It had been a bit of a stressful week at work for Percy to say the least. His workload had been normal for this time of year and he hadn’t needed to put in any overtime, but there had been an underlying tension that had left everyone uneasy and anxious. No one knew what was going on other than it was Bad; not him, not his coworkers, not the people across the hall in claims, not any of their bosses, hell not even his boss’ boss. Rumors quietly flew thick and fast as people speculated; running the gamut from the company going under, to there’d been a hostile takeover, to there being pending criminal charges among the higher ups. This was not helped with humorless men (and women) in dark suits that no-one knew wandering about seemingly at random and refused to answer any questions no matter how innocuous.
But now it was Sunday and Percy had long ago decided that Sundays would be sacrosanct; set aside so that he could pursue his personal interests without any responsibilities or obligations interfering (or at least that had been the intent. Not all household chores and errands could be seen to ahead of time or delayed until the next day, and emergencies did occasionally crop up. Plus he did have to deal with both his family and his housemates who would sometimes invite him out to do something. At least they were pretty good accepting his turning down the invite - even if his mother did resort to guilt tripping him over it but that was Molly Weasley for you).
This Sunday was no different. He’d had his customary lie in and read over the Sunday paper while he leisurely ate his breakfast amidst the chaos that the other four seemed to generate just by being in the same room and breathing. Even with none of them having anywhere pressing to be (again having all lucked out with their schedule) - that he knew of, they rushed through eating.To be fair, both Harry and Neville were often starving in the morning. Both their quirks, Green Thumb and Stop-Gap, were energy intensive and drew off of their natural energy stores so both Neville and Harry required more calories than other men their age; Harry more so since he had issues with being chronically underweight (a sad side effect of the abuse and neglect he’d faced growing up). And Ron was, well... Ron, and never seemed to have learned any of the manners their mother had tried to hammer into him. Or grown out of his adolescent eating habits for that matter.
After breakfast was (finally) done and the dishes cleaned up, they’d all scattered off to do whatever it was they’d had planned. Neville and Ron had retreated back towards their respective rooms while Draco had dragged a half amused, half resigned Harry out the front door to do gods knew what. Percy grabbed an old empty mason jar and filled it with water before heading to his room.
Once in his room, he carefully put the jar of water on his desk and began to pull out his materials. First was a rather worn player’s handbook covered in sticky notes. He opened it to the page that held the character sheets and laid one hand on the book while the other was placed next to it on the desk. Both hands glowed white for a moment as he put all of his attention on the page and a duplicate page formed under the hand not on the book. He checked the page over carefully before smiling and doing it again until he had a total of seven blank character sheets. These character sheets were slid into a folder and put to the side as he put the book away. With that done, he proceeded to pull out a box of paint, brushes, and the miniatures he had planned to paint; Mara from accounting was starting a new campaign this Wednesday and there were still a few things he needed to do in preparation before then.
Neville sighed happily as he waited for his computer to boot up. Out of the five of them, he was the luckiest when it came to work stress. Not only did he have a job that he loved and was well suited for, but he didn’t have to deal directly with customers (much) and his boss wasn’t the kind of boss who was constantly breathing down her employee’s necks or asking the impossible for them. Plus the nature of his work didn’t lend itself to a high pressure environment; the plants would grow when they grew and not a moment before (unless he used Green Thumb and gave them a little nudge of encouragement. But that was exceedingly rare for a number of reasons - including the fact that public quirk use like that was... highly discouraged).
Still, it was nice to do something other than gardening; just for the change of pace if nothing else. With a stretch he opened his favorite music streaming site and settled in for a long gaming session.
“Must you?” Harry asked as Draco dragged him out the door.
Draco just rolled his eyes as if to say that yes, he must in response. Harry just sighed. He really should be used to this kind of thing by now; it was hardly the first time that Draco - or Ron - had dragged him off to go do something without even a by your leave on a mutual day off (Neville at least had the courtesy to ask him if he wanted to do the thing before hand). At least he could be sure that Draco wasn’t dragging him to do something he’d absolutely one hundred percent hate, and would respect Harry’s wishes if it turned out that he didn’t actually want to be part of whatever it was that Draco had planned (now if it had been Ron on the other hand, then Draco would be a bit more insistent just so that he could get a rise out of Ron).
It was times like these that Harry almost regretted agreeing to split a house with the others. He was just so... tired... in a way that had (almost) nothing to do with the physical fatigue he felt thanks to the long hours of his job. Sometimes he just wanted to stay home and do nothing. Literally nothing. All day. Of course, if he knew that all he had to do was let Draco that that was what he wanted to do (or at least that he wasn’t really feeling whatever it was that Draco wanted to do; the other man still hadn’t bothered to tell Harry where he was dragging him off to) and that would be that. They may not have been the closest of friends (that spot was reserved for Ron with Neville filling in as a close second), but they were still friends and had each other’s backs in a way (that hadn’t always been that way though. A lifetime ago they’d been bitter rivals).
After about a half hour drive where Draco drove and Harry fiddled around with the radio (much to Draco’s annoyance - which was half the reason Harry had been doing it. The other half was that Harry had been feeling a bit bored and petulant - which was never a good combination) they arrived at Draco’s destination: the mid range full service spa that Draco swore by. Which just went to show that Draco wouldn’t take Harry somewhere he’d absolutely hate (at least not on purpose. Neither of them could have known how much of a disaster that vineyard ended up being and both of them had ended up hating the place. Unsurprisingly they’d heard that it went out of business less than a year later).
Draco, it turned out, had booked them both for the full treatment. First they were led to a plush changing room where they changed out of their clothes and into the loose robe provided for them by the spa. From there they were eased into heated mud baths where they were treated to facials and left to soak. Once they were nice and loosened up, they were rinsed off and escorted to the pool room to soak some more in a succession of cooler and cooler pools. They’d stared out in a nice hot jacuzzi before transitioning into a warm mineral bath (which unfortunately stank of sulfur) followed by some time in a cool one and then finally they ended up with them sitting in a pool containing small fish which were supposed to pick off their dead skin or something (Harry was kind of weirded out by this but Draco, having done this before, was perfectly fine). Then it was off to the sauna to dry off before a light lunch. After lunch they were taken into the massage rooms for full body massages complete with oil and heated stone treatment. Once their hour there was up it was time for mani pedis.
“Feel better?” Draco asked while they waited for their nails to dry (sure it was just a clear coat since neither of them had been interested in using an actual color).
“Yeah.” Harry had to admit. And he was. While work hadn’t been quite as bad after the road trip as it had been before then (he was only pulling sixteen hour shifts instead of the doubles and triples he’d been doing) it was still fairly stressful (even if one discounted how stressful the job was even without having to put in long days), “Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it.” Draco said (carefully) waving away Harry’s thanks, “No really. Don’t.”
Harry laughed at this and settled back into the cushy chair, feeling rejuvenated.