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Percy took a deep breath as he watched Hermione dance along the makeshift floor at Harry and Pansy’s wedding, the sapphire dress clinging to her like water every time Ron clumsily spun her.
He was going to be sick.
The sound of her laugh found him and he ran a hand down his face, her magic feeling warm as it reached out towards him like it always had.
He wondered if her magic responded to Ron the same way.
It was like slow motion, Percy watching her touch Ron’s chest, how his eyes lingered a little too long on her body.
“You look ill,” Charlie murmured, handing over a glass of whisky. “I find this helps when I’m watching the woman I love fall into another man.”
“I-”
“Brother, it makes more sense than you realize.” He tsked, leaning against the bar by him. “She’s magical.”
“Yeah, I know.” Percy muttered into his glass, finishing off the fingers worth before snagging another from a nearby floating tray.
Hermione was always something complicated to him. They were young and brilliant, both goal driven and had entirely different perspectives on how Government affairs should be done.
Then she fought a war, one he was hardly a part of until it was considerably too late.
The girl he used to debate with had turned into a woman before his very eyes and still he denied what they had, telling himself she was too young, that Ronald would be great for her.
He knew her better than Percy did.
Which wasn’t the biggest lie he told himself as the years went on, it was that he was okay. That he wasn’t envious of his girl falling into another man’s arms. That she didn’t smile brilliantly at him when he walked through the door at the Burrow, or kiss him on the corner of his mouth.
“I don’t think the whisky is helping you.”
“Yeah no shite,” Percy sighed, handing his brother the glass. “You know what sounds nice? Not watching this.”
So he didn’t.
He left the wedding party and found himself at home nursing something way stronger than the party offered, his eyes focused on the picture he had turned around. He got slowly to his feet, a bit wobbly at best and snatched the picture from the mantle.
There she was on his lap at her last Birthday.
They had played musical chairs.
“I can do whatever I want, Percy Weasley, it’s my birthday.”
“Fuck,” he muttered, setting the photo back down while his eyes burned ever so slightly.
Hermione had come out of the gilded cage the world tried to keep her in, everything he remembered liking about her transforming into something he loved in the end.
She was quiet in the moment, loud at the right times.
Spoke out when she needed to, moved in silence when she wanted to.
Wielded her brilliance like she did her magic.
Traded in her worn jumpers for cashmere, muggle jeans to trousers.
From everything physical to emotional, she slowly turned into the woman of his dreams and long gone was the girl he liked to taunt into debates.
In front of him was a woman who was unstoppable and would end them.
He could still remember how different she and Ronald looked next to each other at the Ministry Gala last year, he a bit too lax all while she knew the room she was walking into was a den of vipers lying in wait.
Witch Weekly ran an article for potential Bachelors for her that very week.
Ron was a riot about it, waving the magazine around while ranting to the entire house. Percy had simply excused himself just for his little witch to follow him.
“Where are you off to Percy?”
“I can only listen to my brother complain so much, ‘Mi.”
She never parted from his side, so he had shown her where he liked to hide when the house got too loud. Before he knew it, they were talking until the sun had gone down.
“Isn’t Ron looking for you?” He asked quietly, Hermione lifting her head from his chest to look at him.
“Probably.”
“Just… probably? ‘Mi-”
He could still remember the feeling of her lips against his and he followed the phantom sensation with another sip of his whisky, chasing the rush with the burning alcohol instead.
“Run away with me.” He simply said.
“It was just a kiss.” She simply replied.
That had hurt and he was never going to let her know that. He simply pressed his lips to her forehead before getting up and going home.
He decided not to come back though.
Percy did the calculations, he had enough in his accounts to hold him over for a few years if he quit the Ministry. His cap was two years, and if he were to remain frugal, maybe he’d take a year sabbatical. It would be enough time to reset.
To get away.
To not see her.
So he did. He quit and he travelled, occasionally doing side jobs for the locals as needed for extra money, but for the most part he learned. More about himself than anything, but he took in sights he said he would get around to seeing one day, listened to the history as it was told by those who studied it, and realized there was so much more to life than the day to day.
But he missed it all at the same time.
Yet one year had turned into two.
Percy enjoyed the outdoors more, tanned from his time in the sun, he also worked with his hands more than he ever had before. Digging into the Earth for various reasons, his muscles straining from tools that sometimes did the job better than magic could.
But his day to day, the routine he had, the ability to know what to expect was something rooted inside of him. Except this time instead of it being suffocating, killing every bit of what he considered to be happiness, he would transform it into something brighter.
Less rigid, still him.
Which is how he found himself back in London years later. He’d finally gotten a flat he purchased and was in the process of furnishing it but one thing he desperately needed was ink and parchment, so he ran into Flourish & Blotts hoping they still kept a small stash of it and he nearly knocked someone to the ground over it.
A familiar yelp and stuttered breath he righted the witch with wild waves, looking down at a very tired, Hermione Granger.
“Hermione?”
“Oh, Percy-”
“Where did you go?” He whispered, his fingers curling into the fabric of her shirt, doing his best not to grip her waist as much as he wanted too. “What went wrong?”
“It’s been years and that’s what you ask me?”
He shook his head and pulled her off to the side, “I need to know.”
“I don’t know, honestly.” She sighed quietly as she rubbed her tired eyes. Percy gripped her wrists gently, forcing her to look at him.
“You won’t run away with me so settle down instead.” Everything he held in for years came tumbling out. “I can’t watch you with him anymore, it kills me. You’re not his—you never were.”
“I’m not yours either,” she muttered defensively, Percy catching her jaw when she went to look away.
It’d been about three years since he’d seen her and the witch who had a fire he wanted to be burned by felt like dying embers.
How did it end up like this?
“Aren’t you?” He murmured, his thumb stroking her cheek softly. “Because I think you always have been.”
Percy didn’t chase after her when she pulled from his grip, the sound of the door bells ringing at her departure announcing his defeat yet he didn’t move.
He watched her walk away once and he ran.
He wasn’t running anymore.
Not unless it was to her.
Percy stumbled out of the shop and apparated to her flat, knocking on her door until she finally answered. She stood there, slightly shocked to find him standing there until she schooled her features. “Ron will be home.”
“No he won’t. You’re coming back with me.”
“I’m not.”
“Hermione-”
“I don’t want whatever you think it is I do! I’m not some political piece-”
Percy groaned, his hands gripping the top of the door frame as he looked down at her. “I quit my job at the Ministry you infuriating witch!” When she took a step back he entered, his gaze never leaving hers. “That’s why you haven’t seen me, ‘Mi.”
At the sound of her tiny whimper, he shut the door behind him. “I fucking miss you.”
Hermione didn’t bother to wipe the few tears that fell. “What have you been doing?”
“Travelling,” he responded simply. “Occasionally I find work for various things, nothing special.”
“You’re just living?”
“I just got back from Egypt this week.”
“You left me.”
“No, you arrogant, insufferable, beautiful fucking witch. You didn’t want me.” Percy let out a stuttered breath, his chest rising and falling as he stood there, unsure of what to do with his hands so they remained clenched at his sides as he told her everything he wished he would have over the years.
“I’ll go to work. I don’t need to rank, Hermione, but what I do need is to come home to you in that little blue dress with the white daisies. I want to follow the droplets of tea that spilt from you being distracted reading while your cuppa hovered by you. I want to taste the berry jam on your tongue as I kiss you against our kitchen counter but what I don’t need is to lose you again because I didn’t know how to fight for what we deserved.”
“We?” She whispered, her tears falling more freely now.
“Gods, yes I’ll do any-” Percy didn’t get to finish his sentence because she had thrown herself into his arms; kissing him with everything she had and he did just the same, his lips brushing against hers as he gave her his last breath.
When they parted it was only a breaths apart.
“I broke up with Ron,” she whispered, her fingers curling into the hair at the nape of his neck.
Percy could only smirk. “I know, he blamed me for it.”
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