Apophasis: denial of one's intention to speak of a subject that has already been named.
October 8, 2012
Lightening flashed through the tall, mullioned windows of the cavernous drawing room, sending jagged shadows up the rose-papered walls. Out in the garden, rain lashed at the bloomless stalks and thunder crashed overhead.
"Aren't you scared of the storm, then?" the bedraggled woman currently dripping all over the sofa asked.
Scorpius just shook his head, staring at her torn, too-small, robes and thick makeup running like paint down her cheeks. Her hair was a rat's nest and her shoes had spiky heels. His mother didn't even let the neighbor's collie into the house because she said it was a filthy mongrel, but she let this lady sit on the sofa. His father was right. He would never understand girls.
"Aren't you afraid the boogey man or somethin's gonna come out and gobble you up?"
"No such thing," Scorpius shrugged.
"Oh yeah? How do you know that?"
Scorpius rolled his gray eyes, just like his father's. "Everyone knows he's not real. Just a bogart. And my daddy's what other bogarts see when they look at each other, so there aren't any in all of Wiltshire."
"Well aren't you a little smart-arse. Just like your mum."
"You said a bad word."
"Well there're a lot worse words in the world, kid, I can tell you that."
She fumbled in her pocket for a cigarette and lit it with her wand, avoiding the little blond monkey and his inescapable gaze.
xXx
"There, you can give her that," Astoria said brusquely, shoving a tartan dressing gown into Draco's stomach.
"It was you who insisted she come in. I'd've turned her away at the door."
"How chivalrous."
"It's her own fault she's a little bint. I've got a family to deal with."
"She's still a person, Draco, and so are we. It's indecent to turn away something as pathetic as that, especially if you used to be… friendly."
"Stori, I've been well-shot of Pansy Parkinson since I was seventeen. Honestly."
Astoria slammed the cupboard door shut and turned around with a freshly-pressed quilt.
"It's not my fault she's here!" Draco objected indignantly to her glare. "And I'm certainly not the one asking you to be civil to her."
"I have to be civil to her because I have a big house and a rich husband and a charming little boy and she's got nothing but cigarettes. And it is in fact your fault, Draco Malfoy, but we aren't going to talk about the things you whispered to her in a dark four-poster fifteen years ago, or the way you used to slink around the house when she'd come to call like just talking to her was treason. We are going to be civil, gracious hosts to someone less fortunate than us tonight because that's all she is, isn't she Draco? Just an old classmate we pity, and there is no reason for you to stay as far away from her as possible."
Astoria pushed the drawing room door open. "Up to bed with you, Scorpius."
"Do I have to, Mother?"
"Yes, darling, you do."
"But I won't be able to sleep with the storm anyway."
"Then you can lie in bed and practice your spelling list."
She chivied him out the door, giving her husband a look as they brushed past. Draco let the door shut behind him. Pansy blew a smoke ring and looked over at him.
"I've made a real mess of it, haven't I?" she said with a hollow laugh. "Could use a real hero to pull me out of it." She gave him a sidelong look, a half-smile.
"Put something decent on," Draco told her, dropping the dressing gown into her lap. "And you should stop deluding yourself into thinking the things in your imagination are real. You're only going to be disappointed."
Pansy ground her cigarette into the soil of a potted plant with another empty peal of laughter.
"Looks like your six-year-old son is smarter than I am."
"We were all fucked up, Pansy. I managed to turn it around. You ought to let me have it."
She pulled the dressing gown over her scanty, soaked outfit and turned dull eyes upon him. "Well, you oughtn't to have fucked me up in the first place, then."
A/N: Draco. Pansy, and Astoria for Oneofthosepeopleonthestreet. :) Hope you liked it!