Let’s talk about Gregory Goyle.
The only child, the only surviving child.
The first of his siblings to live pass the age of three. With an older brother that never made it past six months in the womb, an older sister than never made it past fifteen months old, a younger brother that never made it past his third birthday, and a younger sister that never made it pass her birth.
When you’re the only one to live, in a family of seven you're either very lucky, or too stupid to die.
Gregory likes to play off that he’s the latter.
~`~
The war comes to Hogwarts when Harry Potter appears outside of the maze with Diggory’s body in his arms. The war comes to Hogwarts when Umbridge pins badges to their chests and tells them that their better than the rest. The war comes to Hogwarts when Draco brings Death Eaters into the school and kills Dumbledore.
The war comes to Hogwarts when Voldemort marches his troops onto the grounds and orders death on all those defending the grounds.
Gregory follows Draco and knows that one of them, himself, Draco, or Vincent, won’t come out of the fight. He knows enough of himself, enough of his friends, to know that Death himself waits for them.
They already lost Tracey, one of their girls, Pansy’s favorite person.
They lose Vincent next.
Fire is now his sister died, dancing too close to the edge, too close to the flame. When she fell, no one had heard her screams until too late.
The question had always been, what happened to the grate?
Gregory doesn’t ask these questions, he just runs and uses the little charm he can manage to find the girls.
~`~
Pansy is a small shaking girl, with dark hair and piercing eyes and a mouth that can ruin anyone’s confidence. She’s a mean girl, and Gregory likes that she doesn’t ever want to back down from any fight. She’s ready to show the world her strength, but only in a situation she can control.
Pansy is a small shaking girl, but she’s also fierce and strong and angry at a world that doesn’t love her the way it should. She snarls and screams and curses her enemies to the point of no return, no forgiveness from a girl who knows how to use her words.
Gregory doesn’t know if he show love her, or fear her.
The smart choice would be to fear her, but remember, it’s safer to play stupid, and there is a charm in being stupid.
Gregory has a simple charm to him.
His younger brother fell down a flight of stairs, tripping on the hall rug. His head was cracked open and no one heard the screams, again. Their mansion was big enough for a child to get lost in, but screams could be heard from one side of the mansion to the other.
The question is, why was the rug by the stairs?
Gregory knows better than to ask this question, he doesn’t have anyone to ask anyways. His father is in Azkaban, his mother is long gone, he is the keeper of the mansion, the head of the house.
He is Gregory Goyle III, named after his father and his father before him.
~`~
Pansy is a shaking crying girl when their bound together, it’s what neither of them want, but to be free, they have to do this. They found long enough against their parent’s wishes, no, demands. Pansy is only a daughter, she’s a bargaining chip used to pass a dowry to another family, it’s what Pureblood daughters are for.
Pureblood daughters are not meant to be anything other than a tool, silent and seen and used however their husband decides.
Gregory can’t do that to her, he can’t force her to marry him, can’t force her to have sex with him, can’t force her to have his child. It surprises him though when she does.
Each time seems to be part of a master plan that she doesn’t let him in on, which he’s fine with. She can have her secrets and her plans, he’ll keep the children.
Samantha is their first, a daughter that he loves and wants and cares for. She is not a bargaining chip, she is a little girl with bright eyes and a big smile and a love for a world that hates her. She is two when the world shows how much it hates her, hates her parents.
Gregory works for the Ministry, he pushes files from one side of his desk to the other. Filling in dates and names and erasing dates and names that don’t fit. Percy Weasley saved thousands of lives during the war, writing fake papers and fake files for Muggleborns to use.
Pansy doesn’t need to work, but she could never keep her lies, her stories and secrets, to herself. Blaise writes for Transfiguration Today, Millicent for The Daily Prophet, Pansy finds a home at Witch Weekly. She teases gossip and stories out of Quidditch players, out of Aurors, out of the Minister of Magic himself.
Samantha gets caught in the cross path.
She’s two, but her photo appears in The Daily Prophet sandwiched between a wedding announcement and a photo op of the so called Golden Trio. She’s two and in the middle of a temper tantrum and Pansy is pregnant and tired.
The caption is disgusting, the Prophet making a joke about careless parenting, because Gregory and Pansy are Slytherins. Making a joke about a two year old little girl having a temper tantrum while Pansy looked panicked.
Gregory can’t force himself to be ignorant, he can’t force himself to be stupid.
His daughter doesn’t deserve this humiliation at two years old. She’s a little shaking girl with bright eyes and dark hair who’s afraid of the dark and monsters under her bed. His daughter is the one bright spot in his life, he comes home to her smile and silly songs and careful little dances that she makes just for him.
He doesn’t know why the world hates his little girl, his one ray of sunshine in a dark world.
Pansy doesn’t even hate him like how expects her to. He loves her, he always loved the idea of her, loved giving her someone to love after the world took away Tracey.
Tracey, who was found floating in the stream behind her house, with no signs of drowning.
The question that is always asked, why her?
Gregory knows the answer to this one, he watched Pansy kill Thomas Davis, Tracey’s older brother. He watched him fall in a flash of blue light and angry cold eyes, he always knew what Pansy could do.
He plays at stupid, but that doesn’t mean he is about Pansy.
~`~
Mira and Jacob, twins that scream late into the night.
Mira is Pansy’s double, and that will never change. Jacob is Gregory’s own double, quietly following after his sisters. Gregory worries after them both, Mira is too headstrong and Jacob is too gullible.
Gregory watches them like a hawk whenever he can. Samantha doesn’t need as much of a watchful eye anymore. She’s a good older sister, she’s a smart girl, smarter than Gregory will ever be at three, four, five and so on.
The three of them don’t need his trick of acting dumb. The three of them don’t need to pretend and play and act stupid. They have more of Pansy in them than Gregory, even Jacob who likes to be forgotten compared to his sisters.
Gregory sits with them after long days of fixing lies and half-hidden truths. He listens to babbled stories, to bad jokes, to three witty children that don’t know how much the world hates them.
He watches them grow and learn and change before him.
He thinks about how lucky they were to be able to live, when so much of his family wasn’t allowed that much mercy.
His oldest brother never made it out of the womb.
The question no one will ever ask is, how did the poison not kill his mother?
Gregory knows the truth of this one, he also knows that asking this question would bring his own death. He plays stupid to survive, to live, to be allowed to stand before a crowd of witches and wizards older and younger and the same age as him and tell the few truths that he knows by heart.
My father is a murdered.
~`~
Calvin comes into the world with a single scream, then absolute silence.
MacMillan, their Healer, barely believes what he hears, even as he places the squirming child into Pansy’s arms. Gregory doesn’t know what to think about it if he’s honest. He knows what comes of loud children and he knows what comes of quiet children.
This is a child that falls between.
Calvin craves attention unlike the others. Samantha was the oldest, she was always watched over, always within sight or arms-length. Mira and Jacob are twins, they always have each other, they seek each other on long cold nights, still scared of the dark and monsters under their bed like their older sister once was.
Calvin is the youngest.
He reaches with small hands and quiet sharp cries for arms and love and attention. His siblings won’t do, they are too loud, too quiet, and too much in every way. Calvin screams some nights, loud and whining and too much for both Gregory and Pansy, let alone one.
It takes him a few long nights before he starts singing, something he didn’t have to do with any of the others.
Calvin takes to the simple music, his cries slow and calm and quiet until he falls asleep. It doesn’t take him long to notice that the whole house grows quiet when he sings.
Even Pansy falls asleep to his charmless singing.
He doesn’t remember ever having someone sing to him.
His younger sister died at her birth, taking his mother with her.
The question that can’t be asked is, why her?
Gregory has a scar on his back, a long sickening scar that Pansy traces some nights when neither of them can pretend to sleep. It’s the reason why he let’s others call him stupid, because being a curious child, with bright eyes and a warm smile and questions that he wants answers to.
He was once a stupid child, who learned that being a stupid child was the only way to survive.
~`~
Calvin is two, Mira and Jacob are five, and Samantha is eight when Gregory gives Pansy already signed divorce papers.
They’re parents are dead, they’re children sleep through the night, they’re allowed to be truly free and happy now. Pansy was never his, despite what the world expected of him, despite what they’re parents set up for them.
Pansy deserves this freedom more than anyone else in the world, she deserves happiness after Tracey was ripped away from her, she deserves someone to love all of her faults.
Gregory deserves the same, but he has no desire to chase after someone. He’s at home with his four children, his two Goyle’s and his two Parkinson’s. It’s settled in the divorce paperwork, Samantha and Jacob keep his name, while Mira and Calvin take Pansy’s name.
It’s not an easy thing, to say goodbye to your partner of nine years, your friend since childhood. It’s not an easy thing, to break up and become someone new without the other.
It’s not an easy thing, to raise four children who are all different and all the same and all miss one another every day.
It’s hard to keep all four of them together, but after a year of hits and misses, they figure out how to co-parent. It’s not the same as when they all lived together, but Gregory feels free for once. He feels a calm that he didn’t have with Pansy.
He finds happiness watching Samantha play with Calvin after being apart for three days. He finds happiness in Mira’s wit and quick jibes and sharp laughter. He finds happiness in Jacob’s quiet stories and shy smiles and the silence he lets radiate from him.
Gregory finds happiness in his children, a happiness that tides him over when he hears that Pansy’s dating again, when he watches his friends get married, when he’s asked to be godfather to another baby. He finds happiness in being without Pansy, more happiness than when he was with her.
~`~
Samantha is their Ravenclaw, which isn’t a surprise to either of them.
Mira and Jacob are Slytherins, not a surprise either, they knew where Mira was always going, Jacob always followed after his twin sister.
Calvin is a Hufflepuff, their sweet and even tempered son, goes the one way they never expected.
At least none of them are Gryffindors. Gregory knows it’s old prejudice, but the thought makes his skin crawl.
His children face struggles in every aspect of their Hogwarts careers.
Samantha is a Ravenclaw, she’s in love with Devansh Nott, a boy that Gregory will always be undecided on. Devansh is also a Ravenclaw, smart and witty and knowledgeable about a world that also hates his last name.
Samantha is called stupid for falling in love early, for keeping him even after he graduates two years ahead of her, for getting pregnant four months before graduating from school. She’s called stupid for keeping the baby, Gregory’s first grandchild, Erinn, Erinka, a beautiful little girl with dark hair and bright eyes, just like her mother.
Samantha is called stupid for being young.
Mira is a Slytherin, she is biting and mean and loud. She falls in love with Olivia Perry, a Half-Blood Slytherin with an even sharper tongue than Mira’s. She’s the type of girl you don’t let go, you don’t keep secret from the world.
Mira is called stupid for falling in love with a girl. Gregory’s blood boils and he’s ready to rip apart anyone who calls his daughter’s love wrong. He loved Olivia as a daughter long before she home as Mira’s girlfriend. Just like Tracey and Pansy, they were friends before they were girlfriends.
Mira is called stupid for loving another girl.
Jacob is also a Slytherin, he is quiet and cold and calm to everything that comes his way. He doesn’t let anyone close except for his family, his sisters that he follows behind and his brother that he watches over.
Jacob is called stupid because of his silence. Everyone ignores his grades, all O’s with eight OWLs and eight perfect NEWTs, better than either of his sisters, better than either of his parents. He is the smartest of them all.
Jacob is called stupid for his silence.
Calvin is a Hufflepuff, bright and loyal and kind to a world that doesn’t love his last name, his parentage, or his lovely smile. He loves the world and the people in it, but most of all, he loves Alexandra Wood. She is tough as nails and two years younger than Calvin, but it doesn’t mean anything to either of them.
Calvin is called stupid because of his simple kindness. He is sweet, he is good, he is the best of them all. He is the best at managing their craziness, he is a favorite babysitter for Ernika, he is the glue to their family. He is the only one of them that can flow through the cracks and seal them as he goes.
Calvin is called stupid for his kindness.
Gregory was always fine with being called stupid, it was a shield, a farce that he put up to keep himself safe. His children are not at war though, they don’t need a shield, they just need to be children who are allowed to love and make mistakes and find their own happiness.
He lets them find their happiness.
~`~
“Do you think we made a mistake?” asked Pansy, and Gregory looked up at her, she wasn’t drunk, but he could hear the drink in her voice. This was their fourth wedding, Jacob was their last to get married, Calvin beating him out by two years.
“Pansy we had four children,” said Gregory, ignoring her eye roll and the familiar sneer forming on her lips. “They’re happy, they all found someone to love them for being themselves. Not at the best time or in the best way, but who cares about us, it’s been about them since Sam was born.”
“Then why did you divorce me?”
Gregory stared at his glass of Firewhiskey, picking it up and taking a sip before setting it back down. He needed to distract himself long enough to come up with a real answer.
“Because I didn’t want to resent you.”
Sometimes the truth was the best thing to say.
“Thank Merlin,” said Pansy with a sigh before finishing off her glass of wine, it refilled itself as she set it down on the table. “At least we still know each other well.”
“Are you getting sentimental?” asked Gregory with a smile, a smirk if you will. “Though it is a wedding, maybe we deserve that.”
“Each one was different and the same, just like the four of them,” said Pansy, not meeting Gregory’s eyes. Her eyes were still dark, and they had lost the child-like brightness when Tracey was found dead in the stream behind her house, but even cold they were still beautiful.
Pansy would always be beautiful.
“I think Sam and Calvin are tied on the rowdiest of the bunch,” joked Gregory, getting a small smile out of Pansy.
“Calvin’s had all those Wood children, the Quidditch nuts,” said Pansy with a small dismissive wave of her hand. “Sam married Devansh, we knew nearly everyone they invited because Padma helped them plan the damn thing.”
“Mira’s was my favorite,” said Gregory, he had walked both Mira and Olivia down the aisle, after Olivia’s parents had disowned her. Gregory had always thought of Olivia as a daughter anyways, from the moment he met her at eleven during their first Easter holidays.
“I thought that this one, Jacob’s, was quite nice,” said Pansy, before letting out a small yawn and covering her mouth.
“He’s happy with Cara, even if she is an American,” said Gregory, while Pansy rolled her eyes at him. Jacob had run off to China in the summer after graduating from Hogwarts to study dragons, and had fallen for the first pretty witch that smiled at him.
Or so, that’s what he made it sound like. It was hard with Jacob to get the full truth, not because he lied, but because he liked to keep things to himself.
“At least they’re happy,” said Pansy, picking up her wine glass again, “happier than we were when we got married.”
“I’ll cheers to that,” said Gregory, picking up his own refilled glass and holding it out to Pansy. They clinked glasses and both drank heavily, before setting their empty glasses down on the table and standing up together.
It was time to go home, to empty houses, to freedom they never had before now.
~`~
“You’re not stupid, remember that.”