Merit and Inheritance
Chapter Forty-four
The Deeply Personal
Pansy was in the middle of a multi-faceted crisis, the kind that should have struck about twenty-five to thirty years later.
She liked the new and challenging, normally, but she had never faced her particular blend of problem pieces before. Alone at her desk, she flung herself, or her consciousness, at her ledgers, focusing on the rows and columns, checking and double-checking sums all the way down to the last knut. She took twice as long as she really needed, just to keep from re-visiting the jumbled architecture that presently occupied another part of her mind.
Pansy's internal turmoil, a mix of anxiety, self-doubt and unsatisfied physical desire, derived from the unresolved details surrounding her relationship with Morag.
Morag's farewell, just before she left Pansy's, on the night they'd gone dancing, concluded with an agreement to have dinner upon her return. Morag stopped by her own flat when she returned from Glasgow. She took a shower and changed into clean clothes. She and Pansy hadn't said anything about going out so Morag wore a dark blue silk blouse over white denim jeans, topped off with a black cloak.
Morag was enjoying friendship. She had not been embarrassed about her parents during her school days. She simply understood, from her first year, that they were anomalies. Their age precluded participation in many of the things the parents of students do that result in getting to know the other parents. They had outlived their capacity for watching a quidditch match from wooden bleachers, to take just one example. As Morag's consciousness grew she came to understand her parents' deaths were near. Her father died during Morag's fourth year. After her husband passed, Livia lived in seclusion. She kept up the cottage and the grounds right around it but didn't feel a need to go further afield.
Angus and one or two of Morag's other siblings stayed in touch. The age difference meant they had little or nothing in common, though, so they could converse as long as they were catching up. After that they didn't have the kind of shared interests necessary to keep the conversation going.
Morag understood she would have to make her own way, perhaps sooner than her contemporaries. She fixed on healing early and set about preparing for her post-Hogwarts training. Her seventh year was not very helpful but a little work with tutors got her into a program and she never looked back.
Pansy and Morag's lifelines intersected just when both were putting distracting challenges behind them and organizing a more settled life. Morag had suspended everything except caring for Livia after her mother's stroke. Pansy stood on a precipice facing a steep, downward glide to an early and tragic end when Harry offered her a hand. She did the work to set some things straight. She had a job and a flat.
Pansy and Morag each popped their heads out of their individual swamps and looked around about the same time. Most of their contemporaries had settled into some kind of permanent or relatively stable relationship. Morag knew nothing about dating because she had never had the time to discover what she thought about it. Pansy experienced chronic problematic outcomes when coping simultaneously with wizards and alcohol. Once she got out of her daily state of inebriation she was suddenly, oddly uninterested in pursuing physical intimacy with wizards.
When Morag arrived at Pansy's flat she threw her cloak back and met Pansy's semi-charge into her arms.
"Welcome back," said Pansy. "Cloak?"
"Here," said Morag, handing it over. She stepped over to the mat just inside the door and flipped off her shoes.
"Ahhhh…" she said, wiggling toes into Pansy's carpet.
"Something cold before dinner?" Pansy asked.
"Not unless you are," said Morag. "I'm ready to eat."
Their previous agreement was pasta, unspecified. Morag didn't see a pot on top of the range. The reason was revealed when Pansy took two small casseroles from the oven.
"Lasagna!" said Morag.
"Lasagna, garden salad and fresh baguette from the bakery down the street!" said Pansy as she slid the lasagna off her spatula and put the plate in front of Morag.
They took their time over their meal, catching up on their activities over the past forty-eight hours. There wasn't a lot of substance. They simply chatted between bites, two friends passing the time while they enjoyed one another's company.
Morag took her last bite of lasagna and laid her fork down. She looked at Pansy, at the far end of the table, while she chewed, then swallowed. Pansy looked back. Morag took a long drink from her water tumbler.
"You look good tonight," Morag said.
Pansy thought the same of Morag. Pansy didn't have a specific type of witch she favored romantically because she had never been in a romantic relationship with a witch before. She had gone through seven years of boarding school in a witches' dorm so she wasn't unfamiliar with the various configurations. She did like the way Morag looked, though. The blue silk blouse hung loose, except across Morag's chest. The denim trousers fit her well, following Morag's curves and making for a very harmonious picture.
"I was just think…kachk…kachk…" muttered Pansy. She turned red and couldn't go on. Pansy took another drink from her tumbler.
"Try again…I was just thinking…the same thing…about you," she managed to finish.
Pansy drew her wand and had the tableware in the sink in seconds.
"We need to talk," she said. Morag nodded.
They sat on the couch, facing one another, one arm each across the cushions. They let their other hands find one another and linked finger tips.
"I don't know anything about this," Morag began. "I think I told you that."
Pansy nodded.
"I went through a period, with wizards," said Pansy. She got that far and ran out of words.
"Difficult," Pansy managed.
"Don't talk about it," said Morag. "I can see it is hard for you."
"I don't know how, with witches," Pansy confessed.
"I don't know how, at all, if you mean actual practice. Although I did have to read about it when I was studying," Morag assured her.
"Oh, then," Pansy said, leaning forward. She touched her lips to Morag's before pulling back just enough to speak.
"We can't be disappointed if neither one of us knows good from bad, right from wrong."
Neither one thought the feeling of the other's lips on hers was bad, so they explored a bit before opening up a little more and a little deeper. Fingertips moved up to caress cheeks. They both liked that. Now and then a hand on a cheek would attract another hand. Sometimes the new hand would guide the one that was already there. Pansy's helped Morag's find a spot to rest, before Pansy's moved on to the buttons of Morag's silk shirt.
"Too fast?" Pansy asked when Morag gave a little shudder.
"No," said Morag. She drew back, unbuttoned and shrugged out of her silk blouse, which she tossed onto a nearby coffee table.
Nature hadn't scrimped when it made Morag. There was plenty of her and it was perfectly distributed, shaped and proportioned.
"Wow," Pansy breathed.
Morag eyed Pansy before standing and moving her a little closer to the well-upholstered arm at the end of the couch. She sat, then pivoted so she could lie down, using Pansy's leg for a pillow. Pansy used her nearest hand to cradle Morag's head leaving the other without a perch. Morag, sensing her dysfunction, took the free hand and placed it on her stomach.
"Feel free," she said. "It won't hurt anything. It feels nice, really. Were we going to talk?"
Pansy went over and over their talk all the next day. They had each described their lack of knowledge of witch-witch relations. Morag told Pansy she didn't doubt she would enjoy figuring out love with another witch. She had been developing feelings for Pansy throughout the time they'd been going out as friends. She couldn't stop thinking about their evening of dancing at the nearly-all-witch club. She had begun to dream of Pansy, the only identifiable person she had ever dreamed about.
"On the other hand," Morag said, "I'm enjoying myself. I'm a professional with a professional life in London and Glasgow. I couldn't establish myself after I entered practice. At least half of my time was devoted to Livia. Then there were close to three years with nothing besides Livia. Until you came to see me, of course. I am still grieving for my mother at the same time I've acquired new feelings for you and the professional and personal satisfaction that grew out of work and independent life. I never had those before."
Morag told Pansy she felt obliged to be completely honest before they went further.
"I had to tell you, everything, so you know. I'm not interested in exclusivity right now," said Morag. "I'm sorry."
Pansy was sorry too. She sat on the couch, Morag's head in her lap, a semi-undressed Morag stretched out before her.
"You're so beautiful," Pansy said.
"Thank-you," said Morag. "Do you understand?"
"I think so," said Pansy. "I want to get you out of the rest of those clothes. Do you understand? I tried with wizards and it never worked. I can be wrong but I think I know why. Now."
Pansy let her hand drift back and forth across Morag's front, from right beneath her breasts down to the waist band of her jeans, then back up again.
"I think I understand, too, Pansy," said Morag. "Would it be over-thinking if we took a day or two longer? I had to tell you. I haven't been able to focus on anything else since we left the club. It felt so good to hold you. You want something permanent, I think? Stability? Yes, perfectly understandable. I keep going back and forth, in my mind. Just a day or two, I promise. I may be a case of arrested development."
"No, you aren't," Pansy objected. "Yes, we'll stop here and catch our breaths. Do your thinking. I don't have any other attachments, so no lit fuses."
"So sweet of you," said Morag. "You have been nothing but kindness toward me since the day you showed up at Livia's. You're being kind and patient with me now and I promise I'll never forget it."
With that Morag stood and retrieved her blouse, then her shoes. She walked across the room to the floo where Pansy waited, holding Morag's cloak, gave her a last, quick kiss on the lips and stepped into the flames.
Pansy did not sleep well after Morag left. She began second-guessing herself. She might have been too pushy. On the other hand, perhaps Morag doubted Pansy's passion. Contradiction piled on contradiction. She drifted off and couldn't remember lying in bed awake for long periods the next morning but she didn't wake up rested, either. She felt fatigued and jumpy at the same time.
Pansy wanted to be angry with Morag but she discovered, to great frustration, she couldn't quite get there. Damn. Pansy knew what put the bump in their path. Morag was at one point in thinking and feeling her way to a physical and emotional connection with Pansy, and Pansy was at another. Everything felt backed up, like a torrent coming downhill was stuck behind a log jam right under Pansy's sternum. If the jam wouldn't give, Pansy thought she would have to explode.
"Work," Pansy thought. "Thank Merlin for work."
Books updated, Pansy went looking for something to do. Harry had gone for the day, pleading the need for a nap following his overnight adventure. Pansy knew what she needed: a good, long walk.
Pansy tried Hyde Park then apparated to a favorite path next to a canal. While good for visuals both were well-populated and Pansy decided she required solitude. She thought about Morag, bringing Livia to mind, and the lane that passed by Livia's cottage, just over the stile.
One disapparation later, Pansy stood in the lane, looking at the little house where she had first met Livia. She was glad there was no sign of Romilda. She turned her back to the cottage and struck out to follow the lane wherever it went. Pansy worked through her experiences with Morag, concluding that, strong feelings aside, they worked well together. At least they had not gotten into any serious disagreements since becoming reacquainted. Though she wanted more, Pansy valued Morag's friendship.
Pansy knew she wasn't a scholar, although she had a practical mind and enjoyed learning new things. Maybe she was cut out to be an Associate of Harry Potter. There were worse occupations. She was becoming more confident, taking on management responsibilities for Harry's newest commercial venture. Pansy, with her basic education, had feelings bordering on awe for Morag's accomplishments. She wondered if Morag doubted Pansy would be interesting after a year, or two, or five?
Pansy tried using a technique she had read about some years past. She used it when she encountered one of those defiant problems. She tried to let everything go out of her mind, retaining just enough consciousness to keep her wandering along her lane. The theory behind the method held the subconscious could work on her issues while Pansy enjoyed her pleasant country ramble.
Pansy topped a hill to find a very picturesque valley laid out in front of her. There was a village with just a handful of houses and one building that looked like a standard layout for municipal offices or a police station. It might have been both in such a sparsely-populated place. Pansy stood still, taking in the beauty of the scene—the village, the outlying farms, cattle and sheep in paddocks, a hedgerow. She faced west because the sun shone on her face about half-way between its zenith and the horizon. Pansy closed her eyes and let the sun warm her skin.
"Parkinson you bitch," Pansy heard.
"I know," she said out loud, even though there was no one near. "What have I been thinking?"
The solution had come to her all at once which was typical when a seeker stopped overworking things and let the mind-noise recede a little way.
Morag wasn't self-indulgent. She had her life experience and Pansy's was totally different. They weren't on a schedule. Pansy had fallen in love and was desperate for the object of her infatuation to tell her she felt the same. That certainly wasn't fair of Pansy. If she really loved Morag she would let her know while finding a way to make sure Morag knew she could take her time. With luck, they would both find out, eventually, that they were headed the same way, each by her own, idiosyncratic route.
Pansy took a few minutes to sit down on a flat rock and look at the little sample of Scotland visible from her hilltop. She consciously tried to memorize everything, so she could find her way back. Pansy felt good. Confident. She hoped Morag came around, but that might not be the most important thing.
"I love," she thought. "I love. I can and I do. I'm not broken. I'm not broken. Morag helped me find it. I have to tell her, even if she doesn't love me."
Pansy sniffed and felt some tears on her cheeks. She took a look around to make sure she was alone. Moments later she stood in the lane, unlocking the door with the lettering spelling out 'Harry Potter and Associates.'
The door charm rang as she entered the foyer.
"Harry?" Pansy called.
No one answered. Pansy figured Harry must be at home, enjoying his nap. She was glad she had put the ledgers in shape. Pansy had been trying to find the time for some letters of inquiry to potential suppliers for the little book and novelty shop next to the tea room. It never hurt to tweek the inventory, just to keep things fresh.
The door charm sounded again, followed this time by a familiar voice calling out, "It's me!"
"In here," said Pansy as she put down her quill, careful not to drop it and put a spot of ink on the parchment.
"Just letting you know," Harry said as he looked around the door jamb.
"How's it going?"
"Great," said Pansy, "Just great."
Something about her smile said there was more. Harry had his suspicions but he was a bit superstitious. Prying might throw off a delicate balance and spoil something. When Pansy had something to tell him, she'd do so.
"I mainly wanted to occupy the office, so I've brought some reading," Harry said, adding, "Unless you have something to show me?"
"Oh, sales are up and we're seeing a little wider margin," Pansy said. "You're doing a good deal better than breaking even with your tea room project."
"That's good, although it wasn't the purpose," Harry said.
"I know, I remember," said Pansy.
"Still, doesn't hurt," Harry said. "Do you think it will ever do more than sustain itself? I mean, cover the wages of your helpers and the administration? Would that model have the potential to support a person?"
Pansy didn't say anything. She sat, thinking, took in a deep breath and let it out in a long sigh.
"I don't know," Pansy said.
"I think that might be the same as saying No," said Harry. "No matter how many pots of tea you and your minions make in a day, there isn't a big enough profit potential per pot to fund much besides expenses."
"Oh, Harry, I'm sorry!" Pansy wailed. "This wasn't a good idea at all!"
"No, no, no, Pansy," said Harry, "That isn't what I mean. It's a great idea. We provide a service and your staff gets work experience. The foot traffic in and out is much better than empty spaces on the ground floor of the building. Next door, the books and whatnot, fills a need. There aren't any other magical businesses selling those things. All we need to do is get something going on the lower level, which we will."
"Oh," said Pansy. "Well, then."
"Exactly," said Harry.
"What did you bring to read?" Pansy asked.
Harry held up a book bound in black leather with gold Gothic lettering on the spine and front cover.
"A private edition of some Black family history," he said. "Not a grimoire, I assure you."
Pansy started to laugh. She'd had a momentary panicky feeling until Harry cleared things up.
"You have to understand…" Pansy began.
"I do, I do, believe me," said Harry. "I am very careful about the Blacks."
"I know you are, Harry," Pansy said. "The community is fortunate that signet is on your hand and not some others it could have gone to. Anything in particular you're trying to find?"
"Oh, something I stumbled on," Harry said. "It's kind of interesting. The Blacks once had a marshal, it seems. Lord Black would appoint someone Marshal of the Blacks. It started a long time ago, when all the big families were feuding with one another. I'm trying to find anything that says when we had one last."
"Okay, I'll leave you to it," Pansy said, muttering, "Marshal of the Blacks," as she walked across the foyer.
Harry read until it was time for Daphne to get home. Pansy had left after puttering around on her side for a bit. Harry looked around the office, didn't see anything that needed locking up, and left by the front door.
Kreacher seemed to sense the Potters didn't need a big dinner to top off their days. After finishing his salad, Harry asked Daphne if she had room for dessert.
"No," she said. She was already yawning.
"Neither do I," Harry said. He called Kreacher, thanked him for the light meal, which was exactly what he and Lady Daphne agreed they needed, and asked that the table be cleared.
"I think I'm going to read a bit," Harry said. He would have liked to read in bed but feared he would go straight to sleep, only to awaken at two or three in the morning and spoil his upcoming work day.
"Bath," said Daphne. "Maybe a short note or two, if I have the energy."
Harry was still reading the volume of Black family history, looking for any mention of the marshal position. Despite a valiant effort to stay up Harry found himself heading for the master bedroom a good deal earlier than he'd wanted. Even so, Daphne had given up on her note writing and was sound asleep when Harry got to their room.
In the morning, Harry wandered downstairs to a greeting of, "Hey, Sunshine!" He'd found Daphne in the kitchen, reading the Daily Prophet across a bowl of porridge.
"Anything good?" Harry asked as he accepted a mug of coffee from Kreacher.
"Not much," answered Daphne. "Lucius Malfoy's underground campaign of rehabilitation goes on. He donated to the Mortar and Pestle annual drive, enough to put him in the Patron Circle."
"What is that again?" asked Harry.
"The student literary review at Hogwarts," said Daphne.
"Oh," Harry said. "I didn't remember them having one."
"Well, WE did, and I worked on it," Daphne announced.
"Well, I kept getting sidetracked and missed out on a lot of that precious boarding school experience," said Harry. "Except for quidditch."
"I know," Daphne said. She smacked her lips, sending a kiss across the table to Harry. "And your name is on all kinds of hardware in the trophy case. Do you ever think about Mr. Filch supervising the lads as they polish your trophies? Didn't he make them do it all by hand, with no magical assistance?"
"So I heard," Harry said. "Ron allegedly had to do it that way one time, although he was such an accomplished slacker I have my doubts. So what's this about Lucius?"
"Lives a quiet life with the wife of many years, Hogwarts graduate son and your sister-in-law, one big happy family at Malfoy Manor. In other news he has been working quietly and assiduously to rehabilitate himself in the eyes of Magical Britain following his involvement in what we might call the wrong crowd. A little charity work, some strategic donations, those kinds of things."
"Got it," said Harry. "I'll trust you to keep an eye on it."
"Will you?" Daphne asked. "Care to expand on that?"
"Well, it would probably be unethical of you to engage your sister in casual conversation with an idea to letting her go on a bit and drop a little insight on her in-laws," said Harry. "On the other hand, you and Narcissa have some need to keep one another informed, on the need-to-know issues…"
"Harry Potter!" exclaimed Daphne. "Are you surveilling me and my friends?"
"No," answered Harry, "Although if that were the case you would have just given away the game. All I know is that I was summoned for a crash rescue and the one additional asset requested was Lady Narcissa Malfoy. You know about some previous interactions between us, because I, your husband, confessed or confided some details. If I had stopped to think I would have asked if Narcissa wasn't ineligible. Instead, she came running when asked by my elf and jumped through the portal with me. The portal to Our Place and that creepy castle/slum and all those strange, strange people. Now, to me, it appears you and Lady Narcissa have something going on to which I am not a party."
"Oh, is that all?" asked Daphne. "Of course, then, Narcissa and I talked and worked through a bit of baggage. We are in-laws now so we cleared the air. You guys can like each other but you won't be consummating any kind of physical relationship."
Harry looked across the table. He noticed his coffee cup was empty, picked it up and held it out, as far backward as he could reach. When he couldn't feel the cup he counted on that indicating Kreacher had taken over. Harry brought his hands together on the table, lacing his fingers together.
"What do you think her feelings are toward the Blacks? Did she say anything? Anything you feel comfortable divulging, obviously, nothing you feel constrained to hold in confidence."
Daphne sat still, studying Harry. Her face was a neutral mask but Harry could feel her body's tension, as if her muscles were right there under his own skin.
"That's an odd question but I don't think Narcissa would mind me quoting her," said Daphne. "We never really leave the Blacks behind."
"Oh," Harry said. "I like that. Of course she's married to Lucius and we don't have any claim on her. Still, she eagerly volunteered to run off to the Alps to see what her friend, Lady Black needed."
They sat there, each looking back at the other. Neither wanted to give up anything more. Both waited patiently for their spouse to ramble on.