Disclaimer: The characters do not belong to me but are the property of J.K.R. and Warner Bros. No copyright infringement is intended. The theme for this round of the competition was Boggart and my chosen pairing was Pansy Parkinson/Sirius Black. Thank you to my beta, Frumpologist for their time, help, and excellent advice! It was invaluable, and I appreciate them so much!
My first thought about the theme was that it was a perfect opportunity to really dig into the idea of fear itself and how it might be different for every person. I was attracted to the idea of Sirius and Pansy because I see them as having grown up with similar expectations and pressure from their families and I can easily see them bonding over that.
This entire story was inspired by the last few lines, which popped into my head nearly fully formed after a few days of mulling over my chosen pairing and the theme.
There was something about rooms at the Ministry of Magic that made it nearly impossible to distinguish one of them from another. They all seemed to have white walls, that blended into dirty light grey floors, with plain, matching, uncomfortable furniture. Even the form on the table asked her to fill in the usual things: name, coordinates, date of birth, lineage. It had the unnerving tendency of making every visit want to meld confusingly with the ones before.
The room was plain and uninteresting, like all the others she'd ever been in, but there was comfort in knowing it provided them with a degree of privacy. She smiled, amused at the sudden thought that it would be impossible for anyone who didn't know them to guess why they were there; they might have been there to request a permit to hire a doxy exterminator, for all any passersby knew.
They had just finished filling in the nearly standard Ministry forms when her soon-to-be husband turned to her with an uncharacteristically worried expression, running a shaking hand through his hair.
"Are you sure about this, love? You know I don't need you to marry me, I'd still keep you." He tried to maintain eye-contact, but quickly turned his gaze to the floor.
"I've never been more certain about anything. You're mine," she replied, grasping his hand firmly in hers.
Pansy shivered and shook off the feelings threatening to overtake her. As she read the next question on the parchment in front of her, her quill froze in mid-air and she found herself struggling to maintain what little composure she had left.
What form would a Boggart take in your presence?
The Slytherin in her baulked at being asked such a personal question, on an intake form of all places. Then again, she understood why their line of inquiry was so intimate; they were trying to help, she supposed. It still stung that she needed to be here at all.
She had learned long ago that not everyone's fears were created equally. Some people had more reasons to be afraid than others. Some children's nightmares were less terrifying than the people who were meant to care for them. Others could afford to conjure up images of imaginary beasts they might never confront when asked to contemplate what scared them most. The truth, for the majority of people, lay somewhere in between the two extremes.
Her own relationship with fear had always been complicated, but everything in her life had been. Being a pureblood daughter in a Sacred House with no sons was complicated. Having a backbone and a desire to be more than someone's childbearing trophy wife was even more so. And those were only her grievances from before the war.
Life after the war was complicated for everyone. With an abundance of children suddenly having to deal with parents going to Azkaban, many of them receiving the Kiss, it was no wonder the Ministry had been forced to make some attempt at helping those affected to recover. She wasn't certain mandatory mind healing was the answer, but they hadn't asked her opinion when she'd been handed the forms to fill out.
Pansy sighed. She was trying to be open-minded; she knew the objective was to help her generation heal from their trauma. But it was difficult to place any faith in the Ministry's approach when they didn't seem to care whether any of these traumatized people gave two knuts about the "loved-one" whose soul had been removed.
She felt lucky that she had been able to distance herself from her family after the war. She'd never really been certain they cared for her at all. Perhaps they might have if only she had been born the male heir they so desired, instead of merely projecting the attitude of one, as her father so frequently reminded her.
Nevertheless, in a desperate effort to avoid being sold to the highest bidder like cattle, she had turned to Draco for help. He'd pulled through, too. It turned out making friends with Gryffindors had its uses, and she had wound up at Grimmauld Place, surrounded by other wanderers and stragglers all struggling to make sense of their paths in a world after the war.
She followed Draco down the hall and towards the sound of boisterous voices and laughter. Everything went deathly silent when she stepped into the room behind him.
"So, what's this one's story?" The older man's question was directed at the lot of them assembled in the dark kitchen, but his grey eyes seemed to stare directly into her very soul. He had long, curly dark hair and he was beautiful in the same way damaged classical sculptures remained unquestionably breathtaking. "Let me guess, a not-so-proper Pureblood daughter trying to escape her fate at the hands of disappointed Pureblood parents?"
Pansy's eyes widened and her mouth dropped open in surprise for a moment before she could school her features.
He laughed loudly, making a pleasant tingling sensation rush up her spine.
"Don't look so surprised, Princess. I've seen it all before. Lived a chapter or two of it myself." He shuffled along the bench he was seated at and patted the space he'd made beside him. "It'll be okay. You've got us now. And I won't bite unless you ask me to."
He winked and Pansy knew she was in trouble.
None of them struggled more than their unlikely benefactor.
Sirius Black had been a puzzle to her at first. He carried himself with all the breeding of a Pureblood and none of the decorum. On the exterior, he seemed the perfect example of the recklessness his Hogwarts House was known for, but he carried a darkness within him that wouldn't be denied. She had been attracted to him, not because of that darkness but despite it. It had been so easy for them to find kindred spirits in each other, beginning on the surface of their similarities and going deep into the forgotten recesses of their matching insecurities.
It had only taken six months for them to find certainty in one another. They had been the match that shocked the entire wizarding world, except perhaps for those closest to them, who could no longer find it within themselves to be shocked after months of exposure to their sickeningly sweet displays of affection.
Her father, still awaiting his trial in a dusty ministry cell, had owled his congratulations on making such a wealthy Pureblood match. She had lit the parchment on fire and they'd both watched it burn. The sick feeling in her gut slowly dissipated as Sirius reminded her that the man who had sired her no longer had a say in her life; his power over her was broken. Her new husband had expected tears, but did nothing more than grin back at her when she had burst into peals of less than sane-sounding laughter, instead.
True happiness, the kind that bubbled up from the inside out and made her face hurt from smiling, was not something Pansy knew how to cope with, but life with Sirius taught her a little more each day. There was a new and very special kind of magic between the two broken people who worked painstakingly to heal each other.
"Hey, Princess. Why the tears?" Sirius sat beside her on the bed, swiping a thumb over her cheek to banish the evidence of her crying. Pansy hadn't even heard him come in. She handed him the letter she'd been clutching in her hands.
"How can she pretend she's proud of me, now that I've accidentally accomplished what she expected of me? I just wanted to stay mad, for what they put me through. But this makes it hard. I want to hate her, but she's still my mother…" She allowed him to wrap an arm around her and turned to him, burying her face in his shoulder.
"Mine was never proud of me, but you can bet she would have found some way to twist this to her advantage, too." He stroked her hair with gentle fingers and she relaxed despite herself. "We both know that's about them, it has nothing to do with us, love."
"Thank you...I'm so lucky you understand."
"That makes two of us, Princess." He squeezed her gently before holding her at arm's length to look her in the eyes with mischief dancing across his face. "Now! Do you want to help me prank my godson?"
Pansy giggled in spite of herself and nodded.
He came with the unexpected benefit of friendship from people who had once openly avoided her and now cherished her for the joy she brought Sirius. These people were her lifeline now.
"Are you alright, Pansy? Do you need me to get you anything?" The quiet voice broke through her muddled thoughts.
She looked to her right, where none other than Harry Potter sat beside her in the uncomfortable ministry chairs. He was watching her as she continued to stare at the parchment before her, constantly getting lost in thought. He had insisted on coming with her since Sirius could not, claiming nobody should have to face this task alone. She found she was grateful for his presence, even as he held his silence and tried to keep the pity from his gaze.
"I'll be fine. Some of the questions are harder to answer than others, that's all," Pansy answered. His hand rested on the table beside her and she patted it twice with her own to reassure him, giving him a small smile that never reached her eyes before returning her gaze to the intake form.
It was strange to think that they had become good friends over the last sixteen months, but it was inevitable really, with how much time he and Sirius had spent together. A memory of both of them bonding over their identical Boggarts as they sat reminiscing about Remus Lupin one night rose to the surface of her mind.
"Can you believe he never even let me have a crack at the Boggart in front of my classmates?" Harry laughed, pausing to empty his tumbler of Firewhisky for at least the third or fourth time that evening. "He thought it would turn into Voldermort and make everyone panic."
He shook his head, a sad smile gracing his lips.
"It wasn't?" Pansy asked, surprise and curiosity mingling in her tone.
"No, turned into a bloody Dementor instead." Harry shuddered.
Sirius stiffened, his grip on her waist tightening almost painfully. "Mine would be a Dementor too," he whispered.
Pansy rubbed calming circles into the skin of Sirius' hand as Harry reached over to grip his shoulder, trying to offer comfort.
"Sorry, Sirius. But it's okay, you don't ever have to deal with those monsters again. That's all in the past," Harry reminded him.
Pansy reached up to card her fingers through his long black hair, taking a moment to scratch softly as his temples. "I'm here, love."
She quickly brushed the recollection aside, mentally imploring her hands to stop shaking.
"Are you sure?" Harry pressed, the concern evident in his tone. "Only, you've been staring at the same question for quite some time. I know this can't be easy…"
Pansy took a deep breath, willing her emotions to settle. The truth was, Harry was right, but there had been many difficult things in her life before this one. She knew this struggle would not be the last, either. It was quite possible that loving Sirius was the only easy thing she had ever done.
"I had to consider this one," she mumbled. "I've got it now."
She hated lying to him, but she simply didn't have the energy to share her emotional turmoil with him right then. She looked back down at the page and read the question again slowly, letting it sink in.
What form would a Boggart take in your presence?
Pansy didn't have to think very hard to know what form a Boggart would take for her. Ever since the accident that had put them at the mercy of a rogue Dementor and had stolen nearly everything from her, she had been faced with her worst fear every day.
She faced it every time she looked into the now empty, soulless eyes of the shell that had once been her husband.