CHAPTER 12
PANSY was sure there had never been so intimidating a door as the one that Antonin Dolohov was behind. True, this cell door of the detention cell the Death Eater was behind was much like the same as the rest of them in the Ministry.
But somehow, knowing the Dark wizard who had a hand in torturing her parents near to the point of insanity before the Dark Lord had killed them in a show of being 'a merciful lord', made this door so much worse.
It almost looked darker somehow, thrown into shadow, the wood panel itself looking as though it fully intended to keep out any light which dared to try to enter the cell.
Only feeling George's hand on her shoulder as the wizard hovered almost protectively behind her kept her from turning on her heels and fleeing the scene altogether.
She swallowed a lump in her throat and looked towards George, grateful that the wizard was here. Sensing her discomfort, George frowned and leaned forward, having to bend his head slightly as he was that much taller than her.
Their height differences were almost laughable, and out of the corner of her gaze, she thought she saw Ollie and Norah, who'd escorted them here, exchange amused little smirks with one another.
Her cheeks flushed and she tried to pretend not to notice, though she felt their stares burning into her.
"Are you sure?" George murmured in a low voice, his hot breath ghosting along with her ear, eliciting a shiver down her spine. "You don't have to do this, Pan," he offered. "We can leave."
"Yes, I do," she answered firmly, looking up at him, her dark eyes solemn.
There was some other emotion brimming behind them, but whatever it was, he could not place it and wasn't sure that he wanted to, either.
"I…" George let his voice trail off as he glanced through the window at the pair of pinpricks watching them listlessly from the interior of the darkened room. He fought back a shudder at how blank Antonin Dolohov's face looked now.
It took him several moments to find his voice again.
"Very well," he sighed, reluctance thick in his quiet voice, which was so soft, no one else but Pansy could have heard.
Pansy offered a curt nod of her head by way of response and turned towards her cousin, who she noticed, was already eyeing the two Aurors assigned to guard Dolohov's cell with narrowed eyes and rather critical interest. Her gaze flicked towards Ollie, who furrowed his brows into a frown as a muscle in his jaw twitched but the man nodded.
The black-haired Legilimens and Auror leaned towards Norah and planted a gentle kiss on her cheek and whispered to his wife softly.
"Do your thing, Mrs. Brennan," he teased.
Norah nodded, looking towards the Aurors that were about her husband's age, and flashed each wizard her trademark bright white smile that Pansy was almost amused to see rendered each wizard looking like they'd been hit by a Jelly Legs Curse the moment the witch looked in their general direction.
The blonde Veela barely spared Pansy and George so much as a second glance at them over her shoulder as she straightened the front of her long dark plum-colored dress and tucked a wisp of her short blonde hair back behind her ear, where the strand rightfully belonged.
She was looking especially radiant today and Pansy suspected it had nothing whatsoever to do with her pregnancy.
Pansy frowned, flicking her gaze from her cousin and then back to Ollie, who looked annoyed.
She had a sinking feeling Norah was about to turn on her genetically inherited Veela charm and wile and beguile the guards away from their assigned posts, while Ollie took their place to stand just outside Dolohov's door.
"Wait just over there and I'll keep them away," Norah told her husband in a low and sexy voice adapted by confidence over the years.
Her husband thanked her as she began to walk away but not before calling out to her cousin.
"Don't have too much fun flirting with them, Nor," Ollie barked in a hoarse voice, the furrow between his brows deepening.
Pansy noted her cousin's husband didn't look at all pleased with this arrangement and had to ask after it.
"I'll try not to, though you know Runcorn's always fancied me," Norah fired back and this time, she did glance over her shoulder and shot her husband a furtive little wink.
"Tch, Runcorn couldn't tell his arse from a hole in the ground, honey, and he's not even good-looking Luv," he growled, folding his arms across his chest. "As long as I'm the one going home with you, Mrs. Brennan, flirt away, do what you have to get them out of here so Pan can do…whatever she needs to," Ollie grunted.
The Auror motioned with a curt wave of his arm for George and Pansy to follow him where Norah had directed them to wait near a little side alcove that was well hidden enough and out of the way, so they'd not be spotted.
Ollie had informed them this morning when George and Pansy had Floo'd to their home that the guards assigned to Dolohov's detention cell were under strict instructions to let no one in to see the Death Eater. Ollie looked towards Pansy and nodded.
"You'll go in alone," he told her and George quietly as he led them towards the alcove, all the while never taking his eyes off his wife as she began to animatedly chat up one of the guards. "Norah and I will keep those two arseholes off your back. And if everything goes alright, nobody here will know we had anything to do with it, right, Pan?" he barked, fixing Pansy with a clipped stare, though before the witch could answer him, George interrupted.
"They won't know you and your wife had anything to do with it, Mr. Brennan," George reassured Tonks's former partner in a firm voice. "If anyone gets into trouble here today it's going to be me and Pan and those two," he remarked, motioning with a jerk of his thumb towards the guards Norah was talking to. "Not you guys, we'll make sure of that. We know the risks, and thank you for helping Pansy," he offered the Auror in a sincere voice.
Ollie nodded, poking his head around the corner.
"Head towards the detention cell, and Norah and I'll keep them away," Ollie told the two of them, and Pansy thanked them as she pressed herself further against the wall to hide in the shadows.
She waited, George by her side, anxiously by the corner. This corridor of the Ministry of Magic was small and nearly empty, considering how early in the morning it was.
It wouldn't be that difficult for her to sneak into Dolohov's cell without anyone noticing, assuming no protective enchantments had been erected.
Pansy had no idea what it was that Norah and Ollie said to the pair of guards assigned to monitor Dolohov's room, but the Aurors hurried away with the Brennan's at once the moment Ollie strode up to interrupt his wife in mid-flirtation, but the looks of sheer panic on their faces almost made her laugh.
She'd have to get details out of one of them later on.
George wasted in no time in grabbing hold of Pansy's good arm not still bound in its sling and moved towards the room the two Aurors had been stationed in front of, his heart pounding in his throat the closer and closer the two of them got to the door.
Pansy herself was terrified as she moved down the hall, a lump in her throat forming and when she tried to swallow, it felt as though she were swallowing knives.
There was a part of her that did not want to face her and her parents' torturer. Not really. She knew the wizard was sure to be royally pissed at her, but she also wondered if she would see any kind of remorse or any other emotion in the man's brown eyes if he was awake enough to open them. She didn't think the Aurors would keep Dolohov too severely drugged with copious amounts of Sleeping Draughts slipped into the drinks that came with his meals the entire time.
Ollie had relayed to her that since he had apprehended the former Death Eater and taken him into custody, despite it taking the use of six Imperius Curses for the experienced Auror and Legilimens to get Dolohov to cooperate and come quietly, he had remained calm and still.
Pansy hoped that was the case now.
She hoped that he would explain everything to her, and in turn, she wanted the chance to explain what she had to say to him and to have him be cognizant enough to understand her.
With a very, very deep breath, Pansy gingerly pushed open the door slowly to find the room nearly pitch black, George trailing close behind at her heels. The curtains were pulled, the lights were off and not even any candles were lit for light, leaving Antonin Dolohov completely shrouded in darkness like the Dark wizard that they both knew the tall man to be. She reached out nervously and flicked on the light switch on the wall, her eyes searching for the wizard now chained to the wall.
She saw him huddled into a crouch, using the cold stone walls of the detention cell as a back brace.
Both of his wrists were chained, shackled to the iron manacles stuck to the wall with a Permanent Sticking Charm. She walked over cautiously, itching to take George's hand, though somehow, she managed to restrain herself from doing it. Pansy knew she could not allow Dolohov any indication that she cared for George, lest he somehow found a way to escape a second time and then come after George just to get to her again. She walked over slowly, yet Dolohov did not stir.
Pansy stiffened as she lowered her chin and looked down at the wizard resting on the floor, chained to the wall, the man's pale and gaunt face dubbed in apathy. She swallowed down hard past a lump in her throat, feeling tears come to her eyes an unexplainable anger and guilt course through her veins.
She had not truly believed until this moment that she could feel anything for Antonin Dolohov, but it was more than just her blatant denial now that she was here by him.
The emotional pain was no doubt very much real.
"Tell me why you did it. Why you helped kill them," she said and sniffled, as visions of her parents' faces flooded through her mind, the last image she had of them burning themselves into her retinas as they had rowed so damned bloody loud one of their neighbors had come to call on them and ask after Pansy. "Tell me." She became angry when the wizard did not answer and continued to stare blankly up towards the ceiling. "Answer me, Dolohov," Pansy told him sharply, trying to stand over him and make him look at her. But the wizard's eyes remained blank as he stared up at the ceiling of his detention cell. He would blink occasionally, but other than that, she got no response. "Antonin, Merlin, and goddamn it, answer me. Tell me why you hurt them!"
She thought she watched as the wizard's jaw clenched which finally inspired some sort of response.
As the man steadily lifted his gaze to Pansy, she inhaled a sharp breath and fought to take a step back.
There was more emotion on the man's face than she had ever seen before. His hands started shaking, causing the iron mancalas his wrists were bound to clank, the loud sound of the metal filling the room.
His lips curled back and upward into a twisted, feral snarl, causing the man to look positively livid up at her. Pansy and George could only look on in wonder.
It was rage and confusion, but it was emotion on his face. Visible on Antonin Dolohov's face, unmistakable emotion. Pansy's lips parted in amazement, as she was just about to speak to him, but then he spoke up first.
"Your dear old mum was the one who sentenced my Helena to death," he growled in a hoarse voice that sounded raspy and reedy-sounding, as though the man had his voice taken away from him by Ollie when the Auror had captured him, and for all Pansy knew of her cousin's husband and the man's temper, he had. "They took her while she was out buying food, tortured her into revealing my whereabouts, but she never gave in. And when she didn't talk, they had her executed."
Pansy stared, hardly daring to believe it. Something tugged at the back of her mind and a strange twinging sensation which had nothing to do with the injuries that she was still recovering from, thanks to the aftermath of the wizard's assault against her, tugged at her heartstrings. She could not explain it.
Deep within, she thought she pitied the Death Eater. All the wizard had known while under the Dark Lord's command was the mastery of fear and manipulation, which had only worsened since his lover, a witch named Helena, an Unspeakable for the Department of Mysteries, had been murdered.
Suddenly, Pansy felt compelled to do something for the man, despite all that Dolohov had done to her and her family. Anything at all. Hate, she knew, had to stop something, lest it consumed everyone touched by it. They had fought to make this world a better place. Behind her, she felt George keeping a firm hand on her shoulders, steadying her gait, and preventing her from falling.
No doubt he felt her briefly sway on the spot, probably afraid that she was likely going to faint.
George watched, numb, as Pansy Parkinson and Antonin Dolohov simply stared at one another, neither one making a move towards each other as Dolohov steadily but methodically rose to his feet, the iron manacles his wrists were bound to making a horrible clanking noise that flooded the detention cell with sound. Yet neither one of them backed away, either. He was not admittedly sure what he had been expecting the Dark wizard to look like up close, but this was admittedly not it. George frowned, puzzled.
Antonin Dolohov was different than George imagined, having only gotten a brief glimpse of Voldemort's loyal follower when he'd found him in Pansy's bedroom back at her loft above the shop, but seeing him now up close and personal like this, he was not what he'd expected.
The horror stories he had heard of the man caused him to envision a large, brutal, savage-looking man with a look of nothing but pure evil about him.
But Antonin Dolohov though, the man he was seeing with his own two eyes, was tall and well built, but nothing necessarily monstrous, and he did not look evil. Merely vacant.
There wasn't anything all that remarkable about him. His hair was a dark dull color, curly, and cropped close, and his face was normal and plain. Almost handsome, in a way, George supposed.
But his eyes though, caused his blood to chill. They were a deep dark brown that one could almost mistake for black. He wouldn't, however, say they were void.
There was little there from what George could see as his eyes made a quick scan of the wizard, no surface emotion able to be seen within them, but there was thought going on behind those eyes.
But what was Dolohov thinking, was the frightening part.
The ex-Death Eater methodically lowered his head slightly and looked at Pansy with an unreadable blank expression. As if he were purposefully blocking her out if Pansy was a skilled Legilimens, which, as far as George knew of his employee, she wasn't. Pansy, to her credit, as well kept her expression neutral, though George suspected hers was less of putting her emotions away entirely and more trying to keep them under control, refusing to let them surface and allow Dolohov to see just how much this was affecting her. But George could see it, as plain as the worry shrouding her face.
"Who are you, Dolohov?" Pansy finally asked, her voice trembling with emotion and barely audible. For a moment, George wasn't even sure she'd spoken at all. "Is this what your parents wanted you to be when you were growing up? And your lover, Helena, that was her name, wasn't it?" she asked, flinching as the man gave a violent jerk of his chains as he lunged at the mention of the witch's name, causing George to grip onto her shoulder and make to pull her back away from him.
Pansy, however, didn't seem fazed as the witch stubbornly dug the heels of her boots into the ground and flat out refused to move, standing her ground and lifting her chin bravely to glare at the wizard who'd had a hand and wand in absolutely ruining her life.
"What about her? Do you think she would have wanted to watch you become this, sir?" she asked.
Whatever Antonin had been expecting Pansy would say, this was not it. Though the wizard retained his emotionless expression, the man's dark brows knitted together in quandary.
George, however, could have sworn that a flicker of something flitted through the ex-Death Eater's narrowed dark eyes, though what that thing was, only Antonin knew for sure. It was brief, for in one moment, not a trace of whatever the foreign emotion happened to have existed. Antonin said nothing.
Pansy continued, pulling him from his thoughts. "I don't believe this was the path your family wanted for you," she said in a soft and subdued voice, her lashes lowered as she looked to the floor a moment.
Her eyes reflected a look akin to sadness, an expression George knew all too well when he'd looked into the mirror those first few weeks after Fred died. It was the look of someone that was looking at something or someone that had no hope at all left.
"Yet it's the path you made for yourself. I don't think even I could help you, though I have to admit it, I don't want to." Pansy exhaled a rather shaky breath and ducked her head low, allowing a lock of her hair that had come loose from its messy bun to tumble in front of her face, shielding whatever expression she wore from George and Dolohov. She was trying to hide the emotions seeping through the surface.
George clamped a hand on her left shoulder and rubbed the knot that was forming there, trying to relay some form of comfort to her. She wasn't alone in this.
There was a part of him that wanted nothing more than to take Pansy Parkinson away from her, anywhere else, be it back home or to the shop, someplace that was far away from here.
She did not have to put herself through this and she shouldn't have to.
She did not have to confront her attacker. And yet, even now, it seemed to George that Pansy, in her way, was searching for some sort of closure. An end to an agonizingly long nightmare that had haunted her waking moments and her footsteps for far too long.
He frowned as he remembered what Dad had told them last night at dinner and wondered just how long Pansy had been carrying around the secret of her parents' death, what she felt about it.
The witch slowly raised her head and was brave enough to look the ex-Death Eater in his listless eyes, a new inner strength within them that George admired.
"I know you do. But…whatever help you seem to think I can give you isn't enough to save you, nor do I think, could ever be enough." Another pause as she drew in a shuddering breath and took a moment to collect her thoughts. "I…I don't forgive you, Dolohov. Maybe one day, I might, but for now, I…" Her voice cracked as she felt a piece of her resolve falter her, and she flinched as she and George felt her shoulders shake. "Now I just want all of this to end. And you, Dolohov, before the Dementors take you, what is it that you want?" she asked, her expression solemn.
Antonin did not answer the younger witch. The wizard just proceeded to look up at Pansy Parkinson with the same blank expression, yet there it was again.
George frowned as he noticed for a second time that flicker of…of something, pass through the man's eyes.
A foreign emotion that had nothing to do with the cold, unfeeling steel that he'd seen in his eyes so far.
"There's nothing that I can do for you." Now, Pansy's quiet voice was beginning to tremble with emotion, and George knew without even having to look, that she was fighting back tears. "If I could help you, I'm not sure if I would, Dolohov. I don't know."
She ducked her head once more, but this time, she rummaged through the main compartment of her purse until she found what it was she was looking for.
It was a simple silver medallion of sorts on a thin chain also made of silver, the pendant depicting Merlin's staff, the symbol of travel and hope.
"But, if you'll let me, then I can give you this," Pansy offered.
She held it out for Antonin Dolohov to receive.
"It isn't much, if anything really, but…Merlin's staff should light the way, and show you your truth."
For a moment, the pendant that Pansy was offering slowly swung back and forth between the younger witch and the older wizard, much like a pendulum.
Pansy made no move to withdraw her hand and take it back, and Dolohov made no move to accept the gift.
A horrible, agonizing, and drawn-out silence settled in the air between them as George could only look on.
Anticipation and apprehension suffocated the air, and then, the unthinkable happened, something that George admittedly never thought he'd see in this life.
Antonin Dolohov, known and soon-to-be convicted and likely executed Death Eater for his war crimes, murderer of several hundreds of innocent witches and wizards, slowly closed his now-defeated looking dark eyes and bowed his head low in a visible show of submission, indicating that he was accepting her gift.
George stared, his eyebrows receding so far up onto his forehead that his red brows disappeared into his hairline.
He blinked owlishly for a moment or two at the odd sight in front of him and then shook his head vehemently as if to clear the strange scene from his eyes, though when he looked again, Dolohov's head was still lowered. Of all the things he had expected of the Death Eater, this wasn't it.
A glance to the side confirmed that she was looking just as shocked as he was sure he undoubtedly looked, though his employee was handling her feelings with slightly more tact and composure. She exhaled a deep breath slowly through her nose, and then slowly stepped closer towards the ex-Dark wizard, shrugging out of George's grasp, before letting the pendant fall against the older wizard's chest.
Dolohov slowly and methodically raised his head and looked at Pansy, his expression once more becoming unreadable, as though he thought the witch was a Legilimens like Ollie was and she might try to dip into his mind just then and learn his secrets. And yet, George realized that something changed.
For deep in the wizard's dark brown eyes so rich they were almost black, something flickered in the faint light of the room. An emotion that almost looked like…vulnerability.
Perhaps even fear of what was to come.
Before George could pinpoint the emotion in the man's eyes, Dolohov closed his eyes in an exhausting way and turned away, his way of terminating their conversation.
It was at that moment, the door to the detention cell burst open, and Ollie appeared in the doorway, his cheeks flushed, and his blue eyes were continuously flicking from their usual deep blue hue to soulless black.
"Oh, shit," Pansy murmured, and turned away from Dolohov, her encounter with the Death Eater all but nearly forgotten as she focused on the much-bigger problem that was now staring her and George in the face.
Even the handsome wizard's whites of his eyes had shifted to black, and one of his eyes twitched.
"Ol?" she whispered hesitantly, stepping cautiously towards her cousin's husband in the hopes of reaching the man as the Obsurcus within him was slowly starting to show signs of surfacing, and if that happened, this whole floor of the Ministry, perhaps even the building itself, was bloody toast.
"Weasley," Ollie barked in a hoarse voice that was trembling with emotion as his knuckles clenched and un-clenched into fists at his side. "Take Parkinson and get the hell out of here. Your five minutes are up, and I'm about one hair's breadth away from giving Runcorn a new arsehole, and I'm not going to warn anybody when that happens, so I'm taking Norah home. You need to leave. Go. Now, before I change my mind and decide never to help you ever again in the future, Pan."
"Why, what…?" Pansy trailed off as her cousin appeared behind her husband in the doorway and tugged on Ollie's sweater sleeve, desperately trying to tear him away from the door. "Norah, what in the bloody fuck happened? Why is Ollie so worked up? What the hell did you do?" she asked, trying to control the warbling note of fear in her voice as she allowed George to take her arm and lead her out of the room.
She was smart enough not to look back over her shoulder behind her as the door to Antonin Dolohov's detention cell gingerly closed shut behind as George made to shut the door.
Norah's cheeks flushed and turned a bright shade of pink as the blonde Veela suddenly looked uncomfortable with the question that Pansy had just posed to her, as she kicked at a dust bunny with the edge of her open-toed sandal, sighing.
"Er, well…Auror Runcorn just tried to kiss me and seemed to misinterpret my...intentions towards him," she stammered in a frantic tone and flinched the moment her husband let out a low vicious growl from deep within his broad chest. If it was at all possible, her blush intensified, and she hastily shooed George and Pansy towards the fireplaces that were connected to the Ministry of Magic's Floo Network.
It took the blonde a moment to find her voice as she marched her husband down the aisle.
"I think you two should take his advice, Pan. Get out of here. Let me handle Ollie," she said in a soothing and firm voice as she kept a hand on her husband's arm as they stopped in front of the hearth.
Pansy could only hastily nod her agreement as Norah wasted no time in removing her husband from the scene altogether the moment they spotted Runcorn rounding the corner, already calling for her. Norah roughly shoved her husband over the metal grate of the Floo Network's first fireplace and did not let herself look back, though she did pause just once to shoot her cousin a suggestive and playful little wink that Pansy picked up on as the blonde's gaze drifted towards George's hand, still wound around her waist. Before she could ponder it further, the Brennans were gone, leaving George and her alone.
Pansy frowned, unsure of where they should go next, when she felt the man's pale hand on her arm, gentle and soft, and when she turned around to look, George was instantly by her side.
A sad sort of smile tugged at his lips and the man's brilliant brown eyes were now glistening with unshed moisture that was not exactly tears, but rather, a sort of quiet understanding. That he knew what she was going through. Without a word, George Weasley slipped his large hand into hers and intertwined her fingers with his. Pansy let herself marvel at how well they fitted together and thought she almost wanted to shy away from the wizard's touch, but she surprised herself at how good it felt.
Even more so when George gave her hand a light but firm squeeze. Then, Pansy surprised herself in a moment of boldness by scooting closer, as close as her wounded side and arm would let her go, and leaned against the taller wizard's shoulder, where she let her head rest and basked in the man's warmth.
"You're not alone, Pan," George's soothing voice was barely above a whisper. "No matter what else happens, you'll not be alone. I'm right here where I'm standing, Pan. I'm not anywhere else," he told the witch softly.
Tears sprang to Pansy's eyes despite her best efforts to quell them back. She looked up at him for a long time, unable to formulate a coherent reply to George. She knew at that moment, as long as he remained standing right here beside her, she would never feel the cold touch of loneliness again.
"Where do you want to go? Back to the Burrow?" he asked her, and without waiting for Pansy to give her consent, for there was no need, she wanted him to, George took her fingers gently in his, and she did not resist as she stepped closer to him as she allowed the wizard to help her over the grate of the fireplace. "Or we could swing by the shop, I need to check on Verity just for a few minutes, she's by herself today, if you're alright with that, then we could go get some ice cream or something to take a break from the heat now that Fortescue is back in business?" he offered, almost hopefully, to Pansy.
She nodded eagerly. "I'd like that a lot," she whispered shyly, flicking her gaze to the floor before darting her eyes back up to meet his, rendering George feeling as though just the witch's gaze read his mind.
"Good," he muttered, relieved that she'd accepted his invitation, his eyes never leaving hers.
George escorted Pansy out of the Ministry of Magic and away from the likes of ex-Death Eater Antonin Dolohov, and Pansy did not even realize as they stepped into the front of Weasley's Wizard Wheezes that George's hand was still entwined in hers, though Verity took notice and raised an eyebrow at them.
Still, the young blonde witch seemed happy for her, which Pansy was admittedly relieved for.
That makes at least one person in my life, Pansy thought bitterly to herself, and instantly shook away thoughts of Ron that formed in her mind. She tried not to let her discomfort show on her face at the thought of sooner rather than later confronting George's younger brother. Though she knew she wouldn't feel right about potentially dating Weasley until she talked to Ron first and cleared the air.
Tonight, she promised herself and felt George give her hand a reassuring light little squeeze.
Pansy did not resist or make a move to pull her hand from the wizard's grasp and stepped closer. There was hardly a word spoken to them as once they'd checked in with Verity to ensure she had situations well under control at the shop, they left to head for Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlor in hopes of beating the already unbearable heat, never mind it was now easily going on around eight o'clock.
There was no need for either one of them to speak, as each one of them felt the earnest longing that hung between them.
Both George Weasley and Pansy Parkinson realized that nothing would be the same. Friday night assuming their date went well, George resolved to ask if Pansy would officially date him and be his girl.
It was almost inevitable, that they were destined to be a couple.