Chapter Text
Pansy Parkinson is not stupid.
She’s calculative to a fault, even in her most frantic and desperate states. She had been raised to see the end game steps before anyone else. She’d known the right times to distance herself from the Death Eaters, she had never once attended Dark Magic meetings, but she also never reported the meetings that were taking place; all in the name of her survival.
It is with this same confidence Pansy is positive that with the information allotted to her at the time, handing Potter over to the Dark Lord had one hundred percent been the right decision.
She feels no remorse. She could careless how many witness were brought before the court to recount what she’d said in the Great Hall. Never once had she denied what she yelled staring down the darkest wizard in modern history. She completely owns her words, because that’s all they were.
She did not cast a Binding Spell. Never had she cast an Unforgivable, and unless the Ministry was prepared to prosecute all those expressing their freedom of speech, she saw no purpose of this trial. For surely this is “a fucking waste of the taxpayers money.”
Make no mistake, these were the exact words Pansy had said in court. Followed swiftly by the booing from audience, and then the loud pounding of the judge’s gavel, and through it all Pansy Parkinson sat on the stand, legs neatly crossed, a satisfied smile on her face.
It had only taken one glance at the prosecution table for her to know she’d defended herself well. Finally the witch-hunt was over.
It felt good to breathe the fresh air, even with the cameras and the microphones shoved in her face, Pansy appreciated the warm sunlight on her skin. Usually, or before, she’d worry about tanning or burning, frivolous things. Look how much three months had changed her, she was enjoying nature.
Pansy closed her eyes and smiled, ignoring the journalistic leeches around her, denying them a sound bite, but offering them a photo for what was sure to be on the front page of the Daily Prophet tomorrow. The Prophet, along with everyone else, seemed to love the story of an innocent girl seduced by the Dark Side prepared to kill Harry Potter. There had already been articles speculating her love affair with Draco Malfoy, Lucius Malfoy, Severus Snape, even the Dark Lord himself. For some reason these stories all made more sense than a girl who was desperately afraid and thoroughly Slytherin, who’d only been looking to save herself.
Pansy sighed, opening her eyes to the flashing cameras. She smiled, might as well give the tabloids one last show. Standing tall she blew kisses and flashed winks for the cameras. She could imagine the headlines already “Sweetheart Death Eater kisses away the Kiss of Death”. Why should she care about tomorrow’s paper? What would it matter to her? She’d be far way from Britain before the first paper was even printed.
The firing of a cannon announced the beginning of the next trial, Walden Macnair. Not the most glamorous trial. Despite actually being a Death Eater, the public had no interest in Walden Macnair, the mangled old magical creature executioner. However, reports were Firenze was set to testify and the Wizarding World still had a fascination with magical creatures.
Quickly the press rushed inside the courthouse, leaving Pansy Parkinson finally alone. After three months of house arrest, one week in the Ministry cells, Pansy Parkinson was finally free.
In the immediate aftermath of the Battle of Hogwarts, the transitional Ministry had confined her to a summer in the Parkinson mansion. It wasn’t the warm weather that she’d missed. Dorset summers were always hot and sticky, the sun never agreed with her pale skin, neverless her wardrobe. The true torture was being in the dark house. At first Pansy thought they had confined her to the property as psychological warfare. Pansy realized later she was being silly. How were they to know that she hadn’t spent more than two weeks in that place since she was thirteen.
Three months alone in a house that never felt like home, that always felt like prison, with wooden floorboards soaked with blood, portraits of old relatives witnesses to decades of crime. No, the Ministry was delightfully unaware of the role Parkinson manor played in the war.
“Pansy.”
His voice, the pattern of his footsteps, and then the feel of his solid body next to hers; Pansy hates that she can recognized him based off of this information alone.
She figured Harry Potter would come to her. She was continually learning that’s the type of person he is, she just hadn’t expected it to be this soon. Pansy had presumed that by the time Potter came to her with his explanations, questions, and apologies she’d be already gone. But when has Potter ever paid heed to her plans.
“Why didn’t you allow me to testify for you?” Of course that is the first thing he would say to her.
“I wrote you.”
There’s desperation, sadness, and hurt in his voice. All of which is too much for Pansy, who stares down at her black pumps and his brown loafers, and refuses to make eye contact.
She saw his letters. On the day she was transferred from the Mansion to the Ministry she was given a minute to read through the mail that had been collecting outside the property gates.
There weren’t many personal letters. Most were requests from publications hoping to get her interview.
There was a kind letter from Daphne, sweet, naive Daphne who hated to think about the negative and sad events in life. That card was basically Daphne describing her trip to Auckland, New Zealand and a cute boy she had met, and a boy that she thought Pansy would have liked if she hadn’t been, as Daphne described, “unavailable”. Reading that line had made Pansy snort.
Blaise had written her three times. Each letter arrived at the end of the month detailing where they all ended up. It was from his letters he found out about the funerals she had missed. That Theo Nott had successfully fled the UK and was on the run. Draco and Greg were in Azkaban. That letter had broken her heart. For as big and as bullish Greg tried to be, Pansy knew that timid and shy Greg wouldn’t fare there for a day. It had been the news about Greg that made her realized the mess she and her friends were in.
There were two letters from Harry. Both were short. Asking if she wouldn’t mind him testifying. He had signed it friend.
It was her damn pride that didn’t let her take him on his offer. She knew she was being stupid, that there was a good chance of her going to prison, and still her damn pride wouldn’t allow him to speak for her. What a classic Slytherin hubris?
“Help. From you” Pansy said, gathering all her Slytherin bravado, to finally look him in his large green eyes.
“The one thing I learned at Hogwarts School of Death and Destruction is to stay as far away from you as possible” And then she should have marched away, and never looked back at his ugly scar on his ugly face. But she couldn’t say that, not to Harry, not after the strange events that they had gone through.
“You didn’t owe me anything.” Pansy’s voice softer than she liked, “Me trying to turn you over to the Dark Lord should make us even.”
Pansy watched as Harry ran a hand through his dark black hair.
“I don’t think we’ll ever be even.” He whispered.
Sometimes, Pansy didn’t think they would either.