FICLET: Creative Hallucinations (Percy/Rufus)

[amor-remanet.livejournal.com]

Title: Creative Hallucinations
Character Pairing: Percy Weasley/Rufus Scrimgeour
Prompt: "er... um..."
Rating: PG
Word Count: 569
Summary: "Nymphadora Tonks is completely sure that she’s seeing things."
Author's Notes: Tonks very briefly uses colorful language, and that's seriously it.
Link to Prompt Table: Aqui!


Sure as the nose on her face and its multiple personality disorder – and sure as the fact that her mother is a closet sadist – Nymphadora Tonks is completely sure that she’s seeing things. She has to be. That’s the only plausible explanation for the hallucination she’s currently staring in the face.

And what a creative hallucination it is too, so it naturally has to be one of hers. Honestly. There’s just no other explanation for why she’d close the drawer of files she was just going through for Kingsley and come up to find a very awkward-looking Percy Weasley leaning on the filing cabinet next to her. Especially not with that kind of guilty expression on his face. All these years of knowing him as Bill and Charlie’s tightly wound younger brother, and this is the first time she can remember him looking at all guilty.

Now happens to be a different matter entirely. Now, he’s fussing with the hems of his sleeves and looking away from her like she’s going to reprimand him for something. Definitely needs to be handled delicately, this one.

“Can I help you?” she asks cautiously.
“Perhaps,” he answers in a tiny voice that, while a change of pace for him, doesn’t suit the Percy Weasley she knows.
“Are you lost?”
“No.”
“Did I do something wrong?”
“No.”
“Then why are you here?”
“I just… is – is – is Mister Scrimgeour in?”
“No, he’s having lunch with Kingsley. Can I take a message?”
“No, just – are you sure he isn’t in? Could I go wait in his often?”
“His… what?” Percy Weasley flubbing words? What has the world come to?
“Office! Office, I meant office!”
Tonks smirks; this has to be the best day of her life. Or one of them. “Of course you did.”
“I meant ‘office,’ Nymphadora, and you know that-”
“You’ve got a crush on him, don’t you!”

Oh, that hits the spot right there. In an instant, Percy’s face is the darkest shade of red Tonks has ever seen on a human – she probably couldn’t match it if she tried. She couldn’t do his eyes just right either, with that perfect mix of shock and scandal. His voice is what really kills her, though.

“I haven’t any idea what you’re talking about, Nymphadora,” he retorts, at least a good octave higher than normal.
“Sure you don’t.”
“I honestly haven’t any idea-”
“You’ve got a crush on Scrimgeour!”
“I do not!”
“Bet that’s what you said when Ginny walked in on you and your girlfriend, right?”
“What the – how on Earth do you know – she’s… she’s my ex-girlfriend, thank you very much.”
“She got jealous over all your ‘overtime,’ didn’t she?”
“Yes, and it was completely uncalled – don’t give me that look! It wasn’t anything like what you’re implying, Nymphadora!”
“Course it wasn’t, Perce.”
“It absolutely wasn’t-”
“Wotcher, Perce.”
“What does that even-”
“Means that someone should get back to his desk before Fudgey gets upset with a certain red-headed former Head Boy.”

This also marks a first: the first time Percy’s ever agreed with Tonks without first being backed into a corner by his mother. He’s so adorable while doing it, too. Tonks just has to poke him on the nose for good measure. Who’d’ve thought that he’d have it in him to be so damn cute?

“Bye, Perce!” she calls as he retreats. “I’ll tell your boyfriend you said, ‘hi!’”