Unworthy
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Goldensnitch18
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Rated M
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Summary: Pansy Parkinson believes herself unworthy of a great many things, not the least of which is love. This story is a twelve days of Christmas story which will be updated daily until complete on the twelfth day.
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Disclaimer: I am not profiting from this story.
Anything you recognize belongs to the great and mighty JKR.
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Dedication: For Beauty Eclipsed. You were my fourth review when I started writing FF again in January, and you followed me to several other worlds throughout the year. I am so grateful for your support. Thank you.
October
Pansy lifted her hand to the door of his office and hesitated. She did not want to do this. She really did not want to do it. Her mother had forced her hand by filing an official petition to have the will reviewed. She had claimed that Pansy must have either forged the document or taken advantage of her sick father to get him to sign it. It was bullshit, utter bullshit. Her mother knew it was bullshit, yet they were going to the Auror office to meet with the head of the department and a member of the Wizengamot the next day to "quickly resolve the issue" anyway. It was just one more way for her mother to control her life, to try to take everything away from her, to punish her for not being who she wanted her to be.
It had started when she could barely walk surely, but the first time Pansy could remember feeling like she was an absolute failure was because of her friendship with Daphne Greengrass. Daphne was exquisite, and everyone - including Daphne - knew it. She smiled and an entire room sighed in adoration. She pouted and the world crumbled to its knees. Pansy paled beside her, shrunken into the shadows with her too dark hair that frizzed if she didn't use Sleakeasy's hair potion on it daily, her knobby knees, boyish figure, and her 'grimace,' which was what her mother called her smile. Dahlia Parkinson made sure to remind her daughter of her many faults, the many ways she failed to measure up to the standard set by Daphne Greengrass, at every opportunity. Daphne learned to bask in, and use to her advantage, the attention of others, while Pansy had begun to find ways to avoid detection when her mother was anywhere nearby very early on in her life.
Her failure to fulfill her mother's standards of beauty was only the beginning. At eleven years old, Dahlia had assured Pansy that if she was going to insist on being 'so plain,' she could at least excel in other areas, such as her academics. Pansy had been privately tutored at home for the first ten years of her life. When she had left for Hogwarts, she had been sure that she would be able to meet this expectation. She was extremely prepared and confident, and then she had met Hermione Granger. For six excruciating years, she was forced to listen to her mother tell her that there was absolutely no way that a Mudblood could possibly perform at a higher level than a rat, let alone a Parkinson. It didn't matter what Pansy told her. It didn't matter that Draco was also falling short because he was charming and charismatic and male. It didn't matter that Daphne wouldn't know a Bowtruckle from a Blast-Ended Skrewt because she was beautiful and delicate.
When Pansy and Draco had started to date, her mother had - finally - seemed to approve of something she had done. Dahlia and Narcissa began to discuss the possibility of joining their families. Dahlia had begun to coach her at every opportunity about how to act around him, what to say, what to do, what to wear, and even how to feel. It was exhausting. In the end, when she and Draco had ended up fumbling and naked at one of the Malfoy's Christmas parties trying to figure out how in the world sex worked, he had shame facedly admitted that he thought their was something wrong with him. She had begged him to lie, just pretend that they were still together, and they had. At the end of sixth year, the world had changed. They had stopped pretending sometime in the fallout, and her mother began again.
The world outside their manor was shattered to the cored and Dahlia seemed unaffected by anything except that Pansy wasn't pretty or smart enough for anyone to ever love or marry. She would be the ruination of her father's name, the destruction of the Parkinson line. Plain Pansy, what a shame she hadn't been a boy. A boy would have done them some good at least, even if he was plain. Being plain didn't matter if you were a boy from the right family. She had the right family. It was her that was wrong.
Through all of this, Pansy strove to be the daughter her mother wanted her to be. She strove to make her father proud. She strove to find something that would make her worthy, but nothing ever was enough. She continued to listen to her mother's voice in her ear right through the war, right until Draco had threatened her with their friendship. She had told herself that she no longer cared, that there was nothing left for her mother to say, that she had done her damage, but now she was a grown woman, and she was finding that she was very wrong.
Her mother's voice was there in her ear, whispering that she had been right all along. Pansy had never made anything of herself. She had never been worthy of love. She had never been beautiful. She had never done anything worthy of celebrating, worthy of her father's name. And, now she was going to pay for it. Dahlia was going to fight her at every turn, do everything she could to keep Pansy from the inheritance left by her father because she was just as unworthy of this honor as she was of any other.
Pansy reached her hand forward, knocking on the door with a hesitance that made her feel ill. She couldn't even knock on a door correctly. She heard the scrape of a chair from within and then footsteps as he made his way towards the door. It opened a moment later, and he looked out at her with that stupid grin that was his alone.
"Pansy," he said.
"I, uh, I have to go to something tomorrow afternoon in London. I was wondering if you could, if maybe …" she trailed off, hoping he would get the point and save her from actually having to put words to the favor.
"Is everything okay?" he asked.
"Yeah, of course, it's just something with my father, you know," she told him, which wasn't entirely a lie.
"I can do your class, no problem. I can find someone for the morning if you need."
"No, just the afternoon is fine," she said.
"Do you want to come in? We can talk." He motioned back into his sitting area, and she tried to think of a reason that she couldn't go sit and pretend like she wasn't being driven absolutely mad by his proximity.
"No, I should get back. I have some work to do." She was trying to just look at his face, keep her eyes focused on his, but then it started to feel like he was looking into her soul in only the way he could.
"I can make you some tea," he offered.
"No. Really. It's fine. I'll leave instructions for the lesson on my desk."
"Okay." He frowned at her, and she bit her lip, turning to look at the door frame instead of his concern.
"Well, thanks then," she said, and turned. She was a fucking idiot. Thanks then. Merlin's bloody sagging tit.
A/N: Glad that everyone is enjoying! Thank you for reading this story. I'm sort of fallen in love with these two.
xoxo
Meg