Hi everyone! I hope you're having a fantastic summer, unless you live in the Southern Hemisphere, where I suppose it's winter, anyway, I hope it's been fantastic. I'm sorry I haven't updated in such a long time (since February). I honestly have no good excuse. Thank you so much for your patience. Special thanks to STARS-NEMISIS for reviewing and to my brother for helping me with some details of the last chapter.

Sorry, still not a ton of action; this may be a little anti-climactic after the events of the previous chapter. I had to reacquaint myself with the story a little before moving forwards.

Percy took a deep breath and released his grip on the Pensieve. Slowly, he began the walk back to his office. He had to get back to his desk; that much was clear to him. His desk was safe, all straight lines, everything in its proper place. Quills, neat. Papers, filed. If he could just make it back to his desk everything else would make sense.

After what felt like far too long a trek down innumerable silent, marble floored corridors, Percy finally arrived at his office. He sat down behind his lovely, lovely desk, the thick stability of wood under his elbows grounding his racing mind.

He shuffled a few papers around, muttering semi-encouraging phrases to himself along the lines of "Percy Weasley, pull yourself together." Before long, pretending to be busy morphed into actually being busy, because really, Percy had a very important job to do and he couldn't let his personal problems affect his work ethic or productivity, and Percy was able to lose himself in the calming routine of paperwork and memos. He diligently filled in blank forms with careful ticks and initials, his mind becoming blank as the papers became filled out.

Percy gradually relaxed, surely there must be an explanation for what he's seen: Mr. Crouch had to firm with defendants. Just because his son was the accused shouldn't change anything, there could be no preferential treatment in a fair court system. Mr. Crouch was just trying to carry out justice to the best of his ability in difficult times. He should be applauded for his unbiased actions.

Percy buried himself once more in his papers, enough thinking about the past; there was work to be done. Mr. Crouch's personal affairs were really done of his business.

Just then, the man himself entered the office, flanked by the Polish ambassador and an assistant. Percy stood numbly and nodded his respects. Catching sight of Mr. Crouch's eyes, all his rationalizations of the past hour evaporated. They had not been the eyes of a man just endeavoring to do his duty; they had been so hard and cold. Mr. Crouch's voice echoed in Percy's head, as clear as if the memory he'd seen had been his own, "Take them away and may they rot there." Percy swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry. Once Crouch had passed through and closed the oak door between the outer office and his inner sanctum, Percy collapsed back into his seat.

As he did so, he heard something crunch quietly beneath him.

Percy shifted forward and delicately picked up the sound-producing object, a strip of paper, yellowed and crisp with age. He smoothed it gingerly and held the scrap close to his face to read. It was a cutting from the Daily Prophet:

Son Of Ranking Ministry Official Dies in Azkaban
At press time, Crouch Sr. was unavailable for comment.

Ok, I know it's short and not very good, but at least it finally got posted, right? Once again, sorry for the wait, I'll try to keep more on top of this from now on. Thanks for reading.