Requiem

Smoke Rings in the Dark

Under the wide and starry sky,

Dig the grave and let me lie.

Glad did I live and gladly die,

And I laid me down with a will.

This be the verse you grave for me:

Here he lies where he longed to be;

Home is the sailor, home from sea,

And the hunter home from the hill.

--Robert Louis Stevenson, "Requiem"

They are dying men marching (metaphorically) tiredly on a muddy road beneath the faded banner of a dead cause. They are finished and they know it, and even the first signs of spring in the (metaphorical) clearing where they have stopped to rest do not lighten their spirits. They believe that spring will come to London, Hogsmeade, Dolwydellan; they believe that this is the land all causes lead to where the flowers grow and even snowflakes are unique and special but they know they will not see these things because their lives are over.

What would you do if everything you were, everything you had, was lost in a heartbeat? If you lost your family, your money, your freedom, your best friend, your greatest love, your faith? Would you marry hastily and badly, turn to prescription drugs, have wild passionate sex with a woman you hated, make a thousand bad decisions, cry yourself to sleep every night for the rest of your life?

Pansy Parkinson lost her virginity to Draco Malfoy on a warm September night. To be accurate, of course, she did not lose it so much as give it away, and Draco was kind to her and careful and did his best to see that she enjoyed it--rare quality in a sixteen-year old boy. There was no blood and it did not hurt as much as she had expected and all in all, Pansy was rather disappointed in sex. She had been in love with Draco since she was thirteen and she had expected that this, of all things, would make her feel--something.

She lay on her back beside Draco and thought about him, trying to explain to herself what it was she loved. The Malfoys were different, of course; everyone knew they were not like the other great wizarding houses. They were neither the oldest house nor the wealthiest--neither particularly old nor truly wealthy by wizarding standards; they held a minor title they had not used in centuries; they were far too involved in trade and politics, far too occupied with power and not nearly occupied enough with pleasure. Her father had said once that the problem with the Malfoys is that they take everything so seriously and now, lying beside the half undressed Draco on a pile of their clothes, wrapped only in his white linen shirt, she thinks that maybe this is true.

Certainly everything is deadly serious to Draco; in Quidditch, school, and sex, he always plays for keeps. He is a terrible loser and a dirty fighter and a brilliant student, and she rather thinks that whatever went wrong tonight was wrong with her and not with him, because he has a reputation as a lover as well. Whatever Draco does, he does well, and wherever he goes he will rise to the top. He is lying on his back now, his right arm over his eyes, his left holding a still lit, hand-rolled marijuana cigarette, and he is the most beautiful boy she has ever seen. Even in repose there is an intensity to him that no one else has, as if he is lying in wait like a hunter.

She must have fallen asleep, because when she opens her eyes again he has drawn away and is sitting silhouetted against the window, his jeans still half buttoned and his hair in his face, but now he feels a thousand miles distant and hard as stone. When he sees that she is awake he stands, stubs out the joint on the ledge, and crosses to help her to her feet. They stand like that, awkwardly, her hands clasped in his, their eyes almost level because he is short for his age and she is tall. Then he leans in and kisses her, and his mouth tastes like smoke and spice and something salty that she realizes years later is her--is Pansy.

"I´m sorry, Pansy," Draco says to her now. "I shouldn´t have done this, I think--I think that I´m in love with Blaise." He turns and goes, and she watches him and her eyes fill up with tears.

Draco was the first but there were others after him, though none of them meant anything. There was Ron Weasley, during the war, and Malcolm after it but that was a mistake, and there was Cho, which was something else again. Cho had been a Death Eater, a traitor to both sides, though she did not think Pansy knew. Cho thought they were building a life together, the way Malcolm before her had.

And then Draco Malfoy came back to England, like a dark comet returning to orbit, and Pansy felt alive again for the first time in years, though it was hatred and not love that burned through her veins. She saw Draco at the first round of the World Cup, saw him up close in the crush outside the stadium. He was standing with Harry Potter and Potter was holding his wrist hard enough to bruise and there was a bite mark on his neck that Draco had tried to hide with concealing zit cream but that showed through anyway. Draco turned his head and looked past her (as if he had ever seen her, as if anyone had) and his eyes were the flat gray of unforged iron, and his face was very tan and there were a fine web of lines beginning to fan around his eyes and mouth. His body was narrow and hard and his arms under the thin cotton shirt were ridged with muscle. He was not perfect anymore, exactly, but he was still far too pretty for his own good.

Pansy knew then that she would never have him. He was Potter´s now, he was no one´s; he was his own self--but he was not for her. Draco owed her, and there was one thing of his he could give her. Her brothers were useless--still children, really--and there was the succession of the Parkinson line to consider. Her father would have been so pleased; he had always hoped Draco would sire the heir to his house. Well, he hadn´t really, but he probably hadn´t hoped that his favorite daughter would betray his cause and fight against him and bear the children of the man who had killed him, either.

It was surprisingly easy, getting access to Draco Malfoy: the only surprise was that she was not the first. Four thousand Galleons would have paid a year´s rent on a small flat in London, or bought a small car; instead her "donation" to the British National Quidditch team purchased one night with Draco. Fortunately she had always been good at Potions, and she was able to brew up a really top class one for the occasion. She had no doubt that were it possible, she would conceive that night.

Draco did not appear to be overly shocked at seeing her; apparently he had been expecting someone and she would do. He was sprawled on the enormous, half-unmade, bed watching a pornographic movie featuring two women performing fellatio on a small Hungarian Horntail. Pansy moved in front of him and pulled off her shirt. She wasn´t wearing anything under it, and she noted with appreciation that Draco´s attention was now firmly on her. "I want your baby," she told him, and he smiled as he pulled her down on top of him, though his eyes were anxious and unhappy. It must be difficult, having to perform on demand; unlike a stallion he would know that his life would be forfeit should he fail to be of use. For a brief, vicious moment, she was amused--she could think of no worse fate for the man who had so thoroughly screwed them all.

He came into her hard, harder than she had expected, and she began to grow excited despite herself, because after all he had done he was still Draco Malfoy, and when he climaxed she came as well. He rolled off of her and they lay side by side for a long moment like lost children. Draco´s breathing slowed, quieted, and he turned to her and said coldly, "Get out of here. Now."

Pansy stood up. She could smell him on herself like some imported perfume, and her thighs ached and her hair was matted and she felt sticky and sweaty. She pulled her shirt on, doing the buttons rather higher than usual to hide the love mark on her right breast, and stepped into her skirt. Bending to slip on her shoes, she risked a glance at him, but Draco was watching the television again. One of the women was having anal intercourse with the little dragon. She looked as if it rather hurt. "That´s what it´s like to sleep with Potter." Draco´s voice was brutal. "That´s what my life has become."

Pansy left without a word, moving quickly through the hotel lobby, past the crowded bar to the cool dimness of the car park. Her little silver Jaguar beeped affectionately at her as she slid behind the wheel and she blinked back tears. But once she was on the road again, heading toward the Channel and England like speeding silver bullet, she began to feel all right again. Draco had got what he deserved, surely, and she would have her baby, grown beneath her heart and born to her love.

Now, in the darkness, Pansy is slowly regaining what Draco stole from her when they were both sixteen. In a few minutes, she will emerge from the tunnel, and then it will be three hours to Parkinson Manor. Once she is there she will let Cho make love to her one last time, and when the other woman´s mouth is on Pansy´s breast, her fingers deep in Pansy´s body, Pansy will use her cell phone to call the Ministry and report Cho to them.

In nine months her baby will be born, child of two vastly powerful bloodlines and the one great hatred, and with any luck it will have its father´s unearthly beauty and its mother´s ruthlessness. With any luck Voldemort, Lucius Malfoy, Harry Potter will be only names to it, the forces that shaped its parents´ lives but have no effect on its own. With any luck this child will be as slow to love as Draco and as faithful as Pansy and wiser and happier than either of them.