The Debris of Gilded Idols
But there's got to be an opening somewhere, here in front of me
Through this maze of ugliness and greed
And I seen the sun up ahead at the county line bridge
Saying all there's good and nothingness is dead
We'll run until she's out of breath, she ran until there's nothing left
She hit the end, it's just her window ledge
One Headlight - The Wallflowers
May 3rd, 1998
Naples, Italy
The Zabini Villa
“Oh. You’re here,” was the first thing Blaise said when she arrived in the foyer, her face ashen. He was atop the staircase holding a glass of something surely alcoholic. His voice echoed off the marble floors. “It’s happened then?”
Pansy nodded wordlessly, and again when Mipsie asked in a small voice, “I go tell Countessa you’re here?”
The house-elf disappeared with a soft pop and Pansy let out a breath, resisting the urge to rub vigorously at her eyes. Her body felt heavy with fatigue—held up by adrenaline alone—putting her in that frustrating place of hovering centimetres above sleep. She felt wired but managed to direct enough energy toward pulling out her wand to Apparate.
She appeared next to Blaise, his cologne reaching her nose, the scent meaning to be seductive and mysterious—alluring—but was only comfortingly familiar to her. She turned toward him, took the glass out of his hand, and threw it back in one swift motion before offering the glass back.
Blaise sighed and accepted his empty glass. “Come on, let’s go get fucked up.”
***
She hated being cross faded. There was no way of telling which was up and which was down, whether she was numb or grounded or dead. She laughed until she cried, and cried until she laughed. Ugly and manic.
Blaise was smarter than she was. He picked his poison and stuck to it.
She started to laugh again, hysteric giggles bubbling from her throat and spilling out of her mouth.
“What?” He laughed too. She liked his laugh, liked it best because it was warm and unafraid, the things she weren’t.
“I don’t think you know anything, Blaise.” Her stomach was burning from laughter. Her eyes watered, tears leaking from the corners and sliding down her cheeks, but she didn’t really notice. Everything was already blurry and doubled and moving.
“Pansy, baby,” he drawled with an easy grin, “I know enough.”
She met his gaze, the one that looked most opaque in a halo of hazy edges. His teeth were so bright. It reminded her of a silver wedding band reflecting a waning fire. The image left as quickly as it came, rolling fog scrambling her thoughts. She swiped the back of her hand across her eyes.
“Were we talking about something? Oh, yeah. I remember now,” she slurred, hiccup-stuttering. “No, nope. You weren’t there. You left before all the stuff happened. You don’t know anything!” She was nearly shrieking with laughter, gasping for breath and reprieve. Was something funny? Whatever.
Did she still have bones? If so, they were jellified, liquid like the way cats were.
“Hey.” He reached over and tugged gently at her wrist, waiting for her to calm. “I’m sorry, Pans. Really mean it, but you know me.”
She blinked, trying to focus, trying to find the whites of his eyes. “I know, ‘s okay. Always get out before the gui—” She tried again. “Guillo- tine drops. Jus’ what it is.”
Her head lolled over onto his shoulder, and their hands linked together easily. She finished off the last of her joint, blue and yellow smoke mingling into green, and stubbed it out. He refilled his glass. They’d share this last one.
She couldn’t remember what she wanted, but for now she’d settle for this.
***
July 9th, 1998
Turin, Italy
Photographers for the local and national papers quietly circulated the ornate ballroom, making themselves as unobtrusive as possible in the hopes of catching a distinguished guest in a less than perfect state. Pansy smiled and waved politely at a dark lens pointed at her, hoping it captured her glittering decolletage instead of the slight tremors shaking her gloved hand. She would give them nothing. Events like these were glorified fish bowls, a way to gather the who’s who of the top one percent and appraise each for their usefulness, networking most often disguised as charity.
Throughout the evening, she watched Countessa Zabini (the title bestowed through marriage) charm the notoriously difficult into doing her bidding, striking the perfect balance between sincerity, wit, and underlying threat. Even with the clear advantage of her cultivated lore, courtesy of her seven dead husbands, it was a master class in manipulation, on how to pull just about anyone into your orbit.
Pansy was captivated by her performance, near worshipful. She’d never seen her quite so lethal, sweeping the room’s every available business card into her emerald clutch with a few half-promises and honeyed words. The silver panther attached to the four-ring duster of her clutch rolled onto its back in apparent satisfaction once the Countessa slipped in the last of her night’s rewards. She noted that the Countessa looked pleased but not as though she was the cat that got the cream. To anyone who looked close, perhaps they would think she’d placed an unbeatable bid on a desirable item or that she just was simply enjoying the event. There was a reason why the Countessa always came out on top.
“Good harvest, Mother?” Blaise asked, despite knowing very well it was. His mother, for all she lacked as a parent, had always been reliable in keeping the two of them afloat.
She raised a thin brow and allowed a small smile to grace her face. “Did you see anything worth bidding on?”
He scoffed. “It’s as if they’d rather not find a cure to cerebrumous spattergroit or whatever it is this time.”
“What about you, Pansy? Anything catch your eye?”
“I quite liked the Tompion clock. A bit simple, admittedly, but I imagine it’d be a good investment,” she said, though she’d barely glanced at the selection of antiques, rarities, and quote-unquote experiences. Thoughts of England remained haunting, prickling and heavy.
It turned out to be rather lucky that upon entering the venue, Blaise had swept his gaze across the other attendees and declared with a roll of his eyes that he would rather lick the grime off the Minister’s shoes than interact, let alone speak, with any of them. He’d been content to hover behind her instead, whispering into her ear his many criticisms about everything in sight, including the Tompion clock, which was deemed ‘pedestrian.’
Pedestrian clock or not, it was best to have a definitive answer when the Countessa asked you a direct question.
“Sounds like a lovely choice,” she said before turning to her son, “Do me a favour, dear, and go place a bid for me. Two million lire should do it.”
Blaise nodded and placed his hand briefly on the small of Pansy’s back before stepping away, his way of showing support without having to say anything nice. She took a delicate sip of her cocktail, the familiar taste of alcohol an uncomfortable balm for her unhappiness.
“I do apologise for being away all evening. Business, you understand. Are you doing all right?” The Countessa’s tone was casual, like she was just extending a pleasantry. But Pansy knew better than to show weakness in front of her, to give her an extra card to play. It didn’t matter that the Countessa was practically an aunt to her; her most recent lesson, after all, had been a reminder that betrayal was never off the table.
“Of course. Blaise has done well in keeping me entertained.” And he had, his derisive comments framed with sharp observation and scathing wit. He’d even succeeded in coaxing a smile out of her once or twice, drawing her into their usual tradition at such events. Draco, Theo, and Daphne would have completed the picture, if only the circumstances had been different and nothing hung above like a dark cloud. But they’ve all scattered to the wind, each of them, and that was just the way it was.
“I’m glad to hear it, dear.” She sounded as though she meant it. “Perhaps you’d like to come to the dinner Angelo Ballotelli’s hosting next week as well. I seem to recall you wearing one of his dress robes to the Yule Ball.”
A pang of something sour bloomed in Pansy’s chest, somewhere left of her heart. But she smiled and nodded. “I would love to. It should be just as wonderful as his designs.”
“I’ll send out an owl first thing tomorrow. We’ll also need to visit his shop in Milan for a fitting…”
Pansy stopped listening (these conversations were all the fucking same anyway) and took a longer sip of her drink, the sour feeling threatening to crack her calm exterior. This was wrong. Everything was wrong, and no one seemed willing to show it. But she could not crack here, not in front of all those cameras, not in front of the Countessa, not in front of these people.
She forced her shoulders to relax and held onto her most familiar mask, offering a close-lipped smile. “Tuesday should work just fine.”
***
Later that night
The Zabini Villa
The utter relief of no longer needing to perform, needing to plaster on a pleasant face was nearly worth suffocating in that damned fish bowl of a ballroom for three and a half hours. In the sweet solitary that followed the soft click locking the guest bedroom door, she immediately kicked off her heels, dropping four inches in height, and let out a breath. Her head was beginning to throb, the sugary cocktails she’d drunk on a mostly empty stomach making their consequences known.
She didn’t bother to light the room, allowing her eyes to adjust to the slightest bit of midsummer moonlight coming through the window, and dropped heavily to the floor, leaning back on the door with her legs stretched out. She could crack now, shed the unbothered persona and feel every ounce of hurt and anger and frustration and fear she had for the past, present, and future. She could cry now, if she chose to, but she closed her eyes instead and absorbed the silence, the loneliness until acceptance came.
Then she stood and went to turn on the shower, to prepare for bed. Acceptance had changed the circumstances little, but damned if she would be reduced to a wilting flower, be it in privacy or not. No matter what her name suggested, she wasn’t weak. She would carry on. She would weather the storm. She would deal with all of it tomorrow.
***
September 1998
The days were blurring into one another, blurring into one big clusterfuck of coloured lights and heavy bass, disgusting hangover remedies (bloody hell, she’d gladly host a benefit gala to fund a miracle potion for that), pretty dresses and society masks, flying high and aching joints, and not remembering her name, not remembering the past. It was easy in Italy, where quite simply, no one cared about the war in her beloved United Kingdom.
She was living in a lie, a snowglobe. Her Italian was still shit and she had started redecorating the guest room they’d put her in. Sooner or later, she would have to stop avoiding the newspapers.
***
October 14th, 1998
It had been an accident—an accident because Pansy wasn’t the type to believe in fate. The Countessa had hosted a dinner the previous night, and it had run late, leading several guests to stay overnight. Perhaps they had each sent off an owl, requesting their morning newspapers to be delivered to the Zabini Villa at breakfast instead.
She had forgotten to set up a wake up call with the elves, having been dead tired and entirely too eager to go to bed, but it held no consequence. She had nowhere to be the next day, and even if she did, the elves would’ve never allowed anyone under their care to miss an appointment.
It had been an accident.
When she walked into the dining room twenty minutes after breakfast begun, suppressing a yawn and still fighting off a veil of drowsiness, she hadn’t thought anything of the quiet that greeted her. It was usually quiet, after all.
But this was different, quiet tinged with trepidation, still hesitation. She didn’t realise until she had one hand poised to pull back her chair. She looked up to be confronted, shoved head first into trauma, by the front page of Britain’s Daily Prophet. The headline read in apathetic bold: FIRST PUBLIC EXECUTION OF LORD VOLDEMORT’S REIGN.
Immediately, her eyes darted to the image below. In plain black and white, it was her father who got beheaded, sickening and violent. Harrowing. The three men in Death Eater masks forced him to his knees —he looked so weak— a fourth man swung the axe—like an animal, they killed him like an animal. She flinched, electric ice striking her heart, her entire body. She couldn’t look away, and it replayed, again and again and again.
Suddenly, the paper was lowered, and the image was gone. “Stai bene, caro?” a voice asked. Pansy turned toward the voice, somewhere down the table. They were all looking at her. She was shaking, heart pounding in her ears, light-headed. She was choking.
“Scusami,” she managed to stutter before stumbling out of the room.
***
She slammed the kitchen door shut, breathing hard, barely registering the house-elves eyeing her reproachfully. It didn’t matter; the elves here knew not to speak unless addressed. Her hands landed on the edge of a countertop, solid and cold beneath her palms. No one ever came in here. She was safe.
Heaviness, this coagulated mass, sat in the base of her throat—blobs of it stranded in her chest. She squeezed her eyes shut, squeezed as hard as she could, but no tears came. So she tried again and again, increasingly frantic. Why couldn’t she cry?
“Damn it!” She threw her fist down at the countertop, welcoming, embracing the sharp pain. She squeezed her eyes shut. Nothing.
She opened her eyes, panicked and ready to throw down her fist again, but a flash of shiny metal in her peripheral made her pause. Her back straightened, and with forced calm, she turned and walked toward it. There was a cutting board and knives lined up neatly beside it, like little soldiers awaiting command.
Fate. She always went back to the concept of fate somehow, and it was bullshit. They were rulemakers, fatemakers. The Malfoys were before they chained themselves to Voldemort. The Countessa was. Her father was. She was.
She stared down at the knives with clenched fists and has this awful intrusive thought. It tore into her brain. She could see it so clearly; her picking up one of them, the smallest and sharpest, with this blank expression, and jamming it into her throat. The pain, the consequence of that action, probably wouldn’t even register until she’d collapsed and was going cold, choked by her own blood. Would she still think of herself as a fatemaker then?
She could do it. She could do it now. She had nothing left. It would be so easy to fade away.
“Missy Pansy?” Mipsie. The house-elf prodded her with the slightest sliver of reality.
She felt crushed, ground into powder. She could still see herself bleeding out on the floor. All it would take was a strong breeze, and she would be lost forever, never to be put back together.
“Tell me what to do.” She wiped at her dry cheeks roughly. “You’re mine now. You answer to me, and me alone. Tell me what to do.”
Mipsie was wringing her hands. “Yes, mistress.” Her eyes were bulging and fearful, hesitant.
“That’s an order, Mipsie.” Her voice was tight. She was barely hanging on.
“I cannot be telling mistress what to do. Only you can be telling me what you is wanting,” she squeaked, pulling nervously on her large ears.
Pansy pressed the heels of her palms against her eyes, hard enough to the point of her vision dotting. She inhaled deeply, trying to resist the fury threatening to take her. “What I want,” she hissed, “is my life back. A chance at a life, Mipsie. Can you give me that?”
The house-elf stopped pulling on her ears. “Is that what mistress is truly wanting?”
She whipped around sharply. “Did you not hear me, elf? Yes—”
Mipsie brightened and snapped her left hand twice. Pansy disappeared, leaving the air behind static.
It had been an accident.
***
Somewhere by the sea
Luna’s eyes snapped shut, moving rapidly beneath her lids as hundreds of images began to flash through her head, almost like a flip book animation. There were so many pictures, enough to fill dozens upon dozens of albums. She wouldn’t be able to remember it all.
Abruptly, the picture album slammed shut and her eyes went still. Silent tears were rolling down Luna’s cheeks, but she smiled. She smiled.