Deep down I know

If you were gone

For even a day I wouldn't know which way to turn

'Cause I'm lost without you

@oralee Outfit

To those that knew Percy it would be obvious just how much effort that he had been putting in since Christmas. He had seen what he had wanted and he had made the decision to work for i. He had been attentive and kind, loving and devoted. Though those things were not really new, but were now more obvious than before. He didn’t want Penelope to have any doubts in her mind about how he felt or where they stood, and with him being as unhappy as he was with the current political situation it meant that he wasn’t as dedicated as he usually was to the job. He respected Andromeda still, even if he didn’t understand all of her actions. She was a Black, and he knew better that her actions would have a good motivation. After all she did still raise Teddy. It seemed like constantly she was always trying to improve things. It wasn’t like she did this to the muggleborns. She was probably trying to make things better. Not everyone could see that though.



People often choose what they wanted to see, the same thing is said about him. He was not a good man to some people, but to those that mattered, he was great to them. It was why he was trying to do this surprise wedding. Oralee was Penny’s best friend, and she could help him. He trusted her to not tell Penny what was going on, to not ruin the surprise. He couldn’t stop the smile that stayed on his face as he walked into the flower shop. He didn’t see Oralee yet, so he began looking a flowers, the intuition roses pulling his focus.

Better Than I Know Myself

Oralee's Outfit

She knew that this was for Penny, she knew that she was coming here because Percy had asked, and because Penny was one of her best friends. There wasn't anything that she wouldn't do for the witch, and that was just the way that Lee was. She treated her friends the same way that she treated her family. Especially the friends that had stuck with her through the divorce. They were civil, enough. She would be civil, because they had three children that needed them to be civil. Audrey though, Audrey was hers, and hers alone. She had had the paperwork changed to reflect that, and he hadn't fought her on it. He could do whatever it was that he wanted, and she would make sure that their children were taken care of. That they knew that they were loved more than anything in this world. To her, there would never be anything more important than them. Oralee had been willing to die for them, and she thought that that alone said something. That that alone was enough to have her setting the bar, for what they should expect from their parents.

There was nothing in the world that would stop her from doing what she thought was right, and that was just how she was. Oralee had always had the brains of an eagle, but she had the heart of a lion and that was where she had ended up. She had been a lion, and she had spent the rest of her life proving that that was who she was. She and Oliver had joined the Order, they had fought for what they believed in. She had taken a curse, because of who she was, because of what her last name had been. She had been Oralee Shacklebolt when she was running that bookshop. They had blown it up. They had tried to kill her, to kill her daughters. They had killed Minerva. She knew better than to think that it was random. She knew what they had taken from her… And without meaning to, they had taken even more. They had taken something that they hadn't even been after. Because they had taken away what had made her happy. They had taken her arm, and they had taken her smile, and for a while, she thought that they had taken her heart.

But now she thought that she had that back. She thought that she had found where she had stored it away. Or where he had taken the opportunity to throw it. She had been hurt, she had been traumatized at the loss of her arm. She knew that it was still there… It was right there, but she couldn't feel it, she you couldn't actually see the extent of the damage that had been done. The parts that they couldn't fix. Someone had taken that from her, whomever had blown up her shop. They had taken her arm, they had taken her marriage, and for a little while in there, they had taken her smile. She had found it again though. There was someone left over now that she had learned to like. There was someone that she hadn't realized that she had lost, when she had become Oralee Shacklebolt, but she had found her. She had found who she had been before, and she had found the strength that she had almost forgotten that she had once had. Twenty years ago, she had had dreams, and wings, and everything that she had needed to thrive.

And then she had belonged to him. She had loved him. But she had set everything aside for him. He was the Minister. He needed her to stand next to him. To play the role of the loving wife. To smile, and wave, and make sure that State Dinners happened on time. She needed something more than that, and really, she didn't know when she had stopped being equal. When she had become not good enough. But she was over it. She didn't want to think that there was anything that was holding her back now. She was going to be a better example than that for her children. She was going to prove that you didn't have to rely on someone else to make you strong. She was going to do it with dignity, and she was going to do it with class. Whatever their father decided to do was not her problem. She was going to conduct herself to a higher standard. She always had. Stepping into the flower shop she unconsciously ran her hand up her bad arm as she looked around for the man she was supposed to be meeting. "Weasley?" She didn't know where he was in here, but the shop wasn't all that big…

He knew what Terrianne was doing, the plans that she had for all of this. He was along for the ride on a lot of things, but this was one of the areas that he was on his own for. She had found out some of the things that he needed, thanks to Terri, but Oralee would be able to help the rest of the way. He was pretty sure that this was going to go off without a hitch, and nothing would go wrong, but he till worried that they would. That nothing would work and hse would get angry and leave him. He was not a pessimist he was a realist, a humanist. He had an abborance for all sorts of violence save for when the war had needed fighting. Now they found themselves in another one. His brother was leading things and he wasn’t sure of how he felt about it at all, but George might just make a good leader, he needed the time to prove himself.

Percy was trying to be positive, to give his brother, and others in the order time to get it together, and decide what was going to happen. They needed a plan, a decision on what they wanted to do, how they wanted to handle things, or even if they were going to handle things. Andromeda was her own woman and she had never claimed to be for one side or the other, she had been protecting her daughter, and then her grand son. He didn’t try and guess her motives for things, he didn’t try and understand why she did things, it would be best that way and he was aware.

However, those thoughts would have to wait. He had other business that he wanted to take care of and other priorities this go around. He had his children now, and a woman that he would be taking to wife. Not just because she was the mother of his children, but because of who she was She was the love of his life and he wanted to make her happy That was all that mattered to him. He was bending over to look at a flower when he heard his name and he stood to his full height and looked over the top of the display at Oralee. Giving her a smile he nodded an then made his way to her.

He was never sure if he should hug the woman or not. He always thought that she looked fragile, like he would break her if her hugged her, but she was the best friend of the love of his life, so he settled for the French way and kissed both of her cheeks. ”Thank you so much for coming. I’m kind of lost.”

better than I know myself

Tag: Percy

Oralee's Outfit

She knew that this was important to Percy, and it was even more important to Terrianne in some ways. She was doing this for her parents, and Oralee understood the desire for things to be perfect. To have something that they could control. Something that they had every thing that they needed to have it be exactly how they wanted it to be. It wasn't something that they were going to be able to keep bad things from happening at, that was impossible, but they could make sure that it started out perfect. Oralee was just slightly terrified of things going wrong at weddings, but she knew that that wasn't always the case. They had had more of them go without incident than with, but even the last one, even the Krum wedding, had been the same night that the Death Eaters had stormed the school. It wan't as simple as everyone wanted to believe, it hadn't gone as perfectly as everyone remembered. Sure the Death Eaters hadn't stormed the wedding, no one had died, but it had been a night of something terrible happening in any case. A child had been maimed, the Death Eaters had held their children hostage. It wasn't that easy.  Nothing about their lives was easy. That much she knew for a fact. Running her hand over her arm, she knew just how difficult it was to believe that anything was simple. There were scars covering her arm that meant that they weren't simple at all. She knew that she was having more and more trouble with it as time went on, but she wasn't going to talk about it. Until it completely impaired her quality of life, she wasn't going to make a fuss over something that they couldn't do anything about. The healers had tried. They had said that they had no idea what the curse had done. How it had targets the pain receptors, the things that made her feel, but not the motor function. It didn't make sense. There was no answer, and Lee knew that it was going to get worse. Something in her gut just told her that it was going to get worse. That she wasn't going to be able to hide the fact that she had lost more of it for forever, but right now it was fine. It was just creeping further up her arm. The numbness. The feeling that nothing was even there.  She could see her arm. She could move her fingers, she could hold Audrey's hand, and know that she was there, but she had no idea if she was holding on too tightly. She had no idea if she was going to burn her hand on something hot, just because she couldn't feel it. Oralee knew how dangerous the state of her arm was, but no one else needed to know that. No one else needed to know that it was getting worse. Right now, none of this was about her. Right now, she was going to focus on Penny, and her wedding, and everything that they were going to need to do to pull this off. Because a secret wedding was something that was a whole lot more difficult to plan than a regular one. Her friend couldn't find out what was happening at all, and she knew that no one would have given it away on purpose, but the way that they all were, it was up to her to make sure that Penny didn't get suspicious of anything. Knowing that Terrianne and Archibald were going to be home helped, but it still needed to be perfect.  Her niece doing most of this through owl was complicated, and she knew that coming here to meet Percy was a step in the right direction. This was tangible. They could make sure that they were all on exactly the same page when it came to things that they could actually pick out in stores. Flowers were easy, important, but easy, and she thought that as long as they didn't get something atrocious, she could pretty much handle any of them. Penny wasn't going to be picky about the flowers, when she was getting a surprise wedding out of the deal. That was going to be the focus of all of this. Not whatever flowers they had decided would do the trick. Chuckling a little bit when Percy came around the corner she dropped her hand from her arm, and she nodded to the flowers all around them. "Try doing this without my help, that's lost, right now you're just misguided." Her smile was warm, and bright, and no one would have any idea that there was anything wrong with her if they didn't know already. "Come on then, we'll find something perfect."

------ Better than I know Myself -----

tag: @oralee // words: 487 // notes: ---

This was his chance to do this right, to not mess this up and he knew that he had to blow Penny away this time Their first wedding had been fast, short and sweet and nothing near what she had wanted. They had only married because she had found out that she was pregnant and in a way, Percy had the feeling (even though it was years later) that that mentality had something to do with his behavior. He hadn’t thought that she actually loved him. That it was only because it was something that they had done before. It was a life that they had had before, which was why they had fallen back into bed after the war, but…. This was different. That had been different, he had loved her, more than he would ever like to admit to himself. Love was weakness and after everything that they had been through she was the biggest one for him.

He had been so many things, but the one thing that he had been was afraid. To lose her, to love her, to hurt her, to have her hate him; and his distances only served to make her hate him even more, at least to his eyes . He loved her more than life itself but he had come between them. When the divorce came it was on him. He could see how bad he had been, he knew that it would be better if he walked away from her, but it hadn’t been the best thing for any of them. All he had done was hurt them all. But now, things were different. He had learned to fix his issues, he had done the things would fighting it, and had come to be be a better man, a better person. At first he thought that it had been for himself, and then for Jessica, but he knew that it had been for someone else.

Their coffee date and then dancing, it had all clicked and he hadn’t been able to help himself. It had been one hell of a Christmas and here they were, he was planning a wedding to sweep her off her feet. He knew that his Valentine’s proposal had done that. He had taken her to the one place that he had always promised to take her and done something that was rather out of character, but it was exactly what he wanted to do.

He chuckled, a deep rumbling in his chest and he nodded his head, knowing full well that she was right. Doing it without Lee or Terri was stupid but he was trying, The effort was there and he knew that counted for something, somewhere. ”Then please guide me, oh wise one.” He joked as he went to look at something called a Penny or something like that. ”This is called a Penny?? Kind of perfect?”

template by eliza @ TB & THQ

Better Than I

Know Myself

Her friend remarrying her ex-husband was a little bittersweet for Oralee, but she was happy for them. She wanted Penny to be happy, and she thought that Percy made her happy. That was what was important, and Oralee wasn’t going to do anything that was going to jeopardize that. She thought that they were just going to have to try and come up with something that they were going to think was perfect. He could make this perfect for her, and she was going to help him do that. This whole scheme that they had cooked up was… Elaborate. But Oralee thought that it would be fine. She wanted it to be fine. She wanted to see something like this work out. To know that sometimes things worked out. Sometimes people got to be happy. Someone needed to be happy. They needed some good in their lives right now, and she thought that this would do it. They were all going to be happy.

Things had to get better somewhere. Because they weren’t better for everyone. Hermione and Harry and the kids were still wherever it was that they had gone. Oralee knew that they were safe. Hermione’s letters said that they were safe. And she wanted to believe that they were going to get to see them again sometime soon. But she knew that that wouldn’t be the case. Not necessarily. She thought that there had to be something that they could do. Something that they could try. But she wasn’t going to put anyone else at risk. She wasn’t going to ask when Hermione said that they were safe, and that the person that was protecting them was going to make sure that they stayed safe. All Oralee could do was hope that that was true. That they had put their faith in someone that deserved it.

She thought that they had. She had a good idea of just who ‘he’ was. But she wasn’t going to think about it. Even thoughts weren’t always safe. She had been around this world long enough to know that. And she knew just who owned this shop. That alone was enough to make her nervous, but she was trying not to worry about it. It was all going to be okay, without worrying about the fact that they were in a shop run by someone that had family members, if not she herself, that wanted them to not exist anymore. Oralee was hyper aware of the Death Eaters, and their families, and she had been for nearly two years now. She had a four-year-old that depended on her staying alive. She couldn’t put herself in any more danger. She couldn’t leave her children, any of her children behind.

Oralee chuckled a little bit as she wandered away from Percy in the store. She almost wished that she would have brought Audrey with her. But she knew that he had asked her not to. It was just very strange to be shopping without her. Whenever she wasn’t at campus she had her with her. Hands on was the way that Oralee had raised all three of her older children, and even if she was raising Audrey on her own, she was going to do it in much the same manner. The way that that had all shaken out had been something that she had a hard time accepting, but she was trying. Oralee was trying, every day, to keep moving on… “Those are pretty… But not too many of them. You want classy, not cheesy.”

@ percy - 593 - oralee's outfit

MADE BY VEL OF GS + ADOXOGRPHY 2.0