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“What about Hugo Rosier? Beatrice’s boy. They sent him off to Durmstrang but he still spends the summer term in York. I heard he’s all set to inherit the Flint fortune within the next few years- a man like that would make a fine husband.”
Pansy glanced down at the photo her mother had lain down on the top of the glass coffee table. It showed a young man- perhaps around seventeen- raising his eyebrows at the camera. Every couple of seconds he would lift up a hand to smooth tawny hair out of his eyes. He supposed he was handsome, in a squared-jawed, Colin Firth kind of way. She and Daphne had once spent a whole weekend secretly watching old muggle movies, equally enthralled and repulsed by the mundanity of it all. She could picture this boy perfectly in one of them- the serious businessman who gets pulled out of his shell by his ditzy yet enigmatic secretary. How dull.
“Mother, I really don’t see why we have to do all of this. Draco and I have been promised for each other since birth.” She protested.
“Oh don’t be so naive!” Her mother sighed tremulously, face contorted in frustration. “Do you really think a family as prestigious as the Malfoy’s will take into account some childhood fantasy? Draco is the most eligible bachelor in the country and every respectable pure blood family will be vying for the chance to marry into that household. I’ve heard rumours that they’re already negotiating between the Greengrasses and the Prewett’s. My darling, as fond as he may be of you, we don’t stand a chance.” She took a deep, shuddering breath, the heavy string of pearls around her wobbling with her. “That is why, as your mother, I must ensure that your future match will benefit this family; rather than the first bright-eyed errand boy who takes your fancy.”
Pansy felt the bizarre urge to laugh. There was no arguing with her mother. She was a Parkinson first and a parent second. She’d learnt that particular fact the hard way.
She hadn’t known about Draco and the Greengrass’s. Was it Astoria or Daphne? Perhaps both- it wasn’t unheard of for a man to accept two betrothals. Maybe he was expected to decide between the two. She felt a pang of hurt that he hadn’t mentioned it in his letters. They shared everything together. Well, to an extent. There were some things that went best unsaid.
Sometimes she would let herself entertain the idea of them running away together, away from all the chaos and expectations- to somewhere they could be themselves. First, they would travel to Paris and drink wine along the banks of the Seine, dressed head to toe in couture. Perhaps they would even dip a tentative toe into muggle culture and walk up and down the polished floors of the Louvre, criticizing the Picasso’s and Rembrandt’s for their lack of imagination. Draco would like them though -secretly of course- especially the Mona Lisa. There had been rumors that she was a witch and that had been how she had captured Da Vinci’s attention for so long. It seemed strange, a witch chasing after muggle rather than the other way around.
Then they would move on, to Italy and Amsterdam- to the snowy planes of Switzerland and the dark jungles of the Amazon. She knew it could never happen, but there was no harm in thinking about it; as long as her mother never found out.
****
“I didn’t tell you because it’s been awful! I didn’t wish to bore you with it as well.” Draco told her emphatically, flopping down onto the plush velvet of the train's seats. “It was all of these stuffy meetings where I had to entertain Astoria for hours whilst our parents schemed behind closed doors. She’s barely thirteen, I feel like the lecherous old villain in a novella who preys on innocent girls. At least Dorothy- the Prewett girl- is our age. But every time she speaks I swear I lose brain cells. She’s walking proof that money doesn’t buy class.”
Pansy couldn’t help but smile at his rant. It was stupid how much she’d missed him and his dramatic monologues.
“Is she pretty?” She asked, and Draco screwed up his face, trying to solve some kind of difficult equation.
“I suppose so,” He said slowly, “She’s not ugly per say, although her hair and wardrobe could definitely do with some updating. You’d probably be a better judge than me.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” She snapped back defensively, suddenly feeling strangely trapped.
Draco frowned at her outburst in concern. “Just that you’ve always been better at noticing the little details. You were the one that realised Granger had shrunk her beaver teeth first.”
Some of the tension in her shoulders relaxed. “Well, that was obvious. Honestly, I’m just surprised she didn’t do it sooner. Mudbloods never really understand the full extent of our magic. Like Potter with his glasses. Vision curing spells have been around since the eighteen hundreds.”
The word mudblood never fell out of her mouth smoothly. It felt suffocating and prickly and wrong, rather than with the causal superiority that the others could deliver it with. She glanced at Draco to see if he had noticed but instead he was staring out the window distractedly.
“What do you think Potter would look like without glasses?”
She laughed, imagining it. “Like even more of a prat than he already is.”
Draco nodded along, his forehead creased slightly. “Probably.”
********************************
That night, curled up on one of the plush sofa’s in the Slytherin common room, sandwiched comfortably between Blaise and Draco, she got caught up on the school gossip. Perhaps it was immature but she thrived on it and Daphne seemed to know everything about everybody.
“Apparently Chang spent the whole summer sobbing over Cedric,” Daphne said snidely. “But I saw her staring at Potter all the way through dinner. Perhaps she has a thing for martyrs.”
Blaise chuckled, a rich hearty sound that always warmed her up. “What an interesting kink. I’ll have to test it out sometime.” He said whilst winking at her charmingly.
Blaise Zabini was a flirt. It was in his blood. He would flirt with the portraits if no one was around. That combined with his devastating good looks meant that he normally left a trail of broken hearts behind him everywhere he went. She’d always found it interesting how he’d attached himself to Draco, who was a different kind of devastating all together. She often compared Blaise to the sun, he was magnetic and exciting and made you feel as though you would be the one to reach him- but in the end, you would always end up burnt. Draco on the other hand was the moon. He was beautiful and distant, fascinating and untouchable. What did that make her? Was she simply a star, revolving around them constantly and never quite getting close enough? Or was she the earth, keeping them grounded whilst they protected her in response? She hoped it was the second one.
As though hearing her thoughts, Blaise yawned and stretched like a cat, showing off his pointed white teeth. “Well folks, I’m going to bed. Draco, you coming?” There was a strange underlying tension in his words, one Pansy didn’t understand. Next to her, Draco had gone very still. Once again she felt like that star, lonely and confused.
“No, I think I’ll stay down here a little longer,” Draco said carefully. “Better keep making sure Pans hasn’t forgotten the entire history of magic syllabus already.”
“Alright.” He shrugged and kissed the top of her head briefly before turning to the rest of them. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”
********
Pansy had taken Divination on a whim. It seemed more interesting than Runes and she liked the way that the classroom smelt of lavender and sweet jasmine. When it got hot she could rest her head on the desk and Professor Trelawney would pretend not to notice. The whole lesson acted as a quick power nap before Charms. But this year it was different. That Umbridge woman kept barging in reducing Professor Trelawney to a nervous wreck just by adjusting the sleeves of her ghastly pink cardigan. Usually, Pansy adored watching Umbridge sink her magenta claws into the teachers but seeing her go for someone so already pathetic really took the fun out of it.
Bored of watching Trelawney stutter, she leaned back in her seat and took up her favorite past time. People watching. They were sharing with the Ravenclaws this year, much less interesting than the Gryffindors who were embarrassingly easy to rile up.
“Can anyone tell me what The Lovers represent in tarot?” Professor Trelawney asked nervously, looking at the sea of bored faces before her. “Anyone?’
“Choice,” A new voice popped up, soft and dreamy. “It could about a moral dilemma or your values being challenged. If you can combine both parts of yourself, you can create internal harmony but reversed you may find yourself out of sync with those around you and struggle in relationships.”
Professor Trelawney beamed. “Wonderful Luna! Wonderful! Five points to Ravenclaw.”
Oh. It was Looney Lovegood. Of course. What was she doing in this class? Wasn’t she younger than them? Pansy craned her neck around, trying to spot the other girl. She was a few seats away, sitting next to one of the room’s huge circular windows. It poured light onto her, turning her white-blonde hair gold. She vaguely wondered if she was a relative of Draco’s with hair like that. She was tapping on the desk, sleeves rolled up to her elbow, wrists decorated with dozens of tiny beaded bracelets and bands. It looked as though she had made them herself, all chaotically coloured, from rainbows to blue and silver- Ravenclaw colours. Looney shifted forward and they all moved with her, the sea of hair that had been covering her face parting as she did so; revealing a delicate sloped nose and long swooping eyelashes.
Pansy suddenly found it very hard to look away.
***********************
Draco had taken to spying on the Gryffindor quidditch practices, forcing Blaise and Pansy along with him. They would huddle behind the stands whilst Draco squinted up at the sky, keeping up a running stream of commentary whilst the other two tried not to freeze to death.
“…Potter has the snitch now- bloody showoff…no one needs to do that many dives…really you’d think he would have improved even slightly over the summer….”
“Draco,” Blaise began through clenched teeth, “No one cares. Let’s just go back to the castle and steal a bottle of firewhiskey out of Millie's trunk.”
But Draco wasn’t listening to him, too engrossed in the practice match.
“Let’s just leave him to it.” Pansy rolled her eyes. “He’s impossible when he gets like this. Probably won’t even notice we’ve left.”
They left Draco clutching his omninoculars and traipsed up to the castle, tracking mud across the floor.
“Did you know Draco might be engaged to Astoria Greengrass by the end of the year?” Pansy asked Blaise, itching for his opinion on the betrothal.
“What?” Blaise stopped walking. “But I always assumed he would marry you?”
Pansy sighed. “So did I.”
Contrary to public opinion, Pansy wasn’t in love with Draco Malfoy. She loved him yes, with a fierce protective passion that only grew in intensity- but romantically? It had never quite clicked. Sometimes, during late nights and early mornings, she wondered if she could. He was gorgeous, no question, with that white hair and silver eyes. Maybe they would grow into it, over time- the way her parents did. At the very least they could be best friends. A friendship marriage didn’t sound too bad.
“Hey Blaise,” She started, an idea forming, “What about us? Why don’t we get together?”
Blaise sighed contemplatively. There was something in his expression that she couldn’t read. “It makes sense - we’re both outrageously wealthy and attractive. Our children would be gorgeous. I don’t know if I could do that to you though Pans. You would never be able to fall in love with me and I would never be able to stop having affairs. We’d both be miserable.”
“I don’t care about all that. I would let you sleep with as many people as you please, just as long as I got free access to the Zabini fortune. C’mon Blaise, you’re my best option.”
“Alright.” He gave her a long look. “If you still feel the same way when we leave school, I’ll marry you.”
***************
Loony had started watching her too. She could feel the intensity of her stare. It sent goosebumps down the back of her neck whilst an insistent voice whispered turn around look at her too. She would try to hold out for as long as possible, gripping tight to her quill, determined to focus on Trewlany’s droning. But then she would feel the goosebumps again and the voice would get louder until she had no choice but to give in and look at Loony.
She was met with bright blue eyes, staring at her unflinchingly. The other girl made no effort to hide her observation, even going so far as to tilt her head like a curious crup- trying to figure out the other girl. Pansy hated it. It made her feel vulnerable, as though Looney could see through all the bravado and knew the things she didn’t even admit to herself. The things that came calling in the dark. The things she had locked away in a faraway part of her brain and thrown away the key. Looney Lovegood wasn’t supposed to know about those things. No one was.
“Everyone, find a partner to practice palm reading with. It’s a perfect opportunity to practice your intuition. Go to whoever your gut tells you.” Trelawney clapped her hands together and Pansy let out an audible groan.
Partner work. Perfect. The only other Slytherin in the class was Theo and he’d been snagged by Susan Bones. Maybe she could work with Sue Li? Or that Patil girl? She craned her neck around, avoiding eye contact with an eager-looking Marietta Edgecombe.
“Hello.” She flinched at the sudden appearance of two silvery-blue eyes blinking at her. “Would you like to be my partner?”
Oh fuck. Where had Loony come from?
“What makes you think I’d want to partner with you?” She spat, giving the other girl her most condescending glare.
Loony looked completely unperturbed and flopped down in the seat next to her. “Intuition. Well that and the fact that you kept looking at me. You’re not very subtle you know.”
“I doubt anyone would be able to look away from the train wreck you’re wearing. Did you get into a fight with an elderly woman's wardrobe this morning?”
Loony smiled disarmingly. “It’s okay. I won’t tell anyone.”
Pansy felt sick. It was as though her intestines were twisting up through her stomach and squeezing all of her organs.
“Oh please, as if anyone would listen to you in the first place.” It was a weak retort but she couldn’t think of anything better, she was too busy trying not to throw up.
“Some people listen to me. Harry listens to me.” She cocked her head to one side. “He doesn’t like you very much. Are you Draco Malfoy’s girlfriend?”
Who did this girl think she was? Marching up and acting like she knew everything. Well, she knew nothing. Nothing at all. “That’s absolutely none of your business.”
Loony nodded sagely, “Yes I thought so too. Perhaps you should tell Harry that. Can I see your hand please?”
“What?” Pansy was getting whiplash from the speed of her tone changes.
“For the palm reading. Unless you want me to try it telepathically of course but I’m not sure I’d be any good.”
It was at that point the gods took pity on Pansy and rung the school bell, freeing her from the suddenly claustrophobic classroom and blue-grey eyes.
***
It was Christmas by the time Pansy finally met the infamous Astoria Greengrass.
She was a peculiar creature, with wispy dark hair and eyes that seemed a little too large for her head, a china doll that had been crafted by a shaking hand. She had often escaped Pansy's notice by burying her head in a book or magazine, blending so seamlessly into the background that it would have been easy to mistake her for a ghost or even at times, a hat stand.
Yet she was the kind of person that once you noticed her, you couldn’t seem to stop. She was everywhere- lurking behind pillars and bookshelves, skulking just a few paces away in the corridors, and even once hiding behind the sugar quill stand at Honeydukes.
She wasn’t the only one who’d spotted it either.
“Draco,” Blaise began one day as the three of them were lounging around the fire. It was a rare and treasured occasion to have the common to themselves. “Are you aware that you have a particularly skittish shadow?”
Draco sighed heavily. “If you’re talking about Astoria then yes I am. I think her parents have told her that she needs to win my favor and stalking me seems to be the only way she knows how.”
“I can have a word with Daphne if you like.” Pansy offered. “I’m sure she could put a stop to it.”
“Oh come on, Bambi isn’t hurting anyone- she’s just shy. Let her be a creep if she wants to.”
“Bambi?” Draco questioned, ignoring the rest of the comment.
“Muggle reference,” Blaise explained. He’d been the one to suggest the rom-com's after all. “It’s a baby deer. All vulnerable and abandoned. Much like our dear little shadow.”
Draco screwed up his face. “It’s just so intense. I’m convinced I spotted her trying to break into the prefect's bathroom the other day after I’d used it. Perhaps she wanted to know my preferred shampoo scent.”
“Apple and elmwood,” Pansy answered automatically, adding the finishing touches to her potions essay. “Besides Draco, you hardly have any room to talk, you constantly make us stalk Potter with you.”
“That's-“ Draco spluttered in outrage, “That’s completely different!”
“Sure it is darling.”
***
As it transpired, Loony wasn’t actually too awful a divination partner. She’d been moved up to an older class as Trelawny seemed to think she had some once in a generation, all-seeing, magical inner eye gift that needed to challenged. Pansy wasn’t quite sure what was so challenging about tarot cards and tea leaves but Loony did all the work whilst Pansy filed her nails into throat-slitting points.
Loony also liked talk whilst she worked, everything from imaginary creatures to things which were probably supposed to be secret.
“…And then Neville asked Professor Sprout if he could plant his own vegetable garden. I think she only said yes because Bellatrix had just escaped and she felt bad for him.”
Pansy remembered that day. They’d celebrated by stealing a bottle of fire whiskey and getting drunk out of their minds in the owlery.
“How that boy isn’t in Hufflepuff, I’ll never understand.”
Loony hummed in agreement. “People say that about me too. They don’t think I’m sane enough to be in Ravenclaw.”
Pansy snorted. “Oh please, you’re like the embodiment of a Ravenclaw. All real geniuses were mad anyway- like that muggle painter who cut his ear off and some German physicist who didn’t know how to read.”
“Thank you.” She thought Loony was being sarcastic, but when she looked up, the grateful look on her face was painfully sincere.
Pansy swallowed hard. “Whatever.”
***
“Honestly, I think Professor Umbridge might be the best thing that ever happened to this school. It’s about time we had a teacher on our side. Father thinks that Dumbledore’s Gryffindor bias is the reason we keep losing the house cup.”
Pansy was only half-listening, swinging her legs off of the courtyard wall she was sitting on whilst Draco talked. Even so often she would make noncommittal noises to signify her involvement and then leave the rest of the discussion up to Blaise. He never seemed to get tired of Draco’s rants in the same way she did. It was one of the things they pretend not to notice.
She scanned the grounds, her attention caught by a familiar blond head. Luna Lovegood was sitting crossed-legged under a willow tree, wearing an enormous pair of jewel-encrusted sunglasses and a large floppy hat that looked like it had apparated straight out of the ’70s. In one hand she twirled her wand and with the other, she flipped through an old edition of the quibbler, stopping and folding over the tops of pages that she liked to save them. For one wild second, Pansy entertained the idea of buying her a bookmark, maybe one of those thick leather ones they sold at Flourish and Blotts with gold trimming around the edges.
***
Divination had gotten better since Trelawney had been fired. Firenze would enchant the ceiling of the great hall to mirror the night sky, dotted with constellations, their names spelled out underneath them in sloping italic. The floor was covered in woven Tibetan rugs and thick sheepskins they could curl up in, resting their heads on duck feather pillows. It was like being transported into a different reality, one far away from Hogwarts where Pansy didn’t have to be anyone but herself.
“That one’s my favorite.” Luna pointed up at pegasus, a glittering arrangement above their heads. She was so close that Pansy could feel the strands of her blonde hair tickling the side of her face. She smelt like tea leaves and nutmeg if that was even a combination. “It’s where the nargles sleep.”
Pansy didn’t reply. She wasn’t sure if she could. Instead, she focused on Draco, a point in the triangle of Cepheus and Cygnus. How interesting, to be named after a constellation. In Draco’s case, it seemed oddly fitting. There was a certain mystery that came with it, as though he had been shaped in stardust and night- adrift from the rest of the world. Luna was that way too, a constellation child- a girl made from the moon. Perhaps that was why no one understood her, they simply weren’t meant to. She was a different type of magic altogether, an old one that ran in the rivers and leaped with the deer- dancing through each corner of the cosmos until there was nothing more to bless. How strange, for people not to see a goddess instead of a fool.
Luna Lovegood was fucking poetry.
****
It happened, ironically, on Valentine's day. She should have seen it coming and yet it still hit her with the force of a thousand blows.
Her and Draco were walking through Hogsmead, huddled together under furs to block out the wind which whipped their hair and bit their skin. It was a tradition of theirs, to spend valentines day together. Secretly, she thought it might have bothered Blaise, but he had just rolled his eyes and walked off to try and romance Padma Patil.
“He’ll be onto the Gryffindors soon, if he hasn’t started alre-“ Draco broke off mid-sentence, his body suddenly going tense next to her. She frowned and followed his gaze to the window seat at Madam Puddifoots. Oh. Oh.
The final jigsaw piece slotted into place. It was almost laughable how she hadn’t put it together before.
“Draco-” But it was too late, Draco had already turned on his heel and was heading back up to the castle, almost tripping over his feet in haste to get away from the sight of Potter and Chang gazing lovingly into each other's eyes.
She found him alone in the boy's dormitory, sitting on his bed, expression blank.
“We don’t have to talk about it.” It was his only form of greeting, barely turning his head to look at her. She crossed the room and sat down next to him, unsure of what to say. Ever so carefully, she took his pale hand in hers, and finally, he looked at her, with a wild, unreadable expression.”
“Pansy.” That was all he said. Pansy. And then he took her face in his hands and kissed her.
And she let him.
She let him because she knew that he needed this, needed to see if it would ever be possible to love her. And deep down so did she.
And when he began to cry, heaving wracking sobs, so did she. Because they knew that Draco could never love a woman, the same way she could never love a man.
“Why did it have to be him?” He whispered into the crook of her neck.
She rubbed his back soothingly, trying to make her voice as soft as possible. “It was always going to be him darling, from the moment he wouldn’t shake your hand. You’re too much of an emotional masochist to let a thing like that slide.”
Draco choked out a bitter, cynical laugh. “I don’t know what to do. If anyone ever found out I’d be ruined. Father…well father would do whatever’s necessary to preserve the Malfoy reputation.”
Just once, Pansy let herself think about the things she wasn’t supposed to. She thought about the soft way Blaise looked at Draco sometimes, like he was the only precious thing in a worthless world. She thought about Draco with his swagger and arrogance that crumbled and cracked at the sight of Potter and Chang. But most of all she thought about blue-grey eyes, tea leaves, constellations, and all of the impossible things.
“Here’s what’s going to happen,” She began shakily, the plan forming in her head. “You’re going to marry Astoria Greengrass, you’ll propose and marry as soon as we leave school. The two of you can make some kind of agreement, she’ll get her title and children, you’ll get to keep your preferences private. I’ll marry Blaise of course, it’s the only option that makes sense. He’ll understand, it’s the only way we can keep the truth hidden. About all of us.”
He stared at her, the weight of her words sinking in. Then he nodded.
Pansy never went to another Divination lesson again.