A/N: So I stupidly left this until the last minute, and so ended up writing it at about one in the morning, so the flow might be wonky. My idea was that I wanted to grab a concept at the beginning and then embellish with a quick dialogue scene at the end, but the two didn't quite end up linking together in the way I envisioned. Nevertheless, it might surprise me (and you; who knows). This is what I get for wanting to write one of my favorite pairings: writer's block. I want to write some more actual fics for these two, but we'll see where that goes.
Written for the Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition.
Round: 7
Team: Ballycastle Bats
Position: Keeper
Prompt: a pairing, to be portrayed in any form (platonic, romantic, or familial)
Allotted/chosen pairing: S.S. Enemies Lust Here (Pansy/Ginny), romance
Word count: 2,517 (on Pages)
Ginny has to give her fiancé credit for blending in, but then, Pansy's societal skills are always impeccable when she chooses to employ them. The infrequency of their excursions into the Muggle World yields only rare occasions on which to put them to use, but when Pansy puts on a show, she holds nothing back.
Granted, she looks somewhat the picture of a nineteen-fifties nightclub madam; perhaps it's the shaggy bob cut that does it, or perhaps it's the polished heeled boots and opera gloves. Standing loosely in the bright sunlight, her odd, squinty eyes hidden behind enormous dark glasses, her posture boasts bored and shallow confidence. The way she has slung her vest and pinstriped trousers slouchily across her trim figure would put Marlene Dietrich to shame; the sight of it would shock the likes of Lavender Brown silly.
Ginny has to cede that she is impressed. She also chuckles internally at the realization that Lavender would be much more shocked by the sight of the two of them standing there in such contrast to one another, together, in the Muggle World, with the incontrovertible evidence of their relationship dashing about the playground in his suspenders and his Gerry and the Pacemakers tee shirt. It's the shirt that hangs off his skinny arms and that Pansy won't let Ginny shrink no matter how many times she scoffs that it makes him look American.
No, never mind their boy, though he's been 'hanging around the block' for seven years, a phrase that Ginny has picked up from Hermione in a show of what George has aptly labeled Muggle osmosis. Despite the overwhelming evidence, Lavender and so many others seem to disregard their relationship altogether. Of course, Ginny can't truly blame them; between her Quidditch career and their second home in the north of Belgium, their movements are fairly difficult to track.
It's also not as though they display an overt amount of affection in public. Truthfully, their relationship is nothing of the passionate sort. Their love is neither deep, nor wild, nor soul-stirring in the way that Lavender so often sighs about. Instead, they share a steady companionship, fuel each other's fire, and sip Bourbon and Firewhiskey with the aim of getting thoroughly drunk, usually on wildly inopportune occasions. Boredom occasionally yields the urge to become rowdier than usual, which they do not deny themselves. Neither of them are particularly cuddly or sentimental, and in fact rather disdain the notion of both, though if, hypothetically, they were to wake up to each other's arms slung carelessly across one another, neither would say a word.
It's difficult for Ginny to pin down exactly how this partnership of theirs began, but she feels certain that that tends to be true of most people. Actually, the moment is quite easy to recall: in the first years after the war, when she was playing for the Bats (her Quidditch career having not yet taken off) and Pansy was working a low-end job as a Side-Along Apparator for the Ministry, they got into a slight altercation. While passing each other one day in the Ministry atrium, Pansy muttered something under her breath that skirted the edge of derogatory, something about having to Apparate with Muggleborns who regarded the mode of transportation with some fear. Without hesitation, Ginny seized Pansy's arm, and risking the loss of the woman's license, Apparated them to a distant moor — the site of the ninety-four World Cup — proceeded to force the ex-Slytherin to hash it out with her.
A heated argument and several well-aimed hexes led to the two of them grudgingly mopping each other up in the interest of professionalism; this led to even terser nods, which eventually led to still more grudging drinks shared at the Leaky Cauldron. There, they each discovered that their companion, with all pretenses wiped away by alcohol, actually made for decent company. A consolatory round of Firewhiskeys morphed into more than one accidental rendezvous, and before they knew it, it had become a weekly tradition.
Somehow, somewhere in the fourth or fifth month of this, an extra sip of Firewhiskey spawned carelessness on both of their parts. A drunken slur and cold lips fell briefly against one of their necks, and though there was no raging inferno, it was new, it was interesting, and, most importantly, it was something that Ginny hadn't considered. Perhaps she would have balked at it several years ago, but the war had changed her, and she was now mature as well as naturally level-headed. Harry was a fantasy that she had since relinquished; she'd loved him once (and recognizes now that she will perhaps never quite shake the feeling loose) but by that point she'd classified his hero-complex as selfish enough to disenchant her. His chivalry was admirable, but Ginny had seen war and determined that her time was not something to squander on someone who would valiantly leave her behind.
Neither of them ever asked the other out, Ginny realizes in amusement. Rather, their relationship simply snowballed on its own. Perhaps it doesn't make much sense from the outside, but Ginny has found that sense is circumstantial, something of a one-trick pony. As far as she can figure, what they have works.
They're made of the same stuff, the two of them are, and perhaps that's why the relationship doesn't implode; growing up in a house filled with boys, Ginny has never lacked for companionship but has always found that the most reasonable conversations she has are with herself. She is her own best company, and this, she has since decided, is a mere extension of that. Pansy is loud, forceful, doesn't fuss over trivial matters, and seems to have a physical aversion to the swirling mind vortexes most girls fall prey to. Ginny is precisely the same.
Of course occasional difficulties arise as a result of their contrasting upbringings, but those are usually resolved surprisingly quickly. They both take the view that as nothing can be done to alter the way they were raised, the way forward now is to learn to live with the differences. Neither of them consider anything that either of them did during the war to be of any importance; they are past actions, after all, carried out by people who have since changed so greatly that they are nearly different people entirely. The beliefs are somewhat harder to work around, but they find that they can manage fairly well.
Take today as an example — they've been standing at Muggle park in London for nearly half an hour, and Pansy hasn't let loose with a single savage remark beyond her standard scathing wit. A Muggle is even standing quite near to them, has been doing so for the last quarter of an hour, has even stared at them sporadically, and she has yet to visibly flinch.
"Headed to Hogwarts soon, is he?" is the remark that eventually evokes a reaction as the man watches their boy scamper about with a young Muggle girl.
"Mmm," Pansy replies reflexively, flicking a bit of ash from her cigarette. Then she startles, stiffening up with a suspicious glare as Ginny whips her head around in shock. For a moment, the three of them only stare, an innocent expression plastered across the dumpy young man's face. "See here," Pansy hisses, and draws herself up to her lanky height of five-foot-six, "who do you think you are?"
"Do we know you from somewhere?" Ginny supplies. A straightforward rebuke wouldn't be well-received, but she knows from experience that Pansy will accept a correction if it isn't blatantly stated.
The stranger's brow is pinched with confusion.
"You're witches, aren't you?" he elaborates. "You're not Muggles?" When they both only continue to gawk at him, his eyes abruptly widen. "I'm sorry, it's not — I'm not talking gibberish, I swear; I only thought that you were people — people I knew of, but I — "
"Stop your prattle," Pansy snaps, causing him to jam his mouth shut. Ginny can see her eyes darting about in search of potential eavesdroppers; quietly, she clears her throat, and Pansy eases off. "We most certainly are not Muggles. I did ask, however, who you are; you're not a wizard, are you?" Apparently relieved, the man relaxes his tense expression and offers them a rather sheepish quirk of the mouth.
"I'm not," comes the confirmation, and Pansy takes a long, closed-eye drag of her cigarette while Ginny continues to study the Muggle intently. "My cousin is, though, and he and I grew up together. I didn't know until he went off to school, but I watched your son's shoelaces tie themselves earlier when he almost tripped, and it looked like the sort of thing my cousin used to do." Hearing the explanation, the two witches finally relax their tense stances. Ginny discreetly tucks her wand back up her sleeve, having been on the verge of performing a Memory charm.
"He's not our son," Pansy drawls, and it comes across as derisive, but Ginny knows better.
"He's actually her cousin," she adds, now determined to be civil even if Pansy won't be; it's times like this that they've learned not to nag each other about their responses. They both understand that it's hard to prevent what's bred in the bone from coming out in the flesh. "We both adopted him a few years back; his parents died when he was little in a . . . skirmish." It was a goblin uprising at a safe house in Kent the autumn before the end of the war.
The man begins to nod, then blinks with a sudden thought.
"Did Voldemort do it, then?" he asks.
Pansy lurches so violently that Ginny actually has to catch her to keep her from toppling in her heels.
"Most, er — most people aren't comfortable hearing the name," she explains to the bewildered man as she drags her fiancé upright. "There was a lot of fear surrounding it during the war, and for neutral families like Pa — this is Pansy — it was doubled because they were still vulnerable to attack but didn't have a cause to channel their fear into." That was one of the earliest tidbits Pansy ever shared with her, and Ginny makes a point of remembering what Pansy sees fit to disclose.
"Neutral, eh?" the man responds. "I thought it was pretty hard to be neutral with — with er, What's His Face around." The title is impressively close to the real one and yet simultaneously so ludicrous that Ginny can't help but snicker. She can't imagine the entire Wizarding World stricken with fear by anyone referred to as 'What's His Face.'
"Well, not totally neutral in the end," she coughs eventually once the humor has subsided. "She tried to sell out the leader of the Light to What's His Face," she clarifies bluntly when the Muggle only squints in confusion. She brings it up on purpose, not because it's a sore spot for either of them at this point, but because she knows it'll rouse Pansy out of her Pavlovian dramatics.
Sure enough, her fiancé straightens back up with a scowl.
"Let's not forget that my relatives' deaths are indirectly attributed to What's His Face," she emphasizes, rather snidely. "If he hadn't stirred the goblins into unrest, Uncle Rick and Aunt Avery's safe house would never have gotten stormed." She says it casually, but abruptly, the Muggle man freezes.
"Parkinson?" he asks carefully. Pansy and Ginny blink.
"What?" It's hard to tell who says it; their tones hold equal levels of bafflement. The Muggle's eyes are narrowed with something indecipherable.
"Parkinson," he repeats. "Rick and Avery Parkinson — I was at a safe house with my mum and dad because some protection spell on my home in Surrey lifted when my cousin turned seventeen. Rick and Avery passed through on their way to another location. They — they had a baby with . . . " he trails off as his eyes find Roy, now swinging from the monkey bars.
"You remember them?" Pansy scoffs, and for once, Ginny finds herself equally incredulous. "You saw them once, you say, and you remember them?"
"I remember every encounter I've ever had with wizards." The man's features break into something of a rueful grin as he speaks; Ginny finds herself with the impression that he is recalling an old joke. "Rick and Avery. I'm sorry that — well, I'm sorry," he fumbles, gaze slipping back to the little boy across the soccer pitch. For a moment, he is silent; his lips move absently, as though he is attempting to formulate a sentence. A moment later, he turns back with a strange sort of determination etched across his chubby features. "I — I wonder if you'd mind if — it might be an odd idea, but I remember the baby, and I remember his parents, and I wonder if . . . if maybe . . ." he fumbles. "It just seems a shame, is all, to not know him when he's older, and maybe it would be all right if I . . . if I visited him on occasion. Just to see him, since they can't. Seems like someone should," he finishes lamely.
Ginny blinks once, then twice, then three times in an attempt to filter her surprise out of her eyes. The attempt goes to waste a moment later; she glances over at Pansy, wondering whether she'll encounter hostility or disdain marking the curl of her lips. It's one thing for her to tolerate the presence of Muggles when ensconced in their territory, but to bring one into her home . . . Ginny foresees complications derailing that endeavor.
Then she sees the biting of the lips, the dull crease between her eyebrows: the telltale, rarely-sighted quirks that warn of impending tears. Ginny can count on a Kneazle's paw the number of times she has seen Pansy cry.
Pansy doesn't cry; she shakes her head, she shrugs, and she coughs out a sound somewhere between a choke and a hiss. She tries to sneer — Ginny can see the effort of it straining in her face — and then she balks, and loses her balance again.
Ginny doesn't explain to the Muggle what her reaction means, but she has a feeling that he understands all the same. There seems to be something about humans, she has found, that is universally obvious: an acknowledgment, if anything, that the essence of their composition is ubiquitously uniform and startlingly basic.
No language is needed to convey it; rather, it seems to be one of those rare and extraordinary things of which everyone is born with an understanding. Perhaps it doesn't always mean that the best side of a person is what will be displayed, but it means, at least, that there is no facet of anyone that has not been seen in someone else. It means, in essence, that despite all-encompassing differences, there is always enough similarity between people to at least allow them to get along so long as one puts in the effort.
That, certainly, is something they have learned to work with.