I do not own Harry Potter or anything associated this.
Thanks to Mew (mew-tsubaki) for the amazing beta job. :)
Percy Weasley always lived his life according to plans. He'd map out the plans in his head and there they would stay, and he would not deviate from them, no matter what.
Audrey was never part of his plan. She became a part of his life anyway.
/
He'd always thought he'd marry a Ministry girl. A smart girl who worked on a different floor, yet had the same attitude towards life. For a while he'd thought that he would marry Penelope Clearwater, but it hadn't worked out. Besides, he could never wipe the memory of the tea stain on his photo of her which made her look as though she had a blotchy nose.
Marrying a girl like Audrey was never part of the plan. Percy Weasley always lived his life according to plans, but this time the plan wasn't quite working out.
/
If there was one thing Percy Weasley couldn't deal with, it was guilt. He hated it. It didn't help that he knew it was all his fault that his brother was dead, and everyone else knew it.
Maybe he just wanted to escape from the Wizarding world. Maybe he just wanted to escape those ties, escape the Ministry, escape his family, and escape magic.
So he tried. He tried to escape the ministry, he tried to escape magic, and he met Audrey.
He cut off all his ties for a while.
[But he never snapped his wand.]
/
Her name was Audrey, and her favourite colour was green. He'd always assumed girls liked pink, because pink was a girl's colour, and all girls liked pink, right?
She hated tea, but she couldn't survive without her coffee. So he met her in a coffee shop, of course. Where else would you meet a person like Audrey?
/
Percy Weasley didn't fall in love with people he met in coffee shops. That just didn't happen. He fell in love with girls he'd known for years and that he knew were smart and intelligent and wonderful. He didn't fall in love with girls called Audrey who were twenty years old and already divorced.
Besides, she was a Muggle, and he couldn't tell her about the fact that he was magic.
/
His family wondered about him. And they worried, Godric, they worried. George was the most frantic, wondering if he'd caused it, with his silent accusations of guilt, and the way he didn't speak to Percy anymore.
They didn't send out search parties because they thought he needed some time to be alone.
Percy assumed it was because they didn't care.
/
She sat down next to him in the coffee shop, and she lit a cigarette, staring at him through her long eyelashes. Percy suspected she had overused the mascara, and he took a sip of his English tea and attempted to ignore her.
"Audrey," she'd murmured, and she held out her hand.
Percy almost dropped his mug.
He recovered his composure, "Percy," he'd replied, in that pompous tone of his that he'd never left behind. "Percy Weasley,"
"I once knew a man named Percy," she replied, and she took another drag of her cigarette, causing accusing looks from other customers.
Percy frowned, "I don't think they're allowed in here." he gestured to her cigarette. "You know, cigarettes."
Audrey exhaled, and Percy turned away from the smoke, trying not to inhale any of it. He'd learnt in Muggle Studies that cigarettes could harm people who didn't even smoke them. Secondhand smoke, he remembered it was called.
"It's okay," she muttered. "Ray knows me; he doesn't mind."
She gestured to the man behind the counter, the one pouring coffee into mugs.
Percy remained silent, knowing that if he spoke he'd probably say something unpleasant.
"You look alone," Audrey commented, and she began stirring her coffee with a teaspoon, staring at Percy as she did so.
He stared at her. How did she know this? In his mind, he whispered I know. But on the outside, he remained silent. He wasn't going to admit something so personal to someone he barely knew. He was Percy Weasley, and everything he did was calculated and planned out, and confessing everything to a stranger named Audrey was not part of the plan.
"I don't bite," she told him, continuing to stir her coffee, even though it didn't need stirring in the first place.
Percy gulped. "I'm sure you don't." He found himself wanting to laugh, but he stopped himself. The last time he'd laughed was a time he never wanted to think of again. So he took another sip of his tea, and Audrey carried on talking.
/
It had started as nothing more than being in the coffee shop at the same time, meeting up, having conversations. Percy began to wonder if he should head back to his family. It wasn't rational, what he was doing. It wasn't Percy. And yet, he didn't feel as though he could leave.
It was the first time she'd ever felt so secure. Percy was strange, and uptight, but she knew he could feel. She wanted to get through to that, she really did. She wasn't sure if she could.
/
It had ended in a cold hospital ward, with two screaming baby girls and a weeping man. With a nurse saying that it was just too late.
Percy had ended that day too. He was still alive, but he wasn't truly there, not really.
/
When Percy Weasley first enjoyed coffee, it was a Tuesday morning. They hadn't arranged their meeting; they'd simply arrived there. It was a coffee shop that both of them enjoyed, and so they'd always turn up. Percy denied to himself that the reason he turned up every day was in case Audrey would turn up, too.
She always did.
She'd ordered him coffee, without him being able to tell her that he didn't like coffee.
"You usually drink tea," she'd commented.
He'd nodded. "Coffee isn't really my thing."
She sighed. "Just try it. It's the only thing that keeps me sane, most days."
He'd taken a tentative sip, and even though he wouldn't admit it at first, he enjoyed it. It was nice, and it was just as Audrey had said.
He never drank tea again.
/
His family missed him. They sent him letters. He didn't reply.
/
They were never meant to be together and maybe that was okay, because both of them accepted that. He was uptight and strict, and he lived his life according to plans. She was falling apart, and the only thing that kept her glued together was her cups of coffee, that she knew she drank too often.
/
He visits her grave and he doesn't cry. Crying would mean accepting that she was forever gone from the earth.
He doesn't take Molly and Lucy. They're young enough not to understand the concept of a mother. Bottle-feeding works just fine.
/
They never exchange the three words that they should have exchanged. It's the normal thing to do, but then again, Percy and Audrey aren't a normal couple. They're not quite right together, and so maybe it would be not quite right to exchange those words, even if they truly, sincerely meant them.
/
He goes back to his family, eventually. He won't answer their questions about where the twin girls came from, only that their names are Molly and Lucy. He congratulates Bill and Fleur on the birth of their daughter Victoire, but other than that, he remains silent.
/
She tells him that she hates her name. He tells her that he loves her name. She tells him she hates his.
He smiles and, for the first time since May, he allows himself to laugh.
/
He swears that when his daughters are old enough to understand, he'll tell them.
The truth is, he doesn't think he's old enough to understand it himself.
/
They knew that they weren't right together, and yet they let themselves be together, just for a while. Percy was broken and she was broken, and, no, together they didn't make each other whole, but they did take the edge away from some of the pain.
/
He loves his daughters more than anything else in the world. They're the last reminder he has of Audrey's blonde hair and beautiful green eyes, and so he looks after them as they're wonderful.
But they just don't ever take away the pain.
Later, he realises that he doesn't even know her last name.
For the first time, he allows himself to cry.
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