By the Numbers
A HariPo oneshot
by mew-tsubaki
Note: The Harry Potter characters belong to J.K. Rowling, not me. I'm no stranger to femslash, and yet I'd never written these two before…huh. :O Read, review, and enjoy! *Written for Michy Drarry Shipper for the Gift-Giving Extravaganza 2014 forum with the prompts seethe, morose, advertise, imprint, fire, breaking up, and "All of Me" by John legend, with the pairing Pansy/Ginny.
- ^-^3
Age ten. Pansy didn't know what to expect of Diagon Alley, but certainly it had to have been better than this.
The way her mother played it up, Diagon Alley was supposed to look and feel magical…not smell like any old back alley in London.
"This way, Pansy," her father mumbled in his forever-morose tone. He tugged on her little hand.
Of course. Maybe next year would be different. Today had Pansy simply accompanying her father on errands. But next year… Next year, she would be eleven, and she would go to school with other magical children. Everything would change for her then. Well, perhaps not everything—she knew Draco already, and Daphne; they'd played together as children, along with Theodore. But she wouldn't know all the faces.
Take, for example, the pale face she glimpsed now, upon exit from Diagon Alley. It was a pale face slightly darkened by a smattering of freckles and framed by tendrils of fire-red hair. The girl was probably her age, give or take a year, and Pansy felt a little lost and a lot excited when the girl's large brown eyes landed on her.
Unfortunately, Pansy's father followed her gaze before the image of the girl's strong gaze could be imprinted on Pansy. "Don't mind that child, Pansy-Dancy," he reprimanded softly, using his pet name for his daughter. "In our society, only one family has hair as orange as a warning. She's a Weasley, beneath us." He tugged again on her hand after, breaking the eye contact and heading home.
Later on, when Pansy described the girl to Draco, he snickered and agreed with her father. "They breed like mice—there's even one in our year. And they're poor! Merlin, can you imagine that, Pansy? A pureblood family, poor?" He scoffed.
For a moment, Pansy dwelled on those thoughts, wondering if being poor really had anything to do with it. Did it matter? The girl looked like fun, was all that mattered to Pansy at age ten.
Then again, at age ten, no child really understands the way of the world.
- ^-^3
Age twenty. Pansy still felt she didn't understand the way of the world.
It was supposed to be the perfect life for her. Her plans early on in life, after being corrected about status and breed by her mother and father, included Draco and wealth and a Wizarding world led by purebloods. Okay, so perhaps siding with Voldemort had been a momentary sign of weakness, but still!
At home, Pansy read about Ginevra Weasley being scouted by Holyhead. The former Slytherin would be lying if she said she wasn't jealous. It just wasn't fair. The Weaslette, as Draco had coined so many years ago, had no plans for the future. She just arrived at Hogwarts, acting as though her way would fall into place in front of her.
Maybe it did, with all those brothers coming before her. Maybe it did, knowing the Boy-Who-Won from the start.
Thinking back on the years, Pansy seethed with jealousy. At eleven, the Weaslette played the damsel to Potter's hero. At twelve, she solidified her place in his group. At thirteen, she surprised the older students (boys and girls alike) by dancing at the Yule Ball. At fourteen, she embraced her foolhardiness and joined that ridiculous D.A. At fifteen, she broke hearts. At sixteen, she held her own in the war. At seventeen, she held on to one heart that waited for her to complete school…
The newspaper crumpled in Pansy's hands. It wasn't the things and people for which she envied the Weaslette. It was that she'd always done something with her life, and had held on to her convictions so determinedly. And what had Pansy to offer?
Well, at least I'm not as flat as a door, the dark-haired witch thought with a final glance at the accompanying photo of the Weaslette flying for the Quidditch scouts.
But really, that was just nitpicking.
- ^-^3
Age thirty. It…it always had been nitpicking. Hadn't it?
Or maybe, for Pansy, she simply had read too much news. That had to be it.
But still, something felt off. The Weaslette had been in the news so much: marriage to Potter, Quidditch wins (Holyhead made her a Harpy after all), and children. Oh, sweet Salazar, the children.
Three of them. Three of them born over six years, with about two years between each birth.
And her ages—twenty-two, twenty-four, twenty-six.
Pansy couldn't fathom how she could do it…and still blaze across the front page like some advertisement for everlasting youth. It was inhuman.
Then it struck Pansy, and she began to pay closer attention to the paper. Her ears sharpened for the wireless she played in the back of her own little shop, a wedding boutique that probably didn't need to exist on Diagon Alley, a place Pansy could call her own despite it not living up to her childhood dream of making the street that much more magical. The interviews on the wireless filled the dead silence of the backroom.
"Thinking about retirement now that the big 3-0 is around the corner?" Rita Skeeter asked.
A pause. A whoosh of air sucked in. A half-hearted chuckle. "I know no one does Quidditch forever," the Weaslette finally said, "but perhaps I'll retire when my husband does from the Auror Office."
A chorus of laughter, a few pokes at Potter, and an affirmation from Skeeter that that will never happen, and the interview was complete.
But Pansy heard it. She could picture it, even. The mussed up hair. The lazy crack on her face she thought would pass as a smile. The weariness in those brown eyes.
Ginny Weasley (ah, no, Potter) was tired.
- ^-^3
Age forty. Ginny Weasley (no, it's Potter, Pansy chided herself) looked tired.
It was the first wedding of the generation after theirs, and Pansy had been happy for the business. She'd even called upon her old friend, Blaise, to keep on top of the numbers for her, because he'd always been ace at Arithmancy and Pansy hadn't the fraction of her attention to spare for anything besides the details for what was supposedly the biggest, most lavish ceremony any of them would see for this new generation.
Victoire Apolline Weasley and Teddy Remus Lupin. According to Draco's son, they were like some kind of fairytale.
"And only the good guys get fairytales," Blaise reminded her in the shop any time Pansy had to swing by to pick up something she forgot (the cake list, the wine list, the flower list—Pansy forgot a lot of things these days, but she chocked it up to all the distracting redheads she was now seeing, even if she didn't see the one she wanted to).
"Then we bad guys must make our own fairytales," Pansy replied mildly.
Blaise snickered. The prat.
Another quip was on the tip of her tongue, but she refrained from voicing it. She liked Blaise; he was a good friend and still her friend despite everything that had happened in their Hogwarts days, and she didn't want to hurt his feelings by implying that his on-again/off-again thing with Longbottom wasn't exactly a fairytale.
Besides, Pansy had other things on her mind, and it didn't help that Ginny would occasionally help Victoire and Teddy in dealing with Pansy.
Sometimes it was just collecting some item or receipt from Pansy. Other times it was managing things in Victoire's place (because apparently Victoire's mother, the immortally beautiful Fleur, was too busy tending to her eldest daughter's every whim). Sometimes Ginny spoke with Pansy, but it was never any deep conversation, even though Pansy had so many things she wanted to say.
Is Quidditch enough for you?
What's it like, a home life with a spouse and family?
Don't you ever get tired of the shenanigans? Everyone knows Potter loves his job more than anything and anyone else.
When was the last time you did something for yourself?
Are you fine with the friends you have?
Do you still have fun?
Of course, she never voiced these thoughts. Pansy had learned a long time ago that no one wanted her opinion, so she'd come to believe it didn't matter much to herself anymore either.
And yet…
And yet, seeing her at the wedding, standing off to the side, something built up within Pansy. Or maybe, no, it had been building up for a while. And it merely threatened to explode from her the longer she stood watching Ginny's fire of life dim. Ginny, the first Weaslette, dimmed for the newest Weaslette, Victoire, even as Victoire became a Lupin…
Oddly enough, Pansy found she could commiserate. She got it now. Ginny was thinking of her heyday, and Pansy recalled what it was like to enjoy herself once upon a time. But she'd been disillusioned a long time ago; it must've been doubly hard on Ginny, having the wool torn from her eyes only now.
Perhaps that made it easy. Perhaps that convinced Pansy that it was all right to drop into a chair in the back of the reception hall, into a chair not beside Ginny but not far away either. Maybe that made it all right for Pansy to watch over her as she put away glass after glass after glass of wine. Maybe that made it all right for Pansy to offer her a glass of water and a walk around the property to clear her head.
And Pansy almost thought the circumstances gave her permission to take advantage of this weak Ginny…but the conscience she'd developed after her school days kicked in, so even when the redhead leaned on Pansy's shoulder and cried about missing her youth and threatened to vomit on both their gorgeous dresses, Pansy resisted the urge to offer her any answers.
Quidditch isn't enough for you.
Home life tamed the beast in you.
Tell Potter to get his act together or you'll kick him to the curb.
You don't remember the last time you did something for yourself.
Your old friends aren't enough.
You and I could have fun like oil and water—two incompatible things fighting the odds.
Pansy satisfied her yearning with a pat on Ginny's back and slow, reassuring strokes up and down her arms. And that was enough. It had to be.
- ^-^3
Age fifty. It hadn't been enough, but Pansy never would've admitted that.
But as the next generation grew up and made their own families, Ginny came around Pansy's shop more, enough to put Blaise on alert and caution Pansy. "Something's unhealthy about all of this," he said any time Pansy joined him at home for dinner.
"Well, I'm keeping my nose clean, so don't worry about me," Pansy replied, and she always shoveled her food in her mouth after to avoid further conversation.
Then Blaise would exchange a look with Longbottom, and Pansy would ignore them, because heaven forbid they just talk about her while she was with them instead of having these ridiculous and more infuriating silent battles about her love life.
Occasionally, Pansy toyed with the idea of prying information from Longbottom regarding Ginny—those two were still close, after all. But Pansy knew Blaise wouldn't appreciate her interrogating his partner, and she really didn't want to piss off Blaise now that they had settled into a semi-partnership at her boutique.
So Pansy dealt with Blaise's warnings and Longbottom's quiet fidgeting and she put on a brave, bright smile any time Ginny came into her shop.
It had to be enough, but it wasn't, and it wasn't even Pansy's fault.
It wasn't her fault that Blaise went home early because Longbottom would be home from teaching for the weekend. It wasn't her fault that Ginny was her last customer of the day. It wasn't her fault that she let her guard down while she pulled an order for Ginny (earrings for someone…Pansy no longer knew which witch because the family was so large). It wasn't her fault that she noticed the exhaustion on the younger woman's face and so offered a relaxing cup of tea in the backroom.
It wasn't her fault that she had missed the spark coming back to life in Ginny.
So a decade of built-up tension bubbled up to the surface, and Ginny took her then and there, and claimed Pansy as hers, and Pansy was her willing participant.
The drunk Ginny and this Ginny that could burn down a house with the flames in the glowing embers of her eyes…
Maybe they could belong to Pansy. Just those fragments of the hothead. Maybe just those parts. Maybe just them. Maybe.
- ^-^3
Age fifty-one.
"Maybe" covered a lot of ground.
"Maybe" meant a lot.
"Maybe" meant that Pansy now understood the pains Blaise had once gone through with Longbottom, and how much on-again/off-again could hurt.
"Maybe" was a flight of fancy for Ginny, who got what she wanted more often than Pansy did.
"Maybe" wasn't supposed to work.
"Maybe" was probably about as close to happiness as Pansy would ever come.
- ^-^3
Age sixty. Pansy wore a smile on her face as they sipped tea.
Ginny stuffed another biscuit into her mouth and continued on around the treat. "Buff rally—" She swallowed. "But really. I like it! I think it's pretty, on you."
"I can't say I like it very much."
"Then why are you smiling?"
"Because it's cute how earnestly you're trying to convince me."
"I—" Ginny narrowed her eyes. "Oh, here we go. Your smile just slid into a sneer."
"It did? Whoops."
"'Whoops,' my arse." The redhead reached forward and tucked a lock of hair behind Pansy's ear, her fingers lingering. "I like it. The silver's just the Slytherin in you coming out."
Pansy laughed. "I thought you hated the Slytherin in me?"
"Yes, well, you're not the nicest person I know, but…" Her words always trailed off whenever she came so close to stating her love. It wasn't easy for her, Pansy knew. It had been years since the amicable split from Potter, and it had taken Ginny a while to gather up the courage to try and love again, to find herself before she threw herself into romance again.
But Pansy didn't mind. Pansy, instead, thought of those mesmerizing eyes she'd first seen at Diagon Alley, and she mused about the Ginny she'd discovered after those other fragments:
Ginny was a warm hearth fire that was too often overlooked. Now Pansy tended to her.
Amusingly, something from her old lessons flitted through her mind, something about the great witch Hestia and the myths the Greeks had conjured around her… Ginny, in a way, was Hestia, the hearth, the center of someone's life, meant never to be forgotten, meant to burn like the light of life itself.
Ginny stared at her, wondering to where Pansy had flown off. But Pansy patted her hand, understanding the other woman's emotions without putting them into words.
She was glad. She was glad she was the tinder for her goddess's flames. She was glad for the decades. Because that fun girl had found her, and she had injected life back into that girl.
And perhaps, Ginny had done the same for Pansy….
- ^-^3
Hmm. I like the different feel of this fic… I like fics that span a lot of time, but I also liked writing about the gaps, too. And Pansy's changing mind was fun to write; I think she's a bit of a ghost of that awful girl she used to be, but it's believable that she could've matured this way. Ah, and her wedding boutique? That was more of an Easter egg for anyone who's read some of my other Pansy fics. -w- Did you catch the subtle BlaiseNeville, Michy? Just for you! (And me, because I like Neville in slash, and I'm now oddly intrigued by the pair. ;P) Though it wasn't obvious in the fic, I did draw on John Legend's "All of Me" for the feel of the fic in places; the lyrics are nice and I think I fit the fic well with it…yeah. :] I guess I wouldn't mind writing more PansyGinny, surprisingly… Thanks to my twin, Morghen, for beta'ing, too—you always come through on short notice, hon!
Thanks for reading, and please review!
-mew-tsubaki :O