femgenficathon

Title: All I Want Is A Room Somewhere
Author:

liseuse
Fandom: Harry Potter
Rating: R, for swearing.
Warnings: Swearing and a brief scene of violence.
Prompt: #70 - Do what you feel in your heart to be right - for you'll be criticized anyway. You'll be damned if you do, and damned if you don't. -- Eleanor Roosevelt.
Summary: Pansy fights for her place in the war.
Notes: A thousand thank you’s go out to my brilliant beta

aunty_marion who saved this story more times than I can count and then came up with a title. Any mistakes left in are mine and mine alone.

It was the 15th of March when Pansy truly realised just how small a world it truly was. When all her hypotheses about the Trebuchet Mansion stood up to action and event and stunned her with her knowledge of the world she'd been brought up in. She had never considered herself to be that immersed in her world. It was all she knew, but her father did business with the Muggle world on occasion, and her sister had been sent to Beauxbatons. She was part of the Pureblood elite and there was no escaping it. A small wizarding community lent itself rather neatly to only knowing a certain subsection of people, but it had been a general point of view in her house that half-bloods and Muggle-borns were necessary to the survival of that world. It was not a point ever discussed in great detail but when one's summer plans generally involved Ascot and Muggle-clothing you quickly absorbed this sort of thinking and worked with it. Besides, even Lucius Malfoy had been known to do business with Muggles, as long as he didn't have to touch them.

Because Pansy was not yet to be trusted, in Potter's words, not Lupin's - he'd been more tactful, saying it would be handy to have someone out of the field, able to advise and come up with back-up plans should they be needed, whereas Potter had cornered her in the kitchen as she was tightening a bra strap and waiting for the hot water to come through and come straight out with "For the love of Christ, do you have to do that," the 'that' coming with a gesture that could have meant fellate a goat or make tea, "in the kitchen? Oh, and also. You aren't coming on this mission. I still don't trust you" - Pansy hadn't been included on the mission. Which suited her just fine, she remembered the Trebuchet Mansion and what a phenomenal faff it was getting there if you weren't apparating straight to the entrance hall. Situations which involved that much mud and the potential ruination of good shoes were not high on Pansy's list of priorities and so she accepted, gratefully, her seclusion in the library. No back-up plan had been necessary after all, and once she'd heard the news that they were on their way back, at the apparition point now and about to come home she'd cracked open the bottle of Pouilly Fume 200ieme Vendage she'd been saving for a special occasion. They were being extra careful with apparition these days after Dean Thomas nearly got captured apparating home with only one in-between stop, and so in the three quarters of an hour between them leaving and coming home Pansy had managed to get slightly tipsy. Or tipsy enough to tell Potter exactly what she thought of him, and how he was being a fucking idiot and that if he didn't relax they were going to lose this war because one uptight leader could never hope to battle another and that his regimented thinking about allegiance, blood and house were just as bad as the fucker he was supposedly entirely against.

This was possibly not, she reflected the next morning whilst drinking as much coffee as she could face, the best course of action she could have chosen. It had all been true, certainly, but it was a fact widely acknowledged that Potter did badly with criticism and she was one of the least welcome members of the household as it was. Running in close second place was some drippy witch that Pansy vaguely remembered being in Hufflepuff and who seemed to have no immediately obvious talents bar bursting into tears every thirty seconds and hiccupping about how she was here because she wanted revenge against the people who'd killed her boyfriend. Revenge was not, in Pansy's mind, something which should be accompanied by that much sogginess. This seemed to be a fact that Hermione and Ron both agreed with given Hermione's air of distaste whenever Christiania entered the room and Ron's look of panic every time a handkerchief was produced. They had taken to leaving her in the capable hands of Lupin, who for all his faults was an adept at handling weepy women. This, Pansy considered as her head tried to convince her she had Erumpents living in it, was the only reason he seemed to be able to handle that dreadful Tonks woman who came by every now and then and made everything damp. Pansy was itching to set Christiania up with Tonks and see them happily on their soggy and handkerchief-filled way, but she doubted it would be a welcome intrusion into their lives.

"Pansy." Ron came into the kitchen, looking a little green and Pansy remembered that he'd been hitting the brandy a little hard once the wine had gone.

"Ron." She shuddered at the effect the nod had on her headache, and gestured gently towards the side. "There's fresh coffee if you want some. I was thinking about breakfast but I don't think I can."

"Oh, for the love of Merlin, don't mention food." Ron poured himself a mug of coffee and slumped at the kitchen table.

"Look, Weasley, I'm sorry I insulted your best friend. I was a little, or more than a little, tipsy." Pansy smiled slightly and pulled an apologetic face.

"You're all right." Ron laughed a little and then grimaced. "It was all true. Harry can be . . . well, a bit of a wanker. Probably needed someone to point out the similarities."

"You have grown up, Weasley," Pansy said admiringly, and reached for her cigarettes. "I don't think you'd have allowed that thought to enter your brain in school if the rumours are true."

"Yeah, well. People grow up. I've seen too much of Harry's ruthless side and unfounded idiocy to think he's the be all and end all. 'Sides, I think Percy let him know we're all Pureblood thank you very much the last time they saw each other. Guess it makes you think about people when you know they know you're one and the same with the people you're killing. My mum's cousin married a Parkinson."

"It doesn't seem to make Potter think about it. Does he realise that his father came from a long line of arrogant Purebloods?" Pansy smiled sardonically. "Because from what I hear, the Potters, before his grandparents at least, used to be among the worst for arrogance and an insistence on blood purity."

"Don't mention that to Harry. Hermione found it out once and tried to let him know and I thought he might combust out of anger." Ron returned her smile. "Look, I love the daft git, but his upbringing doesn't fit his background, and I don't think he feels it in his bones. My brother, Bill, biggest Pureblood ball of arrogance you'll ever meet. Was Head Boy and knows the whole Weasley history off by heart. Same for Perce, the berk. And I guess Charlie as well. It's just who we are. Pureblood and black sheep. But Harry doesn't get it. That he's the Potter heir. That his entire family made their money off selling and buying house-elves, that they couldn't give a fuck about Muggles or the Muggle-born until his dad's parents came of age and got married."

"I rather think," Pansy said as she lifted her coffee cup to her mouth, "that he is going to have to realise this. Quickly. He can't fight a war he doesn't understand. He needs to know that, and not just know it in a 'nod politely at McGonagall and go off and do his own thing' way, but know it. In his bones." She stopped and swallowed. "Unfortunately I don't think there is any way to make him know it. He's so resistant to the idea that everyone might actually be the same. The hat wasn't sure whether or not to put me in Slytherin, it wanted to put me in Ravenclaw. Draco is a Slytherin through and through, but it doesn't mean we don't care about people. Wanting success is not actually a measure of how many babies we like to eat for breakfast, no matter what Potter thinks."

"You miss him." Ron raised one eyebrow. "Draco. You miss him."

Pansy smiled sadly. "Yes, I do. And there's no need to sound like I'm evil for missing him. He's my best friend. He's an idiot, but he's my best friend. I know you're not going to believe this, but he isn't fighting in this sodding war because he really believes all Muggle-borns are evil. He's fighting because he loves his father and he wants to make him proud of his son. Which is ridiculous because Lucius doesn't have a sentimental bone in his body and is never actually going to be proud of Draco. But there's no telling him that."

"For somebody who doesn't think all Muggle-borns are evil, he did a good job of pretending." Ron's face was stony, and his hands were gripping his coffee cup like a vice.

"Oh, for the love of Circe, Weasley. We were eleven. Draco had never actually met a Muggle-born before then. He was eleven years old and repeating what his father had said to him. After that it was just fun because it got a rise out of Potter." Pansy shook her head. "Honestly, you three always did take things very seriously."

Ron looked a little bemused. "People were trying to kill our best mate a lot of the time."

"I do know that, Weasley." Pansy exhaled heavily. "I just meant that school was also supposed to be fun. Pick-up Quidditch in the snow. Midnight raids on the kitchens. Taunting Nearly Headless Nick or Sir Cadogan. The Room of Requirement." Pansy's voice on the last was lascivious and Ron began to blush.

"We used the Room of Requirement," he protested.

"Yes. For DA meetings. How dreadfully imaginative." Pansy raised one eyebrow and half-smiled at him. "That room could provide anything you desired. Anything."

Ron blushed even more and drank the rest of his coffee incredibly quickly. "Right. Well. I've got to go. Things to do. People to see. Bye."

"Bye, Weasley," Pansy called after him as he left, and started to chuckle. Looking up as the door opened, she saw Lupin come in, looking a little the worse for wear.

"What are you giggling at, Pansy? And is there any more coffee?" Lupin walked tentatively into the kitchen.

"It's on the side in the pot keeping warm. And nothing much, I've just been taunting Gryffindors." Pansy smiled again, and with a flick of her wand sent her cup to the sink as she walked out of the kitchen.

May had seemed to sneak up rather on Pansy when she looked back on it. She had piles of paper and notes from the back end of March, and a few for the beginning of April, but then the snow had begun to melt on the upper Highlands and for once she was included on a mission or two and the last weeks of April had all disappeared under mud, ruined shoes, a half-decent cloak burned to ashes and three more Death Eaters flung into Azkaban. Voldemort was still at large by the 18th of May and Pansy was beginning to tire a little of the intense air of politeness that had descended on Grimmauld Place when the Weasley clan had apparated in, without a by your leave and thus with a screech from Pansy as five people had suddenly appeared in the kitchen as she was heating some soup through. For someone who had always had a house-elf on hand, being caught in the kitchen so much was beginning to worry Pansy, a worry quickly alleviated by Molly Weasley's bustling presence and slight air of condescension when Pansy happened to be caught at the stove. It was always on the tip of Pansy's tongue to remind Molly Weasley that her cousin Petronella had married a Parkinson, but she thought that the air of politeness was preferable to the burnt smell that appeared in the air every time Mother Weasley (as Pansy had taken to calling her, but only in her head) cast a hex. Or made cheese on toast. It seemed unthinkable to Pansy that someone who was used to cooking for a multitude of people should be incapable of making cheese on toast without smoking out the kitchen, but everyone, she reflected, had a flaw. Even if she wasn't entirely sure what hers was going to turn out to be.

The air of politeness was, however, quickly replaced with an air of sadness and avoidance once the 21st of May had come and gone and Pansy was sitting on the stairs crying for Greg. The mission itself had been boring and well executed and generally compliant with all of Pansy's standards for missions using her intelligence and planning. They'd apparated, in three careful jumps, to Hogwarts, and had a quiet and careful meeting with the members of the Order who were secluded there and causing Madam Pince three heart attacks a day with their careless treatment of the books, she and Ginny had had a rushed conversation about Harry and the circles under his eyes and Harry had raided the Defence cupboard for anything he thought might be useful. Then they'd gone on to some small industrial town on the outskirts of Aberdeen and encountered a group of Death Eaters who seemed to have developed a taste for tormenting Muggles in public, cast some dreadfully simple spells and one complex incantation in Czech and then gone through the damage. The damage, unfortunately for Pansy, had meant her using her wand to flip someone over, expecting them to be some ghastly Bulstrode relation who had no doubt felt her up once at a party, and had turned out to be Greg. Thorough and professional to a point, Pansy had noted down all the details, and then used her wand to clean him up, closed his eyes herself and written a letter to his family. Not, as she'd pointed out to an irate Potter, under her own name. She was, she reminded him, going to use exactly the same channels through the Ministry that they'd used for every other letter of this kind, and she found herself thanking Hermione profusely for the thought that had occurred to her in the December of last year that all families had a right to know about the dead. She had then proceeded to get blindingly drunk once back at headquarters and to cry on the steps.

"Pansy." She looked up at the sound of footsteps and wiping tears from her eyes, looked up blearily.

"Potter. How can I help?"

"Just. Shut up, all right." Harry exhaled heavily and leaned against the bottom stair newel post. "I'm sorry. About Goyle. I know he was your friend."

"Thank you, Potter." Pansy looked up gratefully and sniffed slightly. "That must have cost you a lot."

Harry tipped his head to one side. "I know what it's like to lose friends."

"He ... He never meant to get involved in it all. You know? He just wanted a nice quiet life, but he, well, he came from the sort of family where refusing wasn't really an option. I mean, Teddy got a get out of gaol free card because of his sister, but Greg ... No such thing." Pansy's voice broke and she had to rummage in her cloak for her handkerchief. "His family would have disowned him if he'd refused to fight, and he really fucking loved them."

Harry sat down on the bottom step and gave Pansy a concerned look. "Families, huh. They fuck you up all right."

"Who's been teaching you poetry?" Pansy laughed, a little hollowly, at Harry's confused look. "Forgive me, I thought you were being erudite and quoting Larkin."

"Larkin?" Harry frowned and looked abashed at the same time.

"Poet. Famous for the line 'They fuck you up, your mum and dad.' Muggle. His mother's mother was a witch." Pansy sniffled into her handkerchief and drew her cloak around her as she stood up. "Well, lovely as it has been having this chat and teaching you, of all people, about Muggle poetry, I need to brush my hair and get to work."

"Look," Harry stood up, "take the night off. Take the bloody week off. We haven't got any leads, Remus can do any translation you have left over, Hermione can be left with the arithmancy. Ginny's got the whole Penrith thing organised and I think Bracewell and, oh fuck, what's her name? That drippy Hufflepuff, you know. Anyway, she's busy with the whole Manchester planning thing. Apparently her mother's from there, so she's doing okay with the geography of it all, and we need those new blast-spells in full working order before we can go anyway. So, take some time off."

"Christiania," Pansy said as she headed up the stairs. "That's the name of the drippy Hufflepuff. And thank you. I'm not very good at time off, however. Never have been."

"Give it a go. I speak as the voice of experience on that one." Harry smiled a little ruefully and Pansy remembered a conversation she'd had with Remus about the Time Harry Went A Bit Mad. It had automatically capitalised itself in her mind, and the habit was hard to shake.

"Good night, Potter. And do tell Hermione I can see her hair from here, and that her words sounded almost authentic in your mouth." Pansy shook her head, and waved to Hermione who had the grace to poke her head out from behind the door and wave back.

After all that, and the dreadful letters she'd received from Greg's parents, carefully forwarded through her parents and a family friend, a funeral she'd had to attend in disguise and armed, and enough bad dreams to make her wish she owned a Pensieve, Pansy was allowed back on mission duty. There was no explicit procedure for this, no forms to fill or interviews to go through, just a general consensus that the person wasn't about to Go A Bit Mad Like Harry and then some plans being shoved in your hands and being told you had to memorise them by crack of moonshine and they were leaving ten minutes and a hasty cup of coffee after that. Of course it was a little difficult to shove plans into your own hands, so Pansy and Hermione had come up with an alternating system where they left the next mission's plans on the library coffee table and they each went in and picked up the one they hadn't written out. It was a high and silly point in what was becoming an increasingly distressing war and Pansy, although she would have only admitted it whilst being tortured by a Wendigo, rather looked forward to it.

Part Four