“Well, I never!” a well put together middle aged woman exclaimed in the midst of a fit of much indignation. 

“Clearly.” a furious Percy agreed, glaring daggers at the woman.

The woman glared back, her face scrunched up as if she’d just made out with a lemon. Percy, backed with the deep seated courage to stick to his convictions that saw him sorted into Gryffindor and the certainty that he was in the right, refused to back down. A tense moment passed as the two were locked in a battle of wills, then the woman turned around with a huff and stormed out. Percy dispassionately watched her leave (mostly to make sure she was actually going to leave and not just turn right back around and spew yet even more bile) for a moment longer after the door swung closed and then turned back to the young shell shocked woman (who if she were a day over eighteen, Percy would eat his proverbial hat) who looked to be near tears. Immediately his rage dissipated (or at least repressed enough to no longer show) and all the hard lines of his body softened as the tension from his anger left him. “Are you alright?”

“I’ll take it from here.” the manager who’d come over to see just what the commotion had been said. She gently guided the poor sales associate away towards the more secluded back. 

As soon as the manager and employee were safely tucked away, Percy pinched the bridge of his nose and made a mental note to be sure to swing by customer service in order to put in his compliment and make sure that the store had the ‘right’ story regarding the incident. Experience (and internet forums) told him that the offensive woman would be calling in a complaint about the poor associate that put her as the completely innocent victim and the associate as the super villain. Thus it was better for him to get his say in in hopes that the associate wouldn’t get written up - or worse fired - on the say so of a lying bitch. And to think, the day had started out so relatively well.

Still, one shouldn’t let one bad encounter sour one’s day. No matter how insistent some people were to ruin others’ days simply because they were miserable people who it seemed couldn’t abide anyone else having a better life than them (okay, so he was still a bit mad about the vial woman taking out her bad mood on someone who couldn’t fight back and had done nothing wrong (except perhaps, simply tell her no. In which case, it was an utter failure on the part of the woman’s parents for not teaching her how to accept being told no gracefully)). 

Duty done, and his side of the story put in, Percy returned to what had brought him to the store in the first place. He consulted his list out of habit (and because it always paid to double and triple check things just in case you forgot something - as unlikely as that was to be). Socks would be easy enough to pick up; one multi pack could easily take care of about a week’s worth and sizing for socks - even women’s socks - was a bit more consistent. Shoes would be slightly more difficult since unlike socks, the fit of a shoe was a bit more fiddly and there were more aspects to finding the right fit for a shoe (size, width, heel, insole...). Luckily Ginny agreed to handle getting Daphne panties and bras (not that Percy was particularly... uncomfortable... when it came to the matter of women's undergarments or sanitary products - he did have a mother and a sister who’d fairly desensitized him to such things; mostly through his having to handle the laundry or buying tampons and pads when they ended up on the grocery list on trips he’d been sent on. It was actually something both his parents had insisted on in an effort to make each of their boys the best possible husband and father of potential daughters as they could. Romantic gestures were all well and good, as his father had said when he’d sat Percy down for The Talk, but what women actually appreciated was a dependable man who could see to their needs - no matter how not talked about they were - without a fuss, histrionics, or outright refusal to do so. It was simply the price of living full time with a woman; if you didn’t want to deal with it, then you should stay a celibate bachelor). The poor girl had been through enough, being held captive and tortured by a mad man for who knows how long. She didn’t need to worry about dealing with the social baggage and (somewhat) forced intimacy that having a guy buy her undergarments held.  

“Excuse me?” a timid voice sounded behind Percy as he was browsing through a shelf of women's t-shirts. 

“Yes?” Percy replied as he turned around, a bit confused (perhaps this had something to do with the earlier incident. Maybe the staff needed him to clarify something?”

“I’m afraid I’m going to need to ask you to leave?” the (again, young) sales associate said.

Even more confused, Percy frowned. He hadn’t thought that he’d done anything out of line enough for him to be asked to leave. But maybe the woman from earlier had complained about him as well as the sales associate she’d been berating and insulting. Yes, he’d been in the right (and yes, he had perhaps been a bit rude while dealing with her, but he hadn’t touched her, cursed her out - although the temptation to do so was there, or even raised his voice (much. She was after all, getting a bit loud and he’d had to talk over her a bit)) and he had made sure that management was well aware of what had actually happened (or at least, his side of things. He was not the type of person to embellish what had happened or outright lie, but he did know that he had his own biases despite his attempts not to let them interfere and that there was always one more side to a story than there were people in it - and in that extra side was the pure objective truth. He said/she said was always a tricky thing no matter how much evidence or witnesses there was; and his minor altercation counted as he said/she said when you got right down to it).

“Now?” the associate clarified.

“I’m sorry, but if this is about earlier,” Percy started to say.

The associate shook his head, interrupting Percy. “You need to leave now.” he reiterated.

“Why?” Percy asked. If it wasn’t because of something the woman from before had claimed, then Percy really had no idea why he was being asked to leave the store. All he’d done was defend an employee from what Ron would call a right bitch (a sentiment that Percy agreed with; he just didn’t like using that kind of language), pick up a six pack of white ankle socks, a pair of size seven keds, and try to decide between some t-shirts. He’d not yet gotten to the point of trying to find a pair of shorts or skirt (which were the next items on his list).

“This is the women’s section.” the associate replied as if that explained everything (hint: it didn’t).

Percy was well aware that he was looking through the women’s section. He needed to look through the women’s section; shopping for an outfit for Daphne in the men’s section would’ve been redundant since they could’ve just lent Daphne something of Harry’s since he was the closest to what they figured her size to be until she was in a place to go shopping herself (not alone of course. Aside from the fact that she was still skittish and didn’t like being too far from either Neville or the tree that had manifested when her quirk did, she didn’t have any money to buy the things she needed with). There was nothing wro... Ohhhhhhhhh. 

“These are not for me. They’re a gift for a friend who’s fallen on hard times.” Percy calmly explained. (And it wasn’t even a lie. Well, not much of one. He really hadn’t known Daphne very well Before what with her being four years younger and in a different House than him, and hadn’t had much of a chance to get to know her now with how shy she was. So calling her a friend - as he hoped she would eventually be once she was comfortable with it - was a tiny bit of a stretch. But the rest of that statement was the absolute truth.)

“Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to leave now.” the associate said with a bit more confidence, “Or I’ll have to call security.”

Percy continued to frown. Really. He was doing nothing wrong. There was nothing wrong with a guy buying women’s clothes. Men did it all the time; buying presents for mothers, grandmothers, sisters, aunts, nieces, daughters, granddaughters, female cousins, wives, girlfriends, girl friends, female coworkers... One of the insurance salesmen at his workplace routinely bought brand new clothes for the express purpose of donating it to women’s shelters. And, again, he wasn’t even buying anything all that provocative (not that there was anything wrong with a guy picking up bras and panties for his wife or girlfriend). 

The sales associate started to reach for his radio. 

Right then. Percy had a choice. He could continue to stand his ground, justifying why he was in the women’s section and that he wasn’t doing anything wrong so there was no reason to throw him out, and cause a scene. Or he could just do as the associate demanded and leave - without buying anything of course. 

The choice for Percy was pretty clear. He inspected the associate’s name tag, dropped the shoes and socks he was carrying onto the display right by where he was standing (it bothered him not to put them back where they belonged, but at this point he was mad enough that he didn’t rightly care that he was making more work for people who - in all honesty - likely didn’t deserve it since he suspected that the associate trying to get him to leave wasn’t going to be the same one who had to put everything back. Besides, with how insistent the associate was, Percy was pretty sure he wouldn’t be allowed to put his intended purchases away anyway), and angrily strode off. Right back to the customer service desk - this time to lodge a complaint. Because the sales associate was quite frankly being ridiculous and clearly needed more training.