To Hell With Pretenses (An Owl to Draco)
To: Draco Malfoy
From: Pansy Parkinson
Draco,
Our correspondence has been slight and faint these past few months, due to a number of things, not the least of which being our separate schedules. Be that as it may, I am sure that you have by now heard the news of my mother's and step-father's death.
I do not know exactly how much more you know of their demise than I do, and please forgive me for wondering of the worst of you, but surely you can understand that I do not know and that therefore, in my weakness, I have doubted you.
Enough. This flowery language we speak to disguise what we want to say into something different now seems stale. My family is dead, I am lost, and I need answers. Or comfort. I have found both in you in the past, though at times grudgingly no doubt, and though these are uneasy times in which even those closest to us could betray us, I have come to the decision that if I cannot trust you, then I have no safeguard left to me at all and shall soon meet my mother's fate anyway.
Please tell me if tomorrow afternoon is too soon to meet me.
Sincerely,
Pansy
Pansy had begun to cry as she penned the words 'my family is dead'. She had rarely been scared in her life, but she was scared enough now to fill ten lifetimes. She had realized in her utter emptiness that if anyone, dark or good, wanted her dead, then there was nothing keeping her alive, and that concept was a terrifying one. Even as she looked to Draco for comfort, it scared her even more to think that if he was still as staunchly aligned with the Death Eaters as he had been years earlier, then writing to him was as good as sealing her death.
A tear had trickled down her cheek, and she lifted a hand to wipe it away. She was moments too slow, though, and the tear fell from her skin and onto the parchment laid on the table. It hit the parchment over the 'sy' of her signed name, smearing the ink there as it sunk in. "Damn!" she muttered, hand moving to dry the paper, but she stopped herself short with the knowledge that any attempt to touch it would simply smear the ink further and make matters worse.
Thus, the young lady's lips pressed together in a heavy grimace, and she began to fold the letter. She sealed it and wrote 'Draco Malfoy' on the front with no address, not knowing where he was, and stood, letter in hand, to retrieve one of the family owls.
Draco,
Our correspondence has been slight and faint these past few months, due to a number of things, not the least of which being our separate schedules. Be that as it may, I am sure that you have by now heard the news of my mother's and step-father's death.
I do not know exactly how much more you know of their demise than I do, and please forgive me for wondering of the worst of you, but surely you can understand that I do not know and that therefore, in my weakness, I have doubted you.
Enough. This flowery language we speak to disguise what we want to say into something different now seems stale. My family is dead, I am lost, and I need answers. Or comfort. I have found both in you in the past, though at times grudgingly no doubt, and though these are uneasy times in which even those closest to us could betray us, I have come to the decision that if I cannot trust you, then I have no safeguard left to me at all and shall soon meet my mother's fate anyway.
Please tell me if tomorrow afternoon is too soon to meet me.
Sincerely,
Pansy
Pansy had begun to cry as she penned the words 'my family is dead'. She had rarely been scared in her life, but she was scared enough now to fill ten lifetimes. She had realized in her utter emptiness that if anyone, dark or good, wanted her dead, then there was nothing keeping her alive, and that concept was a terrifying one. Even as she looked to Draco for comfort, it scared her even more to think that if he was still as staunchly aligned with the Death Eaters as he had been years earlier, then writing to him was as good as sealing her death.
A tear had trickled down her cheek, and she lifted a hand to wipe it away. She was moments too slow, though, and the tear fell from her skin and onto the parchment laid on the table. It hit the parchment over the 'sy' of her signed name, smearing the ink there as it sunk in. "Damn!" she muttered, hand moving to dry the paper, but she stopped herself short with the knowledge that any attempt to touch it would simply smear the ink further and make matters worse.
Thus, the young lady's lips pressed together in a heavy grimace, and she began to fold the letter. She sealed it and wrote 'Draco Malfoy' on the front with no address, not knowing where he was, and stood, letter in hand, to retrieve one of the family owls.