This story is written for a dedicated to disillusionist9, for my year long gift-giving (pairing: Percy/Cho, prompt: bad Floo connection)

Written for the Acrostic-y Challenge of Chapter Titles Challenge (Emotion: Surprise)

Strictly Professional

"Stay cool, Percy," Percy said to himself as he knelt by the fireplace, his body twitching from the anticipation of what was about to happen. "This is a professional conversation you are about to have. You need to stay cool."

Any moment now Cho Chang's face was going to appear in his fireplace. It was strictly business, of course, but he couldn't control the little flutter inside of his chest upon thinking about it.

Percy didn't remember Cho well from school, but after she had been appointed at the Ministry in virtually the same position as he, the pair had been working closely together.

Strictly professionally, of course.

They needed to share many calls such as this to make sure everything to do with cauldron bottoms and more was running smoothly.

Without them – if Percy didn't say so himself – the whole Ministry would be virtually falling apart.

He glanced to the clock by the fireplace, wiping his sweaty palms on his work robes. They needed to discuss the important topic of wand lengths by midnight. Despite many varying wand types in Britain and Ireland, the Ministry were now considering regulating the making of wands so that they did not exceed eleven-and-a-half inches.

Personally, Percy thought it was a very good idea. He didn't like it when one of the new people working beneath him walked by with a twelve inch wand in their pocket, simply because when they had gone to Ollivander's at the age of eleven, it had 'chosen' them.

A load of crock, in his opinion.

He and Cho needed to have a strictly professional (he reminded himself again) conversation about this matter so that they could take it to the discussion room tomorrow. They needed a plan.

He glanced to the clock again, his heart feeling funny in his chest. It was late; that had to be it. He was just tired and was anxious to go to bed so he would be fresh for tomorrow.

He just wanted Cho to make the call!

The thought had barely popped into his head when a crackling from the fireplace distracted him from his thoughts. Turning sharply to the green flames and seeing a head full of black hair and brown eyes staring right back at him, his heart gave a lurch.

"Cho!" he cried, before blushing furiously at his outburst. Clearing his throat, he added, "My apologies, Miss Chang."

She appeared not to have even heard him. "Sorry I'm late, Percy," she said quickly. "It's just… got held up, you know?"

Percy waved her away. "Never mind that," he said, and from behind him he pulled out fifteen pieces of parchment with notes scribbled all the way down on each one.

Cho's eyes widened, staring at Percy's hands. "Oh, were we supposed to have notes prepared?" she asked. Her head disappeared for a moment, and then returned with a little coloured square.

Percy waved her away again. "So, about this wand regulation," he began, shoving his glasses all the way up his nose. "I was thinking –"

"I was thinking it's a load of crock."

Percy halted mid-sentence, looking into the chestnut eyes of the girl on the other side. "Huh?" He tinged red. Huh? Really? He had just said that her?

Cho smiled at him. "Wand regulation? Really? Doesn't the Ministry have anything better to do with their time than control the size of the wand somebody carries around? What idiot suggested that in the first place?"

His ears burning, Percy returned the notes to where he'd just picked them up. "Well, I wouldn't call m-the person who developed the idea an idiot." He rubbed his hands over his flustered face. "Of course, I think there should be some kind of regulation," he added hastily.

Cho scoffed, and in Percy's opinion, it caused her to look very pretty.

"Sometimes I wonder why I ever work there," she laughed. "I always disagree with them. Cauldron bottom regulation, wand regulation. What'll it be next? Parchment thickness regulation?"

Percy made a mental note to scrap that idea at the next meeting, and chuckled along with Cho. "Y-yes," he stammered, adjusting his glasses, "silly ideas, aren't they?"

Cho smiled. "So, that's done then?" she asked. "We'll approach them tomorrow at an angle of you're a bunch of loonies?"

"Well…." Percy didn't think that was a good idea. After all, he had suggested the wand regulation idea, but Cho didn't need to know that. He would look a right fool if he showed up tomorrow and told them he thought the idea was rubbish. "Perhaps we still need a… a proposition of some kind."

Cho sighed. "Alright," she relented. "Probably telling them they're loonies isn't a good idea, anyway."

Percy made a point to laugh, wiping his hands on his robes again. "N-no, not a good idea," he agreed. He adjusted his glasses for a third time.

"So, what say you, then?" Cho asked. She was looking so pretty in the fireplace that Percy had to remind himself that this was a strictly professional conversation once again, and she didn't have her head in his living room because she fancied a conversation with him.

"I say what?" Percy asked dumbly.

Cho smiled. "We call it a night, and tomorrow we go in and politely decline their offer for wand regulation. They'll listen to us, won't they?"

Percy shuffled his body, wiping his brow. "Er, yes," he said.

"Then that'll be it."

Desperate to try and keep Cho there for a little bit longer, Percy took out his notes again. He cleared his throat. "We do have some other matters to discuss, Miss Chang," he told her, trying to sound professional.

She raised an eyebrow. "Yes?"

"Er, well…." He scanned the notes. "Er, do you find the noise level at the Ministry rather disturbing when you're trying to work?"

Rather than giving a straight-forward answer, like Percy expected (how was he ever supposed to get any work done when hooligans around them would laugh and shout at each other across departments?), Cho burst out laughing. Percy's ears burned.

"Oh, Percy, you make me laugh sometimes."

Percy was purple now. "Yes, well, I can be –" When he glanced up from his notes again, he saw that Cho was gone. At first, he'd thought she'd given up listening to him, but then he noticed that flames had turned a rather ugly green-colour, and were now reeking of rotten egg.

Covering his mouth, Percy threw some Floo powder into the fireplace. "Miss Chang?" he called.

There was a crackle, and for a moment, he caught a glimpse of the pretty woman's face before it vanished again.

"-ercy," he managed to hear.

"Cho? I mean, Miss Chang?"

The rotten flames spat at him. Now he smelled of rotten eggs, too.

Perfect.

"Maybe it's for the best," he then said to himself, sinking onto the back of his legs, notes still in hand. "You're too pretty to be my work colleague."

"Thank you."

Percy was startled. Staring right back at him was Cho, the smell gone and her face clear. His ears burned.

"Not sure what happened there," Cho continued, as if nothing had happened. "Bad Floo connection, or something."

"Yes, or something." Percy averted his eyes back to the parchment of notes. "So, as I was saying –"

"Percy?"

"Yes?"

"Would you like to grab a coffee in our lunch break tomorrow?"

Surprised by the blunt offer, Percy didn't realise he had his notes so close to the flames until the parchment burnt down to where his fingers gripped it. Yelping, he threw the singed parchment onto the ground and stomped on them to put out the fire.

Cho watched, amused.

When he was satisfied they had been extinguished, he turned back, blushing, to a laughing Cho. "So, about that coffee…."

"Y-yes," he stammered. "Of course it'll be a strictly professional coffee, where we can discuss –"

Cho rolled her eyes. "Shut up, Percy."

This pairing was really challenging to write, I must say, but I enjoyed it. I am gifting a fic a month to 11 different people (missed January) and there are still plenty of months left, so if you would like a fic dedicated to you, send me a PM with a list of pairings and prompts for me to choose from, and I'll add you into a month.

I hope you liked it, and I was delighted to write this for you, because you have been an amazing reviewer of mine!