Death Beds, Love Songs, and Ancestors

"I saw that, you know," Harry whispered as soon as Ron settled next to him at the broad and unusually attentive table. "That cute little face, that wink."

"I practically threw up on her," Ron countered, reaching for a roll.

"Maybe, but I still saw it."

"So did Draco," Semus gave a little nod of his head towards the opposite side of the room where the diminutive blonde was oddly calm, but watching Ron like a hawk.

"And? What? Do you think he's going to pull something here, in front of everyone?"

"Wouldn't out it past him," Neville muttered.

Hermione went by behind Semus, thoroughly ignoring the guys, her voice carrying over the din as she spoke loudly to Lavender, "Bit slow, but fun to look at..."

"Zabini," Dean and Semus intoned, exchanging glances. Dean continued, "I've heard so many girls say that this year!"

"The professors know it too, but they won't do anything about it, even wizarding needs mediocrity. Without idiots, there'd be nothing to aspire to," Neville blushed, muffling his words with food. "Trust me, I'm a prime motivator."

"Hermione's ignoring you too?" Ron asked Harry softly, who nodded miserably, somewhat pale. "My fault?"

Harry shrugged then shook his head, absently pushing his food around on his plate. Everyone seemed unusually subdued.

"So what do we think of our partners?" Ron asked with forced brightness. Regardless of the insincerity of this weak attempt, it did spark conversation.

"Oh-so-thoughtful pairing," Semus was sardonic, running his hand through his hair and coming away with a slice of carrot. "You got Parkinson, I got McMurtry, blimey, is she ever awful, Dean got Bulstrode the Tank, Harry got Erica Cain, and Neville got Rookwood, who's not so dangerous but also not so easy on the eyes. Cynthia just stuck us with the Snake Charmers - difficult pairings, ha! If she wanted to be difficult, she would have paired Harry with Draco and let the rest of us pick sides."

Ron raised an eyebrow, "So we could end up like we did in the dueling club?"

"What the fuck is the point?"

Whatever thin joviality existed in this group of Gryffindor fifth years dissipated with Dean's curse. He'd given up on his plate and sat sideways on the bench, knees under his chin, black eyes combing the far side of the room. His voice was low, a little embarrassed even, faltering in its conviction. "I won't pretend to speak for anyone else at this table, but I lost family in that little dark arts skirmish, I lost family to members of those families."

Almost five years down, five year together under Dumbledore's blanket of fair play and goodwill, but beneath the covers, things were no different. The suspicion, the fear, the hatred, all had eleven years head start. There were a fair number of orphans and one-parent families at Hogwarts, victims and aggressors all, whether it was addressed in the open or not. And yet, there was guilt beside the hatred, hope next to the fear, desire under suspicion. Neville clear his throat, "Here, here. Even if I did go out dueling with Rookwood, she'd be my biggest worry. Absolutely not someone I want at my back. I know about her kind."

"I think it's an exercise in compassion. It's not a message, there's nothing secret to understand. We need to get over the learned rage." Harry murmured, piling his peas into a neat stack. He paused, then scattered them across his plate again. "Four houses, each alike in dignity, in fair Hogwarts, where we lay our scene. Where ancient grudge breaks to new mutiny and civil blood makes civil hands unclean." He gave a high pitched giggle that he abruptly stifled with his fist.

It was beyond awkward, somewhere in the realm of the frightfully bizarre. Everyone seemed suddenly entranced by their plates as Harry choked on another round of nervous giggles.

Ron was startled by how old they were all starting to look. Semus' once round, freckled face had thinned noticeably, giving him a hollowed but sharp eyed expression. He had a rabid appetite for girls but also fought with some nameless resentment towards them. Dean had continued to grow up, but not out, which might eventually cost him his beater position on the Gryffindor Quidditch team. Harry was developing a hunchback from sneaking up and down the corridors trying to go unnoticed. He was subdued, wide-eyed, unpredictable among his friends and arrogant, eerily boisterous and swaggering for the rest. Neville was the worst; under nourished, jumpy, and too eager to please. He had grown increasingly vocal about his inabilities, ridiculing himself with wild eyed intensity before even the quickest Slytherin could think of something funny, sending them all into an embarrassed, and slightly frightened, silence. Ron felt a river of black depression coursing through this once vibrant and true bunch. For the first time in his life, he felt an enormous weight on his shoulders that did not come from being poor or tall or a Weasely.

Harry broke open the long silence, "Erica's nuts."

"So is Sadie-"

"And Millicent-"

"Livia's real quiet," Neville swallowed, "but knowing who she is is kinda weird."

They looked at Ron, exchanged guarded gazes.

"What?"

"And Pansy?" Dean probed.

"She's twisted," he couldn't help but smile, despite the drawn faces around him. "Seriously twisted."

IX

"You'd better be damned careful," Erica said, leaning across the table and giving Pansy's ponytail a vicious jerk. "I just know you're going to fuck this up royally."

"Fuck what?" Millicent asked through a full mouth.

"Lay off, Erica," Livia was casual, but hawk-eyed behind her Muggle text.

Erica stiffened and looked down her long nose from under arched eyebrows. Livia was becoming quite the militant soothsayer these days. And as meddling as one could be. "Excuse me?"

"I said Lay Off. Back Down. Get. Fucked." Livia reiterated without looking up.

"Oh, glad we got that cleared up." Erica sneered and returned her attention to Pansy in the form of a pointed finger and a dangerously long nail. "Stay away from that Weasely unless you want to bring The Powers That Be down on your head without mercy."

"That a spell?" Pansy was genuinely confused by the loaded statement, but bristled at the thought of one of these underlings telling her what she could and could not do. Erica's mother, Genevieve, was Pansy's mother's best friend, back when Amalthea had friends. Therefore the two girls had known each other their whole lives. Not the best of friends these past few years, they'd become more like warring sisters, and in perfect contract to each other. Erica was tiny, barely five foot to Pansy's almost six, barely ninety pounds to Pansy's 140. She had thin, shimmery red mermaid hair and tiny, closely set chocolate brown eyes. Her mouth was constantly drawn in a taunt line. Now her eyes darted to the artfully distracted but keenly aware faces that surround them. She struggled to come across as relaxed. "Just forget about him, it's not going to, I mean, it really isn't your - he's not good enough for you."

"Good enough? Too good maybe? Pure, for starters, right Erica? Father in the ministry, friend of Dumbledore - protector of HP. Scares you to see him so close to the center, doesn't it?" Pansy pontificated as she slowly buttered a thick slice of bread.

"This isn't about me-"

"Oh? I'm sorry, I figured it must be, otherwise, why would you feel inclined to get involved?"

"Shit, Pansy-"

"He's kind of interesting. Kind of embittered. Kinda cute. Isn't he, Millicent?"

It was both a testament to the power of perception, and an illustration of what kind of private conversation they were having. Millicent nodded her response, smiling, but with nothing behind it.

Erica looked bewildered, but pressed ahead. "He's also a Weasely, and that means more that just being dressed in hand-me-down clothes and having a liter of kids on a ministry salary."

"Such as?" Pansy prompted.

"Look," Erica glanced around the table, Millicent and Sadie met her gaze, but said nothing, made no challenges.

Livia snorted, gathering her books in her arms, "You are all so lost, so fucking lost" she muttered, standing and stalking away from the table.

"Your mum has gone to great lengths to stay this side of the ministry, she's lost a lot in her life and you will too. It's prophecy," she looked just this side of smug, crossing her arms.

Confused, Pansy attacked. "Her husband to a slut and two sons to an accident, that's fate, not *prophecy*."

"Look here! I'm not going-," Erica began heatedly, but Sadie grabbed her arm. She took a deep breath and her tone softened. "I'm not going to drag skeletons out of your closet, Pansy, but it's time you talked to your mother about the curse, you know, the Unicorn."

"Curse of the- ? Are you daft?"

"No, I'm dead serious." Erica no longer looked angry, not even upset, but embarrassed. "Everyone at this table knows more about you than you do. Snape knows more, even Weasely probably knows more. But you need to hear it from your mum, not from us."

With that, Erica nudge Millicent, the pair stood and made they way out of the hall. As she watched them leave, Pansy saw Draco next to Crabbe, smirking with a joy she did not recognize and could not understand.

She sat there, staring down at her untouched plate, shivering at the drafts that moved to occupy the suddenly vacant space around her. It was an awful sinking feeling, hearing that everyone knew you better than you knew yourself, whether it was true or not.

"I forget, you know, that you don't know who you are," Sadie was across from her, two spaces down. Millicent and Erica were generally inseparable, Livia was reasonably loyal to Pansy because they were both wary of the rest. Sadie was especially dangerous, always had been. Despite the rumors that stated otherwise, she was really the leader of the Slytherin girls, because she was more apt to listen to the Slytherin boys. She had a face like a cat's, with wide grey eyes and a prominent nose set over thin, expressive lips that curled nastily as she spoke. "For a long time, I was sure that it was some cock and bull story, so many tear-jerkers came out of that time. Potter there, Longbottom. The eradication of nearly every member of Millicent and Livia's extended families. Funny," she drew her finger through a small puddle of pumpkin juice on the table top. "Did you ever notice that the division of houses here in Hogwarts have more to do with which side your parents fought for, and to what extent, rather than who you are or what you are capable of? Maybe we're all just so intrinsically affected - I mean, what would you do in a house with Potter, if he knew who you were? If he knew what your family had done to his family?

"It's easy for me, it's easy for Draco. We're plain, untouched, evil. No one wants to fuck with us. Our families came out unscathed, reasonably. It's easy for Weasely too, no sob story there. Granger is a mudblood, so she has no fucking idea about what the rest of us, or the rest of some of us, endured. The Gryffindors are only really familiar with the Boy. Five years, darling, five years we've lived together. How well do you know me? How well do you know any of us? Are you even paying any attention? Cuz we all know you, you're one of our parents favorite stories - Adam Grue, he was a real piece of work, they say. Adam, and his twin sister, Amalthea. This is Slytherin, we're the house that lost. We're the children of the losers and you're the farthest gone. Don't hide, embrace it." With that, Sadie stood, watching Pansy's puzzled face for a long moment, then left.

Determined not to look as shaky as she felt, Pansy bend to collect her things, then remembered she'd left her bag in the Defense Against Dark Arts classroom. And with so much homework to do!

X

It was biting cold in the Dark Arts classroom. Apparently, Cynthia had just lead everyone outside, leaving the door and windows open wide. Now a deep autumn chill had settled into the stones, radiating cold and adding to the winds that wandered casually through. Smirking, Ron closed up the casement windows and stopped gather the few pieces of parchment that had floated to the floor. The first one he reached for jumped six inches to the left and barked, "I'm watching you, Mr. Weasely!"

"I was only-" He began.

"No! No! Leave me be! LEAVE me be! I'll still be here in the morning! Safe! Safe and unplagerized!"

"I would never-"

"Stop! Just go! Go!"

Ron backed away from the frantic paper, shivering silver in the darkness under the desk. "Jeez," he muttered, bumping blindly down the aisle towards where he'd left his bag after Professor had said it wasn't necessarily necessary to bring their bags. The light from the partially open door was suddenly obscured by a shadow. After a tense millisecond, Ron could tell the shadow was the wrong shape and stature to be anyone of authority. He half turned, wary. Any number of unsavory characters could have also left their bags in the room.

Pansy was leaning up against the door, she saw his face and smiled, stepping in and easing the door shut behind her, plunging the room into thin blue moonlight. "Couldn't tell it was you."

"You sure now?" He was glad it was dark enough to hide his hot ears.

"In the dark, from the back," she said softly, slowly, meandering down the row of desks closest to the window while she peered down into the empty, moonlit courtyard below, "you could be anyone, without the red hair - anyone."

"Is that a Weasely joke?"

"No, rumination. I never realized that red hair looks black in the dark. I never needed to know, until now." She picked up her bag, a large greenish canvas affair, full of pockets in a variety of sizes and a strap of endless lengths.

Ron ran his hand over his own aged satchel, worn with years of his brothers' hands, stained with their stains. "Hand me down?" He nodded at the bag.

"It was my uncle's," the response came, but barely.

"Your uncle?"

"Yeah, he, ah, he went here once, too."

"Yeah?" It was a gentle probe, Ron found his mouth was dry.

"Yeah."

"Touchy subject?"

"Aye," she held the bag awkwardly away from her body. The minutes passed, uninterrupted. Neither seemed to want to move. Pansy swung her bag around her ankles repeatedly, careful to not let the canvas brush her legs, pale blue in the moonlight.

Presently, Ron heaved his bag onto his shoulder and held out his arm, "So, would you like to have that walk?"

She swayed back, letting the weight of her uncle's bag pull her down, her eyes were distant, she didn't look interested. "I'd better put this away, make an appearance in my room before I went anywhere."

"Sure! Yeah, that's fine. I should do the same."

"You should. Good for the old PR."

"Absolutely."

She waited a minute, rocking there on her heels, Ron stood eagerly in front of her.

With a tired sigh, she came forward, slid one hand over his neck and pulled his mouth down to hers. It caught him off guard, and he pin wheeled a step, then seized her around the waist. She eased back a bit, her lips brushing his, then stopping, opening slightly. Her tongue licking tentatively at his. She grabbed his lower lip gently between her teeth and pinched the back of his neck slightly, sending a massive shiver down his spine. "Meet me outside the Pitch in ten minutes?" She whispered, warm hand still firmly on his neck as she pressed against him.

Weak, Ron could only nod furiously as Pansy gave his neck one more squeeze and then left, still dancing around the stigmatized bag.

Pansy hit the room running. In one sweeping motion, she left her bag on the chair closest to the door and her robe on top of that, then she whipped out the clips that kept her long hair back from her face, stepped out of her shoes, throwing the clips onto the dresser while wriggling out of her jumper.

"Goddamn! Hurricane Parkinson! Swelling curse? Trying to save the fifty galleon shirt?" Livia was the only one in the room, deep under thick blankets with an equally thick tome.

"Date!" She gasped, pulling off her socks while unhooking the first three buttons of her blouse.

"No!" Livia slammed her book shut in her excitement. "Who!"

"Guess!" Pansy tossed her wadded uniform into the chute and yanked open her trunk, where she kept her good muggle clothes.

"Oh! O-Oh. Oh my." Livia sat heavily, then sadly glanced at the shut book. "I lost my place."

"Start over then," Pansy pawed through the mess of band shirts and jeans that she wore around the common room during weekends and holidays. "You'll find it again."

"This isn't a good idea."

"Oh, come on! Livia, please? You are the very last person who should be making a stink!"

The wafer thin brunette went scarlet, hoisting herself off her bed and stalking over to Pansy. For a moment she marched angrily up and down behind the preoccupied girl as she pulled through dated undresses and t-shirts worn obscenely thin with age. Without warning, Livia rammed her hand into the mess and pulled up a thin cotton button up in vivid blue. "Wear this, with these cords," Livia barked, holding up a pair of mahogany brown cords Pansy didn't recognize. Her action was thoughtful, but her expression was hollow and icy. "It'll set off your eyes."

"Those pants-"

"They're mine. They're low riders and they'll make your ass look great." Very cold. The air around Livia seemed electric.

"See, this is what I'm talking about!" Pansy forced a friendly smile and shimmied into the cords. With nothing further, Livia retreated and flopped face first into her bed.

In the mirror over her dresser, Pansy carefully removed her standard rings of black eye make-up, then washed it thoroughly as possible in the water basin.

"I'd think you might leave that." Livia murmured in the background. "You'll look so average without it."

"Sod off," Pansy responded reflexively, vigorously moisturizing her now pink cheeks.

"He might not recognize you."

"He won't need to."

"I see."

Pansy let the digs skate across her surface as she eyed her friend in the mirror. Livia's brow was knitting savagely, but she remained as cool as possible. The tension wasn't personal. Livia wanted her to go, she wanted Pansy to be happy, to have fun, like she was afraid to. There was something else. Something only Livia would know.

"What did you see?"

"Nothing. I'd t-tell you if I'd seen something."

Her voice broke on tell, but she recovered neatly. Pansy had watched the practice from afar for the last seven years. "Yeah? Why? Never bothered to before. Suddenly you're worried you'll see something you'll need to inform me about promptly?" Pansy caught Livia's gaunt face in reflection. "No. No, I think you've already seen it."

"Something, sometimes it doesn't happen." Livia whispered, face translucent in the weak yellow glow of the bedside lamp.

"More often than not-"

"Yes, well, sometimes," she trailed off, her fingers worked at the edges of her text in the same rhythmic folding manner as was her habit.

"I shouldn't go tonight? Something bad might happen to me?"

"No, no!" Livia jumped, spooked. Her eyes, red rimmed and watery, searched Pansy's frantically. "No, not tonight, but eventually. If you go tonight," she swallowed and slipped beneath the covers, weak.

"What? Livia? Should I get Snape?" Pansy knelt by her bedside, pushing limp auburn strands out of Livia's grey face.

"I am afraid what I'll see, if you go tonight."

"I won't go."

"You shouldn't," Livia's cold and sweaty hand found hers. "You really shouldn't, but, you know, you have to. You have to. He's already waiting. It's already in motion."

"But-"

"Pansy, shit!" Livia pushed herself into a sitting position, exasperated. "Get the fuck out of here already!"

But she lingered in the doorway with a tight expression. The blue shirt did set off her eyes well, they seemed to be glowing. The cords were a bit tight and a bit of white stomach peeked over the waistband, her hair was a cape. "I'll be back before too long."

"Don't get caught!" Livia managed as Pansy eased the door shut.

The water in the basin glistened iridescent from the facial soap Pansy had used. In its surface, Livia could see her slinking through the dark castle like a cat, silver eyes set in a streak of black; there and gone like a breath of air. She was one corner of a thick weave of picture melting into one and other with photographic clarity. Draco wrapped in a lace table cloth. Ron and Harry Potter bent over a darkened mass. A growing abyss in the upper corner worried her the most. Smells and sounds that bubbled up from some nameless source within: the green scent of crushed grass shoots, the slap of pebbles against leather, the snap of a rope and the groan of unyielding timber. The stink of hot oil under the afternoon sun. In its gleaming surface, there were blustery clouds and words like street signs moving up through the fog. But they were still unclear, she blessed their obscurity.

Livia snuffed the lights and returned to her bed where she repeatedly ran the back of her hand roughly over her mouth. Sleep would be fragmental for days. It was only a matter of time before the words came out of the fog.