love that was so superficial. And his siblings? Who knew about them. He hardly ever saw any of them, and when he did, they simply shied away or teased him because he was complaining about them. For now he would just give a cold shoulder to everyone. Oh, bittersweet tears would come eventually. In the middle of the night when no one was watching and the door was locked and the curtains pulled, protecting him from everything that had ever happened, he would take off his almond shaped glasses and cry and cry until his eyes burned. And life would still go on, no matter what he did. No matter how much he protested and fought, the river of life pushed him onward to the sea, aging and maturing and losing himself more and more to his superiors, simply to impress others and have his place in the sun. "Oh, Percy. It's so wonderful to have such a smart boy like you in the Ministry," said his mother with a dreamy, far-off look in her eye. "I only wish Fred and George would take your kind of initiative..." It was a complement of the highest degree, comparing him with the other boys, but it was almost lost on his ears. "Thanks, mum," he murmured in a grateful tone. They sat for a few minutes longer, and Percy picked up the usual routine by glancing down at his watch. The signal that he was out of there. "Well, must run, this promotee has work to do," he said, rising from the kitchen table, smiling affectedly and kissing his mother on the cheek. Percy pushed the door shut, sending a rush of air backwards. How relieving it was not to be watching by the eye of the living. Not to be discriminated against, having only himself and his emotions to think about. Maybe he wouldn't even show up for dinner, he thought, taking out his wand and putting a lock spell on the door. And then, he found himself staring at the ceiling, lying on the bed with his arms and legs sprawled out, simply breathing and existing. Squeezing his eyes shut, he willed the tears to come. Dared them. "Oh, Penelope. Why, why, why, why, you foolish girl?" he sighed to the ceiling. "Why..."
He woke with a start from a dream that had begun to turn into a nightmare. Something about a wedding and Penny leaving him at the altar forever and ever, not even saying goodbye. But it was a new day, as the sun peeked through the curtains on his window, as he stood to find himself in the clothes he had been wearing the night before and his eyes bleary. He rubbed some life into his cheeks and gazed into the mirror that harboured his reflection. Pitiful, he thought as he shook his head. He glanced at his watch and realized he was almost late for breakfast, but not quite. It was almost curtain call, and the acteur had to be in his place and in character. Time for the mask again. "...and so I was saying to Hannah the other day that those new ovens are quite the rage...Oh, Percy, dear. Come in and have some breakfast," his mother said, smiling. He managed to smile back politely and sit down without interrupting her one-sided conversation with Father any further. Breakfast couldn't have ended at a better time, Percy reasoned as he grabbed his suitcase from the hall and waved to his mother. Mum had begun to ask questions about Penelope, why hadn't she been around lately? Was she alright? He wasn't going to stand for that, he thought, Apparating to the office. "Ah, there you are, Weasley!" cried a head of department, Rook was his name? Percy couldn't remember. "I'd like to show you to your new office, you've got a corner space on the fifth floor!" Well, that was good news. A nice spacey office to wile away the hours in. Delightful. Rook pushed the door handle to an auspicious-looking door (if there was such a thing) that was to be his salvation from Penny. He had decided to drown himself in work and nothing but the Ministry to repair himself. Percy stepped into the office, ever so neat and tidy. So Percy. His perfect prefect side instantly took over, awed and marveled and leaving him breathless and ready to jump for joy. His hidden side and his heartache were forgotten for just a few glorious moments, and just for a little while, Penelope was out of sight and out of mind. An odd sound broke through his thoughts and brought him back to the present, something that sounded a lot like an electric organ playing something very fast. What was that awful noise? "Oh, that must be your new secretary. She used to be in another department, but she's agreed to make the transfer," said Rook as Percy frowned. "Would you like to meet her?" "Oh, certainly." Percy tore his eyes away from the marvelous shrine that was his to gloat over to enter through a door at the far side of the gray streamlined room. The noise he recognized as music became louder and louder, when finally Rook opened the door and he found the source of the racket. It was a small room, with a wooden desk in the middle of it and a couple of windows to the outside skyscrapers and tall buildings surrounding the Ministry. And on that desk was a small radio, turned on not too loudly, but clearly enough to produce the noise that was beginning to irritate him very much. But not nearly as much as what was sitting at the desk. Rather, through Percy, as he surveyed the young girl blinkingly, what was sitting on the desk. She was young, pretty, and he knew from the moment he laid eyes on her that he despised her. His new secretary was wearing a nice gray pleated skirt with a schoolgirl sweater and a light blue scarf tied into her knot of dark hair. The worst part about her, though, was that she was sitting on the desk rather than at it, and was not applying herself to something useful like typing a letter or making a telephone call, no, she was sitting on the desk listening to some Godawful music that was hurting his ears. And she was wearing roller skates. "Oh, hi!" she cried kindly when she saw who had entered the room. "You must be Mr. Weasley! Sir, my name is Vivian Hemmingway, I'm your new secretary, as you probably already know." Vivian was nice and polite, just the sort of girl he would have taken up with in any other case, but she was wearing roller skates. And sitting on her desk. Percy forced a smile and surveyed her again, realizing that she must not have been much younger than he was, probably the same age. Rook smiled at the young girl and pointed to the radio. "What in heaven's name have you got on there?" he asked amusedly. She smiled back at him proudly and sang out, "Lady of Spain. It's the instrumental version by Les Paul and Mary Ford. Very 1960s with that electric organ thrown in." Oh, yes, Percy thought, this was going to be a very dangerous situation. Very dangerous indeed. |