Name, House, and position of Player 1: Theoretical_Optimist, Ravenclaw, HoH
Name, House, and position of Player 2: Lor-Tan, Gryffindor, Herbology
Category: Inter-House Bonus Round
Prompt: [Location] Train station/on a train, [Last Line] And that was the last anybody had ever seen of him/her/it/them/they/there/who/name/this/you.
Word Count (excluding header): 1373
The aftermath of the war had been extremely hard for Pansy. Sure, she might have deserved some sideways looks after she suggested they offer up the Chosen One on a platter, but the level of vitriol she received was unwarranted. Unlike some of her peers, she never held Voldemort in high regard. She simply wanted the fighting to stop. Couldn't they see that she was as terrified as everyone else?
Following the Battle of Hogwarts, Pansy's friends and family had radically changed. Several of her friends' families were arrested and now faced charges for being Death Eaters. Her Slytherin peers were facing the repercussions of their associations. Her own parents fled England for the relative anonymity of Wizarding provincial France. They invited Pansy to join, but she declined.
She wasn't exactly sure why she wanted to stay. So many of her friends were moving on, or didn't want to talk. She'd never been particularly friendly to people outside of her immediate friend group, being honest was what she called it, but her honestly had ended up with the price of not having many friends outside of Slytherin, and being unsure of how to make them. She had graduated, so she couldn't talk about school. What did people talk about, outside of school? Politics weren't a safe issue yet. She had no pets, and she didn't read except for fashion magazines and letters. She supposed that fashion was an acceptable topic, but too few people were really worth engaging over it. And simple pleasantries did not a close friend make.
And she hadn't found a job yet, instead planning to coast on her family's wealth for a little bit longer before starting to look for positions, therefore ruling out work friends or any business reason to stay for. Her parents would want her to do something important, but some part of Pansy just wanted simple. A tailor, or a waiter. The idea of manual labour didn't thrill her, but the thought of not having to make important decisions did.
She couldn't even list Draco as a reason to stay. They'd stayed friends, but now he was getting married, and Pansy felt honestly nothing about that. She was happy for him of course, but it was shallow, I'll send a card kind of happiness, not joy for a friend she should have felt. And the jealousy she might have expected never came.
So what was keeping her here?
She guessed it was maybe just nostalgia. Maybe she still felt too young to move on from England. Maybe she didn't want a French accent. There was just something in the idea of leaving where she had grown up that filled her with dread.
Despite her misgivings, she knew that she needed to move on. Staying in England just wasn't an option anymore. The person who'd vandalized her ancestral home made sure of that. The Aurors who responded to her call were worse than useless. Some of them expressed absolutely no interest in finding the criminal who had broken dozens of windows, threw a flaming bottle into her main dining room, and painted 'VOLDEMORT LOVER' on the grass. In fact, the lead investigator suggested that the destruction was warranted and that Pansy should be grateful that her house was still standing at all. The junior investigators were more enthusiastic, clearly eager to help someone from her noble house and try to climb up the ladder of society, but she doubted they would find anything. Whoever it had been, they'd broken through wards that were centuries old just to throw fire at her; they'd have known not to leave evidence.
Pansy could not remain in your home in the Wizarding World and joining her parents in France wasn't a reasonable alternative. This left one option…
She told no one of her plans. She knew her friends and family would try to persuade her to stay. Her nerves and fear of change made her aware that the slightest convincing would have her staying in place.
She hired a cleaning crew to undo the damage of the vandal. It took nearly a week to restore the lawn because the paint was affixed with a permanent sticking charm.
Next, Pansy paid a Gringott's curse expert to create anti-trespass wards around the house and packed away valuables in the family vault. She exchanged nearly her entire trust fund for untraceable Muggle money. She used some of that money to pay a dodgy Knockturn Alley dweller for new documentation.
Once everything was ready, she packed her old school trunk, shrunk it, and stuffed it inside a leather purse. Casting a final glance around her ancestral home, she stepped into the Floo and yelled, "Kings Cross Station!"
Contrary to what some may believe, Pansy wasn't entirely unfamiliar with Muggles and Muggle spaces. They were everywhere after all, and their culture had been seeping into the wizarding world for centuries, like some sort of slow poison. Their fashion, while she didn't approve of most of it, was especially easy to imitate with a few pieces bought secretly. She'd changed into it beforehand; all she had to do was take off her outer robe, and her light spattered jeans, messy loose hair, and bulky jacket let her fade into the crowd. She felt disgustingly common, but she could fix that later. For now, she just needed to find a train.
The crowds felt like getting on the train to Hogwarts, but worse. Instead of just one train and just two directions of travel, this station was overcrowded and confusing. People darted back and forth more than in any one direction it seemed, stationary groups formed and interrupted traffic, and trains rumbled in and out frequently and brought with them even more people. She'd been on the streets of Muggle cities before, but never anything this busy, and she felt too disorientated to even properly avoid the Muggles around her. She got bumped and brushed against, even shoved once, as some frantic mother ran screaming past her after what Pansy assumed was a son.
When she finally found a place to purchase a ticket, she felt so thoroughly lost she simply said, "Away." The Muggle woman looked her up and down, gave her a sympathetic smile, and handed her a ticket. "It's nice," she yelled over the clamour around them and the screech of trains. "By the water! You have an hour! Eat something!"
The woman waved her in a general direction, and Pansy went without question, lip curled with concentration as she tried to look as normal as possible as she could while also avoiding any more contact.
She found food, and it wasn't very good food, especially compared to what she was used to, but she felt less frazzled after sitting to eat. She left her wrappers behind and checked the time. Ten minutes.
She hurried to the platform and arrived just in time to see a dull, brown train pull into the station. The Muggle transport was a poor comparison to the Hogwarts Express, but it suited her purposes today.
Pansy marched up to the door and attempted to board the train when she was halted by a grubby hand on her shoulder.
"Not so fast," the station attendant said. "Ticket and identification before you can board the train."
Pansy fought the urge to curse the Muggle for daring to place his hands on her but restrained herself. She withdrew her ticket and forged passport and handed them to the attendant.
"Ms. Peterson?" the attendant said as he scrutinized her. "Ms. Hyacinth Peterson?"
"Yes," she snapped, "that's me. May I board now?"
The attendant nodded and held her documents out. She ripped them out of his hands and stepped onto the train. Quickly, she located her compartment, flipped the sign to do not disturb, and slid the door shut. She cast a Notice-Me-Not charm on the door and settled into her seat with a sigh.
A few minutes later, the whistle blew and the train began to inch away from the platform. She was done with London, Wizarding and Muggle alike.
'And living by the water,' she thought, 'that did sound nice.'
And that was the last anybody had ever seen of Pansy Parkinson.