Legal: I own nothing and only play in sandboxes for fun.
A/N: to the guest who reviewed last chapter seeking answers, this chapter has some ;)
Chapter 18
"There," said Theo triumphantly, pointing at a dot labeled 'Parkinson' that was in…
"Myrtle's Bathroom!" Draco and Hermione said simultaneously.
Draco spun on his heel and began sprinting toward the staircase that would lead them to the first floor bathroom.
Theo waited as Hermione pointed her wand at the parchment—"mischief managed!"—hastily refolded it and shoved it in her pocket before they too sprinted for the stairs.
It felt like only moments, but was probably closer to ten minutes, before the three of them were outside the heavy wooden door.
Theo was pleased to find himself barely winded, despite not playing quidditch nor having to traverse those stairs daily. He glanced at Hermione, who was politely pretending to ignore the spots of color staining Draco's cheeks as he worked to calm his breathing.
Having found Pansy, a blanket of cautious energy seemed to descend upon the trio. Draco, having caught his breath, looked at Theo pointedly before neutrally appraising Hermione.
"Thanks Granger," Draco said, hand on the door handle, his body almost vibrating with what Theo knew to be nerves. "Appreciate your… expedited discretionary methods."
Hermione waved away his thanks. "I'm sorry for putting my foot in it! Honest, I had no idea my disclosure would affect her so strongly."
Theo was touched by the remorse emanating from her, and he couldn't help but surreptitiously move his hand so the back of his brushed against hers in silent support.
Theo could tell Draco didn't want to rush in to see Pansy with Hermione still there; didn't want to expose their friend's vulnerability further, but was mindful of appearing ungrateful.
Or worse, rude.
"Would you be able to use the map and go find Greg and Daphne for us Hermione?" Theo pitched his voice low and tilted his head toward her slightly. He was rewarded when she mirrored his stance, creating a subtly intimate atmosphere despite them currently standing outside a manky washroom that hid their distraught peer and that Draco stood sentry.
"Of course," she murmured, her eyes searching Theo's in the dim light of the torches lining the walls of the corridor. He could tell she understood his unvoiced request, that she give them some time to console Pansy without an audience.
She laid a hand on his left arm, over where he'd have been marked had her best mate not finished off that bloody megalomaniac, and squeezed it gently.
"I'll find them and let them know where you are." She went to turn away but paused before saying softly, "if you need anything, I'll be in my common room. I trust you able to find your way back to the portrait I took you to tonight?"
"Your trust is not misplaced," Theo said, removing her hand from his arm and bringing it up to his lips. He felt her shudder as he lightly pecked the back of her hand as he'd done earlier, his lips feeling the edges of tiny scars and skin that had weathered hardships.
A hand that held stories he desperately wanted to read.
As he let her hand drift down between them, he continued, "nor is your discretion and kindness shown tonight. Thank you, Hermione."
His eyes burned into hers with everything he wanted to say but knew wasn't the time.
Hermione nodded her understanding, a smile flirting with the corners of her lips.
"Good evening Theo, and good luck."
Pulling herself away from their intimate proximity, she called, "Goodnight Draco. I'll send the others to you shortly." She threw the words over her shoulder at normal volume before bounding away from them, back up the stairs; pulling the worn piece of parchment out of her pocket as she ran.
The two Slytherins watched as the last shadow of her presence left their vision before turning toward the wooden door separating them from their friend.
"She's…" Draco began, but shook his head.
"Remarkable." Finished Theo, pretending not to notice the raw curiosity in Draco's glance.
"She is that." Draco replied simply.
"Ready?" Theo asked, putting a bracing hand on his friend's shoulder.
"As ever one can be," said Draco, his mouth twisting into a grimace.
Draco pushed the door open gently, and Theo was thankful that for all the neglect he knew this bathroom received, the hinges stayed silent.
"Pansy? It's Draco and Theo. We know you're in here."
"May we join you?" Theo moved into the room after Draco and set a few wards at the door.
"Smart thinking," murmured Draco, knowing the wards Theo'd set would allow only eighth year Slytherins through and into the room with them. It would also act as a repellant to anyone else.
The two exchanged pained glances as they heard the muffled sounds of sniffles amidst the crunching of glass against tile.
"Just… leave…" sniffed Pansy. "I don't… didn't want you to be here… just leave me alone. Please."
The last word was so heartbreakingly whispered that Draco was moving before Theo'd even lifted a foot.
Rounding the corner of the wall that shielded the row of sinks from the doorway, Theo saw Draco on the floor, his arms wrapped around Pansy as he pulled her into his lap; bundling himself around her as if to shield her from the world.
Seeing Draco on the floor, uncaring of the dirt and debris littering the tiles and the grief that was etched on the blond's face as he held the sobbing witch in his arms wrenched at Theo. He fell automatically to his knees beside the pair, as well unmindful of the destruction around them.
Shattered slivers of mirrored glass littered the grimy tiled floor like tears glittering upon a muddied face.
Theo glanced up and took note that only one vanity mirror remained intact, the others having fallen victim to Pansy's outpouring of rage and grief.
"I'm so sorry Pans. I hate that I wasn't there. I'm so fucking sorry." Draco was murmuring into her hair, over and over as he rocked her.
"I'm sorry we couldn't, we didn't, stop her sooner," Theo felt the same impotent anger rise within him that he'd felt last year when the world had gone from shit to utter hell. He wanted to comfort, but refrained from offering it through touch.
Pansy and Draco had a history, and touch between the two wasn't what others perceived it to be.
By him, however, even if it was a hand atop her head to offer a soothing pat, at worst it could be misconstrued and at best, unwelcome.
Especially in respect of the catalyst for Pansy's distress.
They stayed in their tableau on the floor, waiting for her sobs and body spasms to subside. Time passed with little marker save for the subtle passage of the moons spread on the floor from the leaded window.
"I just…" Pansy gave a sobbed hiccup, pulling back to regard them with bloodshot and red rimmed eyes. "When she said, I mean, she has NO idea… and knowing what he did… it was so risky! And it brings it all…"
A myriad of emotions traversed across Pansy's face before she said, in resignation, "some fucking fresh start this was." She wiped at her face angrily. "Not even a week back and Granger has me reduced to a bloody puddle on the floor of an unused toilet."
"To be fair, Pans, she was pretty cut up about upsetting you, especially as it was inadvertent." Draco said, surprising Theo with his statement. "She even helped us locate you."
At the look of horror that spread across her face at Draco's words, Theo cut in quickly, "Which she did discretely, and left us before we came in here to go get Greg and Daphne. She understands boundaries and when not to push for answers not her due."
He saw the straight line of Pansy's shoulders relax at this.
"Thank Merlin for some small favors," she said, closing her eyes and leaning back against Draco's chest.
Suddenly she pulled forward.
"Wait, did you say Greg and Daphne are on their way?"
"We're already here Pans, just didn't want to intrude until we thought you ready for more company." Daphne said, her voice smooth and as calming as she and Greg moved from behind the entrance wall and into the main toilet area.
"You don't need to use that tone with me Daph, I'm not fucking porcelain."
She pushed off of Draco and began fixing herself in the remaining mirror with a set jaw and steely gaze rimmed in blotchy crimson. As Theo watched on, Greg tentatively reached out and wrapped his arms around Pansy.
"You're not porcelain," Greg murmured, "but you're also not alone."
It was a testament to how shaken Pansy was that she allowed Greg's embrace. She typically wasn't one for demonstrative affection, unless it was tactically used in a manner to garner a reaction.
The air was heavy with words unsaid, all of them remembering.
"I hate that nothing came from Snape's intervention." Daphne growled, waving her wand and transfiguring five extracted bits of pocket lint into plain yet comfortable looking wooden chairs.
Four pairs of eyes stared at her.
"What? As appealing as the floor seems," she delicately shuddered, "I'd rather be comfortable and clean while we talk and not having to scourgify my clothing like you three."
She sat down on the chair closest to her, crossing her legs and hugging her arms around herself. "Right, now although I'm glad Snape wasn't punished for interfering and I know eventually she got what was coming…"
"It would have been nice to have seen her taken down publicly," agreed Theo. "Or at least, had some hand in her demise."
"Rather than a swift end from an errant stone falling from a castle parapet." Said Draco in disgust.
"It wasn't errant." Blaise's deep baritone growled as he stepped into view, Tracy at his side.
"What is this, a fucking party? Bloody interfering Gryffindor." Muttered Pansy.
"How'd you know to find us here?"Asked Greg, apparently not understanding the 'bloody Gryffindor' reference. "We only knew because of Granger."
"And there's your answer." Said Blaise conjuring up two armchairs, slightly more comfortable looking than the ones Daphne had created. Lifting an eyebrow, he indicated one to Pansy, before lowering himself into the other with a sinewy smooth grace that Theo had always secretly envied.
Shaking her head, Pansy shot Blaise a grin of thanks before stepping out of Greg's embrace and dropping down with regal poise into the proffered armchair.
The rest followed suit, and moments later all the eighth year Slytherins, save for Millie, were seated on magically provided chairs in the decrepit, mangy washroom.
"We've never really talked about it," Tracy murmured, looking at her hands. Her knuckles were white with how tightly they were clenched together. "I mean, we've talked, but nothing beyond surface platitudes and threaded sentences. I think it's time…"
She straightened and looked first to Pansy, then the rest of them. Theo was proud to see Tracy's steel spine emerge, as normally she was the soft spoken, placating one of the group. He knew if any of them could get Pansy to open up, it'd be, surprisingly, Tracy.
"What's there to talk about," Pansy's tone was of such extreme boredom that if Theo hadn't grown up along side her, he'd have though her legitimately unmoved by the topic at hand.
"Oh I don't know? How about how Alecto Carrow repeatedly cornered you after class? About how she'd whisper threats and taunts that she thought only you could hear?" Tracy's eyes shown with repressed anger, and she opened her mouth to say more but was cut off by Draco.
"Or how about the detentions she'd give you, and the sadistic punishments she'd dole out, knowing word would get back to daddy dearest?" The words were spat with acidic vehemence, coating everyone with their vitriolic potency.
Theo could feel the guilt and shame rolling off Draco in waves at having been away from the castle when Snape had stepped in.
"Backfired pretty spectacularly," Pansy snapped bitterly. "Didn't realize I was no longer the rosy apple of father's eye. That he didn't particularly care about her, teachings, so long as I was still able to fetch a good match upon graduation."
A humorless, hollow laugh trickled out of Draco as he sat shaking his head. "Right, a good match. If your father'd had his way, there'd have been nothing good about it."
"How'd Snape know?" Greg asked.
"He didn't, not for the longest time. No one did." Pansy said with a softness to her voice only those in the room had ever heard from her lips. "Despite the headmaster supposedly knowing everything that transpires in the castle, Alecto seemed to time her… lessons, for when he was indisposed with the Dark Lord. She bragged to me once, a few weeks before… well, before—" she stopped, swallowing back the sob that Theo could see attempting to rise up her throat before hardening her jaw. "She bragged about some new wards Dolohov had taught her, to circumvent those intrinsic to the castle and it's master. Wards for if she should ever find need to discipline a pupil in methods her esteemed Headmaster might find a tad…archaic."
All eyes were on Pansy as the bitterness spewed forth.
Tracy was right, none of this had been discussed the year prior, nor over the summer. Survival had been the name of the game, carry forward, keep your head down. Don't make waves. There'd be time to talk later, and all that nonsense.
Except they hadn't.
Not until now.
"We know some of the lead up…" Tracy ventured, but her tone, so similar to Daphne's cautious one, set Pansy off.
"You want to see what being a Pureblood heiress from one of the sacred twenty-eight means to someone with an axe to grind against their family's patriarch, Davis? What our esteemed Headmaster finally put a stop to?"
Pansy jerked to her feet, throwing off her robes to pool on the floor at her feet and ripped off her school tie.
"There's a reason none of you have seen me without my robes for any length of time since then, or without having adequate time to prepare myself."
She was angrily unbuttoning her white school blouse, one button at a time, her fingers attacking the round pebbles holding the cotton together as if they were eyeballs she wished to squish and gouge.
"My glamours are impressive and virtually undetectable, mother made sure of that, but even they—" the last button was undone, and she tore off her shirt.
"Even they can't stand up to what that witch did."
Rolling up her undershirt to rest just under her breasts, Pansy halted her movements and stood there, clad only in a white undershirt and in her school uniform from the waist down.
"Oh Pansy…" Daphne breathed, a sob catching in her throat while her eyes shown brightly with rage.
Greg vomited on the floor. Draco absently vanished it, his eyes glinting like molten steel as he stared at Pansy.
She ignored them, staring directly at Tracy.
No one else moved or made a sound, but Theo knew they all were as sickened by the sight as he was.
Anger pooled, deep in his belly, and if Alecto wasn't already dead… he knew she would be after this.
"Take a good hard look Davis. All of you! Feast for eyes on what father didn't even blink an eye at."
Pansy's stomach looked like a chess board, that someone had carved into molded plastic while drunk and then set on fire. Lines zigzagged and crossed, some thin, white and smooth; others the width of his thumb, red and slightly raised. There were puckered patches and shiny skin of regrow skin from burns. The mess of flesh didn't seem to end at her exposed stomach, but continued past the borders of her clothing, hidden from sight.
"The only reaction these," she waved at her torso, "received, was for him to spit at me 'at least robes would hide the blemishes until the bonding ritual was complete,' and that 'at least it's not something that will cost me my bride price'. I was, am still, nothing but a brood mare and commodity to that man. Yet I will forever bear the markings of a demented woman apparently scorned by his ambivalence and crass disregard."
Tears shimmered in Daphne and Tracy's eyes as their friend exposed her deepest secret and vulnerability; appearing to teeter on their lower lids but surprisingly, thankfully, did not fall.
Theo didn't think Pansy would be currently able to tolerate tears.
"For months she'd funneled her frustrations into and onto me. A nick here. A mark there. 'Oh Parkinson, I have a new Muggle product I'd like to test on you before the next class. Oops, my apologies, that wasn't meant for ingestion, silly me. Oops, I'm so sorry, that wasn't meant to be applied directly to skin.'"
She yanked her tank back down, covering her scars, and reached for her blouse.
"I didn't know then why I'd been chosen as her personal plaything. Not until that night when anger loosened her tongue. Did you know he'd been quietly slumming around with her during my fifth year, upon the Dark Lord's return? There's nothing like a woman scorned. If it hadn't been for Snape…"
Blaise was sitting bent forward with his elbows on his knees and hands steepled, his chin resting on the points of his fingers as hatred and determination blazed from his eyes.
Greg looked simultaneously murderous and like he wanted to crawl into a corner and weep.
Draco… Draco was oddly calm despite the vibrations of manic violence emanating off him.
"You mentioned something about the errant castle stone not being errant?" Draco asked Blaise, eyes still on Pansy.
"I was in the right place, at the right time," bit out Blaise. "I wasn't sure, at that point in the battle, what way the wind would go. I couldn't afford to be seen opposing the Dark Lord's subjects, but also refused to let that… piece of filth live, not after what she'd done to Pansy. To…" Blaise broke off, and if Theo didn't know any better, he'd say Blaise blushing
'Intriguing…' thought Theo. 'Could this be about a certain member of the red and gold?'
"She was my first, my only, kill." Blaise said flatly. "My only regret is that I hadn't done it sooner."
"Thank you," Pansy whispered, turning and hugging Blaise. "I… just… thank you."
"If not you, mate, I would have." Said Draco, "Azkaban or punishment by the Dark Lord be damned."
"Why didn't you say something? Why didn't you tell us?" Daphne asked.
Tracy nodded. "You could have told any of us. Despite everything, we guard each others backs."
"She'd has me sign something our first detention. I think it was similar to what I've heard Granger put on the parchment for their little practice group in fifth year; the one the permanently scarred that girl. Carrows curses weren't as benign, hers would have done more damage than a few measly pimples had uneven breathed a word. I physically wasn't able to."
"So how did Snape stop her exactly?" Asked Theo, his curiosity getting the best of him and reflected in other faces around the group.
All any of them knew before tonight was that Pansy had been the target of Alecto's demented focus, with only whispers and inklings as to the extent of her damage. They knew Snape had swooped in and put a stop to it, with the resulting aftermath of Alecto Carrow and Pansy residing in the infirmary for two nights and Pansy's unwavering loyalty.
"Snape was someone I've looked up to since I was a first year. Despite his snark and acidic demeanor, he actually seemed to give a shit about us snakes. Especially those in direct comparison to Perfect Potter and his tribe."
Theo held his tongue at the bitterness coating Pansy's words, for he knew she spoke the truth. Even if she hadn't been, now wasn't the time to sift through the jealousy of past house favoritism.
"Father was very vocal over the summer about how I was to support 'that Severus chap' in his new position of headmaster, and to keep my nose clean so as to be sparkling fresh for any potential suitors."
"Right, because that's what's important in war. Suitors. Not staying alive or learning how to navigate political waters to stay afloat." Theo was disgusted with the eldest living Parkinson. He'd met the man on various occasions throughout his life, but had never cared enough about the man to waste energy forming an opinion.
Now however, he decided Azkaban couldn't come soon enough for the tosser.
He hoped the place quickly dampened and snuffed out the man's wick.
"Most don't know of Snape's role in Dumbledore's death, outside of those Potter told and the followers of the Dark Lord." Murmured Draco. "The majority of houses, regardless if they supported the Dark Lord or not, would have stood with Severus, would have backed him as Headmaster over McGonagall. He was an enigmatic ghost of a man, who terrified past and present members of Hogwarts alumni with his ability. He was also a duel agent, so no one quite knew where his true loyalties lay. At least, not until the end. It doesn't surprise me your dad wanted to curry favor."
"I still don't understand—" Tracy began.
Pansy sighed before saying quickly, "Alecto got sloppy, and it was her undoing. It was the night father had apparently sent his final, biting rejection through a howler, and she was almost blind with catatonic rage. She didn't check thoroughly for occupied portraits in the room she'd dragged me to under the guise of a Muggle-style cleaning detention. One was thankfully occupied by a Vienna Monk who'd hidden himself away in a shadowed enclave. He ran to Snape's office to alert him of what was transpiring, demanding him to action."
"I can just picture it," said Daphne, "the man who gave us the 'monthly flow talk' being lectured by a portrait to make haste. I bet he made a surly sight indeed."
"He was terrifying. He was… he was amazing." Pansy whispered. "He barged in, and within the span of five minutes he'd not only used the Cruciatus curse twice on her to the point she voided her bowels, he'd also performed legillimancy and obliviated her of not only the entire night, but of the affair and all our previous detentions. Before she regained consciousness from his mind manipulations, he apologized. He was almost apocalyptic with rage that he couldn't do more, and that he'd missed what had transpired, what I'd endured. He promised me, never again."
She rubbed her belly through her shirt. "He gave me potions that helped heal some of the injuries made with cursed devices, but he wasn't able to heal most of her inflicted depravity."
"So when Granger said she'd set Snape on fire…" Draco began.
"I lost it." Pansy said, eyes downcast. "I can't tell you why that moment, what prompted such a reaction. Maybe it was the casualness, or the surprise… I'm not sure. All I know is that hearing Hermione bloody Granger talk about setting Snape's robes on fire during a quidditch game reminded me of her. I was angry, and also… damn it, it just... it brought it all back."
The seven of them sat quietly, each lost in their own minds, turning over what Pansy'd revealed.
"Let's go," Pansy said abruptly after the silence began to stretch, becoming slightly oppressing. "As comfortable as this chair is, and as thrilled as I am that you're now aware of my...blemishes... my arse is becoming numb and I'm knackered after all this public catharsis."
They all stood and vanished their respective chairs before making their way out the door and toward their common room and respective beds.
No words of thanks or reassurances were spoken. None were needed.
There were some things that time nor family prejudices nor wars could shatter, and those were bonds of loyalty; loyalty forged through the pain of being the bargaining chips of a generation of unworthy parents.