(Untitled)

[freakedwithjet]

Date: Wednesday, October 11, 2000
Time: From 1pm
Location: The Blackpool Tower Ballrooms, Blackpool
Characters Involved: OPEN TO ALL (Pansy's such an attention whore)
Rating: PG-13ish, presumably for possible swearing only

Comments

Re: Four o'clock

[freakedwithjet]

Was she losing her touch?

Certainly, her barbed comments on Snape's breeding and lifestyle did not seem to have the effect she was used to exciting in people. Of course, usually Anna-Marie only associated with people who appreciated her own good breeding and superior status and while Snape had once been situated well within that group, it had been a long time.

She didn't like the insolent way he looked at her, the way he commented on her child and her parenting. As though anyone had ever intended that she should be a mother in lower people's meaning of the word. One couldn't host soirees with a baby on one's hip and a splodge of gloop down one's front. What was the point of house-elves if not to relieve one of less savoury tasks?

How to regain the upper-hand in this conversation? Ah yes, of course. Strike at known weaknesses. This sneering middle-aged man, he would not like to be reminded of his snivelling, whimpering youth.

"Do not misunderstand me, Professor Snape. I am proud of her in many ways, but I do not see that being headstrong to the point of idiocy is to be celebrated. She had much better keep calm and think logically, as I'm sure you, the Potions master, comprehend." She smiled thinly. "Of course, you must be well able to understand such children, with your... background and your troublesome years at school. Why, it seems almost as though it were yesterday, that I was sat before the fire in the common room and you - now, where would you have been?"

Re: Four o'clock

[subtle_simmer]

Headstrong to the point of idiocy? What a thing to say of one's own child! Granted, Severus was never unwilling to point out idiocy when he saw it - even among his Slytherins, he would call them out on imbecilic behaviour, though in private. Miss Parkinson had never been among the 'idiots'. Well, he supposed he might be slightly biased in her favour; joining the 'Inquisitorial Squad' for Dolores Umbridge hadn't been her brightest moment. Then again, it had been a very shrewd 'political' move to stay in touch with what was going on at the time.

Still, before he could argue the point - and he was more than willing to engage in heated debate right here in the queue, which Anna-Marie would consider ample evidence of his 'low breeding' - she launched her next attack, and unfortunately this was a 'direct hit'. He was not that boy, anymore, and he no longer cared (much) what opinion those like Anna-Marie held of him. None of which changed the fact that being reminded, so blatantly, of such history was exceedingly distasteful.

Where would he have been? Lurking in a corner buried in his revision if he had homework, but just as likely to have been quite literally sitting on the floor near the feet of which ever 'important' person in the House was presently tolerating Severus' presence or showed any inclination of being able to advance his 'status'! His intelligence served him well, even then, and some students were more tolerant of him than others, in exchange for assistance in their studies, but he was always of the 'lowest ranks' within the House, even in his seventh year.

He was not quite as fawning and servile as Peter Pettigrew had been amongst his House - but only because, even then, Severus had preferred to be alone as much as possible. However, the exceedingly, humiliatingly deferential behaviour had been there, undoubtedly. NOW, he bowed to no man, recognised no innate superiourity of birth or blood, unless it was his choice and in his interest to do so. Then... the mere memory of it still made him burn with shame and self-disgust.

Outwardly, his expression became a complete blank, a mask of feigned boredom behind which he had learnt to hide. His spine became, if possible, even more rigid, and he scarcely breathed. Only his glittering eyes betrayed his anger, and even this he concealed as well as may be, with Occlumency and decades of practice. Anna-Marie Parkinson was NOT more difficult to face than the Dark Lord himself!

Though, he was beginning to think she might be a close second or third.

"I would have been somewhere far beneath your notice, I am sure, Mrs Parkinson," he said coldly. "But I monopolise your time and hold up the queue of the admiring masses."

A moment before, he had been quite prepared to argue with her indefinitely, regardless of propriety or crowds. Now, he could scarcely wait to be shot of her. The husband, at least, could not be as bad. Severus scarcely knew of the man, being older than himself, and could not be humiliated by painful recollections of the worst kind.