 
|
|
|
title: Sixth date: feb 2, 2003 Percy has never loved another person as much as he loves Penelope. He holds her hand in between classes and sees her off for her Double Transfiguration; she sees him off for his Double Potions, lingering at the door, in order to make a fashionably late entrance in her next class. He talks about getting married, sometimes. Penelope’s parents have a small cottage in an all-Magical town. Percy could Apparate to work. It has been decided that he will take after his father in career. Percy, on the rare days he seems excited by the prospect, talks of breaking curses like his brother Bill, or hunting down dangerous artefacts like his dad. Penelope wants to work too, though, and has made Percy promise not to be biased towards her, should they wind up in the same Ministry department. “I want to make it on my own, Percival,” she remarks at breakfast, before reminding Percy not to put his elbows on the table. “I don’t need any help.” Percy nods. He daren’t call her Penny. He always calls her that in his head, and sometimes it seems that Penny and Penelope are different girls altogether. He can count the times that they have kissed on his hand. Ginny saw the first time, and with the ensuing fuss about it, he practically forgot what the actual kiss was like. The second was at the door of the Three Broomsticks, with people cheering them on; Penelope’s lips were wet from the Butterbeer but were firmly pulled together, tight against his. She might have been smiling. The third was after Percy had lost a Quidditch bet to Penelope. As he passed her the five galleons he had scrounged from the very depths of his money-box, she had pulled him by the shoulders towards her. “You looked so sad,” she said, afterwards. “It’s just a bet, Percy. You needn’t have to look like you just lost your entire fortune.” He had daren’t say to her that that was his entire fortune. For now, at least; his allowance was due to come next Monday, but sometimes it didn’t come at all. It’s lucky they provided free meals at Hogwarts, thinks Percy. It’s lucky that sometimes, Penelope gives him some of what she eats. The fourth time happens today. Penelope is perched on top of Percy’s bed, reading a cheap paperback, her back to his. Percy is making notes in the index of his Arithmancy textbook, feeling Penelope’s warmth permeate slowly through layers of clothes. Oliver walks past, dripping wet from an evening Quidditch practice. Penelope shifts distractedly against Percy, eyes sliding past the rows of text, to Oliver. Percy starts, and registers something that feels a lot like dread. “ ’Lo, Percy. Penelope.” Oliver nods at each of them, and smiles at Percy. Penelope smiles back; Percy can feel that filter through their backs, too. Oliver finds a towel from his dresser and strides back out. Oliver has always been a consummate performer in air and on land. “He’s quite something, isn’t he?” says Penelope in a low voice. Percy shrugs. “He’s got an awfully nice body.” Percy’s quill skids into the spine of the book. “I suppose,” he mutters. “You’re not jealous, are you?” Penelope says. She turns to him, setting the paperback on the bed. “Percival. You’re jealous!” She pulls him around her and murmurs something into his hair that sounds like: “We’re going to be together anyway”. Percy has little time to wonder what she means by that slight contrite tone or choice in words when her lips flicker up against his, like a little ghostly flame. Percy thinks: Of course this is right, it must be right. We’re going to be together anyway. He has his hands up her shirt and a leg between hers when Oliver comes in and makes an explosively incredulous apology. He switches the lights off and gets into his own bed. Before Oliver draws his bed-curtains shut, he says, “Have fun, guys.” The curtains pull shut with a sharp shank sound. Percy and Penelope lie in the darkness for a while, breathing for what seems like an eternity. Percy can feel the underwire of Penelope’s bra. “I should be --” “I think you should --” They pause. Penelope’s embarrassed smile is barely visible in the Gryffindor dorm. She tucks her shirt back in and leaves Percy to wonder if they really are going to get married and live in the countryside. The fifth kiss is when Percy sees Penelope coming out of the boys’ toilet. He stays behind the statue of Anthony the Abnormal as Oliver follows her out. He is tidying his shirt, in oddly the same way Penelope does. Penelope says something quietly to Oliver. Oliver mutters something back, and stalks off. At lunch, Percy leans over the desesert plate of peaches in juice, and kisses Penelope. Oliver watches. “You can’t do something like that!” Penelope rages at him. They’re in confines of an abandoned classroom, on the ninth floor of the Astronomy Tower. “What will people think of us? Of me? Of you? I’m supposed to be a prefect, you’re supposed to be the Head Boy! Why don’t you act with some decorum, at least?” Percy says, “What did you do with Oliver?” He can’t bear to say the word fuck, or why, or bitch. “What?” Penelope asks. “How can you even think that? I’m not a slut, Percival. What are you implying?” Percy feels like he is going to vomit out his heart very soon. “You said it first, not me,” he says. Penelope slaps him. Percy puts his hand to his cheek wonderingly; it feels very warm and angry and it is telling him to leave, before Penelope decides to give him bruises. He brushes past her, just as she bursts out into fierce sobs. She kicks out at his ankles; he stumbles on his way out. He bumps into a couple who are clutching onto each other like their partner is a piece of driftwood in the sea. He remembers being stopped by another Prefect, who asked him something about what to do when a student was wearing the correct uniform per se, but was of the wrong gender to do so; he remembers Professor Vector asking him about the Arithmancy notes he was supposed to pass out to his classmates. Mostly he just remembers the stinging pain across his face. This is the first time I have been slapped, he thinks, when he is sprawled across his bed. Perhaps I should mark it on a calendar. It really hurts. He closes his eyes and tries not to cry, and thinks about how little he actually cared about the little cottage in the countryside, or about their little kids; mostly he just thinks about Penelope and her unyielding mouth and sharp teeth and tongue. He falls asleep. Percy has a dream about walking down a corridor and never reaching the end of it. He is wearing Quidditch gear that is too big for him -- the kneeguards sink to his calves and clunk heavily against each other. Percy is carrying something in his hand that beats against his palm like a heart. “Percy. Percy,” Oliver says. Percy opens his eyes. “Are you alright? You look like shit.” Percy pulls himself up by the elbows and coughs at the stale, empty taste in his mouth. “No, not really.” “Is it Penelope?” Percy looks for some form of guilt in Oliver’s brown eyes. “Yes, but I’m alright.” “That’s not what your face says.” Percy puts a hand to his cheek by instinct; Oliver frowns. “She slapped you? Bitch.” “She’s not a --” Percy’s mouth is dry and bitter. “She slapped you,” Oliver points out, and there the two points are, lying in opposition to each other. Percy shakes his head, and questions whether or not he can really be that blind to even deny that. He takes off his glasses and cleans them; his vision is just as blurred. It must be his eyes, then -- he hasn’t felt like crying so much since ever. “I want to show you something,” says Oliver, and hauls Percy up. He walks out of the dorms and Percy trails after him, trying to straighten his clothes and flatten his hair down. They eventually wind up in the Astronomy Tower classroom Percy and Penelope were in. “It’s almost twelve now.” Oliver settles himself in a dusty chair. “Wait.” Percy rocks the unsteady table he’s on back and forth. He’s trying to think of how to ask Oliver if Oliver had sex with Penelope in the boys’ toilet. There’s no polite way of doing it. He wishes there was a book with instructions. “Oliver, did you and Pe --” Ghosts start appearing out of the walls. They slide through like knives, first flat and one-dimensional, then spring into sharp relief. They cast no shadows. A pair go through Percy, cold and cloud-like. Their sound travels a second or so after their mouths form words, like thunder. “I like you, I’ve always liked you --” “I think you’re really cute --” “I want to be with you forever --” “We can get married and stuff --” “I wrote this poem for you, it’s stupid, but --” “I’ll always love you, you know that --” “I don’t think we should do this, I think I should go --” “I’ll be gentle, okay? I’ll be gentle. Don’t you trust me?” “They’re not really ghosts,” Oliver’s voice cuts in, reassuringly solid. “This classroom is Snog Central, you know. These are just memories burned into the walls.” “But they’re dead anyway, aren’t they?” asks Percy. He can feel the hairs on his arms stand up as he catches sight of a boy and a girl, hardly older than he, kissing fiercely against the wall. They fall through like there is no wall. “I’m not a slut.” Penelope. Percy shoots up, ramrod-straight. “Penelope?” His voice: “You said it, not me.” A slap. The two of them are somewhere in the room, Percy can’t see; the ghosts crowd together and sift into each other like thick silver fog. Footsteps walking out. Sobbing. “I hate you, Percival! I hate you! You want to control everything. Fuck you. Fuck you and your Head Boy Badge. Fuck you!” Percy closes his stinging eyes and then opens them to find the ghosts gone. Oliver is standing on his feet now, looking at Percy thoughtfully. “Not all of them are dead,” Oliver remarks. He climbs up on the table next to Percy. Percy tucks his chin into his chest. “Why did you bring me here, Oliver?” “I thought you should know that your ex was petty enough to say those things,” Oliver says, slinging one leg over the other. “She was just mad.” “Aren’t we all.” Percy stops himself from blinking the tears out. “How do you know about this place?” “Came here with somebody once. The ghosts only come out once a week, on Thursday, midnight. We were just in time to catch the show; went out screaming, too.” Oliver’s face is inscrutable. “I didn’t fuck her, Percy. Not anywhere. She stalked me straight into the loo.” Percy is shaking. “She’s not like that, you don’t know her.” “Then she thought she knew enough that I’d want to fuck her. You’re better off without her.” “Shut up!” Percy is hitting out at Oliver, which is ridiculous considering how much stronger Oliver is, and how awkwardly large Percy’s fists are. His blows weaken. “Shut up!” “I just don’t want you to become like Cut-Throat Carmine,” Oliver says. “She’s one of the real ghosts in the Astronomy Tower. Or Sleep-Potion Sally. Or Off-A-Building Oliver.” He grimaces at the last one. “Percy, it’s just like that sometimes. I don’t know. Life, I guess. School, at least. I just don’t want you to off yourself because of Penelope.” Percy looks at Oliver, and thinks of the way Oliver pulled his curtains shut that night. It’s real concern that Oliver is showing him now, but there’s something more, even if Oliver can’t see it. And for a moment, love is something transient and useless and Percy is certain there is more to love than a slap-happy wife and a cottage in the suburbs and of all things, children. And for a wonderful, blissful moment, love has nothing to do with Penelope. “Percy, are you okay?” Oliver says regretfully, as if the whole venture has been a failure. “Shut up,” Percy says quietly, and kisses Oliver, the fingers of one hand spread out against Oliver’s shirt. Oliver’s heart is beating tightly against Percy’s palm, and for a second Percy is back in the dream; except Oliver is the Snitch in his hand and at the same time, the way out. |
|