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The week had been too fast and too slow at the same time. Pansy's mother seemed to want the engagement to be announced publicly sooner rather than later and so she had organised the engagement party for Saturday night. This hadn't given Pansy much time to talk to Neville and even when she had gone to his for tea on Tuesday as was their routine, the subject had never come up. She wasn't to wear the ring until Saturday night so it wasn't even as if he could have noticed it.
By Saturday night, she still hadn't talked to him, but as she fixed her dress, tugging her sleeves down over her arms and checking that her emerald pendant sat perfectly nestled between her breasts. She took a slow breath as she prepared herself to face the rest of pureblood society that was congregating downstairs. She hated these parties generally, and this one was shaping up to be the worst one yet as all eyes were going to be her and on Theo.
She'd met with him the night before to discuss the contract that his lawyer had drawn up and while it had things that she wasn't exactly happy with written into it, she knew that she had to compromise. She was dragging him into what they both knew was going to be a loveless marriage, after all, so he deserved to have some of the things that he wanted included.
Pansy eventually realised that she couldn't put this off any longer, and that if she didn't show her face downstairs sometime soon then her mother was likely to appear and frog-march her down whether she was ready to face the music or not. This had to be something she did on her own, especially considering that she had been forced into the whole thing from the beginning.
She could honestly say that she had never seen the Parkinson home looking so beautiful, and under any other circumstance she was sure that it would have taken her breath away, but as it was, she could only look out over the house that was not going to be her home for much longer - especially not if the engagement was as short as the pre-engagement. She had to just ride it out, wait and see what her parents and Theo's father thought was an appropriate timeline for all of this. She doubted that she and Theo would even be consulted about what they thought.
Theo was waiting for her at the foot of the stairs and offered her his arm as she joined him. They had to keep up appearances from the off, she supposed, though honestly she was glad that he was there. They were in this together, and even though he wasn't her first choice, he was still a good choice.
They moved through the crowd which seemed to be parting before them and even though no-one in this elite group of people knew why they were here this evening, she was sure that they all had their suspicions and seeing the two of them together probably confirmed those suspicions. Pansy tried not to think about what other people were thinking as she and Theo joined her mother who gave her what she assumed was an approving nod. Her mother had picked out her outfit though, so that made sense.
Pansy's eyes flickered down to her hand where she had placed the ring again after several days without it, but when she looked up, her eyes met a pair of familiar green ones, a pair of eyes that she had not been expecting to see there in her home. Her breath caught in her throat and she found that she couldn't look away from him as her mother called for silence.
She didn't even hear her mother's words as she announced the engagement, nor did she hear the applause from the guests. She couldn't hear anything except the blood that was rushing to her ears. All the while Neville hadn't looked away from her. She'd seen an unfamiliar expression flicker across his features and she realised that she had hurt him.
Theo gave her arm a small squeeze as he tried to bring her back to the present and Pansy did manage to glance sideways at him. She opened her mouth to speak but found that she had no words so she just shook her head. When she looked back to where Neville had been, however, he was gone.
There was no time to obsess over where he had gone though as she was forced to talk to relatives that she couldn't even remember and members of what her mother was only too pleased to inform her was the Sacred Twenty-Eight. Pansy then realised why Neville was there, because his family still belonged to the Pureblood Directory, even if they didn't exactly believe in the same ideals as anyone else here at the party. It would have been an oversight on her mother's part to not exclude them - and now something that Pansy would have to deal with herself.
When she finally managed to get away from both Theo and her mother, Pansy made her way outside. She needed fresh air to be able to clear her head. Ideally she wanted to skip the rest of the party and head to the beach but she knew that that just wasn't a possibility. This was a party for her, after all, even if it wasn't celebrating something that she wanted.
Pansy let herself walk through the grounds for a while, almost wishing that she could let herself get lost, but she had grown up here so that wasn't at all a possibility. It was dark out now and she was regretting not having bothered to take her wand, and that regret only grew when she stumbled and even tripped over.
She might not have been able to see her leg but the warm sensation told her that she had probably cut it. Pansy swore under her breath and pulled herself to her feet quickly in the hopes that no-one had seen her. She quickly discovered her heel was broken as she stumbled again, but this time she managed to regain her balance - or as she turned her head slightly to the side, she realised that someone had in fact caught her.
"Neville…" She whispered, her voice shaking more than she would have liked. She couldn't help but be ashamed of the fact that she hadn't even told him about Theo, even if they were 'just friends'.
"Engaged, huh?" Neville asked, his arm still around her waist but she pulled away just enough so that she could get her shoes off. "For how long?"
Pansy paused for a moment before she answered him. "A few days. It wasn't my idea - and it wasn't Theo's either."
Neville was silent, which Pansy couldn't at all blame him for. If his feelings for her were the same as hers for him then it made perfect sense that he wouldn't know how to react. She didn't even know how to feel herself. But, she did know that Theo's contract meant that she could tell Neville how she truly felt. Here, however, was not the place.
"I didn't know you were going to be here." Pansy admitted, though of course that didn't make any of this acceptable. It didn't excuse the fact that she hadn't even tried to talk to him when she had had plenty of chances.
"My grandmother made me come. It's not often that we're invited to these parties and I guess I thought that because it was at your parent's, it wouldn't be so bad…" Neville trailed off and Pansy realised that he was implying that it was bad. And yet, he was still here and he hadn't gone home since the announcement had been made, so that had to count for something, right?
"I… I'm sorry Neville. I'm sorry you had to find out that way. I'm sorry I'm such a massive wuss that I avoided the subject all week." Pansy let out a small sigh. She wanted to tell him the real reason that she hadn't told him about her engagement in the first place, but she knew that now was not the time. Not to mention the fact that if anyone saw them out here together then rumours would start to fly and that was not at all what she needed. Her mother was a socialite and had done her very best to ensure that Pansy was too.
"I still can't believe that you're, well…" He trailed off again and gave a slight shake of his head. "You didn't even tell me you were seeing anyone." He pointed out, his voice now flat as he pulled his arm away completely. The betrayal was getting worse and Pansy knew it.
"I wasn't." Pansy said quietly. "It's complicated. And like I said, it wasn't our idea. You're lucky, Neville, you've only got a toe inside the pureblood society. You don't have to follow our rules; you can marry whoever you want and your gran isn't going to care if that means that you're then forcibly removed from the Pureblood Directory. Theo and I on the other hand, we don't have that luxury." She took a breath. "I'm lucky that I get to marry someone I know in the first place, and I'm lucky that that someone is a person I can tolerate."
She heard Neville swallow thickly but he didn't say anything else for a while. Instead they just walked back towards the house, Pansy wincing as her feet started to freeze as they made contact with the cold slabs on the path.
As they reached the back door, she turned to face Neville, realising that the conversation that she had been avoiding needed to come sooner rather than later if she wanted to avoid any more damage.
"Can I come by tomorrow?" She asked quietly, knowing that she didn't deserve the chance to explain but also knowing that he more than deserved an explanation. "I… there are things we can't discuss here." There were too many potential eavesdroppers, one of which was her mother who would be absolutely disgusted to overhear about the contract and that Pansy dared to love someone that she hadn't picked out for her.
"Uh, I guess so." Neville gave a non-committal nod. The fact that he hadn't flat out said no was something that Pansy was going to count as a win. She wanted to wrap her arms around him and let herself breathe in that all too familiar smell of mown grass, but she knew that that was a bad idea for a lot of reasons so instead she just gave him a small smile.
"Thanks Neville." She said softly. She knew full well that she didn't deserve his kindness but as always he had a heart of gold. He hadn't changed a bit in the whole time that she had known him and she was hopeful that he never would. She loved him for who he was.
Neville gave her the smallest of smiles before he headed back inside, making a beeline for his gran and leaving Pansy stood on the doorstep as she tried to catch her breath.
"There you are!" Her mother exclaimed. "What happened to your dress? And your shoes? Go and get yourself cleaned up!" Her mother shooed her up the stairs without even waiting for an answer from Pansy, which suited her just fine as she didn't think that she could talk again anyway.
She headed up to her room where her wand was hidden away and hoped that she could somehow repair her dress and heal her leg. She didn't think that she could fix her heels, however, so she just chose a new pair from her wardrobe and slipped them on. She didn't dare take too long before she rejoined the party, she'd already been missing for far too long as it was.