Grown Up
Title: Grown Up
Author:
tudor_ink
Rating: R
Ship: Ron Weasley & Pansy Parkinson
Prompt Set: 50.3
Prompt: #1. Wind.
Word Count: 2, 586
Summary: Written for 100Quills. Evangeline Parkinson will never love her daughter, but she will teach her a few things about what it means to be grown up.
Warnings: Fairly strong sexual content. Not nearly enough to generate an NC-17 rating, but be warned of its presence.
Prompt Table
Pansy is twelve years old. She likes being twelve. She is grown now, and can do exactly as she pleases. Next year she will be a second year and not a baby anymore. She will be able to boss around the first years. Of course, the special privileges of being twelve don’t have to wait until next autumn. Already she is being allowed to spend two weeks in Vienna with her mother-two whole weeks! Pansy hasn’t spent that long with her mother since she was six. That’s how she knows she’s grown up.
Evangeline Parkinson is very beautiful, but she doesn’t look anything like Pansy. Pansy has her father’s features and his dark hair and dark eyes. Evangeline Parkinson has hair that can’t decide if it is blonde or red, and it’s much wispier than Pansy’s thick locks. She also has the most beautiful green eyes Pansy has ever seen-in fact, Pansy thinks her mother is the most beautiful woman there is, and not just because she’s her mother, but because it’s true.
Pansy knows that’s why Draco lets her walk with him from class to class at Hogwarts-because their fathers are colleagues, and Draco’s mother went to school with Pansy’s mother. Pansy remembers when she met Mrs. Malfoy. She was pale and blonde just like her son, and she said, “I remember your mother, Pansy. She was the only girl I went to school with who had better looks than I did.” And she had laughed.
Pansy is not grown up enough to Apparate, so she takes the Floo instead. She has to navigate the Central Floo Hub in London, which is very confusing, and one official asks her why a girl her age is traveling alone, but Pansy just gives him her most Slytherin stare and says imperiously, “I am a Parkinson. Do you doubt my ability to travel by Floo? My family was present for the invention of this bloody system.” It is the first time Pansy has ever swore in public, in front of grown-ups, but it does the trick-the official stammers, stamps her passport and lets her through to Vienna.
Evangeline Parkinson is at the opposite end to meet her. She is wearing a white dress and a straw hat, and she has on very red lipstick. Her heels are very high and match her handbag. When she sees Pansy she kisses the air near her daughter’s cheeks four times, two on each cheek, like the mainland Europeans do, and smiles brightly, her white teeth dazzling.
Pansy has on a new dress. There is soot on her face, however, from the long journey, and her shoes are scuffed. She sees her mother frown at the dirt, but she doesn’t say anything about it. “Come along,” she instructs Pansy, and Pansy trots after her to the hotel, which is within walking distance. She wants to stop and look at Vienna, but Evangeline is a fast walker, even in heels, and Pansy has to keep up.
The hotel is very grand. There is an impressive lobby and a lift operated by a goblin in a little white-and-gold outfit. The restaurant is on the roof, and Evangeline promises Pansy they will have dinner there that night.
Evangeline brings Pansy up to her room. It’s a suite, actually, with a parlor, a bedroom, a bath and a little kitchenette. There’s a balcony as well, but no second bed. Pansy would never share a bed, so she wonders where she will be sleeping.
“Oh, you have your own set of rooms, darling!” coos Evangeline. “On the fifth floor. I have the key right here. Do you want to wear it around your neck, maybe, so you don’t lose it?”
“I’m not five,” says Pansy indignantly, and she pockets the key. She wonders why her room is on another floor than her mother’s, but perhaps all the rooms on the second floor were booked already. She expects her mother to come upstairs with her, but Evangeline flops onto the sofa in the parlor, which faces the big window and balcony.
“Why don’t you go settle in?” she suggests airily. So Pansy leaves her on the sofa, reclining like a princess, and takes the goblin-operated lift up the fifth floor. She is a bit afraid of any goblin outside of Gringotts, but she would never admit it, so she tips him a Galleon and pats his head condescendingly and then waltzes down the corridor to her suite.
The bed is bigger than her bed at home and at Hogwarts. There is a parlor, kitchenette and bath just like in her mother’s suite. The balcony looks out over the city of Vienna and has a rose trellis growing on it. It’s nearly four o’clock in the afternoon here, but it’s earlier at home. Pansy won’t be hungry for hours yet, which is good, because she knows her mother will want to eat dinner later than Pansy is accustomed to.
First, Pansy unpacks her trunk. Then she reads a little-a book Daphne loaned her, called Prefects Who Gained Power. Pansy expects to be a prefect, so she considers this advance reading. Of course, through her ownership of the book, Pansy imagines Daphne expects to be a prefect as well-which just won’t do. Perhaps Pansy will have to conveniently forget the book in Vienna, so Daphne won’t be competition any longer.
Next Pansy takes a bubble bath. The bathtub has lots of taps and different bubbles come out of each. Some of them smell like violets and some of them are multicolored and some float around the air. One tap emits bubbles that sing and float around, and when Pansy commands them to sing Celestina Warbeck they oblige her and warble her newest song, albeit slightly off-key.
At seven o’clock, Pansy goes downstairs to check on her mother and see if it is time for dinner yet. The door to her mother’s room is ajar. Pansy is about to slip in when she hears the low chuckle of a man’s voice. She stops, and then peers into the parlor of Evangeline Parkinson’s suite. Pansy can see the back of the sofa, and sitting on it are two heads bent together. She recognizes her mother’s upswept red hair, but not the bleach-blond of the man next to her. She cannot see their faces.
She hears her mother gasp slightly, and wonders what is going on. A woman walks by in the corridor and shoots her an odd look; Pansy has to step into the suite, but she stays in the little alcove by the door, afraid to venture into the parlor. The evening light shines in the window, so that Pansy is in the shadow but she imagines that her mother and the man are very well-lit, from the front.
“Ohhhh,” her mother moans, and the man chuckles again.
“What would your husband say if he saw you now?” he asks throatily, and Pansy’s mother is only shaking her head frantically. She tips her head back over the sofa, and Pansy is afraid her mother will see her; she steps backwards and nearly bangs into the door, but Evangeline’s eyes are closed. Her mouth falls open and she moans again. The hairs on the back of Pansy's neck are prickling and she feels a wash of fear flood through her body.
The man is leaning towards Pansy’s mother. He’s doing something with his arm-with his fingers, for he brings them up to his mouth and licks them and then they disappear again-and Pansy’s mother has never looked so improper and disheveled as she does right now. Pansy feels shame running through her body; she feels her cheeks reddening. She thinks she knows what the man is doing with his fingers and she cannot believe her mother would let anyone do that to her.
Pansy’s mother moans again, louder this time, and then she swears passionately, and Pansy can only stare at her head, tipped back over the top of the sofa, her reddish-blonde hair slipping out of its combs, her breathing growing ragged.
“Come on, darling,” murmurs the man, with a hint of laughter in his voice. He is bent over Pansy’s mother; Pansy can’t see even his profile, just the top of his head, because the back of the sofa is in the way. “You don’t want to keep your little girl waiting.”
“Sod Pansy!” Evangeline gasps. “Don’t stop!”
Pansy feels herself running cold, a sharp contrast to the warm heat of shame she felt before. Sod Pansy. She wants to turn and run back to her room and hide under the bed, but she’s afraid to open the door and make any noise. She should have known better than to trust her mother-should have known better than to entertain delusions that her mother loved her. Her instincts-Slytherin instincts-had warned her not to, but she’d wanted so badly for them to be wrong.
As Pansy stands there, mind muddled, her mother suddenly lets out a little cry, and she is very still for a moment before sitting up and leaning onto the shoulder of the man beside her. She is still breathing very quickly, but in a few moments she has caught her breath.
“I’d better get dressed,” she says finally, and her head disappears as she bends over to pull up her skirt and put back on her heels. “I have to go find Pansy. She’ll probably want dinner or something.”
She stands, and Pansy is already slowly opening the door so it won’t creak, easing herself out into the hall. She sees Evangeline lean over and kiss the man on the forehead and whisper, “Next time, your turn,” before she is fully out the door and dashing down the hall. She doesn’t have time to wait for the lift; Pansy takes the stairs two at a time, running from the second to the fifth floor. She arrives at her door gasping for air. She doesn’t know what to think.
At dinner, she cannot look her mother in the eye. It doesn’t matter, though. Evangeline is too busy running her fingers through her hair and trying to keep it all in place. It’s very windy on the rooftop, and nothing will stay tidy. Pansy’s napkin flutters in her lap.
“Don’t you want to go get dinner at some nice little restaurant indoors, darling?” Evangeline asks. “We can eat up here tomorrow night, if you like.”
“No.” Pansy shakes her head, punishing her mother for her transgressions with a stubborn little frown. “You said we could have dinner here.”
Evangeline sighs.
“So, tell me about school,” she says, as she fusses with her hair.
Pansy lights up, ever-so-slightly. Hogwarts is something she has lots to say about.
“Well, my favorite subject is Charms. Professor Flitwick says I’m too rude to be borne but very talented, and he says I’m the best Slytherin he has, isn’t that exciting?”
“Excuse me?” Evangeline asks.
Pansy looks up from where she’d been twisting her napkin in her lap, wondering what her mother is talking about. But Evangeline isn’t even addressing her; her mother’s called over a waiter.
“Isn’t there anything you can do about the wind?” Evangeline asks testily. “Put up wards, perhaps?”
“No, I’m sorry, ma’am, there are Muggles dining here this evening as well,” says the waiter, and Evangeline makes a face.
“Mum?” Pansy says softly.
“Yes, darling?”
“Well, I was saying…I’m very good at Charms.”
“Yes, darling.”
“And my best friends are Daphne Greengrass and Millicent Bulstrode. And sometimes we sit and talk with the boys-Draco Malfoy and Blaise Zabini. But Draco always has these two idiots Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle around, and they’re a nuisance. But I get along really well with Draco and Blaise. They’re not bad, for boys.”
“This dratted wind!”
Pansy stares across the table as Evangeline yanks irritably at the combs in her hair and tries to tuck her long red locks back up, to no avail.
She’s not even listening to me, Pansy thinks. If she had been, she might have noted that Daphne Greengrass’s father was her first cousin, something Pansy had never known until Daphne told her so. That made Pansy and Daphne second cousins, which was very exciting, even though Daphne could be bossy and stuck up and very mean.
“Look, Pansy, darling,” says Evangeline impatiently, her pretty features marred by her scowl. “I’m going to go have dinner in the café across the street. I can’t take this wind! I’ll tell the waiter to bill my room.”
And she rises and saunters off, not looking back once. Pansy waits for a minute. She orders the most expensive thing on the menu, even though she doesn’t understand what it means, and then rushes to the edge of the roof to look down at the dark street. There is her mother, the wind rustling her skirt and blowing her hair. She is across the street, wrapped in the arms of the bleach-blond man, who is pulling her gently towards a small, poorly lit café. When he holds her, she doesn’t seem to mind the wind at all.
That night, curled up in the bed that had seemed so pleasant and large but now felt too big, Pansy stares at the ceiling, unable to sleep. She keeps reliving the scene she spied on in her mother’s room-the strange man doing things to her mother with his fingers, making her gasp and moan and shudder and swear. Pansy wonders if someone will ever do that for her.
Tentatively, she moves her right hand under the blanket and lays it on her stomach. Then she creeps it a little lower, pulling up her nightgown with the pansy at the neck, and touches herself hesitantly, fingers cold and soft.
She tries to make herself feel something, but it isn’t working. She thinks of her mother, writhing in some kind of pleasure, but the strange man doesn’t do anything for her. She moves on to the boys she knows, but picturing Draco doing to her what she is currently doing to herself is impossible-he’s too small and peaky-looking. Blaise wouldn’t look her way twice, so she can’t picture him either.
She rubs harder and moves through the list of first years she knows. Somehow, she lands on the redheaded boy who sits near her in Potions-Ron Weasley, who has freckles and blue eyes and who is friends with Harry Potter and the mudblooded girl who always knows the answers.
He’s good looking, for a Gryffindor, Pansy has always thought, and he has long, tapering fingers-she noticed that in class. Suddenly, she feels something-she’s moving her fingers faster, and her breathing is starting to grow irregular. It feels good and she closes her eyes and pictures Ron Weasley’s fingers instead of her own, and her other hand is pulling back the blanket so she has more room to move her hand. Her fingers are all sticky, now, and as she rubs she accidentally sticks one inside of her, and, to her surprise, it feels good, too. She keeps going, faster and faster, and now she’s picturing Ron leaning over her the way the man did with her mother; she pictures tossing her head back over the edge of the sofa and though she is quieter than her mother was, she cries, “Fuck!” just as her mother did, eyes squeezed shut so it feels more real. She presses harder and plunges deeper and feels the pleasure rising and rising and then all of a sudden she has an intense shivery, shuddery feeling that ripples through her-she gasps and the feeling seems to peak and then stop. She’s done it-whatever it was that man was doing to her mother, she and the image of Ron Weasley have done to herself.
Breathing harshly, Pansy gets up and goes to the sink to wash her hands. Between her legs is all sticky, so she dampens a washcloth and cleans herself there, too.
When she crawls back into bed, the lights of Vienna shining through the sheer curtains onto her pale face, she thinks: now I am truly grown up.