The dusky glow of the day presses on the window of her chamber. It's absolutely depressing. The cold leaves its mark on the glass, forming beads of water, like dew, making the atmosphere sodden and clammy amidst the chill. Pansy wishes the weather would hurry the fuck up and snow already, even though it's only November. The weather transforms in its own snail's pace. And interim is always the worst.
But still, it has yet to chill her the way she shivers when Peony tells her there's a letter for her from Cynthia Parkinson.
Her first panicked thought was, Father. It had been about six months since she saw him in Azkaban. In the dreary cold, wet place. He had a dementor behind him when he was pushed to the grey room where Pansy and her mother had waited. Cold and shivering in the lovely May. Pansy sucked a long breath and tried her best to look emotionless. She shouldn't have bothered. It didn't matter at all. He had hardly recognised her. Hardly registered that she was there. When he saw that his wife was there, he shivered in some heartbreaking, primal way, and held her - and cried. It wasn't a quiet, manly cry. It was loud and harrowing and like a child. Her father was a man born into wealth and privilege, that made his fall harder to stomach. He smelled so foul as he hugged Pansy at the end of the visit, she wondered for the first time in her life if Azkaban had water, or if he soiled himself just then. His hands shook violently as the dementor flew above him.
She vomited the second he was taken back to his cell. Her mother was shaking, but she held her hair as Pansy hunched down, tears and bile and snot making a mess of her expressionless mask.
"Thank you for holding it as long as you did, Pinky," she said softly.
The cries came later, at night. Something changes in a person when they see their parents in such reckless indignity, some veil falls from the world that is never replaced - nothing is ever pristine, not anymore.
Pansy looks at the letter in her hand. It's not about her father, not about anything sinister at all. Her mother wants her to come home. That's as sensible a wish as any. Her mother wants to meet her. It has been exactly a month since she came home and she needs to renovate her room, even if she doesn't want to live there anymore. After twenty one years of her life living with this woman, trying to read her face, her every footstep, she knows her mother misses her. She also knows the words I miss you will never appear, side by side, consecutively, in anything she writes to Pansy.
But still she reads between the lines, still it brings a smile in her mouth. It would've been nice all the way through if not at the end of the letter her mother mentioned a fundraising event Pansy must attend.
And also, Draco Malfoy would be there. She could hear her mother's muted hope in the cursives.
Pansy would snort if there was anything funny about this. But not anymore. Trying to seduce Draco had been a ship tried and tested, mounted and aborted, and now it was a dead cruise. Life would have been easier if she and Draco could just fancy each other, or see each other as anything other than a demented mirror. She knows Draco in her bones, and it's also there she knows that nothing but a lifelong friendship could come from the two of them.
Pansy could decline. She has half a mind to do so. But the other half aches for the familiar, their house-elf Ditty, the scent of lavender in their home. The garden she and her mother used to care for together.
And she does miss her mother, even if they don't talk much. Choosing a career as a healer wasn't a standard deviation from her previous future plan, obviously. And she suspects her mother's emotions were hurt just as much as her ego.
Pansy wishes she could make her understand her compulsion. Her desperate need to do something with her hands, something tangible, to look at someone hurting and consciously helping them. Perhaps her mum does understand, but doesn't want to admit it. Pansy was Cynthia Parkinson's last quid to play in the business of maintaining status quo. With her father rotting in Azkaban, their family inheritance debilitating, their position in the upper class society was… precarious at best. And she gets it, she really does, the loss of the familiar, the horror of getting left behind. That her mother's worst fear isn't losing money, it's losing propriety.
But in their world, it's almost the same, Pansy once reminded her.
Not if you play your cards right, was the reply.
Pansy doesn't know how to tell her lovely, resourceful mother that she didn't feel like she had any cards. Not anymore. All she had was empty, shaking hands.
She writes back a sincere, formal acceptance and puts it in her owl's beak. The owl snuggles her index before straightening up and flying away into the misty afterglow.
Pansy never had any inclination towards divination when she was at Hogwarts. She never cared for it much, never fully believed, like Daphne, or those Patil twins who seemed to have a grasp on something. Some silver thread that seems to be invisible to mortals who wadded through the world with logic and level-headed conscience.
And yet as she walks out of the Mungo's, she feels some indecipherable charm, like a feather, tickling softly across her cheek. She is pondering what an unusual place it is to feel the pull of the universe, but she is mostly thinking that she is meeting him tonight.
Not a sliver of thought, not something evanescent, she doesn't guess. She knows. As she stops at her usual place to change her healer robes into muggle jeans, as she gets on the train. As she lets the mechanical hum of the giant pull her to comfort. She just knows.
And it makes sense, a whole bunch. He's a Gryffindor and a nosy one at that. He has a notion to get to the bottom of things, even the ones that don't concern him, especially those ones. He saw her once in an extremely unusual place, and the next day almost crying. It wouldn't be a stretch to imagine if he thought it was a pull of the universe. So there it goes.
True enough, when the train stops and takes a momentum, he is there, at the door. Her stomach takes a turn anyway, even before he walks into the chamber, straight to her, and sits at the seat in front of her.
He looks at her straight, almond forest eyes, and she tries not to betray her mask and give in to the paisley schoolgirl in her.
"Fancy seeing you here," is what comes out of his mouth.
"Likewise," is what she replies. Her eyes wade inadvertently as she looks at him. He looks sick again. Is it the night or the muggle clothes?
And they wait. For her part, it's simple minded perplexity. She doesn't know what to tell him. She doesn't know why he's here. What he wants with her. Why would he fancy seeing her anywhere?
She thinks how ill he looks again. Sees the hollow space in the middle of his throat and wonders if he has eaten anything today. His fingers flex and she isn't sure if it's voluntary or a nervous twitch.
"How are you?" she asks finally, and finally her mask betrays. Her voice sounds more sincere than she's care to have put out here, and her own fingers tremble slightly to touch his. If he notices any of these, he stays silent.
"I've been better." He smiles, and even though it reaches his eyes, there is such tiredness that it breaks whatever purpose it is supposed to serve. It breaks the faux civility they are acting in as well.
"I found your note," he says. "It didn't work out."
She immediately knows what he's talking about, there's no split second of confusion. She had sent a note to him, a year ago, with the name and address of a healer. "I know. Tristan said you were uncooperative."
"Your boyfriend was -"
"Not my boyfriend."
He narrows his eyes. "He gave the impression that -"
"I know." She smiles. "He always does."
Potter blinks, lips parting as if he wants to say something. But then he swallows whatever he wanted to say at the last minute and simply nods. They are both mentioning things that happened almost a year ago, and neither of them are even trying to act coy. Pansy doesn't want to think about what it means.
"How have you been?" he asks.
Pansy nods a little too appreciatively. "Nice. Fine - I'm fine."
In truth she spends all her days in a monotone, embarrassingly scared that if she deviates from her routine, and something unexpected happens, the thin, transparent thread she is holding her life on will snap, and she'll fall indefinitely.
"Last night I thought I saw -"
"Occupational hazard," she says quickly. "I was just tired."
He smiles, even though she can tell he doesn't believe her. "Alright. OK."
Her fingers drum on her jeans. "I read your and Weasley's interview with the Prophet the other day. Congratulations on being Auror."
"Almost. We still have -"
"Yes, I know. The outings."
"Yeah."
"But just a matter of time now."
He nods. Seems to weigh something on his head, and then says, quite unexpectedly, "I'm thinking of leaving it."
She blinks. "Leaving what? The training?"
He makes a non-commital shrug that can mean a hundred contradicting things.
The momentary halt brings an undue silence, and Pansy dusts through her mind for something else, wonders when will her station come, wonders about the butterflies making a nest in her stomach. She starts talking again to ignore their fluttering.
"So - Tristan didn't work out. Have you seen someone new?"
"I'm seeing someone now… I've got an appointment in an hour." He looks at his watch, under the long sleeve of his plaid shirt, the watch is a familiar one. The golden astronomical watch every wizard has. Only it's worn down so bad Pansy wonders if it has any emotional value aside from the simple job of showing time.
She smiles. "That's why you're here? Don't want Skeeter following you?"
He shrugs again. "It was Ron's idea. Hermione found the healer. I couldn't-"
"Couldn't care less?"
"Couldn't care less." He confirms. A moment passes, then he says in a voice that reeks of unwanted confession, "I met with your friend Zabini, you know. After the thing with your… Tristan didn't work out."
"Blaise. Oh."She looks out to the nothingness through her window. The train rolls with rapturous speed, the darkness outside seems always at the edge of it's end.
She bites her lip to counteract the cutting disappointment she feels on her ribs. Blaise Zabini is one of her best friends since they were in diapers. They have a lot in common on a lot of jagged issues. His job isn't among them.
So Potter went to him for drugs. Of course. What a cliché.
"It was going fine for a while - well, more than fine, I guess. I hid it from Ron and Hermione until… until I couldn't," he says softly, the embarrassment lacing through his words. "So now. Therapy. Certified, legit healer."
"I'm glad." she says quietly.
He sweeps his hand through his hair. Then comes the question, "Why did you leave?"
The question shouldn't come as a surprise, after all. It was hanging above their head like a rotten mistletoe since they both had left the room. It's been there every time they made eye contact in the last twelve months. But still the blunt attack surprises her. Her stomach takes a somersault.
She tries to sound casual as she answers, "You left too."
"It was your room. I was hoping you'd ordered breakfast. But you came out of the shower -" he stops. It doesn't need saying. She came out of the shower fully dressed, ready to take her leave. She saw him reach for his robe, and realized, deflated, that he had the same intention.
Only not.
"Maybe I was counting on you to be the confident one. You know, you being the Chosen One and all."
He chuckles awkwardly, his flushed cheeks lift arduously. "I usually am. But not after I'd cried and screamed on a girl's bed the first time we'd slept together. Not even Chosen Ones can gather that sort of confidence."
Pansy swallows a dry breath, and nods. Of course. She should have thought of that. It seems that she has the outlandish ability to think of all the possible ways a scene can play out - except for the one way it actually does.
"I… uh, should've thought of that."
"It's alright. We all have our issues." He shrugs. "I guess it's not easy for you to ask people to stay. Period."
"It isn't."
It wasn't. When she woke up in the warmth of his arms the events of the previous night seemed clichéd, embarrassing even. Something neon that lost its luster in the bright light of the sun. But still some semblance of understanding was there, even when he left and she clutched the door handle so hard that her knuckles whitened. She could have reached out to him again, after a while, when the emptiness hit again.
But the very next day, her mother stomped into her room and threw the Daily Prophet at her feet.
You had one job.
So her name was on the fourth page, among other death eaters' offsprings. She didn't need to read what was there, her mother recited for her.
"Disgraced daughter of Death Eater Elphias Parkinson spotted leaving the ceremony early, perhaps the shadows of the war still haven't fully disappeared."
Pansy watches her mother calmly, her face a mask. "I had a headache."
"You had a headache," her mother seethed. "Credit to that measly pain, they forgot all about my contribution. I donated thirty Rothschild. Thirty."
She knew. She downed one of them with Harry Potter.
When her mother left with another slash on her wrist, she turned the paper to see the first page. Sure enough, the brilliant face of the saviour peeped out, glowing with a sincere smile. The title was: Harry Potter gives an emotional tribute to war heroes.
She tossed the paper to the trash and went on with her life. The world fixed whatever balance they both had disrupted that night. Some stories just don't blend, it's better that way.
A sudden halt of the train brings her back in time. The face she had tossed out is looking at her now. With sincerity, maybe even wistfully. She suddenly feels naked again. Like when he unclasped her -
For fuck's sake, Pansy, the responsible healer inside her head scolds her in contempt. She feels a uncomfortable warmth spread from her neck to her cheeks.
As if on cue to rid her of embarrassment, Potter speaks again, "I can see the appeal. It's calm. No wonder you like this muggle transport."
Pansy doesn't know how to answer this. Her mind is still cloudy. Through the drowsiness, his voice comes out muffled and soft and lovely. Completely without edge, completely attuned to how she feels.
"Maybe I could - if you don't mind, of course - could put this on my schedule? This ride. If you don't mind me - well, invading your -"
She shouldmind. She should tell him to fuck off and mind his own messy business. She should -
"No. Of course not."
He lets out a relaxed breath. Then the smile comes, the unconquerable one, glowing up his entire face, even the crescents under his eyes.
And oh it disintegrates her gut. She wants to touch those eclipses. To push her thumb in the dents and see if she can smooth them out, to run her thumb across his cheekbones to feel the tautness of the skin stretching over the bone.
He looks at her and she wonders if he has the barest idea how his coming here affects her. If he knew that he was the decisive incident that made her take her job. That something irreplaceable had happened a year ago, and if she hadn't met him, she wouldn't be here. Maybe she would, maybe the wheels of fortune would turn anyway, but certainly at a later time. But not right now. Not this way. And he wouldn't definitely be here. That when you touch something it sends ripples to the future and everything is irredeemably changed. She is distinctly careful of what she does because of him. Does he know? Does she want him to know?