Title: Status
Summary: Everything had been fine until He came back. Now Dumbledore was dead, and Millicent didn't think she was sad, but she was very sure she was worried.
Rating: T for violent themes
Word Count: 1057
Other Chapters: No.
Disclaimer: Harry Potter and all related trademarks belong to J.K. Rowling. I do not in any way profit from the use of these trademarks.
Pairings: Draco Malfoy/Pansy Parkinson (mentioned)
Contains: strained friendships
Warnings: fantasy racism, discussion of murder and war

If Millicent were just a bit more pretty and just a bit less gay, she'd still have a shot at marrying well, despite her short temper and her inferior blood status. As it was, she'd contented herself to her place on the fringes of polite society. She was the bastard half-blood child of a wayward teenage mother, raised mostly by grandparents who regarded her as an unfortunate but unshakeable responsibility. Her only saving graces were that she was very rich (so long as she remained an only child, and at this point it seemed quite likely that she would) and well-connected from birth. That was all, quite honestly, fine. There was a certain freedom to being a half-blood who'd been raised around purebloods. People accepted you for the fucked up mutt you were, and you could shag girls on weekends and defenestrate the odd foreign boy (Pansy had never let her live that one down) and more-or-less get away with it, because not much better was expected of you.

Millicent and Pansy Parkinson had practically grown up together. Millicent had mostly preferred the company of boys as a child, and neither her grandparents nor the parents of any good pureblood boy approved of that, so she'd been frequently forced into awkward social situations with girls like Pansy, with whom she had nothing in common but an age and two X chromosomes, until shared experiences formed a certain sense of fraternity where nature had never meant for there to be one. They'd both been sorted into Slytherin, as expected, and nature ran its course in making Pansy pretty and popular while Millicent hung out in the background and got her hands dirty when Pansy didn't want to. It worked.

Everything had been fine until he came back. Now Dumbledore was dead, and Millicent didn't think she was sad, but she was very sure she was worried. Her grandmother had written about sending her to spend the summer in New Zealand, with her liberal second-cousins. There'd been nothing in the letter about Dumbledore's death or the fall of the Ministry that everyone seemed to have accepted was now inevitable, but the suggestion itself was so out of the ordinary that Millicent couldn't believe that her grandmother's motives for making it were transparent. Millicent didn't particularly like the suggestion—if she remained in the UK, she could do some damage control and remain in the good graces of her friends and family; If she were abroad, everything would be up to chance and she could easily return to Hogwarts in the fall to find her status among her friends quite changed—but her grandmother's wording in the letter had not implied that she was being given a choice. Her grandparents would be best served by having Millicent out of sight and out of mind, and they knew that as well as she did.

Pansy walking into the room looking distracted and vaguely concerned. Her boyfriend had just effectively started a new war and was now lying low with murderers and torturers who wouldn't be at all pleased with him making their spy rescue him and finish his mission for him, so Millicent supposed that was natural. She'd had that look on her face for about three days now. She'd written him, tried to get to his house through the floo network, and begged her parents to try apparating to him. He was unreachable. Vincent and Gregory had both assured everyone that he was okay, but it was still natural for her to be worried.

Everyone was worried. This was a war.

"Still nothing, huh?" Millicent asked as Pansy pulled the bun out of her dark hair and shook it loose.

"He'll be in touch," she said, with only the slightest waiver in her voice. Millicent was impressed, actually. She knew Pansy was getting more worried by the day, but every day she was better at hiding it. She tossed her hairpiece on top of her trunk and collapsed backwards onto her bed. "I'm sure I'll see him within a fortnight. He'll be able to come out of hiding a bit when the Ministry falls, and that should be within days now."

Millicent nodded, more because group power dynamics dictated that she was supposed to agree with Pansy than because she actually did. And it would make Pansy feel better. Let her believe she'd see Draco soon, if she wanted to believe that.

"Er..." Millicent wetted her lips.

Pansy closed her eyes and looked terribly heartbroken and dramatic. She'd look like this in the dorm room. Never out in the common room.

"My grandparents are sending me off to New Zealand for the summer," Millicent said, and she sat on her bed and felt self-conscious about how much more space she seemed to take up on her bed than Pansy seemed to take up on hers. Millicent's grandmother had always told her she'd grow out of her awkward, blocky phase, but it seemed to her that if she was still built like a barn and taller than half the boys in her year at seventeen, she was going to be that way for life.

Pansy opened her eyes and glanced over at Millicent, as if trying to ascertain how she was supposed to react to this news.

Millicent kept her face blank.

"That's probably a good idea," Pansy said, nodding slightly.

"Yeah..." Millicent said. Neither of them wanted to verbalize why it was probably a good idea. Millicent sighed. "You'll write me, right?"

Pansy thought about it for a second. "Sure," she said. Then, sounding a little bit more certain of it, she added, "Yeah, I'll write and keep you updated on the war and stuff."

Millicent forced a smile. "Yeah."

"Owls would take ages to get there and back, but if we passed letters through the floo network, they'd get back and forth alright and in good time. Just send me something once you get settled to let me know where to send the letters and I'll keep in touch."

"You promise?" Millicent asked.

Pansy raised an eyebrow.

"Just don't forget about me," Millicent said quickly. "Please."

Pansy laughed. "What an odd thing to say!" She looked back up at the deep green curtains of her canopy bed. "Alright then, I promise."

Millicent really wished that she could trust in that promise.