Breaking Protocol {Percy Weasley}

Chapter Sixty-Two

Oliver came running out of nowhere and scooped Penny into his arms, turning his back to a struggling Clara. 

"You okay baby?" Oliver asked and Penny nodded, tears streaming down her cheeks. 

"C'est ta faute!" Clara growled.

"Looks like Clara and Percy have the same temper." Oliver muttered before he turned to face Clara who stopped struggling against her friend's grip but was still fuming.

"Thank you." Oliver said to Erika and the girls.

"Don't thank us." Niki spat. "We just didn't want Clara to get in trouble. As for your girlfriend, I could care less if the beast in the Lake swallowed her whole." 

A sob escaped Penny's lips and Oliver's muscles twitched in annoyance at Niki. 

"She told you the truth, isn't that what you wanted?" Oliver spat back. Niki just laughed, but it was Erika who responded.

"A truth that should have been said weeks ago. That baby is what tore Percy and Clara apart."

"Enfant pourri!" Clara yelled. 

"English please." Oliver moaned. 

"Baise toi." She swore, spitting on the ground. 

"I believe she just said 'f you'." Michelle said. Oliver rolled his eyes. 

"Percy just got on a boat. If you want to catch him before he hides out on the train, I suggest you get going now." Oliver said, and Clara didn't need to be told that twice. She left everyone behind and hopped onto a boat, her friends scrambling after her. 

Oliver turned to his girlfriend, cupping her swollen cheek in his hand. "Go back to your house, I'll see you on the train my love." And he kissed her gently. 

As Oliver climbed into the last boat, he had to laugh. It was fantastic the similarities between Clara and Percy. They can both hold their anger, only to a certain point before they explode. And when they explode, they really explode violently. He just wished Clara hadn't gone so far as to physically hurt Penny. 

Oliver wasn't sure exactly how Clara was going to respond to the new news, but he hadn't predicted physical violence from such a small quiet girl. 

Oliver knew that Penny had to deliver the news or else Clara wouldn't believe it. So he had pulled the girl aside and convinced her to tell Clara that Percy was not the father of the baby. Afraid she would lose them as a friend, Penny had disagreed with Oliver in telling the girl, but after some serious convincing, she finally agreed. Oliver just wished the girls would be more understanding.

He sighed as the boat drove itself through the lake.

Penny was going to be alone again.

Clara was heartbroken.

Heartbroken because she had destroyed Percy's heart, destroyed the very soul that he handed over to her out of love, all over a lie.

A fucking lie.

It wasn't hard to find Percy, but Clara wasn't ready for the moment she did. She wasn't ready to see his face, to see the face she fell in love with.  His face wasn't anything extraordinary or significant, and yet, she felt somehow magically drawn to those serious and silent features. Perhaps, Clara thought, many would consider him homely, but she found him awe-striking.

Percy was sitting in a compartment all alone, reading a book, and when Clara burst through the compartment door, he had looked up at her and her heart fluttered in her chest. His large liquid brown eyes held such an intelligence and serenity that it was impossible for Clara not to be held prisoner by them. His cheekbones weren't especially high and his nose was a little too long to be perfect, but there was an undeniable symmetry to his features and perhaps that's what held Clara so captivated.

"Percy..." She whispered. Her friends shuffled by the compartment door, off to find a compartment of their own and left Clara alone with Percy.

"Clara..." He whispered back, setting his book down in his lap and standing up.

And Percy didn't set his book down for just anyone.

"Penny told me." She said softly. "She told me everything." Percy opened his mouth to say something, but Clara cut him off, talking in her smoothe native language. "I love you." She said. "I never stopped loving you."

"Clara..."

"Non, let  me finish." She said, continuing on in French. " I love you...like you're the last of my kind." She said, her heart beating so fast she could barely form her words. "It is as if you speak the same language as I, yet no other is able. To be around you is like finally not being alone - as if all my life I've been isolated, in a windowless room, in a doorless room... and then suddenly you walk in as if strolling over a summer meadow. How is that you are so much more than sunshine? How is it you breathe life when no other can? Why is it you are my medicine?" Clara was breathing hard, struggling to regulate her breathing while she continued. "So, my love, know this - while I breathe I am yours in mind, body, and soul." She was breathing hard now, out of breath.

"Percy...I am yours. Yours for the taking."

"Clara..." Percy said, getting up from where he sat. He reached out and tucked a piece of her hair behind her ear. Clara closed her eyes, taking in the feeling of his skin on hers. He leaned closer, their foreheads touching, and then he kissed her and the world fell away.

It was slow and soft, comforting in ways that words would never be. His hand rested below her ear, his thumb caressing her cheek as their breaths mingled. She ran her fingers down his spine, pulling him closer until there was no space left between them and she could feel the beating of his heart against her chest.

And then he pulled away.

"We can't do this." He said, and Clara felt her heart stop.

"We...we can't...?"

"I got a letter from the Ministry," Percy said. "I'm going to have a job when I get back home, I won't have time for you."

And Clara's heart broke.

A cold heartbreak, like concrete drying in her chest. She stepped away from Percy, stepped out of the compartment and stumbled away. Stumbled away from her everything, stumbled away from her Percy.

She found her friends and that's when it happened. Her eyes drip with tears and the walls, walls, the walls that hold her up, make her strong just...collapse. Moment by moment, they fall. Salty drops fall from her chin, soaked up by her shirt.

Erika wrapped her arms around her and she sobbed into her chest unceasingly, hands clutching at her jacket. Erika held her in silence, rocking her slowly as her tears soaked her chest. A tiny lapse let Clara pull away, blinking lashes heavy with tears, before she collapsed again, her howls of misery worsening. The pain must have come in waves, minutes of sobbing broken apart by short pauses for recovering breaths, before hurling her back into the outstretched arms of her grief.

She felt like she had lost everything.

She had lost her Percy.

Finally, their love had ended. Finally, Clara and Percy were no more.

Finally, their story ended.