Pansy paced the streets of New York City, the most un-muggle muggle city in the universe. "It's not so bad," she thought to herself as she turned a corner. "At least they're not all obsessed with their silly robes and making everything impossibly quirky." In fact, as she delved further and further into muggle life, she found it more and more comforting, more reflective of the person she truly was. She didn't have to be preoccupied with all the nonsense of magic and could live the way she wanted to, without all of her mother's whisperings of marrying that stuck-up ferret Draco Malfoy, or even some other god-awful Pureblood like Gregory Goyle. When one is of Pureblood status, finding a match who isn't one's cousin is difficult. She almost wanted to thank Potter and his gang for forcing her to live this way.
After the war, her parents had up and fled. Her mother insisted that Pansy could have continued living the way she had, could have found some deal to strike with the right people to continue living as she did, but she never wanted to. The life of a witch just wasn't meant for her. She was independent, tough, ambitious. Pureblood status wasn't the only thing that put her in Slytherin; the hat knew that she wasn't to be messed with. When she left the wizarding world, she left for good. She still had her wand, but it had been ages since she used it. In the fast-paced muggle world, she didn't have use for a wooden stick.
Pansy was not the same girl that she once was, she knew that. Still, she sometimes ached for the magic of Hogwarts, which made it hard for her to abandon her witchhood altogether. Today was the day that she decided to stay here, in NYC. She figured that she could make enough money as a waitress until she found a real job, and rent an apartment in a slummier side of the city. She considered using a charm on a landlord to give her an apartment on the Upper East Side for cheap rent, but decided against it. She wanted to make her way without any help; she knew that she could do it. She was up for the challenge.
Pansy marched up the stairs and into a rental office. "I need a studio apartment, like, yesterday," she said, popping her hip. A clerk looked at her blankly. "Well, go on then! Get to work!" Pansy brushed her hair back, forever cool and collected. The clerk furiously began to offer her places and prices, and Pansy smirked. The muggle life wasn't so bad, after all.
A/N: this was originally a one-shot, but i've decided to extend it into a full multi-chapter fic! pansy is a character who rarely gets attention in the fandom, so i figured that i ought to challenge myself with this :) please leave a review!