The Hollow

Welcome to the Hollow

Disclaimer: This story is inspired by my favourite Agatha Christie novel, Murder After Hours, as well as by The Sun Also Rises and The Secret History. It features satire of the bored upper class. It also has drama. Lots & lots of drama.

I own none of the works from which this takes inspiration, nor any of the characters or locations mentioned from the Harry Potter series.

A/N: Thank you so much for reading my first novel-length fanfic. I hope you enjoy! Please leave a review or drop me a note if you have any thoughts. Thanks! xo, Shea

"No." Theo crossed his arms in a feeble attempt to be stern. "No, for Merlin's sake, Pansy! No."

"Please."

She uttered this pretty word (one that hardly ever passed through her pretty lips) in such a cloying voice, one full of such pitiable desperation, that Theo would have to give in. He—her oldest friend, the closest thing she had ever had to an actual familial relation—wouldn't be able to resist.

"Theo, she's horrible. She—she—You don't know the things she says."

Theo sighed in exasperation, but stepped out of the doorway nonetheless, allowing the crumpling girl into his home. One look at her in the light of the foyer proved her point better than her feeble attempts at emotional extortion had: her makeup was smeared and she clutched in one hand her stuffed kneazle—a white, ratty thing she had had since childhood with eyes so glistening and beady he wondered sometimes if it were once alive—and in the other a decanter of red wine.

"Did you at least bring me a glass?"

"This is cheap shite." She poured its contents into a potted plant that sat near the front door and then shouted for her favorite of Theo's elves. "Gudgeon!"

The elf arrived imminently and offered its services with a chirpy hello.

"Welcome back to The Hollow, Miss Pansy!"

Gudgeon was a sharp fellow who wore a bow-tie at his neck and seemed to always have a white napkin folded over the crook of his arm. Pansy found Theo's modern treatment of his elves distasteful, but she couldn't help but find the snazzy, pompous elf a good bit of entertainment.

"Something nice." She waved the empty carafe in her hands. "Maybe French? Yes, French I think. Nothing east of Nîmes."

She shuddered at the thought of being offered as gauche a selection as a Châteauneuf-du-Pape—especially one post-1981. Gudgeon's face screwed into a thoughtful frown, and then he left to retrieve a bottle from his meticulously organised cellar.

"There is nothing wrong with a good Côtes-du-Rhône," Theo chided, knowing of Pansy's ridiculous notions about muggle wine, "GSMs are a classic for a reason."

"Overrated bullshit." She waved him off. "There are much nicer things to be found in simpler bottles."

Gudgeon arrived post-haste with a bottle of Yvon Métras Fleurie. Theo's eyebrows shot into his hairline.

"What?" Pansy flirted with an innocent smile, "I said simpler, not cheaper. "

He put his arm around her and escorted her into the nearby parlour, resigning himself to her company. He inquired politely about what workplace drama it was that dragged his friend to his doorstep in such a despondent state.

"Madame Daphne," she whinged dramatically as she sprawled across the parlour's chaise, then adding with a grumble, "more like Madame Despot."

These post-work visits had become a common occurrence at the Hollow since Pansy began working at Daphne Greengrass's new boutique in Diagon Alley. This ridiculous idea came to her after attending some witch-empowerment conference that espoused the type of yuppie propaganda that romanticised working class life and suggested young upper class witches reclaim their agency through menial labor. She seemed to find it suddenly chic and desirable to take up a career. And she said it just like this for weeks after: she intended to take up a career, as if it were no more than a little hobby. No one expected her to actually do it.

Of course, working was not a necessity for her to live—neither was it for Theo, nor really for any of their social circle. They were independently wealthy; they had no need to do anything but pass their days in leisure. So, when Pansy began work under her close friend and up-and-coming designer Daphne Potter née Greengrass, it took everyone by shock. It had been one thing for Daphne to take over Madame Malkin's robe shop after the old woman passed; among their ilk, owning a business was much different from working in one. It was entirely another for Pansy to take on the work of a servant girl: draping and measuring while making small talk and eager assurances that one looked lovely, truly, and that no, that colour did not at all lend itself to pallor.

Pansy continued on her tirade. Theo thought to his weekend plans, hoping they wouldn't be entirely derailed by her unexpected arrival. They were rather important plans for Theo, all the part of a scheme he had devised to to seduce Hermione Granger. Professionally, of course!

What he was hesitant to make Pansy aware of was that Daphne herself would be over on Sunday—the Greengrasses had been family friends with the Notts as long as the Parkinsons had been, and Pansy's poor work experience was not enough to change that. Theo valued himself a loyal friend, even if he hadn't seen Daphne since her wedding, or heard much of her that wasn't filtered through the lens of Pansy—by whose account she was a strict and keen businesswoman who never let up, a perfectionist with a mercurial streak and a Jezebel who surely ran through that golden Potter's money like water. Theo had always found her much more agreeable than that, even if a bit less so than her sister. He had always preferred Astoria's company, but he invited Daphne and her new husband to the Hollow for Sunday brunch to make his other guests arriving tomorrow feel more at ease—

"Oye!" A groggy and half-dressed Blaise Zabini jumped at the sight of a ragged Pansy Parkinson in his parlour. "Pansy?"

His hands went to his crotch as he let out a short string of expletives. He called to himself a pair of trousers and yanked them on.

"Hello, love," Theo said as he stood. He kissed his husband on the cheek and offered him some wine.

"I do love a Gamay," he said as he accepted a glass.

A casual catch-up ensued that revealed to no party anything new.

Blaise's investments were doing well. He had his eye on a particular Holyhead Harpies chaser—a subtle allusion to his recent friend, the young Weasley girl—betting she'd take the Harpies to the finals this year. Pansy had more complaints to issue about Daphne; Blaise was more entertained by the dramatics than Theo had been. Theo's charitable work was finally making strides for the werewolf community—speaking of…

"Pansy, you're welcome to stay the night," Theo said, "but I have some colleagues coming for supper tomorrow,—"

"You've never sent me home for a supper before," she looked at Theo accusingly.

"You wouldn't want to be here."

"I might."

'Like shooting firewhiskey', he thought, 'better to do it quick, bear the brunt of the shock, and move on.'

"The Weasleys—you remember Ron and Hermione, she works with me now, you know—will be staying for the weekend, and the Potters joining for Sunday Brunch."

Her jaw dropped as if it were secured to her head by an over-oiled hinge.

"No, no, no." Blaise interjected before Pansy had the chance to respond, "This is my week-end, and you know it is! I invited Ginny for quidditch, and Draco—well, he invited himself, but he'll watch, too. That's beside the point. You know one can't very well tell him not to come: his delicate ego would bruise and he'd never leave that gods-awful manor of his again."

Pansy's eyes looked like they were about ready to burst out of her head.

"And you think you're getting rid of me before that phenomenal mess? Hah! No, no— GUDGEON!" The elf appeared with a sharp pop. "Ready my room for the weekend! I'm staying for the party."