Part Two. Chapter Eleven.
Pansy. Shell Cottage. The night of the escape.
It was late when they finally arrived back at the cottage, Shell Cottage as she had learned it to be called. Being around all these people, Other people, the people she had been taught to hate, was uncomfortable.
Draco was uncomfortable like her, but he was being incredibly cooperative, friendly even. Pansy didn't really know Draco to be friendly. Charismatic, sure, but friendly had never been used to describe him. He kept shooting her looks during conversations, urging her to say something and to wipe the reserved look off of her face, but she couldn't bring herself to do it.
These people didn't know her. They knew her as the character she played: pureblooded daughter betrothed to the pureblooded son of the most powerful wizarding family in the country. They didn't know her as the girl who got good grades, fourth in their year; in fact, she was the second smartest girl in their year only behind Granger. Theo and Draco were second and third respectively. They didn't know that she had a knack for creating spells and finding loopholes, or that she really had a soft spot for animals. They didn't know she was a killer, or that she was allergic to strawberries, or that she drank to forget.
They didn't have the right to know her.
Draco was quick to say thank you as Fleur served them dinner, over-exuberantly, though Pansy did mutter a soft thanks. She had been raised properly, after all.
She noticed Granger and Potter didn't say anything about their search for Horcruxes in front of Bill and Fleur, and she didn't find the need to call attention to it after doing a quick inventory on what she would gain out of it. Not much.
She hadn't had to calculate social interactions like this in a very long time. She had had to resort to meek and bendable whilst being kept at the manor, a shell of her former self. Pansy Parkinson was many things, and weak was not one of them. Most of the time.
"We do not mind if you stay here, Harry," Bill was saying. "We do however, want to be kept in the loop. As secret keeper of the cottage, I need to know that there won't be any trouble," he cast a sharp look toward Draco and Pansy.
"There won't be," Draco said quickly. Pansy gave a slow nod.
"We'll let you two stay here, if and only if you hand over your wands," Bill said stiffly. "Should you need them, you can come to me and I'll hand them out, but I do not feel comfortable having the two of you walking around here with them."
Pansy jutted her jaw out and grit her teeth, but Draco placed a hand on her thigh, silencing her.
"We'll agree to that," He said firmly. Pansy fought the urge to roll her eyes as she pulled out her wand, her precious wand, and grudgingly handed it over to the oldest Weasley. Draco did as well.
"This is your wand?" Bill asked her, holding it on his palm and examining it. "I thought it would be…"
"Prettier?" She offered, a frown on her face. Her wand wasn't special, not ostentatious like some purebloods she knew. It was a very pointy, though crooked, larch wood, unicorn hair core, a modest eleven inches. Decorated at the hilt with a very simple rope design carving. Larch was a powerful wood, and it was a nice wood, but her wand wasn't the norm. Her own mother's wand had been encrusted with mother of pearl and emeralds.
"I didn't mean to offend your wand, it's just, I've seen wands that belong to people of your kind, and…" Bill shrugged, red creeping in his face.
"It fits me just fine," Pansy replied slowly and crossed her arms. Bill didn't say another word about it, and after more awkward silence, everyone regained civil conversation.
Fleur offered to take them to get settled in rooms for the night. Granger, Draco, and Potter quickly stood up, and she followed them.
"Harry," Bill stopped him, "a quick word?" Potter hung back and Pansy followed the others out, though she did stop outside the kitchen door long enough to hear:
"Do you really think you can trust those two?"
"I can trust Draco as long as I can keep an eye on him, but as for her, I think she's only here because she doesn't have anywhere else to go."
She was sharing a room with Granger and Luna Lovegood, who had been rescued from the manor during their escape. Lovegood was weakened and skinnier, but not physically damaged. The room was modest, white washed walls with bits of shell stuck in the plaster, with grayed wood floors and a single window. Two twin beds and a roll away cot took up the room. Lovegood had already been sitting up in a bed waiting for them, and Granger quickly took the other bed after shooting Pansy a dirty glare. Pansy simply rolled her eyes and sat on the cot, staring at her fingernails.
"This will be just like at school!" Lovegood was tittering, a wide smile on her face. Her buttery blonde hair was wet, having been bathed of the filth that had covered her in the dungeons. "One big sleepover!"
"Luna," Granger was saying gently, patiently, "can you talk about what it was like there? At school this semester?"
"Oh," her eyes cleared slightly from the glazed dreaminess that inhabited them. "It's very unpleasant. The Carrows torment the school, punishing and hurting students; they aren't very nice at all. Neville, Ginny, and I, we've restarted the DA, we try to help the others."
"They-they hurt students? Why?" Granger pressed.
"They say because the students are breaking the rules, but it's mostly half-bloods, or blood traitors," the girl said quietly.
"How do you help them?" Pansy asked suddenly, and the two girls looked at her. Granger sniffed and glared at Luna to be silent, but the ditzy girl ignored her.
"We stand up for them and we hide them," Lovegood answered. Pansy thought about that for a moment.
"Like how you all did during our fifth year? In that disappearing room?" Pansy asked.
"Why do you want to know? How do we know you won't snitch on them?" Granger growled.
"I was going to say I always thought that it was clever," Pansy drawled, "we could never get through to you lot. I imagine it's a very safe place, I wish I would have had something like that at the manor."
That shut Granger up, though the girl did start studying her very carefully.
"I heard you were tortured for many months," Lovegood said. "I'm sorry they hurt you, it must be hard, being hurt by the people who are supposed to be on your side."
"Yeah well, you'll find that He doesn't necessarily encourage loyalty between his followers, he only cares if you are loyal to him." Pansy said gruffly, "Besides, he ordered it, so they wouldn't have stood up for me even if they wanted to."
"Why did he order you to be tortured?" Granger asked. Her face was scrunched, a cross between pity and suspicion.
A red-hot iron pierced her lungs at that and she immediately closed herself off, guilt and self-loathing surfacing.
"Because Draco didn't murder Dumbledore," she finally said, firmly, leaving no room for further questioning. She laid back against the cot and turned her back to them, staring at the white wall in front of her.
The two other girls sat there in silence for a while, before someone got up and turned off the light. Pansy lay away for hours, although she was exhausted, fighting an internal struggle to not wander downstairs and rummage in the kitchen for some liquor.
A cry pierced her dark thoughts and she rolled over, startled. Granger was twitching, still asleep, though tears were pouring down her face. She was obviously having a nightmare, and Pansy knew what it was about. Hell, the girl had been tortured only a few hours before.
Grimacing, Pansy got up and padded over to the bed, sitting beside the muggleborn girl. Placing a hand on the girls shoulder, she shook her as gently as possible.
"Granger wake up-"
"GET AWAY FROM ME-" Granger sprang up before freezing at the sight of Pansy sitting there in the moonlight, "oh."
"You were crying in your sleep," Pansy said, looking away from her.
"I'm…I'm s-sorry to have woken you," Granger sniffled. Pansy winced at that.
"Think nothing of it, I had nightmares every night for a long time after my first time, even still now sometimes."
"H-how do you…" Granger shook her head, trying to phrase her question. She tried again. "How do you…move on from it?"
"Unfortunately, you have to do it all by yourself," Pansy answered honestly. "Other people, people who care, they aren't going to ask you about it, because they don't understand what it does to you. They don't understand the lasting damage, and they'll think that if they don't say anything, it'll be forgotten, and it'll go away."
"I don't think I'll ever be able to forget it," Granger whispered. "Pansy…you had it happen to you over and over and over again, I can't imagine how you did it."
"Me either," Pansy said and stood up. "I think maybe I numbed to it. It still always hurt, no matter what, but over time, maybe I stopped caring, maybe I hoped it would just kill me, but it became a little more bearable."
"That's a horrible thought," Granger said, full of pity once more.
"Yeah, I guess I was never sober enough to consider it too much until now," Pansy answered and stood up. She was still dressed in her robes.
"Where are you going?" Granger asked her, eyes tired.
"I'm er, thirsty," Pansy answered and without a backwards glance, she slipped through the door and made her way down to the kitchen.
She was standing on the kitchen counter, trying to look inside a cabinet that was too high for her to reach from the floor. She wished she had her wand so she could cast a lumos, but as she didn't, she was forced to work by the dim moonlight.
Pushing a hand past jars of preserves, her fingers brushed against a glass bottle. Relief flooded through her, only to vanish when she pulled out a bottle of French vinegar.
The kitchen lights flashed on.
"Well, you don't really look like a burglar," a voice chuckled. She whipped around to spot yet another redheaded man leaning against the doorframe.
"Who are you?" She asked, still holding the vinegar.
"Charlie Weasley," the man answered, "I'm assuming you're the Slytherin girl my brother warned me about."
She stared at him for a long moment. He wasn't as tall as his brothers, nor very lean, a sturdier muscle build, stocky. He had broad shoulders and a thick chest, and when he flexed his arm to push himself out of the doorway, she saw thick-corded muscle covered in burn scars.
"Pansy," she answered finally. She looked down at her feet, realizing she was still standing on the counter, and quickly slid down back to the floor.
"What are you rummaging around my sister-in-laws kitchen for?" Charlie asked her casually, as if discussing the weather. He leaned against the kitchen table, studying her.
"I uh…" she hesitated and began studying the wood grain of the table, cheeks flushing.
"You were looking for alcohol?" He finished for her. Her head snapped up and she stared wide-eyed at him in shock.
"H-how…w-what?"
"You looked really excited before you realized that was just vinegar," he supplied for her before flashing her a cheeky smile. "I can tell you where the harder stuff is kept, unless you want to drink all of the salad dressing in the kitchen instead?"
"Sure, er, thanks," Pansy said and reluctantly followed him out of the kitchen and into the sitting room.
Charlie pulled back a painting of beach landscape to reveal shelves of alcohol hidden behind it. He handed her a bottle of whiskey.
"Rough day?" He asked her as he took a bottle for himself.
"Something like that," she answered, not meeting his eyes. "Probably worse for you."
"Yeah, not every day you get to bury your baby brother," He muttered. They were silent for a few minutes as she took quick swigs from the bottle.
"Why are you being nice to me?" She asked him finally, because it had been eating away at her slowly over the course of their interaction.
"My brother told me when I got here that you were trouble, bad news, and that you were once a little junior death eater," he chuckled at that. "I haven't been around in a few years, so I've never heard of you before, but I know that if Harry brought you here and is letting you help him, well, that's good enough for me."
"So you'll trust me, just like that?"
"Do I have reason not to?"
She shrugged at that. "I don't have any plans to betray Potter, and I…I like it here, by the water," she messed with a strand of inky black hair, "I haven't been outside much lately."
Charlie just looked at her. Not in a mean, suspicious, or pitying way, he just studied her, purely out of curiosity. She wondered what he saw.
"To battling our inner demons," he held his bottle out towards hers and she clinked it against his, giving a wry half-smile in return.
"Cheers."
AN: Charlie Weasley. Enough said.
Also, Pansy's wand is in fact the same as my own on Pottermore, I thought it was fitting. Also, in case you were wondering, I was sorted Slytherin/Horned Serpent.
What is your wand/houses?
