Percy's Faux Pas by Writingpuck
Title: Percy’s Faux Pas
Author: Writingpuck
Rating: PG
Fandom: Harry Potter
Characters: Tonks, Percy, Ginny
Summary: Percy's always been one to follow the rules. Find out what happens to make him look the other way.
Disclaimer: Other people's toys are always more fun to play with then your own. Same applies here, and this was lots of fun.
For several weeks now, Nymphadora Tonks had been wearing her hair in a wooden shade of brown. Not the shiny wood of tables or chairs, mind, just tree bark brown, without the green strips that trees usually produced.
Needless to say, her boss, Percy Ignatius Weasley, quite approved. But, as things had been busy at the Ministry as of late (far too many raids for anyone’s good), he hadn’t gotten around to telling her until now.
“I feel compelled to say that I’ve noticed your change in hair color, Nymphadora,” he would never call her Tonks, despite the girl’s wishes, “and I quite approve.”
He was standing primly in her cubicle’s entryway, with a clipboard to-do list hanging as loosely as it could in his left hand. After he’d spoken, Nymphadora’s eyes swiveled to stare at him appraisingly. Taking that as a sign of encouragement, Percy continued. “Much better than that highly inappropriate shade of pink.”
The redhead gave her a knowing smile. “I can clearly see that you’ve begun to take your position seriously, and that you’re ready to settle down to---“
Before Percy could finish, Nymphadora had sprung from her chair and was pushing roughly past him.
The Minister’s Assistant stared after her, uncertain about just what had gone wrong. Was she overcome with emotion at his kindness? Certainly the praise was unusual, but in this case it had also been highly merited. So what-
“You handled that well, Big Head,” his younger sister scolded, using an unaffectionate nickname from his childhood. He swiveled around to face the auror, a look of disdain written across both his and his sister's features.
“I beg your pardon?” Family or not, she had no right to speak to him that way, especially when he clearly outranked her here.
“Remus just died,” Ginevra snapped.
“Ah-yes?” Percy’d heard about that. A Ministry official had killed the ex-Defense Against the Dark Arts instructor during a raid on werewolves who had been known to sympathize with He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. Percy was ashamed to admit that man had ever taught him. Throwing his lot in with such hooligans, Remus was a disgrace to the wizarding world.
“You really are thick!” Before Percy could utter an indignant retort she continued with,” Tonks was dating him!”
A cold dawn of realization flooded through Percy Weasley. It wasn’t that she’d wanted her hair to change; it was that she’d been too busy mourning the betrayal of that scoundrel to change it back. And all that talk of priorities and settling down---
Oh dear. Percy’d just made a dreadful faux pas, one that would have to be remedied as soon as was possible.
* * *
Three days later Nymphadora arrived late for work, hair still as brown as a dirty potato. She stumbled morosely into her cubicle, barely managing to collapse into her chair without being hit in the head by a flying memo.
Expecting to see the normal list of meaningless rules that Percy prided himself on enforcing, Nymphadora was momentarily surprised to realize that it wasn’t a memo at all. Instead it was a personal letter from the self-same rule enforcer.
The wave of surprise crested fast, however, and she was then forced to fight a new urge to set the letter on fire. Deciding on a middle ground (of reading it and then shredding it to a million pieces that would be marked, “Return to Sender,”) she picked it up and skimmed through it.
The problem being that once she was done, Nymphadora wasn’t at all sure that she wanted to tear the letter up. For what she had received was a letter of condolences, and a peace offering, of sorts. It was a paece offering because at the very end Percy said, “And should someone’s hair turn another dreadful shade of pink (entirely of it’s own accord, I presume), I will just have to prudently gaze in the other direction.”
A feeble smile mixed with her tears as she realized that this was really about as nice as Percy got with, well, anyone. She sniffled hard, and anyone watching would swear her hair turned just the smallest shade lighter.
Author: Writingpuck
Rating: PG
Fandom: Harry Potter
Characters: Tonks, Percy, Ginny
Summary: Percy's always been one to follow the rules. Find out what happens to make him look the other way.
Disclaimer: Other people's toys are always more fun to play with then your own. Same applies here, and this was lots of fun.
For several weeks now, Nymphadora Tonks had been wearing her hair in a wooden shade of brown. Not the shiny wood of tables or chairs, mind, just tree bark brown, without the green strips that trees usually produced.
Needless to say, her boss, Percy Ignatius Weasley, quite approved. But, as things had been busy at the Ministry as of late (far too many raids for anyone’s good), he hadn’t gotten around to telling her until now.
“I feel compelled to say that I’ve noticed your change in hair color, Nymphadora,” he would never call her Tonks, despite the girl’s wishes, “and I quite approve.”
He was standing primly in her cubicle’s entryway, with a clipboard to-do list hanging as loosely as it could in his left hand. After he’d spoken, Nymphadora’s eyes swiveled to stare at him appraisingly. Taking that as a sign of encouragement, Percy continued. “Much better than that highly inappropriate shade of pink.”
The redhead gave her a knowing smile. “I can clearly see that you’ve begun to take your position seriously, and that you’re ready to settle down to---“
Before Percy could finish, Nymphadora had sprung from her chair and was pushing roughly past him.
The Minister’s Assistant stared after her, uncertain about just what had gone wrong. Was she overcome with emotion at his kindness? Certainly the praise was unusual, but in this case it had also been highly merited. So what-
“You handled that well, Big Head,” his younger sister scolded, using an unaffectionate nickname from his childhood. He swiveled around to face the auror, a look of disdain written across both his and his sister's features.
“I beg your pardon?” Family or not, she had no right to speak to him that way, especially when he clearly outranked her here.
“Remus just died,” Ginevra snapped.
“Ah-yes?” Percy’d heard about that. A Ministry official had killed the ex-Defense Against the Dark Arts instructor during a raid on werewolves who had been known to sympathize with He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. Percy was ashamed to admit that man had ever taught him. Throwing his lot in with such hooligans, Remus was a disgrace to the wizarding world.
“You really are thick!” Before Percy could utter an indignant retort she continued with,” Tonks was dating him!”
A cold dawn of realization flooded through Percy Weasley. It wasn’t that she’d wanted her hair to change; it was that she’d been too busy mourning the betrayal of that scoundrel to change it back. And all that talk of priorities and settling down---
Oh dear. Percy’d just made a dreadful faux pas, one that would have to be remedied as soon as was possible.
* * *
Three days later Nymphadora arrived late for work, hair still as brown as a dirty potato. She stumbled morosely into her cubicle, barely managing to collapse into her chair without being hit in the head by a flying memo.
Expecting to see the normal list of meaningless rules that Percy prided himself on enforcing, Nymphadora was momentarily surprised to realize that it wasn’t a memo at all. Instead it was a personal letter from the self-same rule enforcer.
The wave of surprise crested fast, however, and she was then forced to fight a new urge to set the letter on fire. Deciding on a middle ground (of reading it and then shredding it to a million pieces that would be marked, “Return to Sender,”) she picked it up and skimmed through it.
The problem being that once she was done, Nymphadora wasn’t at all sure that she wanted to tear the letter up. For what she had received was a letter of condolences, and a peace offering, of sorts. It was a paece offering because at the very end Percy said, “And should someone’s hair turn another dreadful shade of pink (entirely of it’s own accord, I presume), I will just have to prudently gaze in the other direction.”
A feeble smile mixed with her tears as she realized that this was really about as nice as Percy got with, well, anyone. She sniffled hard, and anyone watching would swear her hair turned just the smallest shade lighter.