FIC: "Oh Night Divine"

Title: Oh Night Divine: Five Christmases with Percy Weasley
Author: Becky M_____
Pairing: Percy/Penelope, Percy/Lucius
Rating: PG-13ish
Word Count: 2,231
Summary: Five Christmases with Percy Weasley and Penelope Clearwater.
A/N: Beta read by Kiri, Linden, and Emma. Entry for kaz814's fanfiction challenge. Somewhat non-linear.



In the end Penelope decided she must have misheard him. After all, Percy Weasley had a much better idea of proper ‘fellytone’ volume than either his father or brother did and there was no obvious static to denote atmospheric interference with the mobile signal. And, of course, Percy wasn’t bloody insane. At least Penelope didn’t think he was. She could say otherwise about certain of his associates, which she didn’t, of course, because even if Percy hadn’t been her boyfriend for years, he was still her best friend. Even after everything.

“Hello? Penny, can you hear me?” Percy’s voice, as usual, was slightly fretful—Penelope could picture him pacing back and forth along the pavement outside Malfoy’s townhouse, taking special care to hold onto the mobile phone that Penelope had given him for his birthday the summer before, as a way to contact her in an emergency without scaring Penelope’s mother half to death by the glowing green head in the fireplace. She’d been all too certain that he would need it. “Penny? Penny, are you there?”

Penelope took a deep breath. “I’m here, Percy. I just don’t think I heard what you just said right.”

She could hear Percy sigh into the phone. “I was hoping you’d do me the honour of being my guest to Lucius’ soiree tonight. I know it’s awfully short notice and all, but I wasn’t sure until this morning that I’d need to bring someone along.”

Penelope laughed out loud and somewhere along the line her laugh got away from her. “Percy, I love you, but I don’t think you’re thinking about this right. Remember what I am.” A Mudblood, she thought, taking a measure of peace from the fact that the word was still just that to her. A word. Not even a particularly creative insult, really.

Percy sounded wounded. “I know, Penny. And really, I don’t know how much he’ll care. Better I bring someone who won’t get any ideas, after all.”

Penelope breathed out. “Of course,” she said, leaning back against her bedroom wall. The light of her digital alarm clock read 1:30. Had she really slept that late, even on a holiday? “After all, it’s not every day that I get the chance to exercise my talents as a beard.”

“Not a beard,” Percy said softly, over the space of however many miles it was. “A friend.”

Penelope nodded slowly, though she knew Percy couldn’t see the gesture. “A friend,” she agreed. She reached under her bed, fishing for her good shoes, the ones with the straps. “Just give me a few hours to get ready, all right?”

~*~*~*~

“I’m worried about Mr. Crouch,” Percy whispered in her ear, resting his head on her shoulder as if they were a real couple still. It had taken them a while to find any real sort of rhythm—neither one of them was used to leading on the dance floor—but the Potter boy hadn’t been much of a dancer either and he’d taken the attention off them.

“Oh?” said Penelope lightly. It had been odd, she reflected, not having Percy at school this year. She didn’t feel right sharing her secrets with the other Ravenclaw girls, not like she had with Percy. And it would have been breaking protocol, of course—she was head girl now. Not that she had ever doubted she would be.

“He hasn’t been to the office all month,” Percy confided. “I’ve been doing the best I can with his letters—he’s quite specific, you know—but still. It’s an awful lot of responsibility he’s placed upon me and sometimes…”

“Sometimes you wonder if you’re up to it?” Penelope finished for him. Percy nodded and Penelope bent her head to kiss his temple. “It’s all right, you know. Just because you want to be able to do everything doesn’t mean that you always can.”

“I know,” Percy said under his breath—it was almost as if he’d heard those words before, though Penelope had no idea where he might have. Percy didn’t show his vulnerabilities or worries to people. The very fact that he would confess his doubts to Penelope said a lot about how close they were still, even in the absence of sex. Penelope didn’t like to think that someone else had gotten that far under Percy’s skin.

She didn’t want to wonder who he was.

“Look,” she whispered, “there’s Ginny, dancing with that Longbottom boy. He needs a little practice, I think—he just trod on her slippers. Oh good, there’s Granger, she did listen when I told her about Sleekeasy’s. And there’s Ron there, at that table. Oh dear, those are rather ungainly robes—I know your mum says he loves maroon, but that’s taking it a bit too far.”

“I ought to have bought him new dress robes,” Percy said under his breath. “It isn’t as if I couldn’t afford to now.” Percy’s own robes were new, navy blue, and he’d bought a new pair of glasses for himself as well: gold rim, with much smaller lenses. And there was a ring on one of his fingers, a serpent biting its tail. Penelope didn’t think he’d bought that one.

“Why don’t you?” Penelope asked softly. Percy had always been so protective of his littlest brother and sister, as if he’d been the only thing between them and the cold, cruel world. In his own way, he doted on Ron and Ginny as much as his mother. “He’s having a birthday this March, isn’t he?”

“He lost my rat,” Percy muttered, sounding petulant and momentarily childish. “And he doesn’t care because he found himself an owl.”

Scabbers. Yes. Percy had always loved that shabby old thing—she’d remembered how much he fretted and fussed when Ron had first inherited it. He told her once how he’d found the poor thing hiding in their strawberry patch the year he was five. It was amazing, Penelope thought, that a rat—even a wizarding rat—could live that long.

She brushed her lips against Percy’s temple again. “Let’s go outside and get some fresh air,” she murmured. “I think we both need it.”

~*~*~*~

Percy enchanted the blanket again to warm them and they walked together under the snow and stars, feeling deliciously naughty to be venturing out together onto the grounds when all that the wireless would ever talk about was the mass murderer on the lam. Penelope remembered telling stories like that at slumber parties, back when she was ten and utterly, utterly normal. The girl would go out walking—driving—with her boyfriend and sometimes in the end there would be blood. It was enough to make Penelope shiver.

Even if Percy wasn’t really her boyfriend anymore.

She’d imagined that it was supposed to be horridly disappointing to find out that your boyfriend—the one you’d always imagined marrying—fancied men. For Penelope it had seemed as if it was something she’d always known and chose to ignore; after all, she’d seen Percy staring at Oliver Wood’s arse at breakfast—really, she could hardly blame him, considering. Wood had a lovely arse. And it wasn’t as if they couldn’t still look at boys together.

There was that, at least.

“Are you cold?” Percy murmured solicitously, stroking the black tangle of Penelope’s hair as if she were some sort of shy little animal, an upset kitten perhaps. Even without being her boyfriend, he still was always trying to take care of her. Like he took care of everyone.

“No,” Penelope whispered, leaning against Percy’s arm. The Head Boy’s badge pinned to his robes glittered in the moonlight. Percy had been so proud—

“Tell me about the man you met in Egypt again,” she breathed suddenly, squeezing Percy’s hand in hers. She felt like a stubborn little girl begging for yet another bedtime story, but she wanted to hear it. Percy never told her about the same part twice.

“Well,” said Percy very softly, “I slipped out of the room I was sharing with Ron almost every night. You know that already. One night, after I’d crossed a good section of Cairo to reach the rooms he’d taken, I found roses.”

“Roses,” Penelope murmured to herself. Percy had smelled of roses once, coming back late from a Hogsmeade weekend. He’d blushed and stammered when she’d told him.

“Roses,” Percy repeated. “They were strewn around his room—he’d covered the bed with petals: white and pink and red. He was very decadent, you know. I told you that. He laid me down on those petals—gently, so gently—and he took my wrists and tied them together, with white silk. He kissed me, then—there was wine in his mouth, good wine, and I drank it from his lips—and then he kissed me again and again, lower and lower, until he finally drank me.”

“Was it good?” Penelope asked, curious in spite of herself.

“Good?” said Percy. “Oh Penny, he was some sort of— he was some sort of cock Dementor.”

Penelope stared at him for a long moment, unsure if she’d just heard what she’d thought she had, and then she threw her arms around him and she laughed and she laughed and she clung to him and eventually Percy joined in.

~*~*~*~

Percy held her even after the laughing stopped. She didn’t mind; Percy’s arms were very warm. Sometimes Penelope thought she could stay within them forever: always warm, always protected. He really was her knight in shining armour, in oh so very many ways.

“You all right?” he murmured. Penelope nodded against his chest.

“I think I need to sit down,” she breathed.

There was a stone bench not too far from them. Percy walked Penelope through the snow, holding her close to him. Penelope wondered if he would kiss her, but he didn’t. It seemed like she always had to kiss him first these days.

Penelope didn’t know what to think about that.

Once they sat down she rested her head on Percy’s shoulder. There was a part of her that wished he would pull her into his lap. There was another part of her that wanted to climb up onto it and straddle him. Instead, she leaned against him and wondered if she was the only girl in the world who wanted to have sex more than her boyfriend did. Sometimes Penelope thought she should suggest straight out that they do it—but of course, nice girls don’t.

Sometimes Penelope wished she wasn’t a nice girl.

“The oddest thing happened on my way out to meet you,” she said suddenly, to fill the silence. “There were these two little Slytherin boys—well, not little, they were tall enough to be fourth years, even though you could tell they weren’t that old—and they actually asked me for their password! With my blue scarf and everything!” She chuckled softly, and looked up at Percy, but he wasn’t laughing.

“We shouldn’t have come out here,” Percy said under his breath.

“We always come out here,” Penelope argued. “It’s called celebrating Christmas together.”

“But not now,” Percy said. “Not with the Heir of Slytherin on the loose. If I ever lost you…”

Penelope pressed her gloved finger against Percy’s lips. “Hush,” she said. “I’m not going anywhere.”

~*~*~*~

“Listen,” Penelope whispered. Percy shut his mouth obligingly.

There was music in the distance. Words.

Oh holy night, the stars are brightly shining. This is the night of the dear saviour’s birth….

“It’s the Ravenclaw choir,” Penelope whispered to him. Her best friend in the world. Somehow she knew she and Percy would always be friends. “Don’t they sound beautiful?”

“They do,” Percy whispered back. “I never knew it could sound like that.”

Long lay the world in sin and error pining ‘til he appeared and the soul felt it’s worth. A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices…

Penelope smiled, looking up to the sky. The stars were brightly shining. The whole world was white and black and grey and starlight. She wasn’t sure what was more beautiful, the sky or the song.

She shivered, though whether it was from the beauty around them or the cold air, she wasn’t sure.

“Take me inside, Percy,” she whispered. “Please.”

… for yonder breaks a new and glorious morn. Fall on your knees. Oh hear the angel voices. Oh night divine. Oh holy night when Christ was born…

It started to snow as they walked back to the castle, sticking to their hair and cloaks. “Stars,” Penelope murmured, “we’re covered with stars.” Percy laughed and kissed her forehead.

“You’re a star,” he breathed into her ear. Penelope laughed and the sound of it seemed to stretch into the night.

“Almost there,” she whispered to him. She could see the light of the archway.

Percy smiled back at her. “Yes,” he murmured. His cheeks were almost as red as his hair from the cold. He drew her aside once they’d reached the castle. Penelope could feel her heart beating in her throat and she knew her own cheeks were as red as Percy’s. She could feel Percy’s heart beating as well, could almost hear it with her head resting on his shoulder. Her best friend, she thought. Always, always her best friend.

“Look,” she whispered. “Mistletoe.”

They kissed. It was a whole new beginning.