the golden snitch: trick or treat
prompt/s: 9h (thorfinn rowle and parvati patil)
points: 30
word count: 1217
bonuses: (word) exotic, (word) pristine, (colour) cyan, (creature) werewolf
school: slytherin, hogwarts
Parvati is a pureblood.
Her family prides the fact. They are blood supremacists in the worst kind of way—whenever she and Padma come home to them, expecting warm hugs and kisses, they are instead faced with newspapers with moving pictures of Death Eaters pointing their wands at innocents.
Her father always celebrated after a particularly strong victory by the Dark Lord—he would call over his friends and drink the night away after Azkaban was breached, her mother sitting in the corner and looking over the going-ons with an impartial look on her face. She and Padma would always get sent upstairs to their rooms, listening to the festivities with their ears pressed against the floor.
Her father joined the ranks the summer before her fifth year. He told her and Padma and then breathed that they too were now supporters of the Dark Lord.
"But—we're not in Slytherin," Padma whispered, and he glared.
"Blood matters, not school houses. Grow up, you silly child."
"But—"
"I do not care who your affiliations are. You will side with him."
Parvati gets called to have an audience with the man himself before her sixth year. Padma does not go with her, and when she asks her father why, he simply shakes his head. She is given a mask and thrust into an elaborate ballroom, where she can see the creature himself. He has a boy with shockingly bright hair—Draco Malfoy, she sees, when he turns around—seated next to him.
"Leave," the Dark Lord tells Malfoy, and he leaves without a glance at her, hands shaking. When the door slams shut behind the boy she takes off her mask and falls into a curtsy. Lifting herself up, she feels the man enter her mind swiftly and is shocked by the intrusion.
He lets go of her conscious and nods. "You are loyal to what you believe in. Now you will be loyal to me."
Hours later, she leaves with pain running down her body and regret in her soul. She is to be a spy for the wrong side.
Karma will catch up to her, she knows.
She meets the man after Dumbledore dies. She cries through his eulogy, meaningful tears, though she later tells her father she fakes them. "Good," he smiles, "we wouldn't like to doubt your loyalty."
Padma is clueless.
She attends the Solstice Ball on her father's arm, and is introduced to everyone with a smile on her face. Even Draco Malfoy nods to her, bruises up and down his legs, looking downward.
She is all fine and bored and regretful until she catches sight of a new legion of men entering the room. They are all fine and muscular and strangely beautiful, scruffy and destroyed but also intriguing.
Her father clutches her arm and whispers tightly into her ears when he notices the attention she gives them. "Do not look at them, ever. Those are werewolves, Parvati. They will destroy you."
She watches, anyway. When the clock hits twelve and her father is fully drunk and has left her alone she walks outside and that is when he finds her.
"Hello," his deep voice breathes, and she almost jumps when she sees there is someone behind her.
The man is tall and bulky, many centimeters taller than her, and his eyes are a shockingly deep cyan while his hair shines like spun gold. His arms and legs are covered with dark fabric, but the pale freckled skin at his neck bears many scars. She knows—she simply can tell—that he is not like her. And she still does not know why he is talking to her.
"H—Hello," she stammers out, and he laughs loudly, an infectious kind of sound. She does not go along with him.
"You must be Parvati, correct?" he asks, and he sounds genuinely interested in her name. She nods quickly, imperceptibly, but he catches it. "Come on, darling, you can't expect me to be happy with that."
"Yes," she responds, muttering, until her Gryffindor pride catches up to her. "Yes," she says, louder, raising her head up to meet those oddly colored eyes.
"You're a pretty thing, aren't you—"
"What do you want with me?"
He is about to talk but stops suddenly, his features first molded into disbelief and then a smirk. "Don't you know you aren't supposed to yell at creatures?"
She scoffs. "You're as human as me right now."
He looks down at her face before nodding. "You are something, Ms. Patil."
Then he kisses her cheek and leaves her standing there, confused, until her drunk, merry father drags her back home.
It is that year that the Dark Lord inputs Severus Snape as Headmaster of Hogwarts. Still he demands Parvati spy. She is silent.
On the day before Halloween she is called home. Her father locks Padma in her room and tells Parvati that she is getting betrothed. He looks remorseful. When she asks why he gives her a name.
"Thorfinn Rowle," he speaks, and she knows that he is a Death Eater. She has heard the name. But she does not know who he is. And she does not know why her father looks sorry for the first time in years.
"I apologize, Parvati. But he asked the Lord for permission and I could not say no."
Then he hands her a placard and a description that pictures a twenty-year-old cyan-eyed, sandy haired man, with the labels 'Pureblood' and 'Werewolf' underneath.
That day, Parvati cries into her sister's arms until the clock chimes midnight and her father makes her mother put her in a pretty dress and walks her to the Malfoy's ballroom to celebrate the engagement. She feels sick walking in, and even more so when all eyes in the room turn on her. But she hides it, her smile pristine, immaculate, as she starts to greet everybody. The Dark Lord is notably absent.
He, however, is not. He is standing next to the throne, dressed in his black robes, eyes tracing her.
"Go to him," her father scolds, and she does. She reaches up to him and grabs his arm and smiles her exotic smile, nails digging into his skin. He does not flinch.
"Why me?" she lets out from clenched teeth, and he gives her an easy smile.
"You're pretty and human and fighting for the right side."
There is something else in his eyes but she doesn't say anything. Her smile brightens and her grip loosens but she does not say anything.
When she is about to leave he whispers "Happy Halloween," into her ear.
"I didn't even realize," she gasps, and he sends her some sort of smile.
"I am a creature. Get used to Halloween everyday," he chuckles lightly. She frowns.
"You're not one right now."
"I always am one," he looks up, "whether you see it or not."
It is then her lion pride comes into its own once again. "You choose who you are. If you want to believe you are a monster, believe you are one. If you want to believe you are human, believe that. It matters not to me. I will be under your control no matter what you are."
"That is true, isn't it?" he states, mostly to himself. Then a crooked smirk makes its way across his face and she braces herself for some kind of Slytherin onslaught of mockery.
Instead, he says "Thank you."
She nods as he disappears, "Happy Halloween," at the tip of her tongue.
here's the thing - i enjoyed writing this starting out, and then lost inspiration at the end. i probably will edit this sometime later this month.
parvati and thorfinn were very interesting characters. thorfinn never had an age specified, so i took liberties with it. the werewolf thing is just made up. [can you be a pureblood and werewolf? i really don't know]
er, hope you enjoyed?
-dee