Disclaimer: All the characters used in this story are the sole property of J.K Rowling (and some other big company whose name I do not remember. Sorry, no insults intended, just my bad memory). They are not mine. I take credit for the characters' actions and thoughts in this story, though (often used as they are).
Warnings: some angst
Rating: T
Pairing: kind of Draco/ Pansy-ish
A/N: This fic was the result of a livejournal pairing and scenario meme that gave me Pansy and Sirius with a Horcrux and explicit photographs. This demanded humor and fluff that I couldn't manage at the time. This is the result.
Out of the BoxPansy is not quite sure why she is going though the old boxes in Malfoys' attic. Alone. It definitely had something to do with Draco asking her to help (and Draco so rarely asks her for something), and Vincent and Greg being busy with their summer classes... And Pansy does not want to think what they are learning out there. She does not, she will not think about it!
There's dust everywhere. She would have never imagined any place of Draco's home might be dusty, but there probably is some law of the universe - or at least Murphy (and it seems she has spent too much time around Millicent) that says the attics must be dusty. As will be anyone who dares to approach them, not to say try to find anything in there.
It's late and she is tired. It does not look like Draco is coming back. Everything is silent, but it was not, it was not some time ago and Draco told her to keep looking and went down through the hatchway to see what was going on and Pansy is staying here, because she was told so and she thinks she might have heard her father's voice before. But nobody has come here so Draco has not said anything. Yet. If he could still say...and...
And Pansy keeps searching and not thinking.
The box, when she finally finds it, has not even got any curses on it. Nor charms to lock it. Somebody has simply taped it shut (Muggle tape, Pansy thinks, in Draco's home?) and written "Cousins' stuff" in neat block letters on top of it. Pansy has seen enough letters written to Draco over the years to recognize Mrs. Malfoy's handwriting.
The box is not big. She could simply take it downstairs, the light would be better there, and Draco said to not to open it without him, because, perhaps, those things are dangerous, and neither of them had any real idea what it would do...
Pansy tears the box open. With her hands, not caring about the nail she breaks, not even thinking about using her wand. Not because she is afraid of expulsion, what does expulsion mean now anyway, but if the Ministry can detect magic being used then there are ways for others to do it too and...
There are pictures in the box. Pictures of strangers - but no, not strangers, she can recognize Mrs. Malfoy, and also (and she wishes she could not) Bellatrix Lestrange... But she wouldn't have been Lestrange yet, would she? And the third woman must be Andromeda Black, the Blood Traitor. Pansy can't stop the laugh welling up. For some reason it does not sound happy or funny or any way laughter should. She is shaking a bit. Yes, it's definitely cold here.
Pansy looks through the pictures. More of Mrs. Malfoy and her sisters. And there's Mr. Malfoy, looking rather young and very much like Draco - or would it be that Draco looks very much like his father? And there are boys, young children, older children, teenagers. Two boys with dark hair, looking quite alike. Pansy knows who it must be, Sirius and Regulus Black. She has heard stories about them like she has heard stories about Bellatrix and Andromeda. And what she has heard depends on the speaker, so she is never sure... But she knows now who to believe when people speak about Bellatrix. And Draco had known... knows too. She digs deeper into the box.
Pictures, more pictures, a broken comb, a faded ring, some torn pieces of paper and yet more pictures. More of Regulus Black. More of Sirius Black. Pansy grew up with stories about Sirius Black. The Pureblood Hero who gave James Potter and his Mudblood wife to the Dark Lord. even if it didn't turn out that well in the end. But there are other things she has heard too. And Bellatrix Lestrange said he was a traitor like Andromeda.
He smiles at her from the pictures. Young and handsome. Sometimes happy, sometimes broody, sometimes right down angry. There are other people with him. James Potter. Peter Pettigrew (and Pansy has seen him too, and because of it she started to question, and because of him she knew what she will not be). Professor Lupin (yes, always Professor Lupin , although she would not, would not confess it to her friends). And the readheaded girl, Mudblood, Lily Evans. Lily Potter. And many, many other people. And still more Sirius, with - Pansy feels her cheeks grow hot - interesting choices of clothing and the lack of it. Alone and with a companion... Or companions. Pansy thinks she might recognize some people on those pictures. And that's what makes her shift through the box, trying to get away from the images.
Pansy supposes Sirius' things were sent to Mrs. Malfoy, after he was caught and jailed in Azkaban. What was not confiscated. What was left, after the Aurors searched through everything, took what they wanted, destroyed what they wanted. Pansy looks at the young man smiling and waving at her, posing on the picture.
One picture does not move. Pansy stares at it, waiting for the couple in the picture to smile, to wave, to blink, at least, but they do not. She doesn't understand. Not until she remembers that Gryffindor idiot, who always walks around with his camera. And he had said, he had said: Muggle pictures do not move.
Pansy holds the picture, the Muggle picture, taken with a Muggle camera and probably by a Muggle photographer, a picture of Sirius Black and some strange woman in white, standing together in front of a, of a... (church, her mind says, Muggle church). Pansy knows shed does not understand a thing. She'd thought she did, but really... And she really doesn't have time for this.
She takes the box and turns it upside down on the floor. She finds it quickly. Now that it's not covered in layers of photographs and their shifting magical auras, she can feel it. Blackness, cold... Evil.
They had not decided, Draco and her, what they would do, or who they would take it to. They weren't sure. Pansy thinks about the screams she had heard and decides. Going against the Dark Lord would be a certain suicide. And Dumbledore is dead. She wraps her handkerchief around her hand gathers up the locket, carefully. Then she wraps the small (but so dangerous, so very dangerous) trinket in cloth and tucks it into the iron box they had brought for this very reason.
She is ready. But she is alone. And she thinks she might stay alone, because, because... She does not want to think about it, but she knows the curse she heard her father say. Who does not? She is sure there is nobody down there now, has not been for several hours. She can quite safely walk out of the house, the wards and activate her portkey to Diagon Alley. And from there...
Pansy knows where she will go. There's only one place she can go to, really. She picks the Muggle photograph up and tucks it in her pocket.
Dumbledore might have thought it secret, but she didn't believe that. The old idiot was just the sort to amuse himself with watching the Death Eaters trying to get to Potter and getting more and more frustrated by being thwarted by the wards. But the wardsonly hold away those who wish to harmPotter, right?
The End