The Many Occupations of Percy Weasley (and How Neville Longbottom Suffered Through Every Single One)

AUTHOR'S NOTE: A long Neville/Percy fic in four parts written for the Percy Ficathon in 2008. This last part contains sexual content, but I've edited out the most adult bits to comply with .

PART FOUR

Several days before the first Quidditch game of the season – Gryffindor vs. Slytherin – there was still no new librarian. Talk about curses on jobs and the like had nonetheless petered out, though, when the Gryffindor team accused Madame Hooch of bias towards the Slytherin team and made an official complaint to the Ministry.

When the wizard arrivedfrom the Department of Magical Games and Sports, Neville was once more exasperated to see Percy Weasley. This time, however, he rather thought that he might be annoyed on Percy's behalf rather than his own.

After Percy had interviewed the Gryffindor team and Madame Hooch (and completely failed to even approach any of the Slytherins), Neville decided that he couldn't stay quiet about whatever was going on. His meetings with Snape had obviously made him bold. He was perhaps feeling a little too bold, really, if he was running about involving himself in things that were none of his business. He'd have to stop seeing Snape. He never in his whole life had thought that he'd actually be just a little bit disappointed at that thought.

But whatever the reason for his new sense of bravery in the face of danger, Neville couldn't stop himself from not only blocking Percy's escape, but also dragging Percy away to an empty classroom despite the other man's squawking protests.

"You will stop manhandling me now, Mr Longbottom," Percy demanded when Neville closed the door after them, cutting off the sounds of students in the nearby hallways. Neville cast both a strong locking charm and a silencing charm so that the students wouldn't be able to spy on them.

"Did you hear me?" Percy asked. "I'm on official business for the Ministry, and I demand that you let me leave."

"Just hear me out," Neville said. Percy glared at him, but remained silent, and Neville took that as a sign that he could continue unimpeded.

"You don't like Quidditch," Neville said. Percy tried to speak but Neville waved his hand to interrupt him before he even begun. "Look, just let me say this. You were the only Weasley in pretty much forever not to play on the House Quidditch team. You spent most of the games studying your textbooks in the stands rather than watching the action. And you don't like other games either, as far as I know. So I can only guess that you were put in the Department of Magical Games and Sports against your will.

"If the Ministry are shuffling you between Departments because they don't want you there, why don't you just leave?"

Percy might once have taken that opportunity to loom over him, but after Neville had spent so long in Snape's company recently it wouldn't have fazed him anyway. Perhaps Percy sensed that, and so refrained.

"I'll have you know that the Ministry aren't trying to get rid of me at all," Percy huffed. "I'm a very valued employee. I work hard and I'm loyal and I'm versatile."

It was one of the few occasions upon which Neville had seen Percy look truly flustered.

"Then why the hell do you keep changing Departments? I keep running into you, and you're never in the same job or even the same area of work twice. It's ridiculous, Percy, and you could do so much better."

"Don't tell me what I can do. And... and…"

"And I shouldn't call you 'Percy', right?" Neville scoffed. "Because you're on 'official business'. You're always on official business, but the thing is, it never feels very official. You never call me by my proper title either. I'm always 'Mr Longbottom' to you, but I'm actually 'Professor Longbottom' now. You'll even call Luna, who you obviously don't respect, by her title, but not me. I think you just want to show me you have power over me by distancing yourself or reducing my position or some other macho crap. Whatever. Do what you like. But you might as well call me Neville while you're at it, and I might as well call you Percy, because then when you target me at least it'll feel as personal as it obviously is."

"Mr Longbottom –"

"Neville!" he insisted. "God, Percy, what the hell is your problem?"

He didn't really expect Percy to kiss him. If he was honest, that was about the last thing in the world he expected. Had shoving your lips against someone else's become an accepted practice for getting them to shut up while he'd been out of the country or something? Neville really thought that someone might have informed him of that.

He'd never have even thought that Percy was bent – or, at least, that he would in any way admit to himself that he was gay – because Percy was about as straight-laced as they came. He'd also thought that Percy hated him, though he'd never been sure why. He would have been less surprised to have Percy hit him again at that moment than to instead feel the press of their lips together.

It was unexpected, but Neville wasn't entirely sure that it was unwanted.

Percy pulled away for a moment. "Neville," he said, and Neville started slightly at the sound of his name in Percy's voice.

Neville found himself leaning back in for another kiss only to find himself being pushed away.

"This isn't going to happen again," Percy said.

Neville blinked and then frowned, suddenly realising where he was and that it was Percy Weasley he'd been attached to by the lips. "What the heck was that?" he asked stupidly.

"That was something that was completely wrong and that will never be repeated."

"But Percy… Lord, I… I would have sworn up and down that you hated me. You're always putting me down and getting in my way. You're always there, every time I turn around there you are, and if I didn't know better I'd think that you were actually purposely following me or something…"

Neville had meant to say more, but Percy cut him off.

"My work life is none of your business. Nor is anything to do with me your business. As far as I'm concerned, this never happened. I mean, I'm not… not even like you."

When Percy stormed off, Neville was left behind was a look of pure shock on his face.

So Percy was homophobic, even though he himself was obviously gay. It was no wonder he'd been acting like a prat to Neville. Obviously he didn't know how else to act.

It was terribly sad, really. And, as with many things in life, Neville had no idea what to do about it.

Neville asked around about Percy after that, but he didn't try to actually contact him. He heard through gossip that Percy had been transferred back to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, and he was glad. Percy and the law were just a perfect match, really. Neville would certainly rather see him there than stuck in some Quidditch-related job that he obviously hated.

When Harry showed up for a guest lecture in the Defence Against the Dark Arts O.W.L.s class and stopped off to see Neville, the last thing Neville expected was for Harry to frown at him and ask, "What did you do?"

"Uh, what?" Neville asked, utterly confused.

"To Percy? One day he's fairly happy even though he's in a job that I can't believe he agreed to take, the next he's miserable and begging for a transfer back to a different department. At first I thought he'd had some sort of high expectations for the job or something, though I could hardly believe that considering it was Quidditch and he's… well, Percy. But then Ginny said she'd heard you took him aside while he was here at Hogwarts and by the time he surfaced he was upset beyond repair. Which is a funny way to describe it, actually, since I doubt that anyone could expect to repair Percy no matter how upset he was, but... anyway, not the point," Harry cut himself off.

"Look, I know you think he's a prick, but he's actually a somewhat decent guy, if you can get past the broomstick jammed up where the sun don't shine. He's just…"

"A pigtail puller?" Neville suggested quietly.

Harry frowned. "Is that the new slang for gay? Because if I'd known that you knew that about him then I wouldn't have had to try to dance around it all this time, would I? Not that it's not obvious; even I figured it out, right?"

Neville laughed, probably for the first time in days. "Um, no. It doesn't mean gay. And if I didn't already know that Percy was gay, then I'm pretty sure you would have just given it away with your brilliant subtlety just now. Luckily, it's hard to miss that a bloke is gay when he goes and kisses you out of the blue."

Harry looked taken aback. "He… Wow. Percy? Seriously? And then, what, you turned him down?"

Neville shrugged. "That's the thing. I might have done if I'd actually been given the chance to, since he's an annoying prat most times. But then again, maybe I wouldn't have. Maybe, if he'd let me get two words in, we could have figured out whatever the heck was going on. But I didn't get a chance to say one way or the other. He was too busy saying that he couldn't do it and whatever. But then why did he kiss me in the first place? God, and I thought I didn't understand girls."

"So Percy's only miserable because he's emotionally stunted?" Harry mused. "This doesn't surprise me."

"That's about it. I think maybe that, now that I've been clued in, just about the only person who actually spends any time around him who doesn't know that Percy's gay is Percy. He can't accept it."

"You really didn't do anything?" Harry asked, sounding every so slightly disbelieving. As if Neville had it in him to hurt someone like that. Why did people keep assuming that he went around helping his friends cheat on their significant others or somehow hurting people he'd know since starting school? Did he look like a bad person?

"Not that I know of," Neville said. "But then, who knows when you're talking about a guy who thinks that making my life hell is the way to show affection."

"Right. Well." Harry grimaced, looking embarrassed. "Sorry I accused you. I should have known, really. Everyone knows that the Weasley men have the emotional ranges of teaspoons, to quote Hermione, and Percy's just about the worst of all of them. Which is saying something, next to Ron."

"You could maybe… um, never mind."

"What?" Harry asked, looking concerned.

"Well, if you happened to see Percy," Neville said, "and he looked like he wouldn't take your head off for bringing it up, you could possibly mention to him that, uh, that the next time we run into each other for 'official business', I'd be all right with it if he wanted to talk."

Harry looked uncertain. "Uh, sure. You do know that if you get together you two are going to be the weirdest communicators on the planet, right?"

Neville shrugged good-naturedly. "Yeah, well, I think I'm finally beginning to understand Percy Weasley. A bit. I don't think I'll ever quite fully get him. He is, after all, Percy."

"Excuse me?"

"I'm sorry, Mr Longbottom, but I just can't allow you in."

Neville stared at the Trainee Healer, agape. The man could have been speaking another language for all the sense he was making to Neville.

"Look, I was allowed to come all the way up here. I can physically see my mother not twenty feet away. Why can't I just go in?"

"It isn't allowed. By order of the Ministry, you have no privileges to visit any patients within St Mungo's."

"Look, check again," he said. "I was here just last week without any problems."

"I'm sorry," the man repeated, "but whatever you were last week, you're on the restricted list now. That means no access to St Mungo's patients in a visitor's capacity unless accompanied by a designated Ministry official."

"The Ministry's hardly going to hold my hand while I go in and see my parents, are they? Especially seeing as how they're the ones who put me on your list to begin with."

"I'm sorry, but –"

"Stop saying that," Neville said shortly. "I know that you're just trying to be reassuring, but if you actually were sorry then you'd be helping me."

"I'd like to," the Trainee Healer said quietly, "but I can't make a career as a Healer if the Ministry has me fired before I'm even trained."

Neville pinched the bridge of his nose. It was just a typical day struggling with the Ministry of Magic, purveyors of frustration and despair. Business as usual, really. Only now they'd taken away his right to see his parents, and who knew what other privileges. It had gone too far.

"Who do I have to speak to?" he asked.

The Trainee Healer frowned. "I'm sorry?"

Neville grit his teeth, wondering whether the man ever said anything else. A compulsion to apologise for everything couldn't be a good quality in a Healer.

"Who do I have to see at the Ministry? Who regulates the list?"

The Trainee looked distinctly uncomfortable. "I'm afraid I can't help you there, either. It's information I'm not authorised to give out."

"Oh, for…" Neville half-growled, and grabbed at the clipboard the Healer in Training had been referring to when telling him that he was on the restricted list. They wrestled with the board for a moment before Neville, who'd never been very good with physical confrontation, ended up planted flat on his back on the ground. A moment later he was scooped up by an annoyed looking security witch, who brandished her wand threateningly at Neville and all but led him out by the ear.

None of that mattered though, because Neville had still managed to see the signature at the bottom of the latest version of the restriction list. He smiled grimly.

The wizarding world was damaged, the Daily Prophet proclaimed. The war had torn the very fabrics of the magical world apart. Only the combined efforts of the heroes of the war (an embarrassed Harry Potter rolled his eyes and forced a smile at the reader from the otherwise carefully-posed picture splashed across the front page) could possibly hope to put it back together again.

Neville snorted and threw the morning paper aside, not much caring whether it fell into his bowl of cereal. Of course the wizarding world was falling apart. Any idiot could see that. Anywhere where the government wouldn't let a man have contact with his own parents just because they could was hardly the epitome of perfect society, was it? But really, Neville was starting to see that it was no better or worse than it had ever been, when it came right down to it.

However much the Ministry might be trying to rebuild itself into something better, it was, in essentials, very much as it had been before the war had outright commenced. And the Daily Prophet, however much they might bemoan the Ministry's current state in theory, wasn't particularly advocating change in a practical sense, either.

The 'heroes of the war' had been striving to improve the magical government – to put the magical world back together, as the paper would have it – for two long years already. Breaking headlines indeed.

The biggest problem with the Prophet's reports were that what they saw as the way to make the wizarding world a better place after the war – namely, the zero tolerance regime – was actually the thing that was making everything go to hell.

The fact that such groundbreaking news was featured on the front page in that morning's paper did little to tempt Neville into reading the rest of the paper, for it would likely be all downhill from there.

Annoyed, Neville picked the newspaper back up and flicked to the obituaries. He'd grown used to reading them when the deaths were regular occurrences even among people his own age. He had yet to fall out of the habit.

"I always read them, too."

Neville glanced up to see Luna hovering over his shoulder.

"Hey Luna," he greeted. "Take a seat."

She smiled almost patronisingly. "I can't sit there," she said. "I'm standing here to make sure no one else sits there either. It's not safe." She gestured up to the ceiling, where Neville saw there was mistletoe suspended from the sky, or rather from the roof which was reflecting the outside sky. "Full of Nargles," she told him conspiratorially. "They jump down on people when they get emotional, and they can be rather nasty. In fact, you're almost under it as well. You should move. They tend to have large claws, you know."

Neville imagined small vicious creatures raining down from the mistletoe on unsuspecting couples who were kissing under it and only smiled half-heartedly. He was unable to bring himself to be as amused by Luna's fantastical theories as he usually was. "I'll take my chances," he said

Luna didn't further comment, but she also didn't move any closer herself.

"Did you know that the Headmistress still hasn't found anyone willing to take on the librarian job?" Sinistra asked from the other side of him.

"It's haunted, don't you know?" Luna said. "People are afraid of it."

"I think you mean cursed, not haunted; ghosts don't haunt jobs, and no librarian has died while in the position for centuries." Neville turned around to see Hermione Granger standing there with her hands on her hips. She continued, "And it's not cursed either. Madame Pince left because, I have it on good authority, the students are horrors. The rest of the staff might follow before long, but it won't be because of some stupid curse."

"Hermione!" Neville exclaimed. "What are you doing here?"

"I've a meeting with Professor McGonagall, but I came early so I could check up on things. I miss Hogwarts."

She sat down beside Neville before Luna could warn her about the apparently very high probability that she would be attacked by clawed mistletoe-dwelling creatures for daring to sit in that particular spot. Of course, being Hermione, she wouldn't have listened to a word of it anyway.

"The Defence Against the Dark Arts job was cursed," Sinistra said as if there had been no interruption to that line of conversation. She was very one-track, Sinistra.

Neville snorted. "Yes, well, that was Voldemort, wasn't it?" Sinistra flinched. "Somehow I don't think he wanted to be a librarian quite as much as he wanted the Dark Arts position."

"But it means that it's possible for a job to be cursed."

"It's possible," Hermione admitted. "But I don't think that one person leaving their job after more than a decade and with no one having problems holding the job before that really points to a curse, do you? Honestly, if you hear hoof beats out in the Muggle world, are you going to think horse or centaur?"

"She'll probably think Hippogriff, more like," Neville muttered to Hermione. "The more outrageous, the better."

Hermione hid a laugh behind her hand. Sinistra seemed to catch it anyway and huffed in annoyance, turning away pointedly and thereby putting an abrupt end to the conversation.

"So what sort of meeting does a rights activist have with the Headmistress of Hogwarts?"

"Just the sort of meeting you wouldn't approve of, from what I hear. I'm here on behalf of the Ministry as an impartial mediator. There's to be to discussions about the Headmistress's apparently lax discipline of misbehaving students. Some of the parents have complained." Hermione rolled her eyes. "Of course, I've seen evidence that the children whose parents are complaining aren't the ones whose children are being most targeted."

"Nor would they be parents of the worst behaved students either, I'd say," Neville added bitterly. "All of their parents tend to have either died in the war or been imprisoned by the Ministry under their new policy. It would be funny that the Ministry doesn't see the connection if it wasn't so sad. And frustrating."

Hermione bit her lip and lowered her voice. "Between us, the higher-ups at the Ministry are ignoring the evidence that their mass imprisonment is causing crime more than abating it. People are bitter about it and they rebel, just as your students here are doing, and the Ministry won't stand for that. They think everyone who speaks out against them is going to become the next Voldemort. Those of us who are high-profile after the war, like you and I – and especially Harry, though he won't listen to me about this – have to keep our heads down especially so they don't try to make examples out of us."

Neville snorted. "As I learned. Azkaban sure was nice at that time of year."

Hermione shot him a pitying look. "Well, hopefully it won't happen again. I may be keeping 'out of sight, out of mind' as much as I can, but I'm not giving up on making a difference. The Ministry only sent me here because Headmistress McGonagall demanded a neutral party, you know, but I'm not really all that neutral. I imagine that the Ministry representative they send won't know what hit her. Or him, I suppose."

"Ministry official, eh? No, I don't think he will see what hit him," Neville agreed, a sly smile spreading slowly across his face.

Hermione seemed to realise the time and quickly excused herself to go to her meeting. Neville was left behind, caught up in his own thoughts.

"I thought it would be you."

Neville was leaning against the wall of the hallway when Percy Weasley emerged from behind the gargoyle guarding the entrance to the Headmistress's office.

Percy looked at him for long enough for Neville to see the shock in his eyes, but then he turned his face away and tried to continue down the corridor as if he hadn't seen Neville there at all. However, Neville, though he may not have been the most co-ordinated wizard in Britain, was quick enough to grasp the arm of Percy's robes and tug slightly so that Percy had to at least slow down. Thankfully, he chose to stop entirely.

"Hermione mentioned to me a Ministry official would be coming," Neville said. "Seeing as how you've been in every other Ministry position imaginable, including several I had no idea even existed, I figured that with my luck it would probably be you again. So you apparently end up wherever I am even when you're trying to avoid me rather than trying to follow me."

"Were you waiting for me?" Percy asked, looking irritated.

"Yes," Neville said plainly. "I wanted to know why you put me on the restricted list at St Mungo's."

If Percy had looked shocked to see Neville, now he looked completely floored.

"How did you know it was –"

"I saw your signature, Percy!" Neville exclaimed. He drew in a deep breath and calmed himself. He'd decided well before Percy had actually arrived at the school that day that he wasn't going to get anywhere with him if both their tempers were flared. Normally Neville would just accept getting nowhere with Percy as a foregone conclusion, but today… it was his parents. "Sorry," he said more quietly. "It's just that I know you wrote to the Ministry to tell them to keep me out."

Neville could see, though, that his outburst had already had its unwanted effect of putting Percy well on his guard. Percy glowered at him and sniffed importantly, and Neville knew he was suddenly looking at Percy's usual brick-wall official persona.

"That was classified paperwork, Mr Longbottom. Who showed it to you?"

"Oh, leave it alone, Percy, that's not even the point. You can't just lock me out of St Mungo's."

Percy raised an eyebrow. "I haven't done anything, Longbottom," he said shortly. "I was acting in my capacity as a Ministry official, so you'll have to take it up with the department."

"Which you don't even belong to anymore, right?" Neville said bitterly. Things would be so much easier if Percy could just hold down the one job for two days straight. He nearly said so aloud, even, but he still had the presence of mind that he could see the look on Percy's face at just the implication. He realised that rubbing Percy's face in it even more would be a very bad idea.

"Don't make this personal," Percy said. "Not everything is about you."

"Oh, I think this is most definitely about me. It didn't seem to matter that I was a convicted criminal all the times I went to St Mungo's since appearing before the Wizengamot. But then we had… well, whatever happened between us happened, and now you're trying to get back at me, or to prove that you don't like me or whatever –"

"It isn't about you," Percy insisted. "I'm only trying to do my job, and do it right. It's Ministry policy, and it has to be upheld."

"Oh, sod Ministry policy," Neville burst out.

Percy's only acknowledgment that Neville had actually spoken was an unimpressed glare.

"The only reason you weren't already on the list was because the person who had previously managed it before I joined the department was incompetent," Percy said. "And it hardly even matters anyway. You're only on the restricted visitor's list, just like every other convicted criminal in the wizarding world. You haven't been 'locked out' of St Mungo's – if you showed up there with, say, your nose Splinched off, I'm quite certain they'd treat you."

Neville had been taught his whole life to be proud of who his parents were, and what they'd done for the wizarding world, but Neville was still distinctly uncomfortable discussing it with Percy Weasley in an open hallway. He lowered his voice significantly so that Percy would almost have to lean in towards him just to make out the words. "I can't see my parents, though. I don't know what the point of restricting me from visiting people in St Mungo's is, since I'd be just as much of a danger to the students here as I am to any of them, but –"

"You are a danger to the students, Mr Longbottom," Percy agreed. "But after the Dolores Umbridge fiasco a few years ago, the Ministry withdrew almost all of its power to govern the teaching appointments at Hogwarts. The only check that remains is one Ministry-sponsored position on the Board of Governors."

Neville stared at him for a moment, agape. "You've tried to have me removed, haven't you? That's why you're here right now, I bet."

For the first time since he'd met him, Neville thought he could see that Percy looked a little uncomfortable. That was answer enough.

"Merlin, I can't believe you! Do you really hate me this much? What'd I ever do to you that's worth all of this?"

"I don't answer to you, Mr Longbottom," Percy said.

Percy tried to pull away, but Neville grabbed him more firmly to stop him from getting away before Neville had said what he'd been wanting to say.

Neville wasn't quite sure how between that moment and the next he ended up being ravished atop Flitwick's low-set desk. He was pretty certain that all he'd done was grab Percy by the arm and pull him out of the hallway to find somewhere a little more private to continue talking. Or arguing. Or whatever.

And he'd also failed to remove his hand from Percy's arm and said Percy's name, Neville thought he remembered. Now he said it again with more feeling.

"Uhh, Percy."

Percy claimed his lips again and bucked against him so hard that the desk skidded back slightly across the stone floor. Percy's glasses dug into Neville's face uncomfortably, then in a moment they were gone, flung across the room by Percy himself, whom Neville could never have imagined treating his property in such a cavalier manner until then. It was a relief that Percy might actually be a little less fastidious in sex.

And it was rather hot, actually, seeing him lose control of himself even as he tried to claim some amount of control over Neville.

Neville grabbed Percy's hair and pulled their mouths closer together until the grind of their lips hurt. That was just as well, since he wanted to feel it. He wanted to have something to remember in case Percy once again ran away as if Neville were a giant three-headed dog snapping at his heels.

Percy wrapped one hand around the back of Neville's neck, presumably to keep him still, and then proceeded to shower tiny nipping kisses all over Neville's face. When Neville tried to raise his head to capture Percy's lips properly once again, Percy tightened his grip slightly to keep him in place so that his neck almost but didn't quite hurt. He found he liked the sensation more than he would have expected.

"Oh, Merlin. I don't want this, but I want this. I want to touch you all over," Percy muttered. "I've spent months thinking about licking behind your knee, the indent at the small of your back, every last inch of skin on your body that I've never seen except through your robes, and Merlin but I've wanted it."

Then he let Neville go and he was finally able to kiss Percy again the way he wanted.

Percy, unfortunately, broke away after the too short – it would always be too short – exploration that was his tongue running along Neville's teeth.

"I wanted to touch you until you begged, but I can't wait."

Neville understood exactly what he meant. It had been too damn long for him to possibly resist the lure of finally having real, proper sex again, even putting the endlessly building frustration with Percy in particular aside for a moment.

As Neville discovered afterwards, while they got along perfectly well while they were working towards a common goal during sex, apparently that didn't mean that the post-coital discussion was any less confrontational than the talk that had led to the sex in the first place. Unfortunately, Neville sensed that the argument that erupted probably wouldn't lead to a second go-round.

"Do you actually like working at the Ministry?" Neville asked.

Even as he said it, he knew it was going to cause trouble. It wasn't so much the words as the tone of voice he'd used. He sort of wished he could have taken it back, then.

"Of course I do," Percy said indignantly, pulling away from him. "What, did you think that I took the job back when I was eighteen and you were, what, twelve, just so that I could use it to get close to you when you'd grown up?" Percy retrieved his underwear and trousers and hurriedly began dressing. "I can't believe I did this," he muttered as he tugged his clothing on.

He glared at Neville in an unfocused way, since his glasses were still missing in action. "Do you have any idea what it's like to be absolutely certain you knew who you were, and then having all of that thrown out the window when you realise that this person – this man – you would never have expected to be attracted to is all you can think about?"

"Yes," Neville replied. "What, did you think I was born with the knowledge that I was gay?"

"But I dated Penelope for two years!" Percy whined, as if that would change anything. "I dated a girl and I thought I loved her. And… Merlin, I can't have this conversation when I can't even see you properly."

"It doesn't change who you are," Neville murmured. "You're still Percy Weasley, the same man you always were. Except now you know you like men. So what?"

Percy rolled his eyes, which were now once again covered by the horn-rimmed spectacles he'd just discovered.

"You wouldn't understand because you don't work at the Ministry," Percy laughed humourlessly. "It's about appearances. I'm not the same because people won't think of me the same, and that's all that really matters in the end. You think you understand everything about everything, but you don't even understand how fine the line you're walking is. You and Harry are two of a kind. You don't care about what the Ministry of Magic thinks of you, and for a while it makes you seem brave and smart when you stand up to it. Really, though, you're going to do something completely stupid and get arrested. And then …"

And then Percy would have lost something. Typical Percy. He didn't want to get attached to Neville because he was sure he would lose him, but he was so desperate to keep from getting hurt that he couldn't see how much he was hurting Neville and return, and himself as well in the end.

"If you're that worried, leave the Ministry," Neville advised. "Help me instead of working against me. You've done it before, when it became clear that the Ministry was corrupt. You did the right thing then. You can do it again now."

"Just because you believe in it, you think that makes it right. As if your course of action is automatically the best," Percy scoffed. "The Ministry is doing all it can to prevent the wizarding world coming to any further harm, either from dark wizards or Muggles who have realised that we exist and want to control us. Why can't it be right?"

"It's not, Percy," Neville said. "Surely you can see that it's not. They're ignoring everything except crime, and they're seeing crime where there is none. It's out of hand. If it doesn't stop soon there'll be nothing left of the magical world to regulate. There'll be no Ministry because the only governance we'll need will be prison guards at Azkaban.

"We have to stop it. There are so many people who disagree with it. If we just stood up to the Minister of Magic and the others supporting the policy together, we could stop it. You could help Percy, it's not too late."

Percy's eyes narrowed. "You're talking about a coup. Overthrow the Minister and, what, take power yourself? Neville Longbottom, Minister of Magic. From the people, for the people, is that it? I should report you to the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. Who, I'll remind you, happens to be my superior. I'm putting my career at risk just being here with you."

"That's the real reason you didn't want this to happen," Neville accused. "You're not even really scared of being gay, are you? You just don't want to risk your cushy Ministry job."

Percy scowled. "Believe what you want."

Neville couldn't quite work out, then, whether he was sad to see him go.

Neville tried to put Percy out of his mind. Percy was a git who didn't deserve his attention, Neville told himself. He wasn't exactly surprised when it didn't work. Even if he kept telling himself Percy was a complete and utter dick – which, to be fair, he actually wasn't (not always, at least) – Neville would actually find himself reflecting on how much of a git Percy was, which wasn't conducive at all to getting the git in question out of his mind.

He tried instead to concentrate on the students, who needed every ounce of thought and effort Neville possessed if he was going to actually help them. And he really did want to help them. He'd been desperate, in fact, to help them ever since he'd found a crying fifth-year girl on the floor of the library.

Ever since Madame Pince had (figuratively) cursed all the students to hell and then up and left, the library had only been open during limited hours and all of the Professors, Neville included, had been filling in as librarian in shifts. Neville had been trapped in there with the little monsters for two hours, with yet another hour still to go before his shift ended (it was almost enough to make him as wrinkled and bitter as Pince in just that small amount of time, he would swear), when he heard the sobbing sound and followed it back into the stacks.

The girl was curled on the floor in a nook, clearly trying to read through her tears.

"Is everything all right?" Neville asked. Of course, then he felt like the biggest fool on the planet, because of course everything wasn't all right. The O.W.L.s were too many months away to cause mental breakdowns quite yet, and teenage girls didn't otherwise usually break into tears while researching how to turn a quill into an armchair.

Luckily, the girl didn't pick up on how awkward he was being.

"My sister was sent to Azkaban," she whispered. "I got the letter this morning. For performing Magic in front of my mum, can you believe it? It's as bad as the year I couldn't come to school because I was a Muggle-born. My parents hid me away in the Muggle world, but if the Ministry had really looked for me I wouldn't have been able to hide. There's no hiding from them now, either. They're everywhere. They know everything."

Neville had never been good at comforting people. He was always awkward about it, probably because his Gran had been just as awkward with it when it came to him. And what was he to say? He could empathise with her. He could tell her that the Ministry had effectively taken his family away from him as well, but even if he could bring himself to say it, it wouldn't be the same. It wouldn't matter to her, not really. Nothing short of getting her sister back for her would help.

And so that was exactly what was going to happen, Neville decided. Screw the Ministry.

"We're going to fix this," Neville said. It was the most confident he'd sounded since the war.

The girl – Neville still couldn't for the life of him think of her name, even though she was in his fifth-year Herbology class – looked up at him in question.

"The 'no tolerance' laws," Neville clarified. "We're going to find a way to get rid of them, and then all the people like your sister who don't deserve to be in Azkaban will be able to go free. We'll fix this. I promise."

Neville wasn't certain the girl was as confident in his abilities as he himself was at that moment, but it didn't really matter. It didn't matter what anyone thought of him, because when Neville Longbottom was determined – really determined – to finally do something, the only person he needed to believe in him was himself.

For once, he really did.

The only way to help the students in the long run was to shut down the Ministry's over-policing and make sure that those people who'd been sentenced to Azkaban who'd committed only very minor offences were set free. Hopefully then some amount of order would be restored and the Headmistress would no longer have such pressure to dish out extreme punishments. Neville certainly hoped that they didn't have to start expelling students, even though it was difficult to believe some of them had made it this far in the first place. But, as Snape had said during one of their recent 'tutoring' sessions, sometimes people had to do things they didn't necessarily want to do during war. And what was teaching, but a war against the students?

Neville wasn't sure he believed that last part in general – they might annoy the hell out of him sometimes, but he didn't hate the students anything like as much as Snape did – but in the current Hogwarts atmosphere in particular it was actually somewhat apt.

As the girl was packing her book away and pulling herself together, having wiped the remnants of her tears off her face, Neville suddenly frowned, suddenly putting together something the girl had said with other things he had heard recently.

They know everything, she'd said.

"How old is your sister?" Neville asked.

The girl frowned at him. "Twenty-six," she replied. "She said she went to school at the same time as you, but she was in Hufflepuff and was several years older, so you probably wouldn't know her, if that's what you were wondering."

"No, that's not why I'm asking," Neville said. Then he sprung up from his crouched position and left the library, forgetting all about how upset the girl was for that moment.

He finally was starting to understand the inner workings of the Ministry.

Percy would be proud. If the two of them weren't at each other's throats, at least.

The second time he helped to overthrow an oppressive regime, Neville made certain to remain well and truly out of the spotlight. Very little good came of fame, after all.

Besides, the constant hounding of the press was part of the reason Neville had lost some of the precious confidence he'd discovered in himself during that last year of war. He didn't look forward to going through that again, ever.

When Neville had started putting things together, he'd done the only thing he could think to do when taking on the Minister of Magic and his many lackeys.

He'd fire-called Hermione Granger.

Hermione, being possibly the smartest witch of her generation, had not taken quite as long as Neville to clue in on the fact that people like the crying girl's sister were being arrested for using magic in their own homes. These were people who weren't underage, and so weren't still under the Trace. Which all meant that there clearly was some type of illegal surveillance scheme in place.

Hermione, however, had been unable to prove the existence of such a magic-tracing spell. She hadn't had as much information as Neville had.

Before calling Hermione, Neville had contacted the Australian Department of Magic, who had informed him that they hadn't relayed the details of his incident to the British Ministry of Magic, but rather that the Ministry had contacted them to enquire about it. That meant that the Ministry must have been monitoring his use of magic even when he was outside the country.

Of course, the fact that the Ministry had known about his activities without being told when he was in Antarctica meant that the Ministry had somehow placed spells on him in particular rather than the area of Britain generally; he'd been halfway around the world, after all.

Hermione had been working on the assumption that the spell was geographical rather than personal, which would have been much harder to track since it could have been cast anywhere, anytime. Neville's information on this point, she'd said, was a wonderful starting point.

Neville also provided one other piece of information that Hermione deemed to be inestimably helpful. Though Hermione already knew that the Ministry had automatic cameras set up (she'd discussed it with McGonagall, who had put the idea in Neville's head to begin with), she had been unable to track them due to the over-abundance of magic inside the Ministry interfering with the spell. However, Neville remembered where he'd been when he'd hit Percy inside the Ministry, which meant that if he showed Hermione she could use the angling of the photo in the paper to extremely narrow down the position of that camera.

She'd explained to him that the Ministry, apparently unable to place any surveillance inside the school, was apparently leaning on McGonagall to report any illegal use of magic to the Ministry representative on the Board of Governors, or to the Minister himself, and to expel any misbehaving students.

"No wonder McGonagall's been refusing to properly punish the students," Neville had mused. "She always did like to kick her heels in. Remember when Umbridge fired Trelawney?"

In the end, once Hermione and Harry (whose face was once again all over the newspaper as if he'd done all the work, not that either Neville or Hermione really minded) had done a little extra legwork and uncovered some evidence, they'd brought the story to light and cast doubt about the Minister of Magic.

And then Ministry workers who had played their part in the illegal side of the zero tolerance policy had come out of the woodwork, and stories of how Minister Burnstein had been an Unspeakable and had brought all sorts of morally-ambiguous magical experiments with him out of the Department of Mysteries, including a Registration system that didn't require trace spells to be actually cast separately on all individuals. Neville never really understood how the whole thing worked, except that Hermione said the magic was vaguely similar to that required to create a Taboo.

What Neville did know for sure was that a number of high-ranking and even lesser Ministry employees were implicated. The Wizengamot would have its work cut out, trying to weed through who it could be proved had actually played a part in the planning and implementation without being under duress from fear of losing their jobs.

The Head of the Magical Law Enforcement Department was not implicated. Harry complained about this every time Neville saw him over the following few weeks (which was a lot of times, considering how busy the whole scandal had made everyone, even a lowly Professor like Neville). Harry really hated that man, he'd said, and he'd been so damn certain he'd been in on it.

However, more importantly to Neville, Percy Weasley wasn't implicated either. For all that he'd claimed to know more about the Ministry than Neville (and he hadn't really been wrong at that point), he'd had no knowledge of this.

Neville found that he was inordinately happy about that. Perhaps it was true that not all that long ago he wouldn't have been, but that was before St Mungo's had sent him an owl apologising for removing him from the premises and stating that he was no longer restricted from visiting patients. When Neville had commented to Hermione how quickly that policy had been repealed when the Ministry's regime had been exposed, she'd merely frowned and informed him that as far as she knew it was still in place, and still held more or less the same list of people. So clearly that meant that Neville's name had been individually removed from the list.

The only person who would have reason to know that Neville was listed and who also might have reason to consider removing him from it was undoubtedly Percy. Of course, considering Percy wasn't even part of the department that dealt with security and such anymore, he would have had to have gone to the relevant person and made a case for Neville to be taken off the list. Which meant that Percy was actually capable of admitting that he was wrong. And that he was willing to defend Neville.

If Percy Weasley admitting a mistake didn't call for sorting out their differences, Neville didn't know what would.

"Don't say it," Percy said as soon as he opened the door to his apartment and saw Neville standing there.

"Say what?" Neville inquired.

"Don't rub it in. I know that you were right. You know that you were right. That should be enough. Don't say anything to make me feel worse about it, please."

Apparently Neville had been right. Percy certainly seemed to have improved at admitting he was wrong. Probably because he'd had so much practice at being wrong lately, but Neville knew better than to say anything of the sort.

"I don't really want to say anything about the Ministry," Neville lied. "I want to talk about us."

Percy sighed in exasperation, but he let Neville inside. "There is no 'us'," he said.

"But there could be," said Neville. "There should be. We like each other, when we're not jumping down each others' throats or playing at fisticuffs. Whatever problems that might bring one day in the future because other people don't like it shouldn't matter now. We can't plan for a future we don't know will ever come true, or nothing good will ever happen now."

"You sound like a fortune out of one of those Muggle cracker things," Percy said.

Neville rolled his eyes. "Yeah, I know. But you know what I mean, right? We can do this. We can take it as it comes. This could be one of the best things that's ever happened to either of us; it doesn't have to be the worst."

"It feels like the worst," Percy muttered.

"Except when we're having sex, right, because that was brilliant," Neville said with a grin. Then he couldn't believe he'd actually said it out loud.

Both men simultaneously went dark red with embarrassment, but while Neville burst into nervous laughter, Percy just turned his head away so that his face was somewhat shielded.

"Why would you even want me?" he asked softly.

Neville shook his head ruefully. "Damn if I know why I want you. I don't know why you want me either. We're so different, but somehow I feel like that's what could make it work, if we ever stopped actively fighting it. It won't be easy. You're completely impossible, of course," Neville said with a smirk. "We'll probably argue every two seconds, and sometimes we'll both be insecure about ourselves and each other. But I think we could make a go of this anyway. Now that it seems a little less likely that I'm to be carted off to Azkaban at any moment, at least."

"What if we get sick of each other?" Percy asked. "What if we find that we can't stop fighting?"

"Believe it or not, I think I'm actually starting to like fighting with you. It's got to be one of those recognised signs of insanity or whatever, but there it is. And you know what? We just need to take things as they come. One day at a time, and damn the consequences."

"Just like Gryffindors, really," Percy said, deadpan.

And while they were perhaps two of the most unlikely Gryffindors ever to be sorted into that House, Neville knew that each of them had really ended up fitting into their House in their own ways. Neville found it easier to be brave for other people than for himself. He could be brave for Percy, if only Percy could use some of his dogged stubbornness to fight for their relationship.

"And, of course, if we really do keep fighting, we can always shut each other up when it gets to be too much," Neville said, and leaned in to kiss Percy again. "That seemed to work well before. And it'll make for brilliant make-up sex," he added.

"Well," said Percy eventually, blushing once more. "Well, then."

"And, you know, it'll give you a brilliant excuse to say to hell with the Ministry, if you wanted. You could blame it on my absolutely hating the place and insisting that some nagging housewife that you leave, even if it was actually because, say, you were sick of them booting you from one department to the next."

Percy considered that, which was in itself a breakthrough; until very recently Percy would never have contemplated for a second that he might not belong at the Ministry after all.

"I won't say I haven't enjoyed my many jobs at the Ministry, but it would seem that desk jobs are a little too exciting, truth be told," he said finally. "It's all corruption and intrigue. I might be in the market for something a little quieter."

"You know," Neville begun tentatively, "if you did want to leave the Ministry, there's always the librarian job at Hogwarts. You won't find much quieter than that. Especially if you're as hard on noisy rule-breaking students as Pince was. Though, you know, if you wanted to go to an even greater extreme, there's this nice quiet glacier I could recommend."

"The library is sounding better by the minute," Percy said with a grimace. "I don't think I'll ever complain about my mother's Christmas jumpers again after having to wear that huge Muggle balloon suit they call a 'parka'. But librarian…" Neville could see Percy puffing up by the second. "I'm better than that. I don't want to spend the rest of my life cleaning up after students and sorting through books."

Which was, in essence, almost the definition of Neville's job, but he found he really didn't mind Percy's bluntness. It was growing on him.

Neville grinned. "Well that rules out the other profession I was going to suggest."

"What was that?"

"A lawyer. You're perfectly suited to it, and you seem to have every tiny bit of legislation the Ministry's ever produced memorised already."

"If you remember, the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement was one of the people who requested I be transferred because he didn't like me," Percy sighed.

Neville shrugged. "Who said anything about working at the Ministry? You could join a firm where they don't care how pompous you are – or who you're falling into bed with – as long as you bring in the Galleons. And once you make a name for yourself, you could even be self-employed if you wanted."

Percy frowned in though. "I never even thought about it," he admitted.

"That's because you never thought even for a second about the possibility that you didn't have to work for the Ministry," Neville said knowingly.

Percy frowned for a little while longer before his face morphed into the slightest of smiles. "I suppose I could look into it tomorrow."

"I'd say there would certainly be a shortage of lawyers at the moment, what with all the people stuck in Azkaban and all the Ministers accused of illegal use of magical surveillance technology who'll have to be represented before the Wizengamot. And after you're done with that, I know a certain someone who needs legal advice about how to appeal a decision of the Ministry not to support a research project. And how to sue the bloody Daily Prophet for libel, at that."

"Take it easy," Percy said. "One step at a time."

Neville kissed him and then broke away and murmured, "Isn't that what I've been trying to tell you?"

Percy laughed, which sounded foreign but also very nice to Neville's ears.

"So it is," Percy admitted. And then he initiated the next kiss.

And the one after.

~FIN~