Who has to know
When we live such fragile lives
It's the best way we survive
I go around a time or two
Just to waste my time with you
Tell me all that you've thrown away
Find out games you don't wanna play
You are the only one that needs to know
I'll keep you my dirty little secret
-Dirty Little Secret by The All American Rejects.
Written for The Great Prompt Challenge.
Objectives:
D: Dirt Little Secret by All-American Rejects
Y:Yellow
Z: Zinnia
Fairy Tale
2: The Goose Girl
Characters: Neville Longbottom and Hannah Abbott.
It had all started with the day I walked into the Three Broomsticks, to get, without a doubt, completely and utterly smashed. It wasn't until the next morning when I woke up next to a naked and completely disheveled Neville Longbottom that I realized something had gone completely and utterly wrong. You see, my name is Pansy Parkinson, yes named after the flower. No, I do not have an undying affection for previous Gryffindors like my fiance, Draco. And I most certainly would never bed one had I been of sound mind.
Alas, I was not and this is where I ended up. Entwined in the dirty sheets of the bed chamber where so many had come before me. I remembered the throes of passion from the night before and how he had made me scream. Who would have thought that one, Longbottom, and long he was, would be the pillar of sexual awareness. I slipped out from under his heavy limbs, my heart filled with dread as I looked down at his wallet and saw the moving snapshot of his wife, the previous Hufflepuff, Hanna Abbott-Longbottom. I searched the room for my discarded clothing and as soon as I found every article I apparated into my bathroom, flicked my wand at the shower handle and slid down to the floor and cried while I tried desperately to wash away my sins.
It wasn't until much later did I even think about contraceptives.
Draco stood before me, the harshness in his eyes, circling like a vulture. I snapped.
"What is it Draco?"
"Where were you last night Pans?" Inwardly I froze, outwardly I looked at him nonchalantly and said:
"I got a tad bit smashed at the Three Broomsticks and rented a room for the night. Didn't want to risk splinching myself by apparating home." He nodded and sat down in the opposite chair. He donned his reading glasses and took out the Daily Prophet and began to read. I looked up at him over my copy of Witch Weekly and smiled a sad little guilty smile. I guess it would always be my dirty little secret.
Neville Longbottom on the other hand went straight home and confessed everything to his wife, who sat there in shock for ten minutes before she took his hand and kissed his cheek.
"We will work through this." She said to him before getting off the couch to go start dinner. He looked at her obviously pregnant form and sighed gratefully for the small child that was growing in her abdomen. It wasn't soon before long when little Abigail Lynne would grace the world with her perfect brown eyes and her soft brown hair. He had already seen his daughter, had already fallen in love with her ten tiny toes and her ten tiny fingers. He dragged himself up the stairs of their modest town house and into the shower where he did wash away all of the guilt, he had come clean mentally and emotionally, there was nothing left for him to suffer.
Work the next day would be hell.
I stood in the lift, looking at that mop of brown hair in front of me and groaned. I had forgotten that we worked in the same department. Miss Hermione Granger's department. The bint that held my fiance's attention so rapt. It drove me insane but I let the torrid love affair continue because I knew she would never go from rags to riches, and she would never bear the Malfoy name. I fixed my robes and pressed forward with my part time job, I did it because I wanted something to do in the day besides shop. Granted, that's what I did with all the other hours in my life. His money was my money…or my monthly allowance.
She was wearing yellow today, something she had never done before. Muggle jeans and a yellow and white horizontally striped tank top. It was sweltering hot out, to say the least, and she had the sense to be somewhat warm. There was someone in her office, and I knew not who he was at first, before it dawned on me that my fiance was in her office. I sighed before sitting down at my desk, in my cubicle and began making the necessary owls for today's litigations. I heard a slight cough from behind me and I turned my head to see Longbottom standing there, fear etched into his face.
"What?" I snapped.
"I told my wife already, so that you don't hold it over my head. We're fine…" I nodded my head curtly.
"I have no plans on telling Draco, so just butt out and keep your mouth shut Longbottom." he gave me a sharp nod before turning and walking back to his cubicle. This was going to be difficult.
Not a month had gone by before I started to feel strange. Nauseated in the mornings, and tired by noon. Cursing myself I knew what this was, I knew whose it was, I knew what I needed to do. Gathering my wits together I stood and walked to Neville's cubicle. I only planned to say two words…until I saw how beaten he looked.
"Longbottom…" I began.
"She's gone into labor!" he exclaimed. He jumped up to hug me but I stepped back.
"I'm pregnant." I hissed and his face fell, he darted forward to Granger's office…she was wearing yellow again, strange, and barreling inside the door without even knocking. Serves him right, I don't care that his wife had gone into labor. I was going to go into labor soon enough! It was then that I noticed the rest of my co-workers staring at me. And Draco, he was glaring at me from inside Hermione's office. I held my head high.
"What are you all looking at?" I yelled. They all returned to work. My stilettos clicked on the floor as I walked towards Hermione's office. I let myself in and went to kiss Draco chastely on the lips, he turned his head.
"You whore." He muttered. I scoffed at him.
"You're calling me the whore?" He nodded. "You're sleeping with Granger." I tossed my head in her direction. She laughed.
"Yes, but I'm not the one who got pregnant. However, that is neither here nor there, I will not tolerate any kind of gossip or bickering so you two had better work this out between yourself and outside of my office! Understood? And for your little show, Pansy you will be suspended for five days. Three of them without pay. Neville the same goes for you. Have a nice day. You know where the door is." I turned back to Draco, he looked me in the eyes and stated clearly.
"I renounce my engagement to you. You have 3 hours to get your stuff from the Manor and be gone from my life Pansy Parkinson." I held my head higher than before and looked at him.
"She will never be a Malfoy." Again, she laughed.
"And apparently, neither will you."
For six long months and several fights with Neville and Hannah Longbottom later we came to the conclusion that he would get visitation and I would be the primary caregiver to Zinnia (yes, after the flower) May Parkinson. He wasn't present when she was born, and I never asked him for a dime. Eventually when she turned 4, just a few short months after her half-sister, she decided that she wanted it to just be me and her, and I gave her what she wanted. It worked out well for about six years, until Theodore Nott came into my life. That's when Neville had a problem. He filed for sole custody.
Zinnia was the happiest, healthiest, and most observant six year old on the planet. Or at least in my eyes. She came out as the spitting image of me, and it suited me just fine. We sat in bed one night, her wrapped in a blanket clutching her stuffed dinosaur, as I read to her one of my favorite fairy tales, where once again, good trumps evil. I began to read to her "The Goose Girl":
There once lived an old queen whose husband had been dead for many years, and she had a beautiful daughter. When the princess grew up she was promised in marriage to a prince who lived far away.
She was sound asleep before I knew it and I stared down at my little indiscretion. I could not let Neville take her from me, so again on a dreary night, I slipped out of bed and began packing away my belongings, as well as Zinnia's. The tickets had already been bought and Nott was meeting us at the safe house. Keeping my daughter from one Neville Longbottom would always be…my dirty little secret.