The Chasm

It was rapidly approaching five o'clock in the afternoon, and Percy should have been home half an hour ago.  The truth was, however, that "home" was, rather more often than he cared to think about, this very office.  Everything he needed was held within its four right-angled walls: a kettle and a small plate for boiling, a cot tucked away in the corner, and a door to his own private bathroom.  There was even a closet, which held several changes of clothing and equipment for ironing.  Being the Assistant to the Minister of Magic did have certain perks, not the least of which was the unique good fortune of never having to walk into his drafty, gray flat if he didn't want to.  Lately, it was only weekends that he would force himself to, and that was really only to avoid the house-elves' sympathetic stares when they came in to clean.  He didn't like to think that he'd sunk so low as to be actively pitied by them, of all creatures.

In the three months since the War, the Ministry had been working to rebuilding itself, and Percy had more than enough to stay occupied.  Occupied was how he felt most comfortable, if you could call it that.  The truth was, he never really felt comfortable; more accurately, occupied was how Percy felt least like drinking a bubbling cauldron of poison.  Keeping his mind occupied kept him from actively reliving things he'd rather forget; kept him from guilting himself into madness.  Also, working until he passed out upon his desk in a puddle of drool generally resulted in a thick, dreamless sort of sleep, which was what he preferred.

And so the fact that it was nearly five o'clock in the evening would not otherwise have been notable, except for the fact that it was then that Percy heard the door to his office open with a light swoosh.  He lifted his head from the report he was writing, and the excuse on his lips (Lots to do tonight; this report really can't wait, I'm afraid!) died there when he saw who it was who'd walked in without knocking. 

Dressed in lavender robes with several wilting peonies thrust haphazardly into her long, pale hair, Luna Lovegood stood in the threshold of his office, looking at him as though she thought he'd been expecting her. 

"Miss Lovegood," he greeted her, confused.

"Hello, Weatherby," she said, smiling serenely.  Her wand was tucked behind her ear, sticking absurdly out in front of her like an ill-placed horn.

"It's Weasley," he said, confused even further -- not to mention a bit irked -- by her use of the embarrassing misnomer he'd spent several years now trying to get out of his mind.  "I'm Percy Weasley."

"Oh, I know," Luna answered, still smiling.  "But I think Weatherby suits you better.  You look rather stormy.  That's what Fred calls you."

Percy's chest went cold at the mention of his brother's name.  His slender fingers tightened painfully around the quill in his hand.  "Excuse me?" he said, meeting Luna's gaze and trying to match its steadiness. 

"Fred calls you Weatherby.  He thinks it's funny, but I think it's rather fitting.  You've got a storm in your eyes right now."  She took a step toward Percy's desk and leaned in slightly to peer into his glasses.  "But a few moments ago, you were calm.  I've been watching through your window."

"Fred, Miss Lovegood, is dead."  The coldness was creeping down Percy's arms, and he was afraid that his hands were going to begin to shake with chill. He set down the quill and folded them in his lap.  "As I'm sure you are well aware.  Is there something I can help you with, or do you just make sport of wandering the Ministry after-hours and speaking in the improper tense?"

Luna was quite unrattled.  "I know Fred is dead.  But it's not after-hours.  The Ministry doesn't close until five."  It was one minute of.  "And my grammar is all right.  I can show you, if you'd like."

"I'm not sure what you're doing here, Miss Lovegood, but I'm extremely busy.  Is there a point to your intrusion?  If not, I'm afraid I have to ask you to leave.  I don't mean to be impolite, but I have a deadline."  There was no indication in Percy's voice that he meant to be anything other than impolite.  A cold knot was forming in his empty stomach, and there was a dull pounding starting at his temples that threatened to explode into a full-blown migraine headache.  It was early yet, and he didn't want to be forced by pain into idleness. 

"Fred said you'd be busy.  He also said not to leave until you dragged me out by my unkempt hair.  So I brushed it before I left."  She blinked for what seemed like the first time since she'd stepped into the office.  Percy was rubbing at his temples.  Luna continued.  "You don't really look up to dragging anything, anyway.  When you come visit me tomorrow, I'll give you a vial of Clearing Draught for your Sicklenosed Pikes.  They feel like hot needles in your brain, don't they?"

"What rubbish are you talking?"  Percy stood up, but his knees didn't feel quite up to the job of marching her out of the door, so he settled for leaning what he hoped was menacingly against his desk.  "Sicklenosed Pikes?  Visiting you tomorrow?  Kindly go waste somebody else's time, Miss Lovegood!  We're done here!"

Luna made no move to leave.  She regarded Percy curiously, but with shrewdness, the way a Healer might.  "The Clearing Draught won't do anything for your storm, though, Weatherby."  She reached up to untangle one of the peonies from her hair and walked forward, laying it on Percy's desk.  "But this might.  Dry it.  Put it in your tea."

Percy stared, trying to find the words to banish her from his sight, but feeling frustratingly impotent to do so.  Luna stared back, fingering the flower's petals.  Percy finally broke the silence.  "Fred is dead.  He told you nothing about me.  You're either mad, foolish, or both.  And I am extraordinarily busy."  He glanced up at the clock.  "You've already put me behind.  Now I'll have to stay even later.  This is ridiculous."  His head was throbbing in earnest now.

Luna's large, silvery eyes swept over the room, resting on the folded-up cot.  "How much later?  You're already staying the night, aren't you?"  There was no trace of malevolence in her voice. 

Percy felt his face growing hot with a mixture of anger and embarrassment.  He gritted his teeth to keep from bellowing.  "That's certainly no business of yours.  Get out!"

Luna let her fingertip slide over the peony's petal one last time before letting it come to rest on the edge of Percy's desk.  She cocked her head slightly.  "Fred is dead.  But the dead have voices, too.  And they know a rather lot.  He was right about you, wasn't he?  You're busy.  And you look like you want to drag me out by my hair.  But you're looking fragile.  I don't want you to hurt yourself, so I'll save you the trouble of all that.  See you tomorrow."  She smiled gently at Percy, then glanced slowly between him and the wilting flower before gliding out the door and pulling it shut behind her.

She left just in time.  Percy's knees gave out, and he sank shakily back into his chair.  He hadn't realize that he had been holding his breath, and it all came out of him at once in a sort of trembling sigh.  He leaned forward onto his elbows and gripped his head between his hands.  The coldness in his chest had turned into an ache.  This was what he worked so diligently to avoid: this casual acknowledgement of what was no longer whole and reasonable and correct; this widening of the chasm. 

Between Luna Lovegood's interruption of his carefully-orchestrated, neatly-boxed, post-War life and the malicious pain in his skull, Percy knew that there was no way he was going to be able to concentrate any longer tonight.  His report was going to have to wait.  Not that it mattered much; the deadline wasn't for two more weeks. 

Pressing his fingers firmly into his eyes beneath his glasses, Percy rubbed them for a moment and then got carefully to his feet, testing them as though he'd been on a broomstick too long (not that he'd been on a broomstick in years; he had never really taken to flying.)  Finding them somewhat steadier than they had been just a minute ago, he set off across his office to put the kettle on.

Shaken though he was, Percy couldn't help but feel more than a little interested in what had just occurred.  He didn't know Luna well.  She was Ginny's age, five years his junior.  He had never paid her much notice during his time at Hogwarts, except the time or two that he had caught her wandering around when she was supposed to be in bed and sent her back with a stern look and the threat of lost House points.  Threats hadn't seemed to bother her then, either, as he recalled. 

She had grown into a petite, but willowy-looking, thing, not much taller than he remembered her being at twelve.  She hadn't entirely grown into those odd eyes of hers; they still seemed a bit too large for her otherwise strangely pretty face, and they were still unnerving in the way that they seemed to simultaneously take everything in and stare right through it.  Percy shook his head slightly, picturing them, as he settled his teabag over the edge of his cup.  There was no doubt that she was a strange girl (woman, he corrected himself, realizing that she was likely very nearly eighteen by now), but there was something in her countenance -- an unusual brand of self-confidence that he very rarely saw in anyone, let alone witches his little sister's age -- that made him want to trust her, somehow, no matter what sort of discomfiting rubbish she was spouting.

It was preposterous, the way she had waltzed into his office unannounced, then blatantly admitted to spying on him.  It was preposterous that she was speaking of Fred (something inside Percy's belly recoiled at his brother's name, and a familiar mixture of grief and shame slipped through his bones like a ghost) as though he was someone with whom she was conversing regularly - about him, no less.  And it was preposterous that she had called him Weatherby.   That, most of all, stuck in his brain like a flaming burr.  He hadn't heard that name in years, not even from Fred or George, who had most delighted in humiliating him with it.  There was no way Luna could have known about it unless....

No, it was ridiculous.  It couldn't be.  But it has to be, he thought, in spite of himself.  How else?

Percy didn't know.  He had no explanation for it, and Percy liked explanations.  He liked things that made sense.  Luna didn't make sense.  She made him nervous.  He poured his tea and brought the steaming cup to his lips, trying to let the liquid melt the block of ice that his insides had become. 

Before he unfolded his cot and lay down for the night, he looked meditatively at the flower still laying on his desk.  Not precisely sure why, he tacked it upside-down in front of his window before pulling the shade.