Flash Paper, Poloriods, and a Life of Crime
In the Granger household, life goes on.
That’s the silver lining of having two co-business owners for parents: their professionalism alway overrides their differences. The practice always comes first. So it’s no surprise when, the next morning, Hermione’s parents are pulling painful looking smiles like rabbits out of a hat.
Life goes on after an argument.
Like any slight of hand trick, if you pay close enough attention, you can find the truth. And Hermione is nothing but observant. She spends the week watching for cracks in the facade.
In the spaces before and after her parents are at work, a tension filled tedium hangs in the air. It lingers in the way that Mum doesn’t mention school again, and the new un-beige, yet still boring paint chips she pulls out of her purse with a worried smile. The way she still carries around a wine glass from the moment she gets home to the moment she goes to bed, and Dad’s feeble attempts to stop her. His frowns and his daily offer to pop to the shop without her. Don’t worry Jean, I’ll go this time. You stay here and relax.
Hermione wonders why Dad doesn’t actually put his foot down.
There’s always been a pattern of avoiding things that matter. The Grangers are prone to stilted silences and nonsense chatter—conversational smoke and mirrors. The extensive pro and con list Mum has curated for the colour ‘bone white,’ whether they should visit Paris or the New York for Christmas this year, if Mr. Fenwick’s insurance will ever pay for that nightmare root canal, or do you think Mr. Fenwick’s horrible, finger biting son will have another cavity this Friday, and if he does, nose goes, Jean, I’m not risking my fingers this time —until they can’t bear it anymore, and emotions catch like flash paper, quick and all consuming, and Dad is gone for weeks and Hermione is strapped down to the bed while some horrible muggle priest chants about Jesus, or Mum is raging about witchcraft while Dad fumes silently in the kitchen, uncorking bottle after bottle and dumping them down the sink, or like last Friday, when Hermione helped Mum breathe while watching Dad’s tail lights disappear into the night.
But none of those arguments end up mattering, not in the Granger household.
It doesn’t matter , because nothing ever changes.
Life goes on.
So by the time Pansy arrives on Wednesday, life is back to normal again.
The doorbell rings on Wednesday morning right as Mum and Dad are supposed to be leaving for the practice. Dad comes to the door with Hermione, as Mum is still running around the house like a mad-woman, her tooth brush in one hand and purse in the other, yelling about a missing shoe. Preston, looking wary and uncomfortable and just a little bit eager, is standing behind Pansy and has her bag slung over his shoulder. Dad ushers them in, calling over his shoulder for Mum to “hurry the hell up, we’re going to be late, love.”
Preston watches in shocked delight as Dad flips the lights in the entry way on.
“It’s a clever charm,” he says, trying out the switch for himself, “but how did you do it without magic? Wizards don’t do enough with buttons. There’s not enough charmed objects anymore—gone out of fashion, you see. But this is brilliant.”
“It’s not a charm, young man.” Dad winces as lights switch on and off again. “It’s electricity.”
“ Fascinating .” On, off. On, off, on. “Of course it would be simpler with a charm, but—” He flips the switch again, blinking the lights faster. “I suppose you would have to make do without magic some way or another.”
Dad makes an unimpressed sort of sound from the back of his throat.
“Christ.” Mum appears at the door, lost shoe in hand. “Whoever’s trying to give me a seizure, step away from the light switch.”
“Oh, sorry.” Preston grins, not looking sorry. He steps away from the light switch.
Mum frowns at him, then turns a wide smile on Pansy. “You must be Pansy, I’m so glad to meet you, but we’re really quite late already. We’ll have to chat later. Dan? You ready?”
“Waiting on you, love.”
She hops on one foot, shoving the other into the renegade pump. “I’m ready, I’m ready.”
“Be good, sweetheart,” he says over his shoulder, smiling at Hermione. His hand on Mum's back, he sweeps them out to the car.
Once the door is shut behind them, Preston gazes longingly again at the light switch, but seems to think better of it, as he shakes his head a little bit. He drops Pansy’s bag and roughs Hermione’s hair.
“Little Hermione in her little muggle house, who would have guessed?”
“Don’t be a prat,” Pansy says, jabbing him in the ribs.
“Ouch, fingers to ourselves.”
“You’re sworn to secrecy, remember?” Hermione crosses her arms.
“My lips are sealed. To admit knowledge of your tragically muggle parents would admit my own guilt for abandoning Pipsqueak with them, and I don’t fancy an early grave.”
“Mum would kill you,” Pansy agrees, “and disinherit us both.”
“Now there’s an idea. It’ll get us both out of our betrothals. What do you say, Pip? Hermione? You’ve got an extra room in your muggle house for a pair of poor disinherited Parkinsons?”
“He’s joking,” says Pansy, unamused.
“I’m not joking,” says Preston, amused.
“I know he’s joking, Pans. Go away, Preston, pretty please.”
“Only because you asked so nicely.” He cranes his neck to see more clearly into the rest of the house, as if looking for more muggle intrigues. “As much as I’d love to stand around and chat about what a devious little pair of blood-traitors you are, I also have a whole life to attend to and appointments to make and eligible bachelorettes to escape from, and now I have to walk about three blocks to make sure I don’t set off your Trace–” He grins, rolling his shoulders. “So I’m off. Pansy!” He tweaks her nose. (She slaps his hand away.) “I’ll be back on the solstice to pick you up before the Malfoy's hubristic wank-fest. Please don’t get in trouble or die or anything, because I really don’t want to have to come clean up any messes or practise any unlawful obliviation, yeah?”
“Yeah, yeah.” Pansy shoves him lightly in the chest, walking him backwards out of the door.
He glances one last time at the light switch, then turns on his heel with another big grin, and is gone.
The aforementioned ‘hubristic wank-fest,’ Hermione learns, is apparently rumoured to be the party of the year. The last time Narcissa Malfoy hosted a Midsummer event, Pansy was too young to go, but her mother talked of nothing else for weeks before and after. There was a veela choir, imported dwarvish wine, and fireworks that flew around the sky in the shape of dragons.
All of the British wizarding society’s who’s who will be there.
“Basically all my Mum’s society friends and their husbands are invited,” Pansy informs her, while rifling through Hermione’s closet, currently in the pursuit of any ‘un-horrendous’ muggle clothes to borrow.
Hermione had taken her on a tour of the house (after she demanded to see all of The Muggle Thingies) which included photographs, a tube of super glue, Dad’s credit card, a can opener, three (3) cans of coke-a-cola, Mum’s Vogue collection, and culminated in a sceptical perusal of Hermione’s closet. (A real let down, after her delight over Vogue.)
Pulling out a khaki skirt Hermione was forced to wear to a Christmas dinner four years ago, Pansy sneers. “And,” she continues, forcefully shoving it back in the closet, “a bunch of Ministry people–because Draco’s Father believes the only purpose of hosting events is to grease hands, and all of Preston’s friends were invited too, so you know how big this is going to be if Narcissa Malfoy is inviting even the younger generation to her party. You can imagine how completely gutted Mum was when she realised she won’t be able to come.”
Her parents are out of the country for Midsummer, as her mother has been dabbling in eastern mysticism recently and has scheduled a session with some Tibetan guru to work through spiritual blocks and ‘strengthen her magical core.’ A process that sounds too suspiciously close to divination to be taken seriously.
“How’s her chakra realignment coming?”
Pansy rolls her eyes. “Still a scam, presumably, but the ceremony isn’t until midsummer. How many blasted t-shirts do you own, Mi?” She tosses an older, raggedy t-shirt onto the bed, where Hermione’s sitting, petting Crookshanks.
“Don’t call me ‘Mi.’”
“You’re getting rid of this, Hermoine , or we’re no longer friends.”
Hermione sighs. She needed to go through her closet anyways. “Why midsummer?”
“Because it’s a gold grab, that’s why.” She throws Hermione another t-shirt. “People love to do rituals on the summer solstice. Sacrifices, blessings, et cetera. The magical mumbo jumbo jives with bonding or healing magic, or some other niffler shite. People go bananas. I’m just glad Mum’s such a flobberworm, otherwise I wouldn’t be here.”
She tosses a jumper at Hermione, and it lands in a maroon, lumpy heap on top of Crooky, who hisses in the direction of the closet.
“That’s my favourite jumper!”
Pansy stiffens. “It’s hideous, Hermione.”
“It's comfy .”
They squint at each other, a battle of wits, until Crookshanks hisses loudly again at Pansy, then pushes his head into Hermione’s hand.
“Fine,” Pansy huffs. “Just don’t wear it around me. Or anyone else. Or any boys—any boy. Speaking of which,” she grins sardonically, “have you heard from Draco?”
Her stomach twists. “Do we have to talk about Draco?”
Pansy meets her eyes, and the grin drops. “What’s he done now?”
“He hasn’t done anything. I just—If I’m going to get a boyfriend, it seems silly to go after a boy who won’t look me in the eye in public.”
“I thought you liked him.”
Hermione exhales. “How was the marriage meeting?”
“I asked you a question first.”
“You made a statement. I didn’t hear a question mark.”
“The damned question mark was implied. ‘I thought you liked him. Question mark.’”
Hermione turns up her nose. “Tell me about the Flints and then we can talk about my feelings.”
“Rude, Mi.” Pansy tosses another old shirt at her. “Is there anything good in your entire wardrobe?”
“Yes, this jumper, for instance.” Hermione holds up the maroon monstrosity. (It really is quite ugly.)
“That wasn’t a question.”
“I heard a question mark that time.”
“It was fucking rhetorical, Merlin. I’m just glad your regular clothes aren’t this terrible.”
Her regular clothes?
Ah, her robes.
“Which is a good thing,” Pansy continues, raising her eyebrows, “because you’ll have to wear your best dress robes for next Wednesday.”
“Excuse me?” Hermione pulls Crooky close, because perhaps he can protect her from whatever scheme Pansy is cooking up now.
“Well,” says Pansy, holding up a floral dress to herself, checking her reflection in the mirror, “as my plus one to the wank-fest, you’ll have to dress the part.”
“Did they even invite you?” Crooky squirms out of her arms and jumps off the bed, leaving behind a cloud of orange fur.
“Of course they invited me. Didn’t I just say that?” (She didn’t.) “All of our Slytherins will be there, except probably Tracey–”
“-halfblood–”
“-exactly—and a bunch of our other lesser housed classmates as well. Live a little, Mi, be my plus one.”
“I’m not thrilled at the prospect of being the only non-pureblood at a party celebrating a pagan holiday that has widely accepted roots in sacrificial magic.” Hermione brushes at the cat hair on her jumper forcefully.
“Hogwash. No one does that sort of thing anymore.”
“You just said they did.”
“In the context of my mum being a pumpkin-brained ninny. You’ll be fine. And it’ll be fun!”
***
Later that morning, after Hermione tires of watching Pansy condemn practically all of her closet into charity piles, she turns on the telly.
“It’s so creepy that your family doesn’t move in their portraits,” Pansy remarks, sprawled on the living room floor, organising paint chips, while Mum’s tape of Hamlet plays. “If Hamlet can move in the telly, why can’t your portraits move in their picture frames? It’s such an arbitrary line to draw, don’t you think?”
“Not really. They can only move in the telly because–”
“What do you think of this one?” Pansy holds up a clay coloured paint chip, as Hamlet waxes philosophically while staring into the empty eye sockets of a human skull.
“Horrendous. And you're not paying attention! This is the best part.”
“This is boring. And how can I watch your telly-visisor while your house is in shambles like this? Your mum needs all the help she can get.”
“Let’s go out, then. I’m sick of watching you sort through hundreds of indecipherable shades of brown. This is my mum’s mess. Leave it to her.” She flops back, knocking Pansy’s hands away from the paint chips. “You’ve already sorted my closet. A job well done. Let’s go out now. You need to experience muggle London.”
Hermione decides to show Pansy the cinema first, as she isn’t sufficiently impressed by the telly. However, much to Hermione’s chagrin, Mum’s credit card is missing from its usual hiding place in her desk, and Hermione barely has enough spare change for a cab.
“I suppose we could take a cab to the practice, and then try to nick it off of her there…”
“Why can’t we use the one you showed me earlier?”
“Because that one’s Dad’s, and he actually pays attention to his bill. Mum wouldn’t care, and it’s better to ask forgiveness than permission, right?”
“I have my Gringotts key. Could we floo to Diagon Alley?”
“My house isn’t connected. But we could take a cab. I think I have enough?”
***
So that’s how they find themselves running from a belligerently angry cabbie, two quid short for their ride, forty minutes later. They duck into the Leaky Cauldron, Pansy laughing wildly and Hermione anxiously throwing apologies over her shoulder, and are out past the hidden door in the bricks before anyone can stop them. Hermione procures two pairs of robes out of her bag, and they pull them over their muggle clothes before stepping out into the crowded alley. (Pansy is wearing one of Hermione’s best dresses—the only muggle item in Hermione’s closet that Pansy deemed acceptable–and her own shoes, a pair of chunky heeled Mary Janes.) (Wizarding and muggle footwear overlap more than you’d think.)
“I’ve never been to the vaults before,” Hermione says, as they climb the white marble steps to Gringotts. She’s only ever been to the lobby, to exchange muggle pounds for galleons.
“I hope you have a strong stomach.” Pansy grins, stepping in an ancient, frowny goblin's line.
After Pansy presents her wand and key to the goblin, he ushers them through an ornate door and into the dimly lit hall that serves as the docking station (boarding area?) for the rickety, definitely-not-HSE-certified mine carts that take bank customers down to the lower vaults.
“Are there seat belts?” Hermione asks in a small voice.
“What’s a seat belt?” Pansy says, hopping on the seat, as if she finds no glaring issues with the situation.
“Muggle Thingy.”
The goblin eyes her white knuckles, frowning. “Our mine carts are perfectly safe, madam. They only un-seat would be bank robbers.”
“Wonderful,” says Hermione, daudleing.
“Is madam a bank robber?” the goblins says, pursing his lips.
Madam is not a bank robber, so madam climbs into the mine cart with much hesitation but without further complaint.
Pansy screams delightedly the whole way down, throwing her hands in the air, as if they’re on a goddamned roller coaster and not a goblin devised death trap. And, as it turns out, Hermione does not actually have a very strong stomach. Once the cart finally stops, Hermione hurriedly disembarks and promptly empties her stomach on the cave floor.
“How very gauche of you, Mi,” Pansy says, handing her a package of toothfloss-stringmints, which Hermione accepts bitterly.
The goblin, now frownier than ever, takes a wide step over the puddle of sick to let them into the Parkinson vault.
Pansy is filthy rich, evidently.
“Don’t be silly.” She scoops up a pile of gold, and shoves it into her purse. “My father is filthy rich. None of this is actually mine.” She tweaks her eyebrows. “Yet.”
“Will you get in trouble for taking this?”
“He gave me the key for emergencies, and this is hardly enough for him to even notice. Just like you said, Mi, ask for forgiveness, not permission.”
***
After courting an early death once again on the mine cart, back in the bank’s lobby, Pansy exchanges the galleons for muggle pounds.
She thanks the frowny goblin, and then they’re off, out into Diagon Alley to make their way back to the Leaky Cauldron.
They pass Florean Fortescue’s, where Daphne, looking a bit peaky, is sitting on the porch flipping through a copy of Witch Weekly, half a melted sunday in front of her. Her skin is blotchy red and too pale, and her hair, usually glossy and without a strand out of place, hangs limp around her face. Her peakiness, Hermione concludes, could be from either the sun or the ice cream.
Daphne, actually, has been looking unwell for about a month, and no sugar induced indigestion ever lasts that long, dear god.
“Hello,” she says, waving them over.
“You look like shite, Daph.” Pansy drops into the seat across from her, repossessing her discarded spoon and pulling her bowl across the table.
Daphne straightens in her chair, pouting. “Don’t be a crumpet, darling. It’s my delicate, aristocratic constitution. I can’t have sugar this early in the morning.”
“You eat a muffin everyday for breakfast?” says Pansy.
“What makes a constitution ‘aristocratic?’” Hermione ponders. “Is it the constitution itself, or just the fact that it belongs to an aristocrat?”
Daphne purses her lips.“Very funny.”
Hermione grins. “What are you doing in Diagon Alley today, Daph?”
“Oh, nothing,” she sighs. “I owled—I thought maybe I’d meet Theo, but he—I don’t think he got my owl. I wanted to talk about, um… nothing. What are you two doing?”
Hermione runs her hands through her curls, hesitating. Daphne is delightful, but is she trustworthy? Even if she was coerced, she went along with the silence and excommunication last year, for a long time—until Hermione’s name was sparkling clean again.
“We’re doing a secret muggle undercover tour,” she says, deciding the only way to make an ally is to take a risk. Right?
Pansy pats her mouth with a napkin, then pushes the now empty bowl away. “Hermione is a halfblood, as you know, and she’s using her expertise today to show me everything the wizarding world is conspiring to keep us from finding out about the muggles. Hence the—” She does air-quotes. “‘—secret muggle undercover tour.’”
Hermione’s eyes light up. “S.M.U.T.—wait. No, we can’t call it that.”
Daphne’s eyes widen, and she glances behind her, hopefully astonished by the atrocious acronym, not the muggle subject matter. (One can hope, can’t one?) Her voice drops to a whisper. “A secret muggle undercover tour? How scandalous!”
Ah, the subject matter then.
“Is it?” Hermione has just been through an Ordeal, capital ‘O,’ at Gringotts. She’s lost the contents of her stomach one and a half times and quite frankly, she still doesn’t feel well. She doesn’t have the patience to placate Daphne’s unconscious bias at this time.
Unconscious bias?
No. Her overt bias. As lovely as Daphne is, she’s a bigot, just like everyone else at Hogwarts.
“What about Hermione’s Undercover Muggle Project; H.U.M.P.,” Pansy says, ignoring Hermione’s thinly veiled frigidity. “Although, S.M.U.T. does have a certain ring to it.”
“H.U.M.P. is hardly better,” says Hermione, leaning one hip against the table.
“Can I come? I’ll come with you, as long as you aren’t calling it ‘hump.’”
“H.U.M.P. or no dice,” says Hermione, feeling vindictive.
Daphne tilts her head to the side. “No dice?”
“Let this be your first muggle lesson,” Hermione sighs. “Dice are these little cubes that muggles use in games. Each side of the cube has a different number on it. In some gambling games, people bet on which number will appear face up when you drop the cube. So no dice means a rejection. You’re out of luck. You lose.”
“How fascinating,” Daphne smiles. “‘Hump’ it is, then.”
“H.U.M.P.” says Hermione. She shifts her weight onto her other foot, stepping back from the table. “You really want to come with?”
“Aren’t you busy?” Pansy asks, rising from the table.
Daphne sniffs. “Darling, I’m alone, giving myself indigestion on a Wednesday morning. I’m not busy.”
***
Thankfully, Daphne’s robes can pass for a dress, if you squint hard enough. A bit avant-garde, but it’s London. No one really looks twice at teenagers wearing strange clothes.
At the cinema, Hermione wants to see Little Women, as she just finished reading the book, but Pansy shoots her down after seeing the poster for Pulp Fiction, featuring Uma Thurman with her dark bob and cigarette.
“It’s me, on the poster. It's ordained.”
“She’s you in ten years,” says Daphne, “if you spelled your nose.”
“That’s uncalled for. I’m kicking you out of the club, you’re un-humped.”
“You can’t un-hump me!” Daphne squeeks, causing a passing family to shoot her horrified glances.
“H.U.M.P.” Hermione says absently, as she steps up to the counter to purchase three tickets to Little Women.
She leads them inside, and an attendant takes their tickets and directs them to their theatre. “Little Women’s last one on the right,” he says.
Pansy gasps. “You fiend! We decided on Pulp Fiction!”
“You decided,” giggles Daphne, throwing a piece of popcorn at Pansy, who plucks it out of her hair and pops it into her mouth.
“We’re not old enough to buy tickets,” Hermione explains.
“But–”
“I never said we wouldn’t see it,” Hermione grins. “Watch and learn.”
As the first act of H.U.M.P., Hermione introduces Pansy and Daphne to the classic technique of buying PG tickets and then sneaking into the wrong, R-rated film.
“You’re a genius,” Pansy grins.
They are both a bit overwhelmed with the surround sound, the flashing lights, the general immersive quality of cinema—but they adapt quickly and are completely enthralled within ten minutes of the lights dimming.
Hermione sits in the middle and has to whisper explanations constantly.
After the movie, they walk around London, and end up in an antique shop that reminds Hermione of the Room of Requirement at Hogwarts, with its towering shelves of knick knacks and aisles that wind like a labyrinth throughout the building.
“It’s wild that muggles have special wands that just do avada ,” Daphne remarks, as they wander through the aisles.
“It seems like the wizarding world is far more restricted than the muggles,” says Pansy.
“Well, that film is set in America, first. And also, none of what happened in Pulp Fiction was legal. If any of them got caught, they’d be imprisoned for life.”
“I could live a life of crime,” Pansy says. She twirls around, pointing at Hermione and Daphne with finger guns. “ Any of you fucking pricks move, and I'll execute every motherfucking last one of ya! ”
“Honey Bunny, Pansy?” Daphne says. “And here I thought you were obsessed with Mia Wallace.”
“ There’s a passage I memorized,” Hermione says, raising her own finger guns. “ Ezekiel —er—something, something. The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the …er…”
“ By the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men !” Pansy finishes for her.
“Pew pew pew!” says Hermione, shooting her finger guns at Daphne.
Daphne, giggling, collapses against the shelf, feigning a gruesome death, one hand on her forehead, one hand over her heart. Several antiques fall from the shelf and crash to the floor, making a small racket.
“Oh, no,” Hermione says, bending down to check if anything is broken, as Pansy explodes into giggles.
Thankfully nothing is broken.
“What’s going on over there?” a voice calls from the next aisle.
Pansy grabs Hermione and Daphne’s hands, pulling them up and away from the wrecked shelf. “Shhhhh!” she giggles.
They sprint away, further into the maze of antiques, biting their laughter, until they are safely away from the crime scene. The section they find themselves in, gasping and laughing like hooligans, is filled with old cameras.
Daphne leans up against the wall, looking queasy, as Pansy explores the wares.
She finds a working Poloriod camera that still has film, and the three of them mess around with the buttons until they figure out how to work it. They take a dozen pictures, rotating through different combinations. All three of them, just Pansy, Pansy and Hermione, Hermione and Daphne… and so on. In each picture, they do finger guns, pretending to be crime bosses or petty thieves, holding each other up.
When they run out of film, Pansy slips the camera into her purse, and Hermione pretends not to notice.
A store attendant finally finds them and accuses them of laughing too loudly and generally being bad, rambunctious teenagers, and threatens to call the cops if they don’t leave, immediately. So they leave immediately, Hermione apologizing profusely, while Pansy giggles. Daphne asks what cops are, which doesn’t endear her at all to the angry store attendant.
When they are almost at the door, the attendant notices Pansy holding the polaroids, and yells at them to stop, I know you’re nicking my merchandise, you lousy kids! So Pansy starts running, pulling Hermione and Daphne after her.
They don’t stop running for five blocks, until they’re back in Diagon Alley, past the bar man in the Leaky Cauldron, and hunched over, gasping for breath in the alley between Flourish and Blotts and Olivander’s.
Daphne’s coughing, doubled up against the brick wall. Hermione and Pansy watch, catching their breath, as Daphne’s coughing grows louder, like she’s choking on her breath.
“Alright, Daph?” says Pansy, straightening up.
Daphne waves her away. Her coughing finally subsides, but when she takes her hand away from her mouth, it’s covered with blood.
“Daphne?”
“I’m fine,” she wheezes. “Just out of shape.”
“That’s niffler shite, Daph. Something’s wrong.”
“Are you ill, Daphne?”
“I said I’m fine!” She backs away, but hits the wall. She shakes her head. “I’m fine. I’m just tired.”
“You’re coughing up blood, Daphne. You’re not fine.”
“I don’t want to talk about it, alright?” She wipes at her mouth again, and then her eyes, smearing blood over her cheekbones. “Thi–this was…was fun, ladies. I need to go home, the floo. Now. I’ll just…” She edges sideways, waving them off again, or waving goodbye.
***
The mood considerably dampened, they catch a cab back to Hampstead.
“What do you suppose is wrong with Daphne?” Pansy says.
“I thought you would tell me. Don’t you have tabs on everyone and everything?”
“My contacts are useless outside of Hogwarts.”
“How interesting. Are you finally going to tell me how you know everyone’s business all the time?”
“You wish.”
“Can you at least tell me if you’re betrothed to Marcus Flint?”
Pansy stiffens, crossing her arms. “We had an agreement, Mi.”
Bartering emotions should be illegal, but that’s what she gets for being a Slytherin.
“I don’t know how I feel about Draco, okay? I just—last year was such a mess. Remember the mud, Pansy? My teeth?” She slumps down in her seat, watching London pass by under a pink, twilight sky. “We were so close before—all three of us—and what he did, I felt so betrayed. He made it up to me, I know he did… but, how can I ever—I’m glad we’re friends again. I really am. But he’s always going to be a Malfoy, and I’m always going to be a mudblood.”
Pansy nods, and silence settles between them. She uncrosses her arms, picking at lint in her dress.
“I’m not betrothed yet. There’s more paperwork involved, contracts to iron out, et cetera.”
“But?”
“But I will be. Soon.”
“To Flint.”
“Yes.”
“I thought there was another prospect. What happened to the other boy?”
“Cancelled. When Mum found out I was already seeing him, she cancelled MacDougal.”
“Oh, Pansy.”
“Don’t, Mi.”
“Was he there? At the meeting?”
“Of course he was there.”
“And?”
Pansy just shakes her head.
“What about Preston?”
Pansy glares out the window. “What about Preston?”
“Pansy, give me something. Anything.”
“There’s nothing to discuss, Hermione,” she snaps. “My parents are ready to sell me for a windfall, and the Flints are happy to oblige. And we were dating anyways–supposedly–so how can I even object at this point?”
“The point is you can object! Preston would understand, at least. You can do something!”
“I don’t want to object!”
Hermione recoils. “What do you mean? How can you–”
“He made an unbreakable vow, Hermione. I’ve completed my end of the bargain, I’m safe. But the terms of his vow were left somewhat… open ended. It would be stupid to allow him to fall out of our orbit. How can he help us, if he finally realises the extent to which he’s agreed to, and tries to disappear. He can only be helpful if he’s near.”
“Let him go, Pansy. It doesn’t matter to me.”
She sighs. “He’s not actually that bad. I think he actually likes me.”
“I won’t let you! Your vow is over. Let it go!”
“You will, to the best of your abilities, support Hermione Granger’s claims?” Pansy’s eyes burn and her nostrils flare. “ I left it open ended. He’s from a powerful family. He’s wealthy. He travels in the right circles. He will support our agendas, whatever they may be, for the rest of his life, on the pain of death. He is our most loyal ally. It just makes sense.”
“We can make do without him. We don’t need him.”
Pansy purses her lips, giving Hermione a hard look. “We needed him last year.”
“What about Harry?”
“I don’t know.” Pansy rolls her neck, and Hermione can hear her joints pop. “I didn’t realise I’d be betrothed so quickly.”
“You always have a plan.”
Pansy always has a plan. There must be something she’s not saying. She can’t just… give up.
“ Marcus was always the long term plan.”
Hermione nods, and they sit in silence the rest of the way home.
“Oh no,” Hermione says as they pull up to the house. “Mum and Dad beat us home.”
“Are we in trouble?”
“We’ll see.”
They aren’t in trouble, as it turns out. Mum and Dad don’t even notice them walking in, as they’re in the middle of row in the living room.
Mum is stiff, still in her pantsuit from work, purse slung over her shoulder and keys in her hand. Dad is holding tightly to her, trying to pry the keys away.
“I don’t understand Jean.” Dad’s voice cracks. “Where are you going?”
“Let go of me, Dan.” Mum’s voice is cold, emotionless.
“Is there someone else? Did I do something? What are—You don’t even have a bag. Are you coming back?”
“Let go of me, Dan. I have to leave.”
“Mum? What’s going on?”
She doesn’t turn around.
“Your mum says she—” Dad chokes, not able to finish his sentence . He takes a step back, releasing her.
“What? Mum, what’s going on?”
Dad drops to his knees. “Please. Please, Jean.”
Mum shakes her head.
“Jean.”
She turns around, brushing past where Hermione and Pansy are standing near the door. Her face is blank. Her eyes are blank. She doesn’t say anything.
She doesn’t say goodbye.
She leaves the front door open behind her. She walks to her car. She gets in.
Hermione runs out to the pavement calling after her.
She starts the car. She drives away.
Pansy has to lead Hermione back inside.
It’s not fair. It’s not fair that she left the door open. That Hermione has to be the one to shut the door after her mother leaves.
Hermione shuts the door.
Dad is in the living room still, kneeling on the carpet where Mum left him.
How can life go on after this?