PART II
It had taken many months for Fred to trust her. The first thing he'd told her, quite brutally, had been what a fool he thought Kingsley and Andromeda were to put faith in her.
Of course, the first thing she'd told him was to go fuck himself.
She remembered their school years—the havoc Fred and George had caused, the endless pranks, tricks and windups. Her life was on the line, and here she was depending on a man who, as far as she knew, had never taken anything seriously in his entire existence.
Their meetings in the beginning had been tense and suspicious from both sides. Fred, in particular, had always seemed on edge, eyes darting into the shadows as if he half-expected a league of Death Eaters to leap out at any moment.
Pansy supposed she couldn't blame him for not believing her. She was a good actress and an even better Occlumens. Yaxley, for example, thought she worshipped him.
She had, of course, been rather peeved when, a few weeks in, Fred had tried to use Legilimency on her. She hadn't known he could do the spell—wandlessly and wordlessly to boot—although it wasn't the most polished attempt she'd ever encountered. Gryffindors were, after all, not renowned for their subtlety.
Endeavouring to avoid an argument, however, she'd nudged him out time and time again, hoping he'd believe he'd botched the spell and give up.
But he hadn't, and eventually she realised he wouldn't—not until he was satisfied she wasn't a double agent for the Death Eaters and she wasn't about to turn them all over to Yaxley.
If she was going to survive this, if they were going to survive this, then she needed him to trust her. She needed him to know that she was telling the truth.
So, six weeks in, she sat herself opposite him in the pub's least shabby booth and placed her wand on the table between them.
"You're a Legilimens," she said. When he glanced at her, surprised, she shrugged. "You're not as subtle as you think."
"You felt it," he said sheepishly, and she smiled.
"I'll let you in," she said. "Just this once."
...
He murmured the spell out loud this time, those deep brown eyes locked on hers. Pansy felt a familiar crawling sensation at the front of her skull and fought the overwhelming urge to boot him straight back out.
She didn't though. She wanted him to trust her, after all.
So she drew a shuddering breath, and she showed him the day the Death Eaters took over the Ministry. How they'd barely even bothered to battle their way in. How they'd cut down anyone brave enough to stand in their way.
She showed him the moment when, flanked by dark wizards in black robes and silver masks, Yaxley marched into her office, imperiused her boss right before her eyes and declared himself the new head of Magical Law Enforcement.
Do something about the bodies, he'd ordered with a careless wave of his hand. You, he added as Pansy stood, hesitant. She'd shivered as his eyes snaked with interest over her body and an unpleasant smile stretched across his face. Show me to my new office.
"Pansy…" Fred whispered, back in the present, but she shushed him with a hand.
She showed him her father, trembling with fear as he and the other officials pledged their allegiance to Lord Voldemort. She showed him the snatchers dragging slumped and bleeding bodies across the marbled floors of the Ministry.
She showed him her new boss as he trapped her behind her desk. As he leant over her shoulder, breath hot on her skin. As he whispered what a good girl she was, right in her ear.
She showed him her hatred, her anger, her fear. And then, because she felt like he'd seen too much, because it made her feel too vulnerable, too exposed, too weak, she showed him an obscene and pornographic fantasy of the two of them going at it on this very table.
He huffed and jerked backwards, breaking the connection with a jolt.
"Fucking hell," he said, cheeks turning red.
She laughed, delighted, and leant back against the booth.
"Sorry. I couldn't resist."
"Merlin, Parkinson." He blinked, as if trying to clear the image, and shifted uncomfortably in his seat. Pansy figured she'd given him a raging hard on.
She let her eyes drift over him—the broad, solid shoulders, the way his jumper pulled taut across his wide chest, the smooth freckled skin of his forearms beneath sleeves rolled to the elbow. When her gaze finally returned to his face, she saw his eyes had grown hot. His cheeks were still flushed, although whether that was from embarrassment or arousal she wasn't sure.
She'd only imagined the two of them together to tease him, but in that instant, she realised she found the thought rather… intriguing.
Even now, more than half a year later—now she knew his kindness, his loyalty, how fiercely he protected the ones he loved—she still did.
...
"Yaxley is growing suspicious," she said.
It had been a month since Andromeda's narrow escape, and she and Fred were sat side-by-side on the pub steps, looking out over the grey waters of the loch and the sweeping hills beyond.
"Of you?" he asked.
"No, of course not. He doesn't think I'm bright enough." She squinted up at the pale cloudless sky, pulled her collar up around her neck as the brisk autumn breeze grew just a little stronger. "He knows someone's leaking information though."
"I can't pull you out," Fred said quietly. "Not yet."
High above, a bird of prey hovered, a buzzard, its great wings outstretched. She watched it for a moment, part of her wishing she could simply fly away, part of her finding the thought of leaving her home—leaving Fred—entirely inconceivable.
"I know," is all she said.
He didn't reply, and when she glanced at him, he was watching the bird too, something slightly wistful in his expression.
He had a hard profile, she realised as she studied him. Age and adversity had chiselled his features into sharper angles than she remembered from their school days—although to be honest, he'd been two years older and she hadn't known him as much more than an infamous prankster, an older boy to giggle about with her friends.
But he'd always been attractive. Not quite beautiful, with a nose that was ever so slightly too big, with a mouth that was just a little too wide. But attractive, certainly, and never more so now, as they sat together, wrapped up in several layers of jumpers and coats and scarves, his cheeks pink with cold.
She wanted to run a finger along that tense line of his jaw, until it loosened under her touch. She wanted, she realised with a jolt, to brush her lips across his until they softened. To stretch her body out against his until the long, taut lines of his limbs melted into her.
She shifted closer on the step, almost without realising it, then stopped. Because Merlin help her, her life was complicated enough without snogging her handler.
"What will you do after the war?" she asked quietly to snap herself out of it. "Go back to your shop?"
His eyes flickered towards her.
"I don't—" He hesitated. "I don't know." There was a trace of sadness in his voice, and Pansy knew why.
The joke shop he and George owned on Diagon Alley had been attacked by Death Eaters in the first few months of the war. Luckily, he and his twin had escaped, but the shop now lay a burnt out shell—everything in it, all their hard work, completely destroyed.
"George wants to," he said. "He and Hermione have all these plans."
Hermione? Pansy gave him a questioning look.
"Did I never tell you?" He let out a short laugh. "They got married last summer. Expecting a baby now too."
She raised her eyebrows. Granger and George, huh? She'd always figured the know-it-all had been having it off with Fred's younger brother, Ron.
"Are they still in the country?" she asked. She could imagine just how terrifying it would be to bring a child into the world as it was now. If it was her, she'd have left in a heartbeat.
"Yeah." Fred pursed his lips. "I know George wants to take her away, but she's having none of it."
"That sounds like Granger," she said, and he smiled—a little bleakly, she thought.
"Yeah. Would be a shame to lose them if they did leave though. We need all the help we can get."
His words were flippant enough, but Pansy felt her stomach twist all the same.
The Death Eaters spoke publicly of the resistance as a mere bug, an inconvenience, to be squashed, but Pansy knew—from Fred, from Yaxley, from overheard conversations behind closed doors—that they were a real threat to the Dark Lord's tenuous hold on power.
At least they had been. And they had to stay that way. They just had to. She wasn't sure what she'd do if they weren't.
"Is it really that bad?" she asked.
Fred shrugged, buried his nose briefly in his scarf.
"It's better with you," he said simply.
Her eyes slid to his, and he seemed to realise how…significant that sounded. He flushed slightly and gave her a sheepish smirk.
"What about you?" he asked. "What will you do?"
He was clearly trying to change the subject. Pansy considered pursuing it, but decided (very charitably, she thought) to let him off.
"Oh, I'll go away," she said, gaze returning to the open sky, where the bird was still hovering. "Somewhere out in the middle of nowhere. Where I can forget all of this, you know?"
She saw Fred nod out of the corner of her eye as, high above them, the bird suddenly dived, rocketing to the ground. Moments later, it soared back upwards, something small and frantically wriggling in its claws, and Pansy felt a deep chill, right to her very bones.
"If, of course," she said absently, "Yaxley doesn't kill me first."
...
It appeared Pansy's fears were justified because, several days later, Bellatrix Lestrange swept into the department, a maniacal gleam in her eye.
"It seems," she announced as the room fell utterly silent, "that we have a mole in the Ministry."
Pansy squashed a flicker of alarm as Voldemort's most sadistic follower zeroed in on her.
"You," she said, pointing her wand straight at Pansy's chest. "I want to question every witch and wizard in this room. Make it happen."
Pansy hastened to obey. One by one her colleagues vanished into Yaxley's office—some openly quaking with fear. Without fail, each resurfaced pale-faced and sweating but very much alive. Pansy didn't dare eavesdrop, but evidently, Bellatrix hadn't found anything incriminating.
Eventually, though, there was no one left to interrogate but Pansy. Her heart thumped hard as she stepped, slowly, towards what could very possibly be her final moments.
"Close the door," Bellatrix said. The woman was perched nonchalantly on Yaxley's desk, legs crossed, nails tapping on the wood. Yaxley himself was sat behind her, in his large leather chair, his back ram-rod straight, his expression tight.
He knew the consequences should a spy be discovered in his department.
"Please," Bellatrix purred, gesturing towards the solitary chair in the centre of the room. "Sit."
Pansy swallowed and did as she was told.
"Really," Yaxley said stiffly. "There's no way Ms Parkinson…"
"Silence!" Bellatrix shrieked, and Pansy flinched. The older witch didn't miss it; her onyx eyes snapped instantly to her newest victim, and a smirk traced her lips. "Pansy, is it?" she asked softly.
When Pansy nodded, she slipped off the desk, long lacy skirt swaying.
"Pansy," she sing-songed. "Strange things have been going on here in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement."
"Have they?" Pansy asked, heartened to hear her voice stay steady.
"Oh yes." Bellatrix ran her wand through her long, gloved fingers and stepped deliberately towards her. "Empty safe houses, dead Death Eaters. It's almost as if they knew we were coming…"
She stopped right in front of Pansy and touched her wand lightly to the younger woman's temple.
"Was it you, lovely?" she murmured, bending down so her lips brushed Pansy's ear. "Legilimens."
Pansy's eyes flickered shut as the witch burrowed into her mind, snatching up thoughts, scanning them, then tossing them aside like screwed up paper. She clenched her hand around the arm of the chair, almost shaking with the effort of holding back her most incriminating memories while simultaneously convincing Bellatrix she wasn't.
She must have been successful though, because there was no crippling pain, no flash of green light.
"Hm," Bellatrix said, straightening to her full height. "Looks like your department's in the clear, Yaxley."
Pansy's boss leant back in his chair, relief etched in his brow.
"I told you it must be the snatchers."
"Yes," Bellatrix said thoughtfully, her eyes raking over Pansy. There was something in the witch's gaze—something distrustful—and Pansy held her breath. But then she was swanning away, and Pansy felt almost giddy with the relief of it.
But her relief was short-lived; Bellatrix paused in the doorway and shot Yaxley a lazy smile.
"I'd keep an eye on this one, Yaxley," she warned playfully. "She's a lot smarter than you think."
And then, bait laid, she was gone. A flutter of dark lace and wild hair and the loud slam of the door.
Silence.
Pansy sat, frozen, in her chair. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Yaxley lean forward, fingers steepled in front of his face. When she dared glance his way, she realised his pale blue eyes were narrowed.
He looked… suspicious. Suspicious of Pansy in a way he'd never been before. A shiver ran up her spine as she imagined what he'd do to her—how brutally he'd hurt her—if he ever discovered she was the mole…
No. She pushed the thought firmly aside. If Bellatrix had seen the truth, she told herself, then she'd already be dead. Whatever the witch had found hadn't incriminated Pansy in the recent leaks of information.
She cleared her throat and stood.
"Well, if you don't need anything else…" When Yaxley shook his head, she smiled nervously. "Alright then."
She'd almost made it safely away when she sensed movement behind her.
She turned, but it was too late. Before she could react, Yaxley had backed her into the door, his much larger body pressing her back into the wood.
She went instinctively for her wand, but he caught her wrist and pinned it down by her side.
"Wha—" she gasped, but stopped short as she saw the look of intent in his eye.
He leant down, pressed his mouth to her ear.
"What are you doing, hm?" he hissed. "What did Bellatrix see?"
"I didn't—" She inhaled sharply. "Nothing."
She felt his fingers press into her hip and tried not to flinch.
"No one can touch a pure-blood," he murmured, "but a pure-blood traitor, well…" He thrust into her and she realised, with horror, that he was hard. "That's a different story entirely."
A wave of nausea so strong that for a moment, she couldn't move, couldn't speak. But then she found her steel and lifted her chin.
"Get off me," she said sharply.
He did so, and it was to Pansy's everlasting relief that it was with nothing more than a sneer.
"There it is," he said. "And here I was thinking what an obliging little witch you were."
"My father—" she began, but he cut her short, slamming a palm into the door beside her head and making her recoil.
"Your father is a puppet," he hissed, face inches from her. "You think he can protect you? You think he could stop me if the Dark Lord let me have you?"
Pansy shrank away. She'd seen Yaxley's temper—although she'd never before been on the receiving end, and she didn't know what to do.
Survive, a little voice in her head told her. Just survive.
She swallowed.
"I've done nothing wrong," she said, voice splintering. "Bellatrix searched my mind. She found nothing."
His lip curled but he didn't reply. She forced herself to appear small and frightened—not particularly difficult when he had her up against the door again, when she didn't have much chance of stopping him should he decide to hurt her—and looked up at him with wide, beseeching eyes.
"I do as I'm told," she whispered. "Always."
He held her gaze for a long, terrifying moment, then those harsh, blunt features twisted into a scowl and he pulled suddenly away.
"Fine," he said shortly. "Go finish your work."
She inclined her head, trying not to show how hard her stomach was roiling.
"Yes, sir," she murmured as meekly as she could manage, hoping he'd just step back, just let her open the door and slip away.
He did so, fortunately, but not without one final warning.
"I'll be watching you, Parkinson," he snapped, turning away. "Now get out of my office."
...
Pansy was still shaking when she summoned Fred and Apparated to the pub that evening. Of course he was there before her. He was always there before her.
"Really, Parkinson," he joked as he crossed the room, "if you're so desperate to see me, all you have to do is ask…"
He saw her white face and stopped dead.
"What happened?" he asked. Tears pooled in her eyes at the concern in his voice. "Pansy?" he asked urgently, closing the space between them to grab her arms. "What happened?"
He was nothing, nothing, like Yaxley, but his hands on her brought it all back like the burst of a dam. She lurched backwards, tearing herself from his grasp like he'd burnt her.
"Please," she choked. "Please don't touch me."
Hurt passed fleetingly across his face, before he realised—Salazar, she saw the moment he realised—and then she'd never seen him look so furious.
"Yaxley," he snarled.
"It's not what you think," she said, crying openly now. "He didn't… he didn't hurt me."
Fred's hands stretched towards her, then stopped and clenched into fists. She didn't know whether it was because he wanted to hold her, or because he wanted to murder the man that had made it so he couldn't.
"What happened?" he asked, voice deadly calm.
She told him. All of it. Fred's eyes—usually so warm, so kind—grew harder and harder as she talked, but he didn't interrupt. He didn't try to touch her again either. She didn't know whether to be grateful or disappointed.
But as she choked out her tale, she realised she knew one thing. Every time she thought of Yaxley—the look on his face, the feel of his hands on her skin, the heat of his breath on her throat—it grew clearer in her mind.
"I can't—I can't do this anymore," she whispered.
Fred's face twisted.
"I can't pull you out," he said, raking a hand through his unruly hair. "I spoke to Kingsley. He… they—they won't let me."
She closed her eyes, felt the tears trickle out from beneath her lashes.
She had thought as much. And that left her with only one choice.
"Then I'm out," she said. "I'm sorry, Fred, but I can't risk my life like this. Not even for you."
...
He'd tried to change her mind, of course, but she was adamant. Suddenly cold to her core, she wrapped her coat even more tightly around herself, tried in the briefest of moments to commit his face to memory, then vanished without another word.
Weeks passed, and winter set in with a vengeance. Pansy carried on her life as before, trudging through rain and slush to get to the Ministry, then back again every evening. She kept her head down, got on with her work, and did all she could to avoid news of the Order and Yaxley's plans to destroy it.
Fred tried to contact her. Many times. But he didn't know where she lived, and there was no way he'd ever risk showing his face at the Ministry, so all he could do was transfigure his coin and hope she'd come to meet him.
She didn't though. Simply sat in her bleak, empty kitchen and spun the coin on the table until it was nothing but a silver blur.
She should throw it away. Send it to the bottom of a lake. Set it on fire. Do something, so she could escape this limbo and move on with her life. She decided a hundred times that she should.
But she never did.