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Part One | Strike the Match
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Two. Special
Tick.
Tock.
Tick.
Tock.
The timepiece showed it was half past four, and the few faint streaks of light through the curtains signaled that dawn was fast approaching. Pansy yawned, she'd seen every hour of the night come and promptly go, both her desire and ability to slumber apparently having long since deserted her. She'd lain in bed for what she now realised was close to six full hours; tossing, turning, and imagining - she had clock-watched, attempted to read, and she'd cried. In fact, Pansy frowned, sleeping was really one of the only activities she hadn't managed to get through that night.
The witch sighed heavily through her nose. It was no secret Pansy wasn't the biggest fan of Muggle-borns. She had never taken any steps, nor made any efforts to hide that fact. "Slytherin!" The sorting hat had called within seconds of being placed on her head at her Sorting Ceremony, and Pansy had openly smirked at the hat's revelation. She was a pure-blood, going where pure-bloods should go. She was Sacred Twenty-Eight. She was a Parkinson.
"We're special Pansy, we've always been special, and we will always be special."
Pansy didn't feel special anymore. She still felt a superiority over Muggle-borns, didn't she? Granger, who for some unbeknownst reason had, yet again, crept into the forefront of Pansy's subconscious, was the smartest in her year. Pansy scrunched up her nose and rolled her eyes to no one at the thought. Still don't have to like her. She didn't like Granger, and she'd be willing to bet a lot of gold she never would. Yet, she knew she couldn't agree with the lessons that awaited the witch, and all those like her. Let's face it, she thought dryly, they'll be 'taught lessons'...or worse, whether they 'register' or not.
For the first time in her life, Pansy Parkinson questioned what being from a Sacred Twenty-Eight family truly meant.
Her conclusion was fairly simplistic. It means I will probably avoid pointless torture. She furthered her thoughts. Nothing. It means absolutely fuck all.
Pansy had never felt less special.
She made the decision in a split second, and in only a few short minutes she was standing in the centre of her room, fully clothed. In spite of her hair being scraped back in a clumsy ponytail and her face unwashed, Pansy felt surprisingly energetic considering her lack of sleep. Grabbing her wand, she padded the length of her room and quickly exited into the adjacent corridor. Walking softly through the house, Pansy's thoughts screamed just as loud as her heart thumped.
The darkness and the shadows didn't unnerve her, and neither did the tapping on a nearby window, which she knew was caused by an old cherry tree. She wasn't startled when an owl hooted from the garden, or by the pop of an unseen pipe closeby. Pansy revelled in all things nighttime and would choose a deserted, midnight landscape over almost any other. She felt at home, and calm, in the dark of the early hours. Pansy's mouth twitched at the owl's second hoot as she furthered her passage through the large house.
What did put Pansy on edge, instantly, however, was the very loud and out of place creak, that echoed around her and raised every hair on Pansy's neck. It took only a few seconds for Pansy, wand grasped tightly as she frowned into the dark hallway, to realise it had originated from a floorboard situated in the room directly in front of her. Luckily the door to said room, Cassius's study, was closed.
Pansy held her breath as she suddenly became aware that a definite murmur of voices had began to radiate from the direction of the study. Creeping closer, Pansy was able to identify her father's dry tone, and another, not immediately recognisable - but seemed to hold an odd familiarity to it.
Reaching her side of the door in a crouch as quickly as she dared, even in spite of the hasty cushioning charm she'd whispered to quiet her steps as much as possible, the conversation became entirely audible.
"Of course, it is only a matter of waiting one more year, less even, ten months."
Pansy only just managed to stifle a gasp of realisation. She knew that voice. What the hell is Rabastan Lestrange doing in my house at half four in the fucking morning?
"Indeed." Cassius replied. "As long as you're happy with our arrangement still, I'm sure you can find a Muggle slave-whore or two to fill your time between now and then."
Well, thanks for that mental image, father.
"Ha!" Rabastan clapped his hands. "You read my mind Cass, old boy!"
"Not a particularly difficult feat, Lestrange. Oh, whilst I have you here, did you locate that family in Leicester?"
"Yes."
Goosebumps rising on her arms, Pansy could feel Rabastan's smirk as an involuntary shiver took over her body at his tone.
"And?" Cassius pressed.
"They will...not be...an issue."
Cassius did not answer immediately, yet when he did, his voice sounded entirely calm. "Good. Any difficulties?"
"Other than the daughter's cry being one of the most irksome sounds I've ever had the misfortune to be subjected to, no."
"I assume this irksome crying was dealt with quickly?"
"Of course."
The conversation had apparently reached its end. Pansy heard papers being gathered, glasses placed down and eventually, the unmistakable crackling of fire.
"You'll be at the meeting tonight?" Pansy heard Cassius enquire.
"I will. I shall see you then."
There were no exchanges of farewell. Pansy heard the footsteps, Rabastan's, move a few steps, before he murmured an address and the unmistakable whooshing sound of her father's floo informed Pansy that the Death Eater had left the premises.
A further set of footsteps, belonging to who Pansy could only assume was her father, began to make their way closer to the door, a door that Pansy was currently pressed up against. A situation she guessed would not go down particularly well with Cassius, were he to find her there.
Pansy managed to dodge into the kitchen and run, as quietly as she could manage, to the back door. Once outside, Pansy realised she was panting heavily as a heavy feeling of nausea coursed its way through her. She knew her father wasn't a particularly nice man. He was neither gentle nor kind in ways she had seen other fathers be. But the way he was talking, he didn't just sound like a bastard, he sounded like an evil bastard. Who had the family from Leicester been? How old was the girl with the irksome scream? Rabastan was bad news, even to families like the Parkinson's; the Lestrange's were on a whole different level.
A truth Pansy was not expecting hit her like a ton of bricks.
That's why he'd been out four nights a week, constant meetings, 'business lunches'. Pansy gasped, she'd heard him ask Rabastan if he was going to the meeting.
His words from earlier that day presented themselves to the front of Pansy's mind, as though summoned. "That the Dark Lord does not take kindly to those that oppose him."
Dark Lord. Pansy's eyes widened in the dark. Not a normal meeting, none of them have been normal meetings. Death Eater Meeting.
I am so fucking stupid.
Her legs seemed to know what they needed to do without instruction. Pansy walked, tears blurring her vision, tears that threatened to erupt from her in loud, full on sobs.
She felt herself walk into something, a big something. A big hairy something.
MOOOOOOOO!
My father is a Death Eater, and I just walked into a cow.