They don't ask. They think they have the answer, so why ask the question? Why be told something you already know?
No one ever asked her why. Why she stood up in front of a school of hostile people and offered up one life to save them all. Not that they would have been safe. But no one asked why she'd done it. They all knew already after all.
The colour of her tie was green.
When they had been shuffled off to the dungeons to wait out their fate, she had been alone. Ostracised by everyone, she had sat in a chair in the corner of the common room while the castle trembled around them. The others had huddled together, the eldest offering scant comfort to the youngest.
She hadn't known that the castle made of stone centuries old, seemingly impenetrable, could tremble. Shoved up against the wall as she was, she felt the shocks that ran through the stone to the foundations, and she'd known that like the castle, she too was being rocked to her core.
It had all come to a head much sooner and much slower than expected.
Imprisonment had ended, and they had been led upwards towards the light. The light and the smoking ruin that was the castle and the last vestiges of her childhood. As soon as she had been released from interrogation by the Aurors, she had run to the ward line and apparated out. It didn't matter what had happened at Hogwarts, it mattered what had taken place in a small corner of Hertfordshire she called home.
The gates of the manor opened under her touch, and she was relieved that the protective enchantments were still holding. She ran up the drive careless of how her uniform was in disarray, her hair was tangled, and her face bore smudges of dust and ash.
The door was opened by Fenwick one of her family's elderly elves. She nodded a greeting and thanks as she passed headed directly for the stairs. Manners, breeding and scoldings were forgotten as she took them at a near run.
Down the corridor of the family wing to the bookcase at the end she reached for the copy of Shakespeare, an incongruous muggle book in a pureblood home. The bookcase swung to the side to reveal the rooms hidden beyond.
Tisbury looked up from the menial task he was performing. Bowing, he raised an arm indicating the closed door in the right rear corner of the room.
Pansy took a long slow breath trying to calm her racing heartbeat. It would not do to rush through the door, she would cause upset, concern, and she knew now that she couldn't. Tisbury approached carefully.
"Miss cannot be seen in such a state," he chided as much as a subservient creature could. Since Tisbury was quite old and had been a Parkinson elf for several decades, it was fairly chiding.
His bony fingers snapped together, and Pansy felt the magic wash over her fixing her clothes, her hair, removing the smudges of rubble dust from her skin.
She gave the elf one grateful glance before approaching the door and opening it.
"Pansy!" The sole occupant cried out in surprised delight before leaping out of the bed and racing across the room to throw themselves at her legs in a furious hug. Pansy let her hand settle on the soft hair of her six-year-old brother in grateful benediction. He was safe. Pure relief washed over her make her knees wobble.
No, they never asked why she had been willing to stand up and hand over Harry Potter to the Dark Lord. They had their answer, and it was based on her tie colour.
Pansy sank to the floor enfolding her brother in a hug that likely squeezed air from his lungs. She hid her face in his sweet-smelling hair where he wouldn't see the tears that fell.
There would be time to discover if her mother still lived. She already knew her father lay on the field at Hogwarts, the Auror that had interrogated her had been happy to share that tidbit. A malicious gleam in his eye as he told a barely of age witch her father had been cut down and killed just outside the entrance of Hogwarts, his Death Eater status confirmed by the robes, the mask, the mark.
Pansy had not reacted. Refused to let him see anything in her expression. She knew how this would play out. The Parkinson's would not be one of the families that came out smelling of roses or with only the barest hints of scandal attached to their name. Her actions had marked her family as plainly as her father's.
Eventually, Pansy gave into her brother's squirming and relaxed the hold she had on him. She surreptitiously dried her eyes and fixed a smile on her face. Calyx looked up at her his eyes wide and worried.
"Pansy? Why are you home?"
"Well, I missed you so much. I just had to come and see you."
"But school isn't finished."
"No, but there was a problem at the castle you see. A bit of the castle suffered some damage, and the Professors decided that until it was fixed the students should go home."
"Oh, but what about your exams?"
Pansy shrugged. NEWTS were as far from her thoughts as it was possible to get. "I'm sure I can take my exams at the Ministry." Mostly to pacify her brother who had been told by her father that learning was very important, and Parkinson's would never be slackers. While working was for plebs, to get ahead, intelligence was necessary.
Pansy had been subjected to her father's rants on education since she was old enough to read on her own. She had studied hard and kept her grades in solid E's. It had been sufficient to save her from the harshest of lectures although the disappointment that there had been no O's had been a bitter pill to swallow. Pansy knew, however, that however bitter her pill had been, Draco's had been more so. His parents had paid attention to who he had failed to best, and the bitch Granger had done nothing but rub his failing in his face every opportunity she could.
Pansy swallowed as thoughts of Draco came to her mind. He hadn't been in the common room with them. He had been out there with his parents with the Dark Lord. A soft hand touched her face drawing her mind back from the teetering edge of panic at the thought of her childhood friend's likely current situation.
"Pansy, you're sad?"
"No Calyx," she said tamping down her emotions. "I'm thrilled to be here with you. Shall we visit Mother then go to the kitchens? With all the commotion at the school, we missed lunch. Do you think the elves might let us have some toast?"
"Silly Pansy!" Calyx said with a bright laugh. "It's tea time!"
Pansy blinked then glanced at the slim watch on her wrist. It hadn't occurred to her what time it was in her hurry to get home.
"Oh well," she said covering for her mistake. "I think we might risk asking for more than toast. How about some chicken and roast potatoes? Are they still your favourite or have you changed your mind?"
She got to her feet and accepted the small hand that reached for hers. She led them out of the room and down the hall to her mother's chambers all the while inventing more and more ludicrous foods that might have replaced her brothers favourite. Calyx laughed and snorted loudly decrying the replacement of his favourite and his happiness and his obliviousness lifted something within her chest.
Calyx was safe. Pansy was home and more importantly of age. She would look after him and keep him safe. They couldn't take him. She wouldn't allow it.
Posey Parkinson had at one time been an indomitable witch. Sorted into Ravenclaw, she had been smart and pretty and to all intents had had the world at her well-heeled feet. The story went that Posey's family had been against the match with Silas Parkinson, preferring instead for their daughter to advance her talent in Charms by completing a Mastery. To prove his worth as a suitor, Silas had by brokered the agreement for Posey to undertake her Mastery with the preeminent Charms Master of the day and agreed to pay a hefty forfeit to her family, if upon marriage, Posey was unable to continue her chosen career path for any reason.
By the time Posey had completed her Mastery, Silas had made such an impression that she readily agreed to the marriage.
Pansy had known her mother to brilliant, distracted and utterly enthralled by her work. It was this devotion that was attributed to the difference in ages of her and Calyx.
Pansy pushed open the door to the room where her mother was. The afternoon sun poured through the window illuminating the chair Posey was sat in.
"Mother," Calyx called as he ran to her chair. He clambered up into her lap and began to recite his day.
Pansy approached more slowly sinking into the chair opposite her mother, looking up at her unresponsive face and biting back the tears that wanted to flow.
Barely a year after Calyx birth, Pansy had received an owl from home. It had been terse and to the point. Her mother had been caught in a magical explosion likely caused by something she had been researching. She lived, but the outlook was bleak.
By the time Pansy returned home for the Easter break her mother had been released from St Mungo's. The healers had done all they could, but Posey wasn't mended. Magic hadn't brought her mother back from whence it had taken her. Posey Parkinson was no longer bright and witty. She no longer had the world at her well-heeled feet. She was instead an empty husk. Incapable of speech, or any form of communication, she only existed. Living, breathing, but no longer present.
Pansy didn't know but suspected that her father had invoked some blood magic to tie her mother to him to keep her alive. The restrictions of such magic would have been of no deterrent. Her father had held on to the hope that the effects could be reversed, that Posey would be cured, his wife and the mother of his children would return.
As for Calyx, his care had been handed over to the elves and Pansy when she was home. Her father shut himself away with his work and Pansy was left with the pieces lying at feet.
Pansy listened with half an ear as Calyx recited his day, he did the same thing every day when he visited. Instead, her eyes roamed her mother, her face was still and her eyes glassy. Pansy started, her eyes widened as she took in the still form of her mother. Pansy reached for her mother's hand. It was as unresponsive as ever, the skin cool and soft. Pansy wrapped her fingertips around her mother wrist. The pulse under her fingers was slow. Pansy kept her hand where it was, waiting for the next beat, and waited, and waited. Her eyes filled with tears again which she furiously bushed away with her free hand.
"Calyx," Pansy said hoarsely releasing her mother's wrist. Her brother stopped speaking at the interruption looking at his sister in surprise. Pansy opened her arms, and he glanced between his mother and his sister before clambering down.
"I was telling Mother…."
"I know," Pansy cut him off. "But Mother can't hear you."
"She can," Calyx retorted
"No, Calyx she can't," Pansy said gently. "Mother isn't with us anymore."
Calyx looked confused, and Pansy hugged him to her. "I'm sorry Calyx I'm sorry, but Mother is gone."
"Gone? But she's sitting where she always sits," he said looking up at her.
"Yes," Pansy said. "I know."
"Mistress," Fenwick appeared silently at her side his long fingers wringing together his ears flat to his head. He glanced at Pansy and her mother. "What does mistress wish for us to do?"
Pansy swallowed. The death of her parents would have registered with the Ministry as it happened. With current events having thrown the Ministry into disarray it might be weeks before someone noticed one more death in a sea of others.
"Prepare the body, please. We'll place Mother in the crypt. I doubt Father's body will be released, so there is no point waiting. Calyx and I would like some dinner. We'll eat in the kitchens."
Calyx clung to Pansy as she stood, so she hoisted into her arms letting him wrap his legs around her waist. She headed towards the door, looking back once at the picture of her mother in her chair in the dying light.
The next three hours were a blur. By the time Calyx had eaten his dinner it had sunk in that their mother was dead. The walk to the family crypt wasn't long, and Pansy had Calyx pick through the flowers in the garden to gather into a bouquet for their mother. Magic unsealed the door of the crypt, and the elves placed Posey Parkinson reverently upon the shelf reserved for her and her husband. Pansy carried Calyx inside to put the flowers at the feet of their mother.
The crypt resealed, and Pansy carried a sobbing Calyx back into the manor and up to his rooms. Forgoing the stress of a bath time she helped him change into his pyjamas and sat with him reading his favourite story until he was asleep.
Pansy called Tisbury to watch over him as she made her way to her father's study.
It was only as she sat at his desk, she realised she was still dressed in her school robes. The incongruousness of the realisation broke her last reserve and tears flooded down her face as she sobbed out her fear, anger, misery, and grief.
When she was calm again, Pansy continued her search through the desk. Locating the file hidden in a secret draw tied to a blood rune she was sure was illegal.
The file contained the wills of her parents and the details of their current financial status.
The Parkinson fortune was much diminished by tribute payments to the Dark Lord. The Dark Lord was a harsh master, but Silas Parkinson had had an heir that was ten years junior to his eldest child. There was little chance that the accounts in the Parkinson name were the only accounts, and more likely that the bulk of the fortune had been squirrelled away from the reach of the power hungry and greedy Dark Lord.
Pansy flipped through the rest of the papers in the folder and found what she had suspected. Her mother had an account in her maiden name. The beneficiary of the account was both the Parkinson siblings under Pansy's purview until Calyx was of age. The amount in the statement was indicative that severe amounts of creative accounting had been used to keep the money hidden. Relieved that they would be financially set Pansy shuffled the pages back into the file, leaving only her parent's wills on the desktop.
Before she broke the seal, Pansy called for refreshments. The tall glass of lemonade that appeared made her snort in humour at the elves. She had wanted something stronger. Something to take the edge off, but Calyx was sleeping upstairs, and she had no guarantees he would sleep through the night. Perhaps the elves had the right of it.
Pansy broke the seal on her father's will a tingle of magic shooting up her arm as she did so. The dry legalese was a struggle to read through but reassured Pansy that she was named Calyx legal guardian as she was of age. Without being incarcerated in Azkaban, no one could take him from her.
Her mother's will set out the same wishes regarding Calyx along with a few simple bequests. Pansy made a note of the endowments then placed both wills in the file and back under the blood rune.
Finishing the glass of lemonade Pansy left the study and dowsed the lights heading for her bedroom. She showered then charmed her hair dry before climbing into bed. She'd left her Hogwarts robes in a pile of the floor. The elves would launder them for all the good it would do. She couldn't go back. Not now. At best she might be able to take her NEWTs at the Ministry as she had told Calyx, but there would be no return to Hogwarts for her. Not that she would be welcome. Trying to hand over the Chosen One to the Dark Lord burned a lot of bridges.
Pansy tried in vain not to cry. She was seventeen, the legal guardian of her six-year-old brother, the heiress to the Parkinson name, and for all the good it would do she was pureblood witch and a member of the Sacred Twenty-Eight.
For the next two weeks, Pansy didn't step foot outside the door of the manor. She lived day to day waiting for the knock on the door that signified they were coming for her. Instead, she read the newspapers in the morning as the reports of the Chosen One's bravery was slapped across every front page. Pansy skimmed those articles taking in the salient points but skipping over the most part of them to find out who had been arrested. Who had survived and who hadn't.
The arrests of the Malfoys had reassured her that Draco wasn't dead which was something. Crabbe and Goyle were both reported as dead which surprised her not at all. They had been nothing more than moving walls of bulk with very little in the way of intelligence to redeem them.
Millie had lost her father to overeager Aurors after the battle, Theo's dad was cut down at Hogwarts.
The list of those going to trial was long, but Pansy didn't read it. There was nothing she could do, it surprised her not at all she hadn't received a single piece of post from any of her friends from school. They were survivors and family came first. No one was willing to draw the gaze of the Aurory down upon themselves or their friends. There would be time later, everyone understood that.
The papers told Pansy which way the wind was blowing. Once they had finally finished praising Potter to the moon, they communicated clearly that the apologists were out in force. Muggleborns were the new darlings of the wizarding world. No matter their lack of understanding of certain areas of the wizarding culture, the wizarding world was going to bend over backwards for them.
Pansy was unsurprised to see Granger trumpeted as the face of the muggle-born inclusion committee, though from what Pansy could see in the photographs Granger wanted nothing more than to slink off into the shadows. She seemed to constantly hide behind others in the wizarding pictures or turn from the camera.
From the tales that were being published of the year that Potter and his sidekicks had missed school Pansy could see why. Bellatrix Lestrange was not a nice woman. Draco had shared enough horror stories that Pansy couldn't wish that insane witches' attention on anyone, not even Potter pet mudblood.
It was a month complete before Pansy braved the wizarding world outside her home. Leaving Calyx behind in the care of the elves she apparated into the Alley.
She'd managed two of her errands, a whole twenty minutes before the first person recognised her. It was two minutes later when the first person spat on her and less than five by the time she was surrounded by jeering catcalls of 'Death Eater scum'.
Pansy kept her wand concealed in the sheath at her waist. If she were to be hexed, then she wouldn't fight back, she wouldn't draw her wand. Words wouldn't hurt her or stop her going home to her brother. She could take been hexed. It wasn't as if her last year at Hogwarts had been sunshine and roses. The Carrows had had opinions and hadn't been shy about using force to coerce agreement. The rest of the students had been more than happy to take what the Carrows had taught and use it on those that lived in the dungeon. Pansy knew how to take a hex. She also knew how to shield an eleven-year-old from hexes cast by those noble and brave followers of the light.
She tried to keep moving forward towards Gringotts thinking that at least inside the bank she could ask to visit the family vault. With any luck by the time she'd finished dawdling, the witches and wizards surrounding her would have gotten bored and moved on.
She kept her chin up, and her face closed. She took step after step forcing the crowd to keep moving with her until a red uniform stepped in front of her blocking her way.
"What's this all about then?" the booming voice asked.
Pansy looked up at the face of the Auror and didn't recognise him. She wanted to feel safer, she wanted to believe that this Auror was going to disperse the crowd and let her get on with her errands. There was something in his face that tipped her off to that being unlikely.
"Disturbing the peace, are we?" he sneered down at her.
"No, just trying to get to the bank."
The Auror snorted drawing himself up and crossing his arms over his chest. "Yeah? And what's a little girl like you got to do in a respectable establishment like that? Thinking of bribing a couple of people to get Daddy out of jail?"
Pansy blinked. Clearly, the Auror didn't know who she was because the death of Silas Parkinson had been reported in the Prophet.
"No," she said firmly. "I just need to get few things."
The arrogant quirk of the eyebrow on the face of the Auror raised her temper. The surrounding crowd hadn't dispersed only grown as more came to see who had been caught out.
Pansy clenched her teeth together to stop her from letting her tongue run away with her. Calyx was at home, he was more important than any of these morons. She tried to step around the Auror, but a heavy hand landed on her shoulder. She flinched out from under it reflexively.
The Auror's eyes narrowed. "I think you'd better come with me."
"Have I done something wrong?" Pansy demanded. "I'm just running errands. I've not said anything. I've not drawn my wand. I didn't surround someone in the street and start calling out insults." She glared at the crowd.
"You gave Harry Potter over to the You-Know-Who though didn't you?" a voice shouted.
Pansy closed her eyes, someone had finally brought it up.
"Now I really think you should come along with me," the Auror said in a grim tone. The heavy hand fell back onto her shoulder, the grip tightening when she moved to shrug it off.
Pansy went limp offering no resistance. She had no choice now she would have to go with the Auror and answer whatever question he had. She only hoped it wouldn't take too long.
She was side-alonged to the Ministry and lead to one of the interview rooms. Her wand and shopping bag was taken from her, no doubt to be examined in detail. Well, she hoped they weren't squeamish because she'd only been to top up her supplies for her monthly's so far and the stationers to get Calyx a new set of quills. He had a habit of snapping the tips off pressing too hard, and there was only so many repair spells that could be used.
Pansy sat in the room and quietly noted the time. After ten minutes which she assumed was for intimidation purposes and so they could dig anything they had upon her, the door opened.
The Auror that sat across from her was older than the one that had brought her in from the street. He had a fresh-looking scar on the back of one hand leading up under his cuff.
"Miss Parkinson."
Pansy looked up.
"You've been brought in on charges of causing a public disturbance."
Pansy couldn't help the snort of disbelief that escaped her. The Auror raised an eyebrow at her. "Is there something you like to say, Miss Parkinson?"
"So, walking down the street is an offence now is it?" she shot back. "Been surrounded by people who spit on you and call you Death Eater scum is an offence? I didn't cause the disturbance they did. I was just walking to Gringotts."
"Your family chose their side, Miss Parkinson, there are some feel strongly about the events of the last few years. You would do well to consider where and when you appear in public to avoid situations like this arising. It wouldn't do for anyone to get hurt."
"I didn't draw my wand," Pansy snapped.
"No, you didn't, which is why you are free to go."
Pansy got to her feet immediately wanting to be away from this room, this wizard. The rest of her errands would have to wait, she wanted to go home and feel safe behind the enchantments that had protected her family for hundreds of years.
The Auror followed her to his feet more slowly and moved to open the door allowing her to exit. He led her to the desk where her shopping bag and wand was handed over. Then he led her to the apparition point allowing her to leave. Pansy clutched her bag tightly and apparated out without looking at the Auror.
Reappearing in Diagon Alley, she made her way quickly to Gringotts. The front of the bank was under heavy guard, and the stonework showed signs of being repaired. Pansy recalled that Potter and his sidekicks had broken into the bank and escaped on the back of one of the dragons the goblins used to guard the vaults. Bitterly she wondered if the blame for the destruction of property of the goblin nation was falling on the shoulders of Potter or if the Ministry was dealing with the fall out for him. It wouldn't do, she supposed, for the Chosen One to be embroiled in lengthy negotiations with the goblins about damage charges, not when he could be out there being a poster boy for them.
The Parkinson vault was more like a storage faculty for everything the family had had no use for or had gone out of style over the years. There were boxes of shrunken furniture, clothes, and household items that had gone out of fashion or had been decreed as ugly by someone. At the back, however, was a rack, and upon this rack sat the object of Pansy's visit. Shaking fingers reached for the gilt frame feeling the whorls and lines of the carved frame. Pansy swallowed heavily before pulling the two frames from the rack and shrinking them down into her bag.
Turning she opened the chest that contained galleons. Scooping some up into a purse she shoved it down into her bag. Turning to leave her eye was caught on the broom rack. The Parkinson's were hoarders really. Hoarders with excellent organisation skills and limitless space in which to keep all their things. Calyx had asked about getting a broom before she'd returned to Hogwarts after Christmas. She'd told him that they could ask their father when she returned home from school. Pansy stepped up to the broom rack. It was unlikely there wasn't at least one training broom in there. She put her bags down and started going through the brooms. Some of them were now antiques. No longer suitable for flying but would make a collector green with envy. Pushing past the older brooms and the more newer brooms Pansy's hand fell upon the slender familiar handle of the broom she had learnt to fly on.
Memories of her mother and father out in the garden as Pansy took her first unsteady flight rushed back. Pansy swallowed, hating that a broom had made her cry, hating that she was an orphan with a brother to look after in a world that now hated her.
She wouldn't be able to bring Calyx to Diagon Alley, not while she was being spat upon. She couldn't expose him to that. He was six. What did he know of Dark Lords and impossible choices?
She shoved the broom in her bag and pushed all the brooms back into the rack.
Home. She had to get home. She'd bake Calyx a cake when she got back or something. Something to make up for the fact that she hadn't been able to finish her errands.
Calyx took to flying well. The day after her return from the alley the sun had been shining so she'd taken him out on to the lawn and gotten him comfortable on the broom, trying to remember everything her parents had told her and ruthlessly suppressing the memories of Draco gloating over the broom his father had bought him every year.
It was Calyx who asked after they had finished their flying lesson when he was going to get a tutor. Pansy looked at her brother in surprise.
"Well," he said. "Madam left before Christmas, so my lessons stopped, and I wondered if they would start again. I don't want to be behind." He pulled a face.
Pansy shrugged. "I'll contact the agency and see if we can't get you a new one if you want."
"Yes," Calyx agreed with a vigorous head nod. "I can stay here and draw if you want to owl the agency now?"
Pansy smiled at him, getting to her feet and brushing off the grass. "Since you put it so nicely, ask Tisbury to bring your things out, but make sure he brings an umbrella, and you stay in the shade. You don't want to burn."
She bent over to kiss her brother's hair and then went to her father's study to find the details of the agency. Pansy sent an owl off requesting a new tutor for her brother and returned to the garden to inform him it was done.
There was a letter delivered at breakfast time. Fenwick brought it to her Pansy slit the letter open with a clean butter knife and frowned at its contents.
"Fuck," she muttered softly, reflexively glancing up to check Calyx hadn't heard her. Her brother, however, had slept in, and Pansy was at the breakfast table alone. Relieved she frowned once more at the letter.
The platitudes were thin, due to a staffing shortage and current commitments a tutor for Calyx Parkinson cannot be supplied. Hope you have luck elsewhere blah blah blah.
Pansy stood abruptly and crossed to her father's study with rapid, angry footsteps. She gave them fifty-fifty odds that their excuses were real but still, it stung. It wasn't fair to Calyx either. He had done nothing more than being born into his family. He wasn't even aware of blood status, never mind the war that just stripped his parents from him. The Parkinson family had kept Calyx a secret. Her father had feared the return of the Dark Lord when he became a single parent. He had answered the summons because to not to would have meant death and his children would have been left with no one to care for them. Likely split up by the Ministry and sent to live Merlin knows where.
Silas Parkinson hadn't joined the Dark Lord because of blood purity he had joined the Dark Lord because he had promised knowledge. The ability to practice magic out from under the restrictions placed upon it by the current Ministry regime, and the arbitrary denouncing of some magic as dark.
Silas Parkinson hadn't cared about blood, he cared about intelligence, power and drive. Pansy had had all this explained to her before she started Hogwarts.
The Malfoy's had cared about blood, as had the Notts, and Pansy had decided that it was easier to go along with her friends than spend seven years watching her back. She hated Granger, but it wasn't because she was muggle-born. It was because Granger made it look easy. She studied hard, Pansy knew that. Granger had next to no social life and fewer friends, but Granger didn't just get top of the class, she beat the school records. She got the accolade of 'brightest witch of her age', and Pansy hated it. She hated it even more after her mother's accident, and it had been easy to take everything she was feeling out on the swotty best friend of Harry Potter than cry herself sick because her mother was gone.
Pansy dropped the parchment and ran through her options. She could apply to another agency, there was a chance that at least one of them would still be quietly holding out against the current status quo. Pansy didn't believe that every agency would turn her down, but she would probably have to pay significantly more to get the same level of tutor Calyx had had previously. Or she could look for a foreign tutor, someone from abroad might be less interested in the outcome of the War and her families place in it. Or she could teach him herself. Calyx had a love of mathematics that might cause her problems when he started on the more advanced stuff, but she could muddle through, and everything else wasn't exactly difficult.
Pansy got back to her feet. This wasn't the biggest problem she would likely face, and it was surmountable. She would just have to ask her brother what he would prefer. She hoped he wouldn't be too picky, that his desire to learn would overcome any misgivings he might have. That this might be easy. Something needed to be easy.