Prompt 1: Dance

I send more thanks to my lovely and ever-loyal reviewers. My most sincere thanks once again to TheOriginalHufflepuff and those at The Reviews Lounge. Your encouragement is very deeply appreciated. This piece is much happier than those before, I hope you all enjoy it.

Symphony

Penelope dances even when she stands still. There's grace in her every movement, even in the way her hair falls into loose curls across her back and over her shoulder. Even in this tiny flat that he's made her cage, she dances with smaller steps, to a slower beat and with a heaviness in her movement, but still she dances.

It isn't in her to ever stop and, when she touches him, Percy feels like he can dance too, that he can move his too-long, too-awkward limbs and be graceful alongside her.

She's waiting for him when he gets home, in a silky brown skirt with a soft pink cashmere jumper, a sheaf of paper in her hands and a lovely, soft smile on her glossed lips. She looks beautiful all for him, his Christmas gift in her hands.

She's written him a story, a story about Sir Percival the Valiant, Penman of Important Policies and Protector of the Lovely (And Intelligent) Lady Penevere. Another of her silly fairytales, her clever love letters to him; he keeps them all. He has some idea of binding them all together, someday, giving them back as a wedding gift, when (not if) he marries her, or as a gift for their children.

She reads it to him after dinner, as he lay with his head in her lap, the silk and her skin warm against his cheek. It's a Christmas tale, but he'll have to read it over; he's too entranced by the warm flow of her voice, the smooth caress of her hand under the collar of his shirt, to comprehend what she's saying.

He was too afraid to buy her a Christmas gift; he wants to give her something fine, something lovely…something a 'single' man has no business buying. It might be paranoid, but he's convinced that such a purchase would call suspicion on him, and he cannot afford that. If they watch him too closely, they'll know for sure, Fidelius or not. The Ministry is not a safe place to work any longer, especially when you're hiding your Muggleborn girlfriend away from the Commission in your flat.

It's a sad, lonely little Christmas, with nowhere to go, no family to see. There's only Percy and Penny, curled up together on the settee.

Celestina Warbeck is on the wireless, singing some maudlin song of warmth and love and Christmas, and it reminds Percy so of his mum, and of all the happy Christmases before, that he's dangerously close to tears when Penny pushes him up before standing up herself.

"Dance with me, Percy?" she asks, holding out her small, elegant little hand. His own, bony-jointed and freckly, swallows hers up as he swallows his tears.

And he's no good at dancing, too self-conscious to ever just let go, but he feels so close to her then, her head against his chest, one hand clasped with hers near her cheek and one against the small of her back, brushed by the curling ends of her hair as they sway together.

They dance to a wireless on low volume, but they don't really hear the music at all. Penny dances to the music in her heart; there are a few little notes of sadness and loss, but mostly it is woven of love and trust and hope. And Percy dances along, her great symphony in perfect harmony with the simple new melody his heart is composing.

Because, once upon a time, he lost the music, and he had to throw away the flawed composition of ambition and resentment and pride written in its absence. He composes anew for her; a simple, humble melody she can dance to. His once prized masterwork has been thrown aside, a discordant cacophony of selfishness; Penny could not dance to that.

He writes his heart around hers and watches her to learn the steps she knows so well. His Penny-princess dances to their hearts' song and, when she touches him, he feels like he can dance to it, too.