If you love me,
Curled up in front of the large fireplace in her father’s study, Pansy tucked her bare feet beneath her and reclined on the surprisingly comfortable sofa. She would likely always think of this room as “father’s,” even though the man in question had been dead for over ten years. Parkinson Manor was her childhood home; old habits died hard.
She cupped a deep glass of cabernet sauvignon and stared into the flickering flames, her mind lost in thought. It was nearly November -- the days were growing shorter, the nights colder, and it was only a little more than one month until her wedding day.
Her wedding day. After years alone, it was surreal to think that such a thing was happening. She had made peace with the knowledge that she and Lysander weren’t meant to be, because surely if they were, it would have happened already.
But then again, Fate had always enjoyed making mischief with her life.
As such, it was happening. The date was set, the invitations had been sent and RSVPs were already flooding in. Astoria’s bridesmaid dress had been commissioned along with her bridal gown. Flowers, caterers, musicians; all were chosen and ready. She had never been one of “those girls” who planned every single detail of their wedding years beforehand, but even she had been slightly taken aback at how easy it all was.
At least, it had been. There was still one last thing to do before things could move forward -- and it was the most difficult of all.
Fresh from the shower, Lysander sauntered through the halls of the manor togged in his pajama bottoms and a t-shirt. It always amused him to pass through the formal parts of the house at his most casual, and a part of him half expected the ghosts of Parkinsons past to appear simply to look at him with disdain. Today, though, he only found one Parkinson, and she was warm and living, and not long to retain that surname.
“Evening, love of my life. Did you pour a glass for me?”
“I did not,” she said, blue eyes flickering up to the object of her ruminations. Her lips twitched despite herself, and she gestured half-heartedly towards the decanter on the sideboard. “But I do believe you are quite capable of pouring your own, darling.”
His lips curled minutely as he turned to gather a glass of wine. Once it was in hand, Lysander deposited himself on the sofa beside his future wife, stretching one arm behind her. “How was your day? Did you do anything exciting while I toiled away at the Ministry?”
“Oh, a little of this, a little of that,” she said lightly, letting herself relax into the warm body at her back. “I’m to go in for another fitting with Madame Delacour tomorrow.”
“Another fitting? How many times does a woman of her skill need to tweak a gown?” he teased, brushing a kiss into Pansy’s dark hair. “Is Astoria going with you?”
“Hush, wretched husband-to-be of mine. Perfection isn’t as simple as I make it look,” she replied with a sniff, turning her face away from him and taking a sip of her wine. “And of course she is. Edward might believe he pays her to run his gallery, but as is the norm, he would be wrong.”
Lysander only smiled and took a sip of cabernet. Pansy liked to poke at Carmichael, and in truth Lysander didn’t mind making a few jokes at the man’s expense from time to time, but he was quite a good businessman, and he seemed to treat his employees quite well. “I will have to take your word for it. I can only judge by what I see.”
Her lips curled, and she turned her head back to glance at him over her shoulder. “Fear not, darling. All you have to do on our wedding day is show up, make an honest woman of me, and try not to let your longing for Julian trump your love for me.”
“Honest?” he asked skeptically, though the curl of his lips belied the tone of his voice. “I think the most I can promise is that our children won’t be bastards and I will do my best to keep Julian from making a scene as I crush his dream of our life together.”
“I do believe these sorts of things are legal in Italy,” she replied with a raised brow. “This is your last chance before you’re shackled to a witch for life.”
Giving his head a sad shake, Lysander waved off the suggestion. “No, no. He’ll learn to accept it. Perhaps he can comfort himself by getting Penelope up the duff again. He’d enjoy the process and the result would amuse me.”
Pansy brought the wine glass to her lips. “You don’t think that situation is complicated enough without bringing another child into the picture?”
She didn’t understand Julian Vaisey. If a lover had tried to send her back to Azkaban, she’d have sooner thrown herself off a cliff then fall back into bed with him. The odds of another draught of poison slipping over someone’s afternoon tea would have been great -- yet from what she understood, Julian and the mother of his children were still cavorting. To say it was strange was an understatement.
“Julian loves complications. Life without challenges would bore him to death. We’d find him drowned in his own mud bath somewhere.” Of course, that would never actually happen. Lysander would be in the adjacent bath and able to thwart any death-by-boredom. Their spa regimen was part and parcel of their friendship. Merlin knew they got enough flack over it, but it was something they both enjoyed and neither of them cared what the general populace thought about it.
“And then you’d go into mourning for the rest of your life, and where would we be if that happened?”
“It would be a sad state of affairs. At least I would have you to care for me and save me from my despair,” he agreed, dusting a kiss to her nose.
Her eyes closed. She liked the feeling of peace that Lysander brought her, and she didn’t want to break the moment. But she owed it to him to tell him the truth.
“Lysander,” she said softly, “there’s something I need to tell you.”
It was on the tip of his tongue to ask if she’d already agreed to let Julian have him, but a look at Pansy’s face told him that she was no longer in a mood for teasing. Wrapping his arm more tightly around her shoulder, he drew her close. “What is it, love?”
“Before we… before you marry me,” Pansy began with a small pause, glancing down at the way the flickering firelight caught her engagement ring. “You should know something.” She took a breath and a sip of her wine. “Do you remember an Auror named Alexander Mason?”
“The bloke who died a few years back?” Suspicious circumstances, if Lysander recalled correctly. He wasn’t close with any of the members of the MLE, but he remembered when the Auror had died, and the weighty belief that permeated the Ministry that he’d been murdered. “What about him?”
“The official autopsy report said it was a heart attack,” she said, staring into the fire. Her tone was steady, even -- reciting the facts without giving hint to the emotions swirling beneath the surface. “It wasn’t.”
Nodding, Lysander commented, “Yes, I’d heard speculation the report might be wrong.” He started to lift his glass to his lips again, but paused midway through the movement and turned narrowing eyes on his fiancee. “How can you be so sure?”
She felt her pulse speed up as she raised her eyes to meet his narrowed gaze. No hesitation. She had made her choice long ago in regards to Alexander Mason, and she didn’t regret it. With a voice stronger than she felt, Pansy replied, “Because I killed him.”
He didn’t think for a moment that she was making a joke. Knowing her as he did, Lysander wasn’t surprised Pansy could do something that drastic. Whether he could live with it was less certain. He’d need the rest of the story. There was certainly a story, because despite his belief that his lover was capable of murder, Lysander did not believe she would do it without reason.
“Tell me the rest.”
Pansy nodded and took a sip of her wine. “Belladonna,” she said conversationally after a beat. “When mixed with cassava root, it masks the more serious symptoms -- convulsions, delirium, et cetera. I slipped it into his afternoon tea during one of my bi-monthly visits to the Ministry.” Her blue eyes flashed up at him, and a hint of the pain she’d felt for so long crept into her voice. “He murdered my father, Lysander. He’d disarmed him, taken his wand, and the bastard still slit his throat from ear to ear in front of me.”
It wasn’t that he didn’t understand the impulse to seek retribution for such an act, but this was murder. Lysander couldn’t simply blow it off as if it didn’t matter. Just the same, he knew the pain his future wife had kept tightly wrapped inside herself. What had been done to her father was murder, too. “Did you report his actions? Try to handle it the legal way first?”
She subtly shifted on the couch away from his loosening grip on her shoulders. “For what little good it did me. They’d suspended habeas corpus -- nothing I said made any difference to the Ministry.” Her tone hardened. “I was even told the Auror was justified in what he did.”
Lysander had worked at the Ministry for a long time, but he had no illusions that it was completely staffed by wizards and witches who took their duties to heart and would never overstep the bounds of law. Particularly in the era of Voldemort’s second rise, and second fall, there were individuals who abused their power. There was no justice at the hands of those people, only that which one could seize oneself.
“It seems you had no choice, then. The alternative was to let a murderer remain in a position of authority,” he said at length, moving his hand to massage the base of Pansy’s lovely neck gently.
She was tense beneath his touch still. Blue eyes flickered from her engagement ring, then up to him. “Does that mean you won’t be asking for this back?” she asked softly.
“Never,” he assured her. Leaning close, he kissed her, soft and slow. “You’re stuck with me, for better or worse.”
Pansy released the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding, exhaling against his lips in relief. “Good,” she whispered, pulling back to smile softly up at him. “It would be quite the predicament should we have to cancel everything at the last minute. I’d hate to tax Madame Delacour so.”
Nuzzling the bend of her neck, he hummed his agreement. “It would be a shame to put the poor woman out so. We’ll just have to go through with it.”
She cupped a deep glass of cabernet sauvignon and stared into the flickering flames, her mind lost in thought. It was nearly November -- the days were growing shorter, the nights colder, and it was only a little more than one month until her wedding day.
Her wedding day. After years alone, it was surreal to think that such a thing was happening. She had made peace with the knowledge that she and Lysander weren’t meant to be, because surely if they were, it would have happened already.
But then again, Fate had always enjoyed making mischief with her life.
As such, it was happening. The date was set, the invitations had been sent and RSVPs were already flooding in. Astoria’s bridesmaid dress had been commissioned along with her bridal gown. Flowers, caterers, musicians; all were chosen and ready. She had never been one of “those girls” who planned every single detail of their wedding years beforehand, but even she had been slightly taken aback at how easy it all was.
At least, it had been. There was still one last thing to do before things could move forward -- and it was the most difficult of all.
Fresh from the shower, Lysander sauntered through the halls of the manor togged in his pajama bottoms and a t-shirt. It always amused him to pass through the formal parts of the house at his most casual, and a part of him half expected the ghosts of Parkinsons past to appear simply to look at him with disdain. Today, though, he only found one Parkinson, and she was warm and living, and not long to retain that surname.
“Evening, love of my life. Did you pour a glass for me?”
“I did not,” she said, blue eyes flickering up to the object of her ruminations. Her lips twitched despite herself, and she gestured half-heartedly towards the decanter on the sideboard. “But I do believe you are quite capable of pouring your own, darling.”
His lips curled minutely as he turned to gather a glass of wine. Once it was in hand, Lysander deposited himself on the sofa beside his future wife, stretching one arm behind her. “How was your day? Did you do anything exciting while I toiled away at the Ministry?”
“Oh, a little of this, a little of that,” she said lightly, letting herself relax into the warm body at her back. “I’m to go in for another fitting with Madame Delacour tomorrow.”
“Another fitting? How many times does a woman of her skill need to tweak a gown?” he teased, brushing a kiss into Pansy’s dark hair. “Is Astoria going with you?”
“Hush, wretched husband-to-be of mine. Perfection isn’t as simple as I make it look,” she replied with a sniff, turning her face away from him and taking a sip of her wine. “And of course she is. Edward might believe he pays her to run his gallery, but as is the norm, he would be wrong.”
Lysander only smiled and took a sip of cabernet. Pansy liked to poke at Carmichael, and in truth Lysander didn’t mind making a few jokes at the man’s expense from time to time, but he was quite a good businessman, and he seemed to treat his employees quite well. “I will have to take your word for it. I can only judge by what I see.”
Her lips curled, and she turned her head back to glance at him over her shoulder. “Fear not, darling. All you have to do on our wedding day is show up, make an honest woman of me, and try not to let your longing for Julian trump your love for me.”
“Honest?” he asked skeptically, though the curl of his lips belied the tone of his voice. “I think the most I can promise is that our children won’t be bastards and I will do my best to keep Julian from making a scene as I crush his dream of our life together.”
“I do believe these sorts of things are legal in Italy,” she replied with a raised brow. “This is your last chance before you’re shackled to a witch for life.”
Giving his head a sad shake, Lysander waved off the suggestion. “No, no. He’ll learn to accept it. Perhaps he can comfort himself by getting Penelope up the duff again. He’d enjoy the process and the result would amuse me.”
Pansy brought the wine glass to her lips. “You don’t think that situation is complicated enough without bringing another child into the picture?”
She didn’t understand Julian Vaisey. If a lover had tried to send her back to Azkaban, she’d have sooner thrown herself off a cliff then fall back into bed with him. The odds of another draught of poison slipping over someone’s afternoon tea would have been great -- yet from what she understood, Julian and the mother of his children were still cavorting. To say it was strange was an understatement.
“Julian loves complications. Life without challenges would bore him to death. We’d find him drowned in his own mud bath somewhere.” Of course, that would never actually happen. Lysander would be in the adjacent bath and able to thwart any death-by-boredom. Their spa regimen was part and parcel of their friendship. Merlin knew they got enough flack over it, but it was something they both enjoyed and neither of them cared what the general populace thought about it.
“And then you’d go into mourning for the rest of your life, and where would we be if that happened?”
“It would be a sad state of affairs. At least I would have you to care for me and save me from my despair,” he agreed, dusting a kiss to her nose.
Her eyes closed. She liked the feeling of peace that Lysander brought her, and she didn’t want to break the moment. But she owed it to him to tell him the truth.
“Lysander,” she said softly, “there’s something I need to tell you.”
It was on the tip of his tongue to ask if she’d already agreed to let Julian have him, but a look at Pansy’s face told him that she was no longer in a mood for teasing. Wrapping his arm more tightly around her shoulder, he drew her close. “What is it, love?”
“Before we… before you marry me,” Pansy began with a small pause, glancing down at the way the flickering firelight caught her engagement ring. “You should know something.” She took a breath and a sip of her wine. “Do you remember an Auror named Alexander Mason?”
“The bloke who died a few years back?” Suspicious circumstances, if Lysander recalled correctly. He wasn’t close with any of the members of the MLE, but he remembered when the Auror had died, and the weighty belief that permeated the Ministry that he’d been murdered. “What about him?”
“The official autopsy report said it was a heart attack,” she said, staring into the fire. Her tone was steady, even -- reciting the facts without giving hint to the emotions swirling beneath the surface. “It wasn’t.”
Nodding, Lysander commented, “Yes, I’d heard speculation the report might be wrong.” He started to lift his glass to his lips again, but paused midway through the movement and turned narrowing eyes on his fiancee. “How can you be so sure?”
She felt her pulse speed up as she raised her eyes to meet his narrowed gaze. No hesitation. She had made her choice long ago in regards to Alexander Mason, and she didn’t regret it. With a voice stronger than she felt, Pansy replied, “Because I killed him.”
He didn’t think for a moment that she was making a joke. Knowing her as he did, Lysander wasn’t surprised Pansy could do something that drastic. Whether he could live with it was less certain. He’d need the rest of the story. There was certainly a story, because despite his belief that his lover was capable of murder, Lysander did not believe she would do it without reason.
“Tell me the rest.”
Pansy nodded and took a sip of her wine. “Belladonna,” she said conversationally after a beat. “When mixed with cassava root, it masks the more serious symptoms -- convulsions, delirium, et cetera. I slipped it into his afternoon tea during one of my bi-monthly visits to the Ministry.” Her blue eyes flashed up at him, and a hint of the pain she’d felt for so long crept into her voice. “He murdered my father, Lysander. He’d disarmed him, taken his wand, and the bastard still slit his throat from ear to ear in front of me.”
It wasn’t that he didn’t understand the impulse to seek retribution for such an act, but this was murder. Lysander couldn’t simply blow it off as if it didn’t matter. Just the same, he knew the pain his future wife had kept tightly wrapped inside herself. What had been done to her father was murder, too. “Did you report his actions? Try to handle it the legal way first?”
She subtly shifted on the couch away from his loosening grip on her shoulders. “For what little good it did me. They’d suspended habeas corpus -- nothing I said made any difference to the Ministry.” Her tone hardened. “I was even told the Auror was justified in what he did.”
Lysander had worked at the Ministry for a long time, but he had no illusions that it was completely staffed by wizards and witches who took their duties to heart and would never overstep the bounds of law. Particularly in the era of Voldemort’s second rise, and second fall, there were individuals who abused their power. There was no justice at the hands of those people, only that which one could seize oneself.
“It seems you had no choice, then. The alternative was to let a murderer remain in a position of authority,” he said at length, moving his hand to massage the base of Pansy’s lovely neck gently.
She was tense beneath his touch still. Blue eyes flickered from her engagement ring, then up to him. “Does that mean you won’t be asking for this back?” she asked softly.
“Never,” he assured her. Leaning close, he kissed her, soft and slow. “You’re stuck with me, for better or worse.”
Pansy released the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding, exhaling against his lips in relief. “Good,” she whispered, pulling back to smile softly up at him. “It would be quite the predicament should we have to cancel everything at the last minute. I’d hate to tax Madame Delacour so.”
Nuzzling the bend of her neck, he hummed his agreement. “It would be a shame to put the poor woman out so. We’ll just have to go through with it.”