FIC: The Road to Nowhere (Fred/Pansy) [2 of 2]
Title: The Road to Nowhere
Author/Artist: sunshine_sundae
Characters: Fred/Pansy
Prompt number: 127
Word Count: 12,600
Rating: Fiction MA
Warnings: Occasional profanity, explicit sexual themes, one brief scene of sexual assault (not gratuitous)
Summary: Whoever said a Slytherin wouldn’t sacrifice everything to protect the ones she loves? Pansy Parkinson spies for the Order, falls in love and saves the world.
Disclaimer: Harry Potter characters are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No profit is being made, and no copyright infringement is intended.
Author’s Notes: This is a war AU, so although most canon events occurred, they began later on and were stretched out over a longer period of time. The Battle of Hogwarts never happened, although the Death Eaters have taken over the Ministry. Hopefully, further hints of the timeline and any other changes to canon will come through as you read it! Thank you gjeangirl for such a wonderful prompt, and thank you, as always, to my beta. Please enjoy!
Parts I - II
PART III
“Parkinson.” Yaxley stopped in front of her desk.
It had been three months since their confrontation in his office, since Pansy quit her life as a Ministry mole, and things had settled down. He hadn’t tried to touch her again. Neither had he made any further threats. Bellatrix was, of course, still searching for her spy, but thankfully, the spotlight had shifted from Pansy.
She looked up expectantly to find him scowling down at her.
“Get your coat,” he said. “We need you.”
* * *
Yaxley, she discovered, had received an anonymous tip about an Order safe house in the Lake District. Rowle and Macnair had been sent at the crack of dawn to scout it out but found the whole site heavily warded. Pansy was surprised, reckless oafs that they were, that they didn’t attempt to blast their way through, but then again, Yaxley’s wrath was something even the most hardened Death Eaters endeavoured to avoid.
The hefty layer of wards indicated, however, that someone was indeed present, so Yaxley sent Pansy along with several other Death Eaters to break in and detain whoever was inside.
Apparition didn’t usually make Pansy sick, but it was with a roll of nausea and wobbly knees that she landed on the grey shingle beach. It was still only early, and a thick layer of mist lay low on the lake. It would be the perfect cover, she realised with a sinking heart.
The Order wouldn’t know what hit them.
“Ah. It’s our prettiest curse breaker,” Rowle said with a smarmy grin. He’d been waiting for her on the beach and now he removed his mask to look her up and down.
Pansy ignored him. She had bigger concerns, after all.
“Where’s the house?”
“Not far.” The Death Eater broke off his leering to gesture at a steep incline covered with dry grass and shrubs. “Just over the top of that bank.”
Beyond its protective enchantments, the safe house simply looked like a derelict boat house. It extended out over the murky lake on precarious stilts, mould creeping up its white-washed walls, several slats missing from its roof.
Pansy and the Death Eaters remained hidden, using the long grass and fog for cover as they surrounded the boat house and she felt out the wards.
They were strong, certainly, but Pansy was stronger. She let her magic swell out along the invisible wall until she found the smallest fissure-the tiniest chink-and prepared to implode the entire barrier.
Then she hesitated.
There was someone in that house. There had to be. No one would weave such intricate enchantments to protect an empty boat house.
What… what if it was Fred? Or Draco? Or Andromeda? Her stomach churned at the thought.
Should she pretend she couldn’t break the wards? Should she do it badly, warn the occupants, give them time to escape?
“Parkinson,” Macnair hissed from his position several feet to her left. “What’s taking so long?”
Yaxley would kill her on the spot; she knew it for sure. If anyone had even the slightest suspicion that she’d done it on purpose, that she’d deliberately let the rebels slip through their grasp, she’d be executed without even the slightest hesitation.
Fred would do it anyway. He would sacrifice himself in a heartbeat, Death Eaters be damned. But as much as she might wish it, Pansy knew she was no Fred. She was no hero. She was no Gryffindor.
I’m sorry, she thought to the people inside, and then she shattered the wards.
* * *
She thought it was Fred when they dragged him out.
She started forward, panic clogging in her throat, but then Rowle threw him to the ground and she saw he was missing an ear.
George.
A wave of relief washed over her, followed swiftly by guilt, thick and sour, as Fred’s brother, Fred’s other half, rolled over onto is stomach and retched blood into the grass. Rowle responded with a brutal kick to his ribs.
“Look what we found,” Macnair cackled, and Pansy turned to see him hauling a heavily pregnant Hermione Granger by her hair. She was struggling, hissing and writhing like a wild cat. At the sight of her, George tried to get up but was floored by a boot to his back.
“Search the house,” Rowle instructed the other Death Eaters, “and secure the perimeter.”
As they obeyed, vanishing into the house and over the hill, he glanced down at the man on the ground.
“Crucio,” he said, casually, as if commenting on the weather.
George’s whole body seized. He let out a choked cry that clenched around Pansy’s lungs like a fist.
He looked just like his brother. It could be Fred, bleeding into the dirt.
“You want a little more, Weasley?” Rowle asked, then kicked him, hard, in the stomach. “Crucio.”
“Stop it!” Hermione cried. She lunged towards her husband, only for Macnair to drag her back. “Please,” she begged. “Please stop it.”
Macnair knotted his fist even tighter in her hair and forced her to still with a wand-the woman’s own, Pansy realised-to her throat.
“Calm down, darling,” he crooned in her ear. “You’ll get your turn soon enough.”
Pansy eyes snapped up in shock. The woman was pregnant. They surely weren’t planning to…
“You won’t fucking touch her,” George spat.
“Oh?” Rowle inquired gently. “Why don’t you watch us?”
He pointed his wand at Granger. The witch’s eyes grew wide, and she gave a sharp tug against Macnair’s steely grip.
They weren’t… Pansy’s fingers tightened on her wand. They wouldn’t…
Rowle gave a nasty smile and opened his mouth.
“Avada Kedavra!”
The blaze of green light hit the Death Eater squarely in the chest.
The world seemed to slow, as for the briefest of instants, Rowle simply hung there, eyes widened in utter surprise.
But then he dropped, dead before he hit the dirt.
Shit.
All eyes swivelled to Pansy, who lowered her wand hand and took a hesitant step back. A great roaring sound rose up in her ears as she realised the enormity of what she’d done.
Macnair recovered first; he threw Granger to the ground, his face twisting with malice.
“You little bitch,” he hissed, starting towards her.
Pansy took another step back, raising her wand defensively. She was stupid-stupid, stupid, stupid-but she wouldn’t go down without a fight.
“You wait,” the furious Death Eater threatened. “You just wait till I get my hands on you.”
“Avada Kedavra!”
This time, the killing curse didn’t come from her. Macnair neither.
Pansy flinched as the green flash engulfed them. She heard a dull thud and opened her eyes to see the Death Eater slumped on the ground before her.
Several yards behind him knelt George Weasley, an arm around his wife, wand aimed right at Pansy. A beat, and then he dropped his hand.
“What-” His eyes crept towards Rowle. “What… how…”
“It wasn’t for you,” Pansy said rudely. And it hadn’t been really. It had been his brother on her mind when she cast the Unforgiveable.
He and his wife watched, silent, as she retrieved Hermione’s wand from the fallen Death Eater and stomped over.
“Here,” she said, holding it out. When the witch paused, she let out a noise of frustration. “Take it.”
She did, and Pansy took a few steps back, shaking out her robe. “Now hex me,” she ordered. “Something nasty, or they’ll be suspicious.”
When George hesitated, she turned her attention to Granger. The woman was almost entirely unrecognisable from their school days. Aside from the enormous belly, her muddy brown hair had been hacked to her shoulders, springing out from her head in mad corkscrew curls, and her face was thinner, sharper.
Pansy remembered the way she used to torment her at Hogwarts-figured that there had to be animosity there, that Hermione had to hate her still, even after all these years-and sneered.
“To think you did something as stupid as get yourself knocked up in the middle of a war,” she said nastily. “Frankly,” she added when the witch stared at her, taken aback, “your hair is such an abomination, I’m surprised you managed to find a man willing to shag you in the first place.”
And that was enough. Hermione’s face flushed an angry red, and she flung out her wand hand.
“Sectumsempra.”
* * *
Pansy was in St Mungo’s for more than a week. The curse had slashed her skin to ribbons, and she’d lost a lot of blood-enough to make it touch-and-go for a few hours, the healers had told her upon her return to consciousness. Dark spell that it was, too, the scarring might never fully fade.
The first chance she got, alone in the hospital room, she pushed the bedsheets down to her ankles, twisted her flimsy hospital robes up around her chest and examined the network of shiny pink lines crisscrossing her skin.
Well, she thought with grudging admiration, she had asked for it.
The spiteful cow.
She presumed said spiteful cow and her husband had made it safely away. As she’d lain, barely conscious in a growing pool of blood, she’d heard the outraged shouts of Death Eaters, the sizzle of curses flying, then the faint crack of Apparition. The next thing she knew she was in St Mungo’s, a needle in her arm, healers pumping potions straight into her veins.
She didn’t get many visitors-most of them her work colleagues, although her father deigned to visit once. She wasn’t particularly surprised; she loved him, of course, but they had never been particularly close, even before he pledged allegiance to the Dark Lord.
Blaise Zabini was the only visitor from outside her department. He worked for her father as a clerk, and had done so since they left school five years prior. Like her, he’d kept his head down, done as he was told and survived thus far.
“Who was it?” he’d asked, lounging regally in a chair beside her bed. “At the safe house, I mean.”
Pansy traced her finger across her belly where she knew, beneath the blankets, ran a particularly nasty scar.
“Granger,” she said absently. “And that Weasel twin she married.”
Blaise sat up a little, dark eyes alight with interest.
“Married?”
Pansy’s finger stilled as she realised what she’d said. Rebel nuptials were, after all, not publicised in Witch Weekly.
She gave her friend a cool glance.
“Didn’t you know?” she asked as nonchalantly as she could manage lying flat on her back and hooked up to a drip. “We got intel that she married George Weasley.”
“Interesting,” Blaise murmured, subsiding into his seat. “Very interesting indeed.”
He hadn’t questioned her any further after that, but she’d caught him eyeing her thoughtfully once or twice. She hoped he didn’t suspect anything, although if he did, she hoped she could trust him with it.
Blaise managed to visit a couple times more, but no one else found the time. The days ticked by very slowly as Pansy lay hour after hour, with nothing to occupy her but her own thoughts.
Every time she closed her eyes, she saw a burst of green light and Rowle’s black-clad body hit the ground. She saw George Weasley cough up blood into the dirt. She saw a furious Hermione aim her wand at her chest.
But she didn’t regret saving them. Not when she knew what it would do to Fred if he’d lost his twin. It would break him.
Irreparably. Irrevocably.
And all she’d endured-Bellatrix’s interrogation, Yaxley’s assault, months and months on the knife edge-it would all be for nothing.
* * *
It was ten whole days after that fateful morning at the boathouse before they finally let her out of the hospital. There was no one to collect her, not that she needed anyone, so she travelled home alone.
Her flat, when she let herself in, was gloomy and cold. She opened the curtains, let the sunshine come streaming through, but it didn’t make a difference. She wasn’t sure anything would.
In the kitchen lay her enchanted silver sickle, abandoned, on her countertop. She wondered if Fred had attempted to signal her while she was in the hospital, if he even knew she was in the hospital at all.
As she turned it over in her hand, it began to grow warm. The dragon, frozen in flight on its shiny surface, flapped its wings and swooped in a triple loop.
Pansy. Her name glowed in silver. Pansy, please.
A week ago, she’d have put it down, turned away. But tonight, she didn’t hesitate, Apparating to the pub without even removing her coat.
The place looked much the same: dusty, dark, tumbledown. She didn’t know why, but she’d expected it to be different somehow.
She felt different.
He was here. Of course he was here. Pacing in the shadows, hand in his hair, frustration on his face. He stopped mid-step when he saw her, hand dropping to his side as he stared, dumbstruck. The sight of him in his well-worn jumper and scruffy corduroys, so familiar, so Fred, took her breath away, and she could do nothing but gaze back.
He looked like he couldn’t quite believe she was here. She supposed she couldn’t blame him; she’d been ignoring him for months.
She bit her lip, gave an embarrassed sort of shrug.
“You called?”
Fred’s mouth quirked up, then the next thing she knew, he’d covered the distance between them and wrapped her in his arms. He was warm and solid, and after the briefest stiffening of her spine, Pansy let herself melt into him.
“You came,” he murmured into her hair. “You came.”
He smelled so good. Like pine and something sharp like lemon. Pansy fisted her hands in his jumper, pressed her face into his neck and inhaled.
But then he pulled back and gave her a sharp shake.
“Merlin, Pansy. Do you have any idea how worried I’ve been? I thought you were dead!”
She gawped at him, a little startled.
“But I’m not,” she said stupidly.
“I know you’re not now, you daft witch,” he said, voice a warm mingle of affection and exasperation. “But I didn’t know before. All I knew was that you’d killed a Death Eater and saved my brother.” He cupped her cheek. “And then I kept calling and calling, and you never came.”
Pansy leant into his hand. He looked so tired, dark smudges beneath his eyes, red hair rumpled and sticking up at all angles. She wondered how long he’d been here. How long he’d waited.
For her.
“You can thank your sodding sister-in-law for that,” she said. “Whatever the hell that spell was, it was dark.”
She’d said it drily, but his mouth hardened to a thin line, a cloud crossing his face.
“I know,” he said ominously. “She told me.”
“I did ask for it,” Pansy said, although the dark timbre to his voice sent shivers up her spine. “And it worked. Yaxley didn’t doubt for a second she was trying to kill me with it.”
“Knowing Hermione,” Fred said with a sigh, “she probably was.” He smoothed a thumb across her cheekbone, eyes softening. “You’re sure he doesn’t suspect?”
Pansy reached up to touch his hand.
“Positive.”
“And he hasn’t…” He stopped abruptly, mouth tightening once more. “He hasn’t touched you since…?”
She was glad he didn’t say it-just the memory of it, the mere ghost of Yaxley’s hands on her body, made her tremble.
She shook her head, not trusting herself to speak.
Fred let out a soft exhalation, ducking down to let his forehead rest against hers.
“Good,” he murmured, eyes fluttering closed. “I was so worried.”
He was close-close enough to count the freckles dusting his nose, close enough to see the near translucent lashes resting against his cheeks. Pansy reached up, let her hand trace the skin of his jaw. He’d let his stubble grow in. Not much, but more than she’d ever seen him let it. She ran her fingers along its delicious texture, wondered what it would feel like on her skin if he kissed her lips, if he kissed her body.
The thought sent hot little sparks right the way through her. She drew a shuddering breath, loud in the silent room, and let her eyes flicker shut. He flattened a hand on her hip, drew her closer until her body met his.
“Fred,” she whispered unsteadily. “Fred, please.”
He lifted his head then with a noise that sounded a lot like reluctance. Her eyes snapped open to find him gazing down at her, agonised conflict written plainly in his face. Heartened at the depth of lust in his eyes, she grasped his jumper at the hem and tugged him closer.
“Please,” she whispered desperately. “Fred.”
A soft groan escaped his lips, before they crashed down on hers.
* * *
The kiss escalated rapidly. One second Pansy was curving into him, fingers pushing into his hair. The next he was tugging her with him to an armchair, gently coaxing her to straddle his lap.
His mouth found her throat, and she gasped, head lolling back as his beard scraped her sensitive skin.
“Pansy, love.” His voice was rough, low, pooling in the darkest depths of her body. She arched into him, letting her hands slip down his chest, savouring the feel of his solid muscles beneath the woolly fabric of his jumper.
His hands, meanwhile, felt like they were everywhere at once; sliding down her hips, curving round her bum, tugging up her skirt. But still, she needed more. She slid a hand down, found the hard bulge at the front of his trousers and palmed him until he grunted and caught her wrist.
“Pansy,” he said, a warning. She let him guide her hand back up, flattened it against the muscled slope of his shoulder. But then when he kissed her again, she sank down onto him, aligning herself with his erection.
He broke the kiss with a sharp huff and a curse. She ground down on him again, the friction only serving to deepen the ache in her belly.
“Pansy,” he choked out, catching her hip, forcing her to still. “We can’t… We shouldn’t…”
It was a valiant effort to be sure. Pansy cupped his face in her hands, let her thumbs caress his skin.
“I need this,” she murmured. “I need you.”
Surrender sparked hot and dark in his eyes, and he kissed her roughly on the mouth.
* * *
They met regularly after that. Sometimes, they managed to rein themselves in, took care of duty first as Pansy resumed her covert observations at the Ministry. Most of the time, though, they couldn’t wait-all hands and mouths the minute she Apparated in, until he was panting and she was gasping and their clothes lay in a heap on the floor.
He had her on every available surface: bent over the counter, laid flat on the pool table, pushed up against the wall. On one memorable Sunday morning, she lay beneath him in the thin Scottish sunlight, back arching, fingers clawing in the grass as he thrust into her. She had been so loud, so liberated, and he had teased her afterwards as she lay slumped against his chest.
“Didn’t I tell you you’d be screaming my name?” he’d asked, pushing her sweaty hair back from her face. She’d retaliated by kissing her way down his body, until she took him in her mouth and he’d growled her name, and begged and groaned it and much more besides.
When she wasn’t with him, she craved him. His touch. His humour. His heat. The days at the Ministry dragged even longer than they had before, as she sat at her desk, counting down the minutes until she could taste him again. The moment the clock struck five, she was gone, a flurry of robes and the crack of Apparition as she hurried to meet him.
When he unbuttoned her blouse, when he slipped it from her shoulders, when he pressed a trail of kisses down her breastbone, she could almost forget the world was at war.
She could almost forget that, at any moment, she could lose him forever.
“Where do you go,” Blaise asked one day, after he’d witnessed her dash down the corridor, “that makes you smile like that?”
Pansy knew she should be more careful, that she shouldn’t give anyone any reason to suspect her, but she couldn’t help herself.
“Oh,” she said, thinking of the tumbledown building in the mountains, and the man she knew waited there for her. “Nowhere, really.”
PART IV
Pansy had never been happy before without it coming to a swift and jarring end.
Her sheltered childhood had ended with the death of her mother, the year before she began Hogwarts. And her final year at the school, when she’d been just eighteen, starry-eyed and expectant with the world at her feet, she’d watched it all slip away as the country plunged into war.
So when she realised she was dreaming of a future with Fred, when she realised that she wanted it more than anything in the world, when she realised that she was happier now than she had ever been in her whole entire life, she knew it had to come to an end.
She just didn’t think it would be so soon.
* * *
“Harry found all the Horcruxes,” Fred said quietly, completely out of the blue.
It was quarter to midnight, one blustery night in March, and Pansy was curled up in his lap in the pub’s one surviving armchair.
She lifted her head from his chest to blink up at him.
“What?”
“The Horcruxes?” He arched a brow. “You know, creepy as hell things You-Know-Who stuffs his soul into?”
She did know. Fred had explained it all many months ago, when the Order found and destroyed the fifth, Rowena Ravenclaw’s diadem. Fred had, of course, cracked several jokes about the Dark Lord’s pretty tiara, which had ebbed the rolling nausea somewhat.
But now they’d found the last, and Pansy knew what it meant.
She dropped her cheek to his chest, feeling the steady thump of his heart beneath her ear, trying to ignore the howl of the wind through the broken roof.
“You’re going to take the Ministry.”
* * *
Fred wouldn’t tell her when. He made her hand over her enchanted coin, murmured a spell she didn’t recognise, then grinned sheepishly when she gave him a suspicious scowl.
“So I can find you,” he said, “when the fighting begins.”
He’d asked her all sorts of questions about the Ministry, her department in particular-access points, escape routes, who worked where. She told him about Yaxley’s private Floo, which made him narrow his eyes and mutter darkly.
“You get somewhere safe the minute you know we’re there,” he said as they stood up to leave. “I don’t want you fighting.”
“I’m perfectly capable,” she said, affronted.
He chuckled and brushed his fingers through her fringe.
“I know,” he said. “Believe me, love, I do. But no one else in the Order knows you’re on our side. You could get caught in the crossfire.”
Pansy realised reluctantly that this was true. Fred had promised they were going to keep casualties to the minimum, but the attack would be fast, and from all angles. It would be easy for the Order to mistake her for the enemy. Not to mention what the Death Eaters would do to her if they realised she was fighting against them.
“Fine,” she said. “I’ll hide like a coward.”
He must have heard the sour note in her voice, because he caught her face in his hands, tilted it up so he could meet her gaze.
“Don’t you realise how much you’ve done for us?” he asked softly. His voice was full of… of something Pansy couldn’t name but that swelled her heart nonetheless. When she glanced down, embarrassed at the depth of her emotion, he ran his thumb across her eyelashes.
“You’ve sacrificed so much more than we ever asked,” he murmured, “and I’ve had to stand by and do nothing but watch. Every time.”
He pressed a kiss to her forehead, then tugged her in for a hug that felt, inexplicably, like it could possibly be their last.
“Let me protect you, Pansy,” he whispered into her hair. “Just this once.”
* * *
It happened four days later. Sod’s law, Pansy was not safely tucked away in her office, but in the foyer, having been sent by Yaxley on an errand. She was hurrying back to the second floor, papers in hand, when with a blinding flash of light and a thunderous rumble, all hell broke loose.
She dove to the ground as curses began to fly.
Somewhere safe, Fred had said. She glanced wildly around, but she could see nothing but running feet, the flap of robes, papers flying everywhere. In a word, chaos.
She managed to crawl the short distance to the towering Magic is Might statue, where she hid, breathless, her back against the stone.
Her options, she realised dismally, were few. Either wait here for Fred, or woman the hell up and get herself out of this mess.
A loud crack from way above, as a bolt of red light toppled the mighty granite wizard from his throne. A large chunk of stone missed Pansy by inches, and decision made for her, she scrambled to her feet and took off across the room.
Around her, people battled and fell. Most, however, seemed to be trying to flee. Pansy blocked a few wayward hexes, weaving in and out of falling bodies, feeling shattered glass and other debris crunch beneath her feet.
Through the smoke, she spotted an alcove, sheltered by a thick velvet curtain, and veered off towards it. She reached it just in time-white-hot flames of magic lapped at the ends of her robes as she threw herself inside.
She’d barely managed to catch her breath, when something moved swiftly in the gloom. Pansy responded instinctively and found herself wand to wand with Hermione Granger.
“You,” she snapped.
Hermione raised her eyebrows, defiant, but said nothing. A moment, long and tense, as the two witches glared at one another.
And then Hermione dropped her wand.
Pansy watched suspiciously as she turned and limped a little further into the recess to press her back against the wall and slide weakly to the ground.
She’d been hit. Badly, considering the amount of blood seeping across her now almost flat belly.
Pansy warded the alcove to stop any uninvited visitors and followed her into the shadows.
“Congratulations,” she said, as she knelt beside her. “On the baby,” she added when Hermione’s eyes slid to hers, confused. “What was it?”
“Girl,” she said with a grimace. “We called her Rose.”
“Rose?” Pansy was unimpressed. She ducked down to examine the wound. “What an insipid name.”
Hermione snorted.
“Right. Coming from a woman named Pansy.”
Pansy acknowledged this with a little smirk and a dip of her head. The witch did have a point.
“What happened?” she asked, although she already had a fairly good idea.
“What do you think?” Hermione said flatly. “One of your charming compatriots.” She’d gone very pale, her skin worryingly waxy, and Pansy realised they needed outside help. She’d never been much good at healing magic.
She sat back on her heels.
“Is there someone who can fix this?”
“Hannah Abbott,” Hermione said with effort. “But she was supposed to take the second floor.”
Pansy glanced one more time at the growing pool of blood on the witch’s midriff. After all she’d gone through to save this blasted woman’s life the first time round, she wasn’t about to let her die now.
“Then we’ll go there,” she said decisively. “Can you walk?”
* * *
Hermione could walk, as it turned out, but not very quickly, and Pansy had to support her the whole way. She cast a disillusionment charm on them both, hoping if they kept moving and stayed quiet, they’d make it to the second floor without incident.
The foyer was silent now, the fighting having moved deeper into the Ministry. Bodies littered the floor, pools of blood glinting, dark and oily, on the shiny black marble. It appeared to be mostly Death Eaters among the dead, although some looked more like bystanders who hadn’t been able to run quite fast enough. Possibly a few Order members. It was hard to tell, and Pansy didn’t want to look too closely, lest she spot a familiar face.
Her father. Blaise. Fred.
“Minimum casualties my arse,” she said as they limped through the carnage. Hermione, to her credit, seemed equally pissed by the situation.
“What did I tell them?” she muttered angrily, jerking Pansy to a halt to kick at a pile of rubble. “Fucking arseholes.”
Pansy rather agreed, but at that moment, a distant explosion sent dust trickling down over their heads like sand in an hourglass. It was, she decided, time to get out of the open.
Taking the seldom-used staircase at the far end of the foyer meant they made it to the second floor without meeting any fighters-Death Eater or otherwise. Pansy propped a pale and sweaty Hermione up against the wall, instructed her to hex anyone that came round the corner and crept alone through the heavy double doors to her office.
It was, she discovered, curiously empty. No Death Eaters. No Order members. Certainly no Hannah Abbott.
A battle had, however, very evidently taken place. Pansy had to step over the body of a snatcher near Yaxley’s office, and there were several more slumped in the very furthest corner.
Pansy swallowed and returned for Hermione.
The woman was only semi-conscious. Pansy half guided, half hauled her into the office and managed to get her down on the floor behind a sturdy wooden desk.
“I’m going to find help,” she said, crouching beside her. “Stay here.”
Hermione blinked blearily up at her, then froze, staring eyes wide in horror at something beyond Pansy’s shoulder.
“Look what we have here,” drawled a voice that made her blood run cold. “A traitor and a mudblood.”
Pansy turned, standing swiftly to find him blocking their exit. He was dressed in Death Eater black, that horrible silver mask hanging about his neck.
“Yaxley,” she hissed.
He gave her a vindictive smirk.
“Traitor.”
A flush of anger snapped her into action. She thrust out her wand, but he was ready for her-“Expelliarmus!”-and it whipped from her grasp, hitting a desk across the room and skittering uselessly over the edge.
Defenceless now, she nevertheless met his gaze head on. Decided there and then that no matter what he did to her, no matter how he hurt her, she wouldn’t show even the slightest ounce of fear.
His eyes raked over her, thin lips curving into a sneer.
“I should have realised it was you,” he said, voice thick with contempt.
Pansy set her jaw.
“But you didn’t.” She gave him a triumphant smile, designed to provoke. “I was right under your nose the whole time, and you never even noticed.”
Yaxley’s nostrils flared with anger.
“I’m going to have so much fun with you,” he promised, pointing at her with his wand. “Just you wait, sweetheart. You’ll be begging me to finish you off.”
She met his eyes-held her head high as she anticipated the inevitable curse. Whatever it was, it would hurt. But she wouldn’t cry. She wouldn’t beg.
No matter what he did.
“I’m waiting,” she said insolently, because if she was going to die, she’d do it like a Slytherin. Proudly, and on her terms. She cocked a brow. “Or aren’t you man enough?”
Yaxley’s face twisted with rage, and he lunged.
“Stupefy!”
A jet of scarlet light hit the Death Eater from behind. He went down like a broken puppet, sprawling face-first on the ground before her.
Pansy gaped, shock leaching through her veins.
What… what just…?
And then Fred was racing across the office towards her. She gazed at him stupidly, still unable to work out what had just happened.
“Pansy!” He caught her wrist, dragged her into a fierce embrace. “Bloody hell,” he breathed into her hair. “I thought he was going to kill you.”
Pansy clung to him, legs suddenly very wobbly. He had saved her. He had saved her.
“I think he was,” she said, voice muffled by his collar. He tightened his grip on her, as if at any moment she might be snatched from his grasp.
“I told you to find somewhere safe,” he said crossly, although she could tell it was mostly for show.
She tilted her head back to look up at his handsome familiar face.
“I tried,” she said wrily, “but I got a little distracted. Oh!” Her eyes widened suddenly, as she remembered Hermione bleeding on the floor.
But Fred had brought company, and George and a light-haired woman Pansy vaguely recognised as Hannah Abbott were already attending to her.
The woman herself was pale-faced but awake, George holding her protectively to his chest. She grimaced as Hannah passed her wand over the wound, murmuring a gentle incantation. But then her eyes veered up to meet Pansy’s.
A moment of gratitude passed between them, words neither would ever say aloud hanging in the air.
“Is it over?” she asked softly, as Fred slipped his arms around her waist.
“Yeah.” He ducked his head to press a kiss to her shoulder. “He’s gone. They’re all gone.”
Relief washed over her.
It was over. She was free.
“I knew it!” a familiar voice crowed suddenly, and she glanced over, startled, to find Blaise had appeared out of nowhere. He’d evidently joined in the battle; his face was smudged with dirt, his robes charred around the edges. There was, however, the most shit-eating grin she’d ever seen on anyone plastered across his face. “I knew you were shagging someone.”
She blinked at him.
“You-how…?”
“You weren’t the only mole in the Ministry, Parkinson,” he said, tapping his nose. “I wasn’t quite in the thick of it like you were, working for your father. But at least I wasn’t hooking up with my handler every chance I got.”
Her father. Pansy turned to Fred, breath catching in her throat. He’d promised her he’d do all he could to protect him, but she knew, in the heat of the battle…
“He’s fine,” Fred said. “He surrendered. He’s safe.”
She exhaled in relief, twisted so she could press her cheek to his chest, wrap her arm round his middle.
“Are you hurt?” he asked softly. She could feel his body tense against hers. “Did he-did he hurt you?”
“No,” she said. “You got here in time.”
He let out a breath.
“Good. Good.”
Blaise was still smirking at them, so she pulled a face at him, making him laugh silently and shake his head.
The room was so quiet. Peace, Pansy realised. It was peace, settling on them all like a layer of snow.
Hannah had finished patching Hermione up, and the three simply sat, Hermione and George’s hands linked between them. Hannah kept sneaking glances at Blaise, who kept sneaking them right back.
As she watched them, a half-smile tugging at her lips, she felt Fred reach up to tuck her hair behind her ear, felt his other arm tighten around her. His body was solid and warm against her, and she took more comfort from it than she felt was probably natural.
But he had saved her life, and not just today. She wanted to tell him how much he’d come to mean to her, how much she loved him, but she couldn’t find the words.
“Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you for saving me.”
He seemed to understand, seemed to hear the depth in her voice, because he leant down and brushed a kiss to her head.
“Thank you for letting me.”
EPILOGUE
They bought the pub-that ramshackle shell of a building where it all began.
The Muggle owner of the land had been incredulous that such a young couple would want to bury themselves away in the wild, lonely highlands, but perhaps he saw the haunted look in their eyes; he shook them warmly by the hand and wished them all the best.
Mrs Weasley, however, hadn’t been about to let them get away so easily. With a mix of magic and plain hard work, she and the rest of Fred’s siblings helped them patch up the pub, scrubbing away layers of dust and grime until the walls shone white in the sunlight and the building wasn’t in danger of falling about their heads.
And then, after they’d christened it with several shots of firewhiskey, after the rest of the Weasley clan had staggered one by one into the Floo, Fred and Pansy sat together on the doorstep, drinks in hand, to watch the sun go down over the loch.
“I thought,” Fred said after a little while, “that you wanted to go away.”
When Pansy glanced at him sideways, he shrugged.
“You know,” he said, expression guarded. “Somewhere out in the middle of nowhere, where you can forget all of this ever happened?”
Oh. She remembered their conversation now, right in this very spot; it seemed almost a lifetime ago.
“We are in the middle of nowhere,” she pointed out, making him tut and roll his eyes.
“You know what I mean,” he said. He’d smiled as he said it, but there was a hint of tension in his voice, and she realised that he really was concerned that she might leave him. That she might decide he reminded her too much of the terrible things they’d witnessed, and walk away.
She cupped his cheek in her hand.
“I’m not going anywhere,” she promised. “Not without you, anyway.”
He exhaled, eyes softening visibly.
“Good,” he said. “Because I’d follow you anywhere, love. You know that right?”
She kissed him then, because why would she want to go anywhere else, when everything she had endured, all that they had been through, it had led her to this moment? To him?
She drew back, reached up to brush that scruffy red hair from his face, and smiled.
“Right here is fine with me.”
Author/Artist: sunshine_sundae
Characters: Fred/Pansy
Prompt number: 127
Word Count: 12,600
Rating: Fiction MA
Warnings: Occasional profanity, explicit sexual themes, one brief scene of sexual assault (not gratuitous)
Summary: Whoever said a Slytherin wouldn’t sacrifice everything to protect the ones she loves? Pansy Parkinson spies for the Order, falls in love and saves the world.
Disclaimer: Harry Potter characters are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No profit is being made, and no copyright infringement is intended.
Author’s Notes: This is a war AU, so although most canon events occurred, they began later on and were stretched out over a longer period of time. The Battle of Hogwarts never happened, although the Death Eaters have taken over the Ministry. Hopefully, further hints of the timeline and any other changes to canon will come through as you read it! Thank you gjeangirl for such a wonderful prompt, and thank you, as always, to my beta. Please enjoy!
Parts I - II
PART III
“Parkinson.” Yaxley stopped in front of her desk.
It had been three months since their confrontation in his office, since Pansy quit her life as a Ministry mole, and things had settled down. He hadn’t tried to touch her again. Neither had he made any further threats. Bellatrix was, of course, still searching for her spy, but thankfully, the spotlight had shifted from Pansy.
She looked up expectantly to find him scowling down at her.
“Get your coat,” he said. “We need you.”
* * *
Yaxley, she discovered, had received an anonymous tip about an Order safe house in the Lake District. Rowle and Macnair had been sent at the crack of dawn to scout it out but found the whole site heavily warded. Pansy was surprised, reckless oafs that they were, that they didn’t attempt to blast their way through, but then again, Yaxley’s wrath was something even the most hardened Death Eaters endeavoured to avoid.
The hefty layer of wards indicated, however, that someone was indeed present, so Yaxley sent Pansy along with several other Death Eaters to break in and detain whoever was inside.
Apparition didn’t usually make Pansy sick, but it was with a roll of nausea and wobbly knees that she landed on the grey shingle beach. It was still only early, and a thick layer of mist lay low on the lake. It would be the perfect cover, she realised with a sinking heart.
The Order wouldn’t know what hit them.
“Ah. It’s our prettiest curse breaker,” Rowle said with a smarmy grin. He’d been waiting for her on the beach and now he removed his mask to look her up and down.
Pansy ignored him. She had bigger concerns, after all.
“Where’s the house?”
“Not far.” The Death Eater broke off his leering to gesture at a steep incline covered with dry grass and shrubs. “Just over the top of that bank.”
Beyond its protective enchantments, the safe house simply looked like a derelict boat house. It extended out over the murky lake on precarious stilts, mould creeping up its white-washed walls, several slats missing from its roof.
Pansy and the Death Eaters remained hidden, using the long grass and fog for cover as they surrounded the boat house and she felt out the wards.
They were strong, certainly, but Pansy was stronger. She let her magic swell out along the invisible wall until she found the smallest fissure-the tiniest chink-and prepared to implode the entire barrier.
Then she hesitated.
There was someone in that house. There had to be. No one would weave such intricate enchantments to protect an empty boat house.
What… what if it was Fred? Or Draco? Or Andromeda? Her stomach churned at the thought.
Should she pretend she couldn’t break the wards? Should she do it badly, warn the occupants, give them time to escape?
“Parkinson,” Macnair hissed from his position several feet to her left. “What’s taking so long?”
Yaxley would kill her on the spot; she knew it for sure. If anyone had even the slightest suspicion that she’d done it on purpose, that she’d deliberately let the rebels slip through their grasp, she’d be executed without even the slightest hesitation.
Fred would do it anyway. He would sacrifice himself in a heartbeat, Death Eaters be damned. But as much as she might wish it, Pansy knew she was no Fred. She was no hero. She was no Gryffindor.
I’m sorry, she thought to the people inside, and then she shattered the wards.
* * *
She thought it was Fred when they dragged him out.
She started forward, panic clogging in her throat, but then Rowle threw him to the ground and she saw he was missing an ear.
George.
A wave of relief washed over her, followed swiftly by guilt, thick and sour, as Fred’s brother, Fred’s other half, rolled over onto is stomach and retched blood into the grass. Rowle responded with a brutal kick to his ribs.
“Look what we found,” Macnair cackled, and Pansy turned to see him hauling a heavily pregnant Hermione Granger by her hair. She was struggling, hissing and writhing like a wild cat. At the sight of her, George tried to get up but was floored by a boot to his back.
“Search the house,” Rowle instructed the other Death Eaters, “and secure the perimeter.”
As they obeyed, vanishing into the house and over the hill, he glanced down at the man on the ground.
“Crucio,” he said, casually, as if commenting on the weather.
George’s whole body seized. He let out a choked cry that clenched around Pansy’s lungs like a fist.
He looked just like his brother. It could be Fred, bleeding into the dirt.
“You want a little more, Weasley?” Rowle asked, then kicked him, hard, in the stomach. “Crucio.”
“Stop it!” Hermione cried. She lunged towards her husband, only for Macnair to drag her back. “Please,” she begged. “Please stop it.”
Macnair knotted his fist even tighter in her hair and forced her to still with a wand-the woman’s own, Pansy realised-to her throat.
“Calm down, darling,” he crooned in her ear. “You’ll get your turn soon enough.”
Pansy eyes snapped up in shock. The woman was pregnant. They surely weren’t planning to…
“You won’t fucking touch her,” George spat.
“Oh?” Rowle inquired gently. “Why don’t you watch us?”
He pointed his wand at Granger. The witch’s eyes grew wide, and she gave a sharp tug against Macnair’s steely grip.
They weren’t… Pansy’s fingers tightened on her wand. They wouldn’t…
Rowle gave a nasty smile and opened his mouth.
“Avada Kedavra!”
The blaze of green light hit the Death Eater squarely in the chest.
The world seemed to slow, as for the briefest of instants, Rowle simply hung there, eyes widened in utter surprise.
But then he dropped, dead before he hit the dirt.
Shit.
All eyes swivelled to Pansy, who lowered her wand hand and took a hesitant step back. A great roaring sound rose up in her ears as she realised the enormity of what she’d done.
Macnair recovered first; he threw Granger to the ground, his face twisting with malice.
“You little bitch,” he hissed, starting towards her.
Pansy took another step back, raising her wand defensively. She was stupid-stupid, stupid, stupid-but she wouldn’t go down without a fight.
“You wait,” the furious Death Eater threatened. “You just wait till I get my hands on you.”
“Avada Kedavra!”
This time, the killing curse didn’t come from her. Macnair neither.
Pansy flinched as the green flash engulfed them. She heard a dull thud and opened her eyes to see the Death Eater slumped on the ground before her.
Several yards behind him knelt George Weasley, an arm around his wife, wand aimed right at Pansy. A beat, and then he dropped his hand.
“What-” His eyes crept towards Rowle. “What… how…”
“It wasn’t for you,” Pansy said rudely. And it hadn’t been really. It had been his brother on her mind when she cast the Unforgiveable.
He and his wife watched, silent, as she retrieved Hermione’s wand from the fallen Death Eater and stomped over.
“Here,” she said, holding it out. When the witch paused, she let out a noise of frustration. “Take it.”
She did, and Pansy took a few steps back, shaking out her robe. “Now hex me,” she ordered. “Something nasty, or they’ll be suspicious.”
When George hesitated, she turned her attention to Granger. The woman was almost entirely unrecognisable from their school days. Aside from the enormous belly, her muddy brown hair had been hacked to her shoulders, springing out from her head in mad corkscrew curls, and her face was thinner, sharper.
Pansy remembered the way she used to torment her at Hogwarts-figured that there had to be animosity there, that Hermione had to hate her still, even after all these years-and sneered.
“To think you did something as stupid as get yourself knocked up in the middle of a war,” she said nastily. “Frankly,” she added when the witch stared at her, taken aback, “your hair is such an abomination, I’m surprised you managed to find a man willing to shag you in the first place.”
And that was enough. Hermione’s face flushed an angry red, and she flung out her wand hand.
“Sectumsempra.”
* * *
Pansy was in St Mungo’s for more than a week. The curse had slashed her skin to ribbons, and she’d lost a lot of blood-enough to make it touch-and-go for a few hours, the healers had told her upon her return to consciousness. Dark spell that it was, too, the scarring might never fully fade.
The first chance she got, alone in the hospital room, she pushed the bedsheets down to her ankles, twisted her flimsy hospital robes up around her chest and examined the network of shiny pink lines crisscrossing her skin.
Well, she thought with grudging admiration, she had asked for it.
The spiteful cow.
She presumed said spiteful cow and her husband had made it safely away. As she’d lain, barely conscious in a growing pool of blood, she’d heard the outraged shouts of Death Eaters, the sizzle of curses flying, then the faint crack of Apparition. The next thing she knew she was in St Mungo’s, a needle in her arm, healers pumping potions straight into her veins.
She didn’t get many visitors-most of them her work colleagues, although her father deigned to visit once. She wasn’t particularly surprised; she loved him, of course, but they had never been particularly close, even before he pledged allegiance to the Dark Lord.
Blaise Zabini was the only visitor from outside her department. He worked for her father as a clerk, and had done so since they left school five years prior. Like her, he’d kept his head down, done as he was told and survived thus far.
“Who was it?” he’d asked, lounging regally in a chair beside her bed. “At the safe house, I mean.”
Pansy traced her finger across her belly where she knew, beneath the blankets, ran a particularly nasty scar.
“Granger,” she said absently. “And that Weasel twin she married.”
Blaise sat up a little, dark eyes alight with interest.
“Married?”
Pansy’s finger stilled as she realised what she’d said. Rebel nuptials were, after all, not publicised in Witch Weekly.
She gave her friend a cool glance.
“Didn’t you know?” she asked as nonchalantly as she could manage lying flat on her back and hooked up to a drip. “We got intel that she married George Weasley.”
“Interesting,” Blaise murmured, subsiding into his seat. “Very interesting indeed.”
He hadn’t questioned her any further after that, but she’d caught him eyeing her thoughtfully once or twice. She hoped he didn’t suspect anything, although if he did, she hoped she could trust him with it.
Blaise managed to visit a couple times more, but no one else found the time. The days ticked by very slowly as Pansy lay hour after hour, with nothing to occupy her but her own thoughts.
Every time she closed her eyes, she saw a burst of green light and Rowle’s black-clad body hit the ground. She saw George Weasley cough up blood into the dirt. She saw a furious Hermione aim her wand at her chest.
But she didn’t regret saving them. Not when she knew what it would do to Fred if he’d lost his twin. It would break him.
Irreparably. Irrevocably.
And all she’d endured-Bellatrix’s interrogation, Yaxley’s assault, months and months on the knife edge-it would all be for nothing.
* * *
It was ten whole days after that fateful morning at the boathouse before they finally let her out of the hospital. There was no one to collect her, not that she needed anyone, so she travelled home alone.
Her flat, when she let herself in, was gloomy and cold. She opened the curtains, let the sunshine come streaming through, but it didn’t make a difference. She wasn’t sure anything would.
In the kitchen lay her enchanted silver sickle, abandoned, on her countertop. She wondered if Fred had attempted to signal her while she was in the hospital, if he even knew she was in the hospital at all.
As she turned it over in her hand, it began to grow warm. The dragon, frozen in flight on its shiny surface, flapped its wings and swooped in a triple loop.
Pansy. Her name glowed in silver. Pansy, please.
A week ago, she’d have put it down, turned away. But tonight, she didn’t hesitate, Apparating to the pub without even removing her coat.
The place looked much the same: dusty, dark, tumbledown. She didn’t know why, but she’d expected it to be different somehow.
She felt different.
He was here. Of course he was here. Pacing in the shadows, hand in his hair, frustration on his face. He stopped mid-step when he saw her, hand dropping to his side as he stared, dumbstruck. The sight of him in his well-worn jumper and scruffy corduroys, so familiar, so Fred, took her breath away, and she could do nothing but gaze back.
He looked like he couldn’t quite believe she was here. She supposed she couldn’t blame him; she’d been ignoring him for months.
She bit her lip, gave an embarrassed sort of shrug.
“You called?”
Fred’s mouth quirked up, then the next thing she knew, he’d covered the distance between them and wrapped her in his arms. He was warm and solid, and after the briefest stiffening of her spine, Pansy let herself melt into him.
“You came,” he murmured into her hair. “You came.”
He smelled so good. Like pine and something sharp like lemon. Pansy fisted her hands in his jumper, pressed her face into his neck and inhaled.
But then he pulled back and gave her a sharp shake.
“Merlin, Pansy. Do you have any idea how worried I’ve been? I thought you were dead!”
She gawped at him, a little startled.
“But I’m not,” she said stupidly.
“I know you’re not now, you daft witch,” he said, voice a warm mingle of affection and exasperation. “But I didn’t know before. All I knew was that you’d killed a Death Eater and saved my brother.” He cupped her cheek. “And then I kept calling and calling, and you never came.”
Pansy leant into his hand. He looked so tired, dark smudges beneath his eyes, red hair rumpled and sticking up at all angles. She wondered how long he’d been here. How long he’d waited.
For her.
“You can thank your sodding sister-in-law for that,” she said. “Whatever the hell that spell was, it was dark.”
She’d said it drily, but his mouth hardened to a thin line, a cloud crossing his face.
“I know,” he said ominously. “She told me.”
“I did ask for it,” Pansy said, although the dark timbre to his voice sent shivers up her spine. “And it worked. Yaxley didn’t doubt for a second she was trying to kill me with it.”
“Knowing Hermione,” Fred said with a sigh, “she probably was.” He smoothed a thumb across her cheekbone, eyes softening. “You’re sure he doesn’t suspect?”
Pansy reached up to touch his hand.
“Positive.”
“And he hasn’t…” He stopped abruptly, mouth tightening once more. “He hasn’t touched you since…?”
She was glad he didn’t say it-just the memory of it, the mere ghost of Yaxley’s hands on her body, made her tremble.
She shook her head, not trusting herself to speak.
Fred let out a soft exhalation, ducking down to let his forehead rest against hers.
“Good,” he murmured, eyes fluttering closed. “I was so worried.”
He was close-close enough to count the freckles dusting his nose, close enough to see the near translucent lashes resting against his cheeks. Pansy reached up, let her hand trace the skin of his jaw. He’d let his stubble grow in. Not much, but more than she’d ever seen him let it. She ran her fingers along its delicious texture, wondered what it would feel like on her skin if he kissed her lips, if he kissed her body.
The thought sent hot little sparks right the way through her. She drew a shuddering breath, loud in the silent room, and let her eyes flicker shut. He flattened a hand on her hip, drew her closer until her body met his.
“Fred,” she whispered unsteadily. “Fred, please.”
He lifted his head then with a noise that sounded a lot like reluctance. Her eyes snapped open to find him gazing down at her, agonised conflict written plainly in his face. Heartened at the depth of lust in his eyes, she grasped his jumper at the hem and tugged him closer.
“Please,” she whispered desperately. “Fred.”
A soft groan escaped his lips, before they crashed down on hers.
* * *
The kiss escalated rapidly. One second Pansy was curving into him, fingers pushing into his hair. The next he was tugging her with him to an armchair, gently coaxing her to straddle his lap.
His mouth found her throat, and she gasped, head lolling back as his beard scraped her sensitive skin.
“Pansy, love.” His voice was rough, low, pooling in the darkest depths of her body. She arched into him, letting her hands slip down his chest, savouring the feel of his solid muscles beneath the woolly fabric of his jumper.
His hands, meanwhile, felt like they were everywhere at once; sliding down her hips, curving round her bum, tugging up her skirt. But still, she needed more. She slid a hand down, found the hard bulge at the front of his trousers and palmed him until he grunted and caught her wrist.
“Pansy,” he said, a warning. She let him guide her hand back up, flattened it against the muscled slope of his shoulder. But then when he kissed her again, she sank down onto him, aligning herself with his erection.
He broke the kiss with a sharp huff and a curse. She ground down on him again, the friction only serving to deepen the ache in her belly.
“Pansy,” he choked out, catching her hip, forcing her to still. “We can’t… We shouldn’t…”
It was a valiant effort to be sure. Pansy cupped his face in her hands, let her thumbs caress his skin.
“I need this,” she murmured. “I need you.”
Surrender sparked hot and dark in his eyes, and he kissed her roughly on the mouth.
* * *
They met regularly after that. Sometimes, they managed to rein themselves in, took care of duty first as Pansy resumed her covert observations at the Ministry. Most of the time, though, they couldn’t wait-all hands and mouths the minute she Apparated in, until he was panting and she was gasping and their clothes lay in a heap on the floor.
He had her on every available surface: bent over the counter, laid flat on the pool table, pushed up against the wall. On one memorable Sunday morning, she lay beneath him in the thin Scottish sunlight, back arching, fingers clawing in the grass as he thrust into her. She had been so loud, so liberated, and he had teased her afterwards as she lay slumped against his chest.
“Didn’t I tell you you’d be screaming my name?” he’d asked, pushing her sweaty hair back from her face. She’d retaliated by kissing her way down his body, until she took him in her mouth and he’d growled her name, and begged and groaned it and much more besides.
When she wasn’t with him, she craved him. His touch. His humour. His heat. The days at the Ministry dragged even longer than they had before, as she sat at her desk, counting down the minutes until she could taste him again. The moment the clock struck five, she was gone, a flurry of robes and the crack of Apparition as she hurried to meet him.
When he unbuttoned her blouse, when he slipped it from her shoulders, when he pressed a trail of kisses down her breastbone, she could almost forget the world was at war.
She could almost forget that, at any moment, she could lose him forever.
“Where do you go,” Blaise asked one day, after he’d witnessed her dash down the corridor, “that makes you smile like that?”
Pansy knew she should be more careful, that she shouldn’t give anyone any reason to suspect her, but she couldn’t help herself.
“Oh,” she said, thinking of the tumbledown building in the mountains, and the man she knew waited there for her. “Nowhere, really.”
PART IV
Pansy had never been happy before without it coming to a swift and jarring end.
Her sheltered childhood had ended with the death of her mother, the year before she began Hogwarts. And her final year at the school, when she’d been just eighteen, starry-eyed and expectant with the world at her feet, she’d watched it all slip away as the country plunged into war.
So when she realised she was dreaming of a future with Fred, when she realised that she wanted it more than anything in the world, when she realised that she was happier now than she had ever been in her whole entire life, she knew it had to come to an end.
She just didn’t think it would be so soon.
* * *
“Harry found all the Horcruxes,” Fred said quietly, completely out of the blue.
It was quarter to midnight, one blustery night in March, and Pansy was curled up in his lap in the pub’s one surviving armchair.
She lifted her head from his chest to blink up at him.
“What?”
“The Horcruxes?” He arched a brow. “You know, creepy as hell things You-Know-Who stuffs his soul into?”
She did know. Fred had explained it all many months ago, when the Order found and destroyed the fifth, Rowena Ravenclaw’s diadem. Fred had, of course, cracked several jokes about the Dark Lord’s pretty tiara, which had ebbed the rolling nausea somewhat.
But now they’d found the last, and Pansy knew what it meant.
She dropped her cheek to his chest, feeling the steady thump of his heart beneath her ear, trying to ignore the howl of the wind through the broken roof.
“You’re going to take the Ministry.”
* * *
Fred wouldn’t tell her when. He made her hand over her enchanted coin, murmured a spell she didn’t recognise, then grinned sheepishly when she gave him a suspicious scowl.
“So I can find you,” he said, “when the fighting begins.”
He’d asked her all sorts of questions about the Ministry, her department in particular-access points, escape routes, who worked where. She told him about Yaxley’s private Floo, which made him narrow his eyes and mutter darkly.
“You get somewhere safe the minute you know we’re there,” he said as they stood up to leave. “I don’t want you fighting.”
“I’m perfectly capable,” she said, affronted.
He chuckled and brushed his fingers through her fringe.
“I know,” he said. “Believe me, love, I do. But no one else in the Order knows you’re on our side. You could get caught in the crossfire.”
Pansy realised reluctantly that this was true. Fred had promised they were going to keep casualties to the minimum, but the attack would be fast, and from all angles. It would be easy for the Order to mistake her for the enemy. Not to mention what the Death Eaters would do to her if they realised she was fighting against them.
“Fine,” she said. “I’ll hide like a coward.”
He must have heard the sour note in her voice, because he caught her face in his hands, tilted it up so he could meet her gaze.
“Don’t you realise how much you’ve done for us?” he asked softly. His voice was full of… of something Pansy couldn’t name but that swelled her heart nonetheless. When she glanced down, embarrassed at the depth of her emotion, he ran his thumb across her eyelashes.
“You’ve sacrificed so much more than we ever asked,” he murmured, “and I’ve had to stand by and do nothing but watch. Every time.”
He pressed a kiss to her forehead, then tugged her in for a hug that felt, inexplicably, like it could possibly be their last.
“Let me protect you, Pansy,” he whispered into her hair. “Just this once.”
* * *
It happened four days later. Sod’s law, Pansy was not safely tucked away in her office, but in the foyer, having been sent by Yaxley on an errand. She was hurrying back to the second floor, papers in hand, when with a blinding flash of light and a thunderous rumble, all hell broke loose.
She dove to the ground as curses began to fly.
Somewhere safe, Fred had said. She glanced wildly around, but she could see nothing but running feet, the flap of robes, papers flying everywhere. In a word, chaos.
She managed to crawl the short distance to the towering Magic is Might statue, where she hid, breathless, her back against the stone.
Her options, she realised dismally, were few. Either wait here for Fred, or woman the hell up and get herself out of this mess.
A loud crack from way above, as a bolt of red light toppled the mighty granite wizard from his throne. A large chunk of stone missed Pansy by inches, and decision made for her, she scrambled to her feet and took off across the room.
Around her, people battled and fell. Most, however, seemed to be trying to flee. Pansy blocked a few wayward hexes, weaving in and out of falling bodies, feeling shattered glass and other debris crunch beneath her feet.
Through the smoke, she spotted an alcove, sheltered by a thick velvet curtain, and veered off towards it. She reached it just in time-white-hot flames of magic lapped at the ends of her robes as she threw herself inside.
She’d barely managed to catch her breath, when something moved swiftly in the gloom. Pansy responded instinctively and found herself wand to wand with Hermione Granger.
“You,” she snapped.
Hermione raised her eyebrows, defiant, but said nothing. A moment, long and tense, as the two witches glared at one another.
And then Hermione dropped her wand.
Pansy watched suspiciously as she turned and limped a little further into the recess to press her back against the wall and slide weakly to the ground.
She’d been hit. Badly, considering the amount of blood seeping across her now almost flat belly.
Pansy warded the alcove to stop any uninvited visitors and followed her into the shadows.
“Congratulations,” she said, as she knelt beside her. “On the baby,” she added when Hermione’s eyes slid to hers, confused. “What was it?”
“Girl,” she said with a grimace. “We called her Rose.”
“Rose?” Pansy was unimpressed. She ducked down to examine the wound. “What an insipid name.”
Hermione snorted.
“Right. Coming from a woman named Pansy.”
Pansy acknowledged this with a little smirk and a dip of her head. The witch did have a point.
“What happened?” she asked, although she already had a fairly good idea.
“What do you think?” Hermione said flatly. “One of your charming compatriots.” She’d gone very pale, her skin worryingly waxy, and Pansy realised they needed outside help. She’d never been much good at healing magic.
She sat back on her heels.
“Is there someone who can fix this?”
“Hannah Abbott,” Hermione said with effort. “But she was supposed to take the second floor.”
Pansy glanced one more time at the growing pool of blood on the witch’s midriff. After all she’d gone through to save this blasted woman’s life the first time round, she wasn’t about to let her die now.
“Then we’ll go there,” she said decisively. “Can you walk?”
* * *
Hermione could walk, as it turned out, but not very quickly, and Pansy had to support her the whole way. She cast a disillusionment charm on them both, hoping if they kept moving and stayed quiet, they’d make it to the second floor without incident.
The foyer was silent now, the fighting having moved deeper into the Ministry. Bodies littered the floor, pools of blood glinting, dark and oily, on the shiny black marble. It appeared to be mostly Death Eaters among the dead, although some looked more like bystanders who hadn’t been able to run quite fast enough. Possibly a few Order members. It was hard to tell, and Pansy didn’t want to look too closely, lest she spot a familiar face.
Her father. Blaise. Fred.
“Minimum casualties my arse,” she said as they limped through the carnage. Hermione, to her credit, seemed equally pissed by the situation.
“What did I tell them?” she muttered angrily, jerking Pansy to a halt to kick at a pile of rubble. “Fucking arseholes.”
Pansy rather agreed, but at that moment, a distant explosion sent dust trickling down over their heads like sand in an hourglass. It was, she decided, time to get out of the open.
Taking the seldom-used staircase at the far end of the foyer meant they made it to the second floor without meeting any fighters-Death Eater or otherwise. Pansy propped a pale and sweaty Hermione up against the wall, instructed her to hex anyone that came round the corner and crept alone through the heavy double doors to her office.
It was, she discovered, curiously empty. No Death Eaters. No Order members. Certainly no Hannah Abbott.
A battle had, however, very evidently taken place. Pansy had to step over the body of a snatcher near Yaxley’s office, and there were several more slumped in the very furthest corner.
Pansy swallowed and returned for Hermione.
The woman was only semi-conscious. Pansy half guided, half hauled her into the office and managed to get her down on the floor behind a sturdy wooden desk.
“I’m going to find help,” she said, crouching beside her. “Stay here.”
Hermione blinked blearily up at her, then froze, staring eyes wide in horror at something beyond Pansy’s shoulder.
“Look what we have here,” drawled a voice that made her blood run cold. “A traitor and a mudblood.”
Pansy turned, standing swiftly to find him blocking their exit. He was dressed in Death Eater black, that horrible silver mask hanging about his neck.
“Yaxley,” she hissed.
He gave her a vindictive smirk.
“Traitor.”
A flush of anger snapped her into action. She thrust out her wand, but he was ready for her-“Expelliarmus!”-and it whipped from her grasp, hitting a desk across the room and skittering uselessly over the edge.
Defenceless now, she nevertheless met his gaze head on. Decided there and then that no matter what he did to her, no matter how he hurt her, she wouldn’t show even the slightest ounce of fear.
His eyes raked over her, thin lips curving into a sneer.
“I should have realised it was you,” he said, voice thick with contempt.
Pansy set her jaw.
“But you didn’t.” She gave him a triumphant smile, designed to provoke. “I was right under your nose the whole time, and you never even noticed.”
Yaxley’s nostrils flared with anger.
“I’m going to have so much fun with you,” he promised, pointing at her with his wand. “Just you wait, sweetheart. You’ll be begging me to finish you off.”
She met his eyes-held her head high as she anticipated the inevitable curse. Whatever it was, it would hurt. But she wouldn’t cry. She wouldn’t beg.
No matter what he did.
“I’m waiting,” she said insolently, because if she was going to die, she’d do it like a Slytherin. Proudly, and on her terms. She cocked a brow. “Or aren’t you man enough?”
Yaxley’s face twisted with rage, and he lunged.
“Stupefy!”
A jet of scarlet light hit the Death Eater from behind. He went down like a broken puppet, sprawling face-first on the ground before her.
Pansy gaped, shock leaching through her veins.
What… what just…?
And then Fred was racing across the office towards her. She gazed at him stupidly, still unable to work out what had just happened.
“Pansy!” He caught her wrist, dragged her into a fierce embrace. “Bloody hell,” he breathed into her hair. “I thought he was going to kill you.”
Pansy clung to him, legs suddenly very wobbly. He had saved her. He had saved her.
“I think he was,” she said, voice muffled by his collar. He tightened his grip on her, as if at any moment she might be snatched from his grasp.
“I told you to find somewhere safe,” he said crossly, although she could tell it was mostly for show.
She tilted her head back to look up at his handsome familiar face.
“I tried,” she said wrily, “but I got a little distracted. Oh!” Her eyes widened suddenly, as she remembered Hermione bleeding on the floor.
But Fred had brought company, and George and a light-haired woman Pansy vaguely recognised as Hannah Abbott were already attending to her.
The woman herself was pale-faced but awake, George holding her protectively to his chest. She grimaced as Hannah passed her wand over the wound, murmuring a gentle incantation. But then her eyes veered up to meet Pansy’s.
A moment of gratitude passed between them, words neither would ever say aloud hanging in the air.
“Is it over?” she asked softly, as Fred slipped his arms around her waist.
“Yeah.” He ducked his head to press a kiss to her shoulder. “He’s gone. They’re all gone.”
Relief washed over her.
It was over. She was free.
“I knew it!” a familiar voice crowed suddenly, and she glanced over, startled, to find Blaise had appeared out of nowhere. He’d evidently joined in the battle; his face was smudged with dirt, his robes charred around the edges. There was, however, the most shit-eating grin she’d ever seen on anyone plastered across his face. “I knew you were shagging someone.”
She blinked at him.
“You-how…?”
“You weren’t the only mole in the Ministry, Parkinson,” he said, tapping his nose. “I wasn’t quite in the thick of it like you were, working for your father. But at least I wasn’t hooking up with my handler every chance I got.”
Her father. Pansy turned to Fred, breath catching in her throat. He’d promised her he’d do all he could to protect him, but she knew, in the heat of the battle…
“He’s fine,” Fred said. “He surrendered. He’s safe.”
She exhaled in relief, twisted so she could press her cheek to his chest, wrap her arm round his middle.
“Are you hurt?” he asked softly. She could feel his body tense against hers. “Did he-did he hurt you?”
“No,” she said. “You got here in time.”
He let out a breath.
“Good. Good.”
Blaise was still smirking at them, so she pulled a face at him, making him laugh silently and shake his head.
The room was so quiet. Peace, Pansy realised. It was peace, settling on them all like a layer of snow.
Hannah had finished patching Hermione up, and the three simply sat, Hermione and George’s hands linked between them. Hannah kept sneaking glances at Blaise, who kept sneaking them right back.
As she watched them, a half-smile tugging at her lips, she felt Fred reach up to tuck her hair behind her ear, felt his other arm tighten around her. His body was solid and warm against her, and she took more comfort from it than she felt was probably natural.
But he had saved her life, and not just today. She wanted to tell him how much he’d come to mean to her, how much she loved him, but she couldn’t find the words.
“Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you for saving me.”
He seemed to understand, seemed to hear the depth in her voice, because he leant down and brushed a kiss to her head.
“Thank you for letting me.”
EPILOGUE
They bought the pub-that ramshackle shell of a building where it all began.
The Muggle owner of the land had been incredulous that such a young couple would want to bury themselves away in the wild, lonely highlands, but perhaps he saw the haunted look in their eyes; he shook them warmly by the hand and wished them all the best.
Mrs Weasley, however, hadn’t been about to let them get away so easily. With a mix of magic and plain hard work, she and the rest of Fred’s siblings helped them patch up the pub, scrubbing away layers of dust and grime until the walls shone white in the sunlight and the building wasn’t in danger of falling about their heads.
And then, after they’d christened it with several shots of firewhiskey, after the rest of the Weasley clan had staggered one by one into the Floo, Fred and Pansy sat together on the doorstep, drinks in hand, to watch the sun go down over the loch.
“I thought,” Fred said after a little while, “that you wanted to go away.”
When Pansy glanced at him sideways, he shrugged.
“You know,” he said, expression guarded. “Somewhere out in the middle of nowhere, where you can forget all of this ever happened?”
Oh. She remembered their conversation now, right in this very spot; it seemed almost a lifetime ago.
“We are in the middle of nowhere,” she pointed out, making him tut and roll his eyes.
“You know what I mean,” he said. He’d smiled as he said it, but there was a hint of tension in his voice, and she realised that he really was concerned that she might leave him. That she might decide he reminded her too much of the terrible things they’d witnessed, and walk away.
She cupped his cheek in her hand.
“I’m not going anywhere,” she promised. “Not without you, anyway.”
He exhaled, eyes softening visibly.
“Good,” he said. “Because I’d follow you anywhere, love. You know that right?”
She kissed him then, because why would she want to go anywhere else, when everything she had endured, all that they had been through, it had led her to this moment? To him?
She drew back, reached up to brush that scruffy red hair from his face, and smiled.
“Right here is fine with me.”