For a second, before the screaming began, she thought it was a Christmas card from her Mother. A little card, a quaint offer of Christmas wishes, perhaps a boast that she were with Pellinore and not Pansy.

If only it had been.

For the length of a breath, it was like the world was silent. The origami lips of the letter fluttered violently through the air, mute to Pansy's ears. Those words didn't belong in this house. Those words couldn't be said in front of this family. Those words, those words, those words. Cutting and cutting and cutting.

SLYTHERIN SLUT

Red paper slashed before her. The air felt on fire. She looked at Mrs Weasley's face. Molly had a face that look as if kindness was pocketed in the creases.

MALFOY'S WHORE BITCH

Pansy saw the moment she paled and the kindness on Molly's face fled. A stone woman stared at her.

WE KNOW WHAT YOUR FAMILY DID

Harry had his wand out. What was he going to do against a letter? You can't shoot words.

WE KNOW WHERE YOU LIVE, YOU CUN-

Charlie had grabbed her and was shouting. He held her close, skin over her ears. She wanted to laugh. This was too loud. Nothing could be louder than this. Nothing can silence this.

WE WILL KILL YOU

Please. What's taken you so long?

WE KNOW WHAT YOU ARE

Pansy gave a short, sharp shriek. Not that word. Not that word. Don't say it, don't say mu-

MURDERER

No, no, no-

THEIR NAMES ARE ON YOUR CONSIENCE– AMELIA BONES, ALASTOR MOODY, RUFUS SCRIMGEOUR, CEDRIC DIGGORY, BERTHA JORKINS, NYMPHADORA TONKS-

So many names. Endless names. Until-

FRED WEASLEY

More names listed off, on and on, endless. A list of sins. Her sins? That couldn't be right, could it? Charlie felt frozen around her. She couldn't look up. She couldn't look at their faces.

The letter made such sweet promises.

We will kill you, Pansy Parkinson. We will have justice and you will die.

"Finito incantatem," Harry tried, hopelessly. The envelope burst into evangelical flame, too late. It's message had been delivered.

Arthur Weasley looked terrible. He looked like he could deliver terror. His arms were fixed on the table either side of him, taunt and painful. It was strange to see such a gentle man look so wrought with hurt.

"What," he strained, eyes fixed on a point none could see. "What was that?"

Pansy let out an odd hiccup. She couldn't – she couldn't – what was? What was it? Her eyes were fixed on the untouched feast before them, stomach turning from the smells.

Charlie didn't let go of her, but his touch was painful. His fingers bent into her bones. She needed that. She needed the pain. She needed to be brought back.

"Is this the first you've received, Pansy?" Harry said earnestly, materializing a transparent bag with his wand and stuffing the burnt embers of the Howler into it.

Charlie gave her a little shake, coaxing.

"Yes," she replied. "Yes, but others-"

Harry looked her straight in the eye, the only one in the room who would. "We've had reports of two Slytherins receiving death threats."

Hermione breathed in deeply through her nose. Her eyes looked wild. Was she vindicated? Shocked? Pansy couldn't tell. The glitter in Hermione's eyes raised her hackles.

She was in danger. She was going to survive this. She was going to get out of this house and away from this shit. Her brain was going to start cooperating, and the moment she stopped shaking, her body would obey her and take her out of this hellhole. How naïve she thought she'd be safe here of all places, among these people.

They were always going to be the danger.

"They've been more than two," she shot back quickly. If Harry was surprised, he hid it well. "Theodore Nott and Millicent Bulstrode. Practically all the Slytherins in our year and half from the year below. I can write you a list-"

"More?" exclaimed Ron. Hermione's mouth downturned at his words, a flash of betrayal on her face. "Why didn't they report it?"

Pansy gave a dry laugh. "You're going to do something about it? I can't imagine a few angry letters come up high on the Auror's to do list. The others made it sound like a joke. They were bragging about receiving them. I didn't know it was like…." Pansy couldn't finish. She forced herself to look at Charlie whose blue eyes bore into her impassively. "You don't believe it do you? Please say you don't-"

Remembering himself, Charlie gathered her to him. She buried herself in the safe darkness of Charlie, wishing she could disappear into him, safe and warm. He kissed her hair. "No, never. I know you, Pansy-"

"YOU KNOW?" Arthur exploded. His face was red and raging. There was nothing Pansy had seen that made her fear quite like a calm man losing his temper. "YOU KNOW? Son, you kept who she was damned quiet and you don't know. How can you bring someone associated with them to our house? Whose name has now been linked to Fred's?"

The room chilled as these words settled. A small hand snuck onto Pansy's lap and gave it a comforting squeeze. She couldn't look at Luna to thank her. She had to keep her eyes on the danger.

"Mr Weasley," Harry said gravely, looking terribly grown up in a room of sombre, agitated Weasleys. "We've investigated everyone tied to Voldemort. I can promise you that Pansy had nothing to do with Fred's death-"

"-I can't fucking handle this." George stood up, all pretense of a peaceful Christmas gone. He looked pale. "Get yourself fucking together, Charlie."

He walked doggedly to the front door and left. Before Charlie could follow, Bill signaled to him to stop and followed George out into the snow, Fleur and Ginny a few steps behind him.

I'm sorry, thought Pansy. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. But would they know what she was apologizing for?

"Parkinson," Arthur sniffed. His anger looked so at odds with his jovial woolen jumper and plate of brussel sprouts. Pansy's presence had stopped that man being happy. She had stopped him mid-joy and made him think of ghosts. "I know the name. The law firm? The eldest son died, didn't he? He was tied to the dark lord. What happened to the middle one?"

He already knows.

"He's incarcerated, Mr Weasley. Pellinore is in Azkaban." Pansy replied, mouth dry. She didn't want to lie to him. She wanted to say more. She wanted to defend Pell. She wanted to defend them all.

"And she's got nothing to do with this? You're telling me, Harry, she has nothing to do with their deaths?"

Harry looked at him evenly. Two high spots of colour rising on his cheeks.

"Dad, stop it," Charlie growled. "She's innocent. She had nothing to do with Fred, or any of it."

Percy gave her a look like a scalpel. "So you had nothing, nothing at all, to do with the Deatheaters?"

"I was in Slytherin. We all had something to do with the Death Eaters. Usually genetics." She bit her tongue. That was stupid. "I'm so sorry, Mrs Weasley, I'm so, so sorry about having this ruin your Christmas-"

"It's always that argument, isn't it?" interrupted Hermione, her eyes bright (her tail, probably, bushy). Molly looked silently away from them, unable to take it in. "It's what all of you say – 'They were my friend, brother, parent, but I didn't do anything.' Crabbe and Goyle? Sounds like they were sickening in seventh year. What did you do to stop them?-"

"-I tried-"

"Sure. You might not have raised a wand to anyone, Pansy, but you definitely raised some words." Hermione rolled up her sleeve. The expanse of her arm now the only thing anyone could look at. "All of you, that whole house. Maybe you were too cowardly to be directly involved in any slaughter, but you gave your hatred, didn't you? You fostered that… thinking?"

Pansy stared at the scar on Hermione had revealed beneath her sleeve. It was stark and ugly, carved with a mad hand. Mudblood.

Her eyes swam with tears. "I'm – I'm –"

"What? You're little more than an ignorant racist, with your limited and barbaric friends. No wonder you're receiving these notes. What do you expect from your animosity? Your house… and the denial, disgusts me."

"It's more complicated than that. They're not… we're not all bad. They're just scared."

Hermione looked like she could laugh. "What would justify any of it?"

Charlie whispered to her. "You don't have to. We can go. Just go."

But it was an entirely fair question. One she should have answered long ago. How much easier that would have been.

Pansy took a breath. It still wasn't easy to say.

She'd run from this word. Fled from it. These people weren't kin. How could she possibly trust them with it?

A vision of Pellinore flashed before her, his limbs shaking, eyes bright in the darkness. You can never tell, he said, I'm going to try my best to keep you safe. But you can never, ever tell them what you are.

Was she betraying his sacrifice? Handing out her secrets like sweets?

She glanced at Charlie, who looked so calm and trusting at her. Her being here compromised him. His tricky relationship with his family made even more difficult.

"It's complicated…" She stopped. She had to be sure this was the right thing. It was the right thing. "Because I'm a half-blood, and… so were many of us."

How could she explain?

Slytherins protect their own.

We knew the sins of the previous generation. Some of us were that sin.

If the Weasleys had not been such social pariahs, perhaps they would know the widespread gossip of Talitha's indiscretion with a Muggle. Pansy never asked any questions about her biological Father. Her real one was distant, but decent. She didn't need another. There was a time where she saw her Muggle grandparents. Sweet people, confused at why it was so difficult to see their granddaughter, at her tales of broomsticks and potions and how she couldn't wait to have a wand. She'd sit on their floor eating jam sandwiches, watching The Wombles as they cooed over her and how she'd grown.

It was most the peaceful time she had ever known. She missed them. Yet it had soon become apparent how foolish it would be to keep them in her life. Maybe now…

She knew the danger in her veins. Perhaps that's why she had been named for a fragile flower, rather than a hero like Pellinore and Perseus.

Oh, how Perseus had hated her. The Halfblood in their midst, muddying their family with further scandal. He was a true believer. He saw the romance in Tom Riddle's world, and sought it before many others did. Pansy was glad he was dead, just as she was glad he taught her to be the one to hate first. Pellinore taught her how to protect. He taught her family, loyalty, and he had been punished for it. He had gone to the Death Eaters to buy her safety. Someone was bound to tell. If he made himself useful, perhaps he could spare her and her mother.

How could Pansy explain the existence of Perseus and Pellinore? To her the Slytherins were divided between them. The ones who truly were full of hatred –the Crabbe's, the Goyles – and those who were greyer… Malfoy was happy to exchange kisses at school, but back then he would never promise her a future. He looked down on her parentage. Though he would spend a week removing curses from his house before she visited in the summer.

How could she explain the strange hierarchy and hypocrisy of her house? They talked a good game. Some of them really did hate Muggleborn.

There was a horrid difference – our blood traitors versus their blood traitors. It was difficult to repeat the racist words of your parents when those very words referred to your friends.

It was, sometimes, dangerous not to repeat those words. Might as well use them towards those where no love was lost.

Pansy knew they didn't deserve forgiveness. Pansy wasn't sure they deserved to have their reasons explained.

Yet she tried, with poorly chosen words and an earnest tongue.

Pansy hoped she wasn't justifying or excusing… she just wanted them to know her friends, her troubling, selfish, egotistical friends – the best and bravest and worst people she knew – didn't deserve to die.

From the looks on their faces. She didn't think she was succeeding.

"Draco Malfoy knew you were a Halfblood… and didn't care?" Ron said, flabbergasted.

"Not care… not quite. He got over it. When it comes to friendship, you only have to be nice or interesting. And I'm… one of them."

"It just… doesn't make a huge amount of sense. Draco's a tosser-"

"Exactly. I think hypocrisy really is the least of his sins. I was useful, I was his ally, I was in his house. Any one of them was reason enough to feel loyal to me."

"How lucky that you were in that position," Hermione added, words dripping with sarcasm.

"Yes, I'm incredibly lucky that my brother – brave, stupid Pellinore who had no issue with Muggles – joined the Deatheaters to protect me and now faces life imprisonment. Golly gosh, it's just swell."

The pair glared at each other.

Charlie had tried to intervene in these moments, but it was more than apparent that Pansy could hold her own, even if her words were not helpful to her.

"And what, hiding the fact you were a Halfblood excuses your behaviour? You were part of Umbridges inquisitorial squad! The Slytherins tortured other students in seventh year!"

"Yes, because we were oh so included in your little band? So what, we weren't learning Defense Against the Dark Arts in class? Perhaps having lessons that didn't involve mauling each other was safer? To us the Inquisitorial Squad was a nice addition to the CV, especially seeing that most of the Prefects had gone rogue with a secret, out of hours club! And we tried not to torture people. We did a lot of pretending in seventh year."

"That's… broadly true," added Luna, who was the only one to dig into the Christmas meal and was upending the cranberry sauce on the glazed carrots.

"So you behaved like a Blast-ended Skrewt because we didn't let you join the our gang, after you'd all spent so many years being polite and not at all suspicious?"

"You're just angry that Millicent punched you during a duel in second year. Which is entirely understandable behavior on her part. You'd fought a three headed dog and she'd just about learned Lumos."

Hermione made a sound that was practically a growl.

With difficulty Charlie had stopped clutching Pansy to him. Having announced her parentage, she was visibly bristling. Waiting for an attack.

She'd told him last night. Along with the momentary engagement to Malfoy. The events of seventh year – the Slytherin's own guerilla warfare against their own, something touched upon, an evasion for how they protected themselves from the Carrows.

And this. Her disappeared, Muggle father.

An odd bit of Charlie wanted to laugh. Partly, because – of course. Pansy made Muggle references constantly. It was as if she were trying to hide in plain sight. But mostly because… why would anyone have an issue with being part Muggle? So many were – yet that was not the world in which she, nor Charlie now he thought about it, had been brought up.

The Weasleys loved Muggles. Their inventiveness, naivety. The wizarding world felt so small and so close to this big, giant thing that the Muggle universe was. Hearing Hermione and Harry talk about dishwashers and phones and the insanity that was the internet, blew his mind. It was a world that he rubbed shoulders with but could never understand. It felt like they had a second language they were born knowing. They could easily slip back into not using magic in public or watching their words.

It was not often he thought of the flipside. How confusing and dangerous it was for Muggleborns, even despite centuries of turmoil.

And Pansy, a Halfbood in a house that prided itself on the pure. He could picture her, too stubborn to do anything but survive. She would lie and cheat and protect… would he have done it very differently?

He didn't know what to say to his Mother. She had not spoken a word. His Father clutched her hand, and Charlie felt the weight of his betrayed gaze.

Hermione stood up, a retort boiling on her lips.

It was stolen from her breath with a gasp. A white shadow interrupted her– for a second it looked like the winter snow had drifted through the wall or a Christmas ghost had joined their unhappy party.

The bickering stopped immediately as a pale Patronus flew across the room, it's swallow wings beating madly.

The bird halted in front of Harry. Pansy could hear the pant of the messenger even before the words flew out his mouth.

"Harry, Anthony Goldstein reporting. There's another attack. You were right, they're after them. They're after the Slytherins. It's not looking good. They have the beast #647. It looks like they're heading for-"

With an invisible gust the bird swept away on the air, taking the rest of the message with it. Pansy didn't know enough about Patroni. Why would the message end? Did it stop there, at the most important part?

Charlie grabbed her arm – what? What did he think she was going to do? Run out of here like a Gryffindor?

"What the bloody hell is going on today. It's Christmas!" shouted Ron.

"Yes, Harry," said Pansy coldly. Very slowly, she moved her hand downward and grabbed the reassuring smoothness of her wand. "What is going on?"

Charlie had not removed his hand from her wrist. Distantly she wondered if she could bring herself to curse it off.

Harry gave a struggled sigh. Digging his hands into his hair.

"Harry, what is it? Is this what you've been hiding?" echoed Hermione, having the indecency to sound betrayed. "Where's the attack?"

"Speak quickly," Pansy added dangerously.

"There has been a number of odd events recently. We couldn't link them up. A band of Dementors gone rogue. An attempt, we suspect, to steal one of the Romanian dragons. It's been top secret…" Harry added, angrily, looking at Hermione with what looked like an apology. "Because the evidence has been pointing to… difficult places. Recently, a manticore has been listed as missing in Persia. We've had reason to believe it's tied to the threats sent to Slytherins and other suspected sympathizers. Some people think justice hasn't been fully served." Harry rolled this off quickly, bringing out a thimble-sized medallion from his pocket. He lifted it briefly to the light, trying to scry something in it's midst.

"Dammit, where are you Anthony."

"Who was Anthony trailing?" asked Ron, voice serious.

"One of the Slytherins who had been receiving threats. No one had taken it seriously, so he didn't have much back up. I think the name was Lucien Bole? We should probably head to his house, quickly. I'm sorry, Mrs Weasley-"

"You idiot," hissed Pansy, eyes wild. "Really Grade A sleuthing. How the hell have you got this far? Lucien isn't at home. He's with the other Slytherins. This is an attack on everyone. They're at Malfoy's-" She tried to wrest her hand from Charlie. "Let go. I need to go to them. They're in danger."

"I'm coming too-"

She didn't have time. They didn't have time.

With violence she turned - gripping her wand – Charlie grabbing her – tearing herself through the world and apparating back to Malfoy Manor.

Author Note: So... I've been planning this twist for very, very long time. Literally a handful of chapters in (hence the odd references to Charizards and whatnot). Thank you for sticking with this story, realise I'm far from the speediest writer. I'm keen that the chapters are hitting the right notes, and I hope they are.

Thanks so much again for all the wonderful comments. I'm going to do my best to get as much of the next chapter out before the new year until then, hope you all have a bloody lovely Christmas!