Rating:
PG-13
House:
Astronomy Tower
Ships:
Draco Malfoy/Pansy Parkinson
Characters:
Draco Malfoy Pansy Parkinson Severus Snape
Genres:
Romance Friendship
Era:
Harry and Classmates Post-Hogwarts
Spoilers:
Goblet of Fire Half-Blood Prince
Stats:
Published: 12/23/2005
Updated: 12/23/2005
Words: 3,739
Chapters: 1
Hits: 1,174

Breath In Idleness

Jubilee

Story Summary:
Pansy finds Snape and Draco after HBP.

Chapter 01

Posted:
12/23/2005
Hits:
1,174


Breath In Idleness

"Of what value is anything to the solitary and those that live in misery and terror, except the imagination."

--Wallace Stevens.

When Severus Snape opens the little gray door of his home and lets the morning light rush into his face, he has about three seconds of optical adjustment before he feels the sick nausea of the condemned.

The familiar face is a harbinger of death, and every fiber of his being tenses with inevitability.

He stares into the formulaic, monochrome eyes that seem so common in the Pureblood families, and he wonders if these are the last eyes that he will ever see.

A distant part of his mind appreciates the irony that Sirius Black has managed to haunt him in his last moments even from beyond the grave.

This is the end.

The last moments of Severus Snape, and the only person in the world that he expects will remember him fondly is sleeping upstairs and unlikely to survive him long.

* * *

Upstairs, Draco Malfoy dreams of long pigtails and low-hanging clouds.

In sleep, he remembers chasing a laughing girl through a labyrinth, and a tall man wearing his face nods approvingly.

Suddenly, he's standing in that tower again, and a pleading old man dies in front of him while the jackals cackle around him.

He's had this dream before. Like the last time, Snape turns his back on him and blocks out the old man, leaving him alone with the jackals.

But this time, he isn't alone among them.

This time, his dreams are full of kaleidoscope colors and a firm hand in his.

* * *

Val Müstair in Switzerland is an ideal location for a pair of wizard convicts to keep their heads down and wait out a war that holds no benefit for either of them.

Pansy knows, because it's taken her the better part of a year to track them down.

The remote Swiss valley is cut off from the rest of Graubünden by a range of Alps and is entirely surrounded by Italian territory. There are half a dozen little hamlets along the green slopes on the descent to the main village of the valley, and it isn't until the last one that she's finally successful.

The house is higher and farther than the rest, and she is puffing with exertion by the time she reaches the doorstep.

Snape's reaction is priceless.

* * *

"Miss Parkinson, are those pink earmuffs?"

Snape never would have guessed that those would be his last words, but he can't help but feel indignant that his final assailant would show up looking quite so ridiculous.

Pansy flushes and pulls off the earmuffs. "Well, you could have chosen somewhere warmer," she mutters.

Snape's brain finally kicks into gear, and he finally realizes that Pansy isn't even carrying a wand.

He mentally calculates how long it would take him to summon his wand and disarm her compared to the amount of time it would take her to pull out a wand from the pocket of her robes.

He's a fool to have opened the door unarmed in the first place, but it's been a year, and Snape has grown complacent. He's become lazy. He told Draco that no one would even find them, and here is the first of who knows how many Death Eaters on his doorstep.

Speaking of which, Snape really should be dead by now. He doesn't know the quality of the current Death Eaters, but the Death Eaters of his day would have killed him twice over by now and still have had time enough to make a snide, but clever remark in the amount of time they had been standing here on this doorstep.

"Well?" he demands.

Pansy grins at him triumphantly. "Can I come in?" she asks eagerly.

"Could I stop you?" he says angrily. Why is this being drawn out? Do they intend to torture him? Because this feels like the beginning of a long session.

She seems taken aback. "Well, I suppose you could, but I've traveled a long way, and you haven't seen me for a year, so it might be prudent to let me inside. It's cold out here." She shivers for effect.

Pansy is either a rather insensitive Death Eater to assume that the lack of strong iron warming her blood is more important than his impending demise, or else she is not a Death Eater at all.

Snape has about two seconds to decide, because Death Eater or no, Pansy has been standing for too long on his doorstep in plain sight.

Taking a chance, he grabs Pansy's arm and yanks her inside before slamming the door behind her.

* * *

Draco stirs a little at the sound of the door slamming downstairs, but the dreams quickly pull him back under. Snape usually goes out to the local grocer's at this time anyway.

* * *

Pansy has spent a year of her life feeling very little except frustration and a desperate desire to look Draco Malfoy in the face again.

She has abandoned her family and her country to trek across the continent in search of a lost childhood love, and if that isn't romantic then she doesn't know what is. She doesn't intend to let anything get in the way of her finding that stupid little boy that used to tug at her pigtails. Frankly, she deserves a very large payoff for all of this effort she's going to.

However, Pansy has never seen Snape look angrier than he does at this moment, and she's right to feel nervous.

* * *

Snape shakes her so hard that her teeth rattle.

"What are you doing here? How did you find us?" he says in a furious whisper.

"Lots of ways," she squeaks. "Draco and I are--"

"Does anyone else know?" he demands, shaking her again for effect.

"No! I came alone," she says hastily.

"Why?"

"To find you! You've been missing for--" His tightening grip makes her wince. "Everyone thinks you've killed--"

"No one knows that you're here or where we are?"

"No one!"

Vaguely relieved for small favors, he releases her with a disgusted noise and runs an irritated hand over his face. "How did this happen?" he mutters to himself. If even Pansy Parkinson can find them, then he has truly failed himself and Draco.

"Well, you weren't exactly unplottable," she says, apparently remembering to be haughty. "Not once I figured out the right map," she adds.

But they are unplottable. Snape wasn't about to commit such a pathetic oversight. However, just to be sure, he drags Pansy into his study so that he can watch her with one eye while he searches for a map of the valley. When he finds it, his suspicions are confirmed. There's no evidence of their little house on the hill. In fact, he had even done one better by erasing the entire hamlet.

"Tell me, Miss Parkinson," he says dangerously, "how you managed to find an unplottable house in a foreign country on a random day such as this."

Her explanation comes out in a rush. "Well, I assumed that you would use unplottable spells, but this isn't the first place you've settled, and I was surprised when I unearthed you that first time. So, I researched it, and I discovered that when two people are bound, unplottable spells and such no longer apply, because that would defeat the purpose of a binding spell, wouldn't it?"

"What?" he says sharply.

"A binding spell," she repeats softly.

He's astonished. "But who... have... you..." Oh, that stupid boy. Draco neglected to mention that he'd jeopardized their very lives with some misplaced, naïve romantic gesture from times past.

"Where is he?" she asks anxiously.

"Out," he lies. Pansy has to be gone before Draco even sees her.

She seems disappointed. "When is he coming back?" she asks petulantly.

"What did you think was going to happen once you'd found us?" he asks sardonically. "Thought you'd convince him to turn himself in, did you?"

"No," she says, sounding offended. "I just wanted to help."

"Help with what exactly? Sitting and staring at the walls?" he sneers.

Rather than flinching as he had intended, Pansy's jaw clenches stubbornly. "Fine. Then I came to be with Draco. I don't know if you've noticed, but the boy is hopeless without me."

Snape is no longer listening, because he has just noticed that Draco has left his wand on the chair he had been sitting in before retiring for a nap. He edges closer to it.

"By coming here, you've put him and me in grave danger."

"No one knows where I am!" she protests.

"No, and no one ever will," he says flatly.

Pansy barely has time to blink before there's a quick flash of light in her face.

* * *

Draco spends a lot of time thinking about the people that he's left behind.

He worries about his mother, because he has left her all alone in a hostile country. He worries for his father, who is still in the most intimidating prison in Britain, even if the dementors are gone.

He also worries about Pansy. He left her in the middle of the night without any explanation at all. He can only imagine what she must have thought or what they must have told her in his absence. Draco never doubted that he couldn't afford to fill her in beforehand, but it doesn't mean that he doesn't regret it.

He wonders if she still thinks of him.

* * *

Pansy wakes up in her own bed with a mild headache.

Her mind feels cloudy, but she has a vague recollection that she has just gotten back from a long trip. She thinks she had a good time, but the details are a little fuzzy. It must have been some trip.

She can't remember why she decided to take a trip when she needs to devote time to finding Draco, but there's no time like the present.

Her parents must still be asleep, because the house is dark and the halls feel empty as she goes downstairs to her father's study to borrow a map.

She runs her fingers over all of the different countries and continents, wondering where to begin.

For some reason, her finger lands on Switzerland, and she figures that's as good a place to start as any.

She leaves before her parents have woken up.

* * *

When she shows up on his doorstep for the second time exactly three months after the last time, Snape nearly has an aneurysm.

He went to all the trouble of an Imperio spell, of wiping her memory, and of sending her back from whence she came only to have that annoyingly tenacious girl show right back up on his bloody doorstep.

What is the world coming to?

Snape doesn't know if he should feel proud or extremely indignant.

He settles for a little bit of both and hauls her back into the house.

Apparently, he's no match for a binding spell.

This time, Pansy's memory remains intact while Snape grudgingly makes her some tea while they wait for Draco to return.

* * *

Binding himself to Pansy wasn't something he had planned in advance.

They were fourteen, and the Dark Lord had just returned. Their parents were in a tizzy, and the world seemed to be spinning on the wrong axis.

Pansy had been reading through some volume in his father's library while he fanned himself against the heat of summer. She came upon the spell by accident, and at the time, it had seemed like a grand idea. They were engaged anyway, and Pansy hadn't kissed him since the Yule Ball, so a binding spell seemed like the perfect romantic gesture to get the ball rolling.

They had no idea what they were doing, and their parents were furious when they found them on the floor later, writhing in pain from their clasped hands.

Draco barely even thinks about it now.

That is, until he walks into the kitchen with an armful of fresh groceries only to find his binding partner sitting at the old oak table as if she had just dropped by for a quick visit and a cup of tea.

When she turns to smile innocently at him, the groceries drop to the floor with a clatter.

* * *

That night, Pansy waits until she thinks she hears Snape retire.

Then, she leaves her new room and crosses the hallway to Draco's room. She tries the door as quietly as she can manage, half-expecting to find it locked. However, the knob turns easily in her hand, and Pansy's heart pounds loudly in her chest as she slips into his room.

Draco is awake, and he demonstrates no surprise at seeing her. Holding his gaze, she crosses the room until she is standing at his bedside. Pansy stands, proud as a statue, and waits.

She's proven that she can be very patient.

* * *

Draco can't say that he's never imagined what it would be like to make love to Pansy. They were betrothed once. Maybe they still are. Only time and a horde of legal advocates can tell.

In his fantasies, Draco has been a famous Quidditch player and Pansy has been his proud girlfriend, and they've made use of the private shower room he's been awarded in his contract. He's also been the newly appointed Minister of Magic, with Pansy as his secretary-- although, he imagines that she would take great offense at that particular scenario.

He never would have guessed that it would happen here, like this. But such is life, and some things can't be foreseen.

Draco takes her hand like he did once in a labyrinth, and he draws her down to him.

The next morning, Pansy and Draco smile at each other across the breakfast table while Snape busies himself at the sink so that they won't see his annoyed flush.

The walls in this abode really are appallingly thin.

* * *

They may be living secret existences in a foreign country, but there are still appearances to be made.

So, Snape takes Pansy down into the little village to "shop," and he introduces her around as his daughter. A year ago, he had to explain Draco's cohabitation with him by calling him his nephew.

It's a remote little Swiss village, but people still talk.

Snape can't afford to have anyone raising any questions about them. Just one wrong Muggle, who happens to be related to some wizard in Britain, who happens to make a negligent comment about an odd British bloke that lives with two underage kids...

Two years ago, he made a very important promise to someone that once meant something to him.

He still intends to keep that promise.

* * *

Having Pansy in the house is strange at first.

For a year, it has only been him and Snape in this cramped little house, and Pansy is just so feminine. There's only one bathroom, and he knows the exact moment that Snape finds wet pieces of lingerie hanging from the shower for the first time, because the sound of surprised horror echoes throughout the house.

Besides leaving her she-person products throughout the bathroom, Pansy also leaves a trail of perfume behind her. Draco made the colossal mistake of pointing out the shop to her while they were in town, and now both he and Snape are suffering for Pansy's enchantment with the Swiss version of "refinement."

She also takes offense at the messes they make, and she expects reassurance about five times a day that the picking up she does is appreciated even though they never ask her to do any of it. It's a strange conundrum that proves prickly sometimes, and the barmy woman has been known to lock her door against him if her own private protocol isn't followed by the rules that exist only in her brain.

The whole arrangement is just so domestic.

But he's not complaining.

* * *

Pansy soon discovers that living with Snape and Draco is a lot like she imagines being a housewife in a poor family would be like.

She spends a great deal of time picking up after them, seeing as how they seem incapable to cleaning up after themselves. She has no experience with washing shirts or trousers, but she makes an effort to teach herself after it becomes clear that refreshing charms can only do so much. The casualties amount to two shrunken shirts for Snape and several pairs of discolored socks for Draco.

When they have the nerve to express indignation, she angrily burns the entire pile of unfolded clothes.

They never question her cleaning methods again, and Pansy eventually learns how to do it properly.

* * *

They play chess in the evenings.

Pansy has no head for it at all, but Snape tries to patiently guide her without giving his own strategies away. It proves trying when he has to explain at least three times and three different ways why the pieces don't move or offer any advice.

He wins every time, and she grumbles about it. But each evening, when he comes out of his room, he finds that she has set up the pieces on the board.

He'll make them mugs of hot chocolate and pretend to be interested in what she's done that day. He doesn't know if she buys it, but he suspects that it hardly matters. She always was something of a chatterbox, that Parkinson. He recalls that her mother was much the same way.

If nothing else, then these interludes break an otherwise monotonous evening. Sometimes, they'll have a political argument, but Snape usually has to explain both sides first so that she'll know exactly what she's arguing for. They steer clear of any topic related to the Dark Lord, but there are a surprising number of topics left to them. Snape has had many years of research and study, and Pansy was always one of his brightest students.

Seeing the light in her eyes when she finally understands a new concept reminds him of the small spark of pleasure he used to feel whenever one of his Slytherins was first to answer a question.

It's odd to finally discover a joy for teaching over a year after his retirement.

* * *

One day, Pansy drags Draco out onto a walking tour of the valley.

They have to wait until Snape has gone to the grocer's, because they know that he wouldn't approve. He leaves Snape a note so that he won't be too worried when he returns and they are gone.

Pansy wants to see Müstair, the border village and the last stop before officially crossing over into Italy. There is a Benedictine convent there.

Draco has his own reasons for agreeing to the trip, but he notices afterward that Pansy neglected to mention that it was going to be a 4 km walk.

Pansy finds the Romanesque frescoes on the walls of the monastery breathtaking, but Draco frankly couldn't care less. He follows her down the poorly lit corridors and takes a perverse pleasure in backing her into dark corners for quick, hot kisses before she has the common sense to push him away.

He puts up with it as long as he can manage, and then he steers Pansy out into the adjacent cemetery. She waits for him at the gate, clearly unsure of his reasons for wanting to visit this particular part of the site.

He wanders through the ancient graves under the pretense of reading the names of the dead. In actuality, he is mentally estimating the amount of time it would take the three of them to cross over the Swiss border and into Italy if ever the need should arise. He doesn't want to burden Pansy with any unnecessary worries, but he can't risk letting her down either.

However, with his mind focused on escape, Draco can't help but be reminded of the war that they're currently hiding from. The scents of fresh moss and dried leaves rise up from the graves to fill his nose, and Draco is thankful that none of the names on the tombstones are remotely familiar to him. They belong to Muggles that had nothing to do with either Draco or England or even magic.

When he turns to look at Pansy, he watches as the breeze lifts her hair and blows it across her face. Her cheeks are pink from the slight chill in the air. She gives him a bemused smile and waves to him as if he were a batty relative at a family function.

No longer wishing to dwell among the dead, Draco goes to join her. He takes her chilled hands in his and blows warm air onto them. Pansy gives him a surprised smile, and her eyes seem uncommonly bright to him. He feels a tightening in his chest.

Pansy laughs when he pulls her closer and whispers into her hair that he loves life.

* * *

Pansy has never had the benefit of a close familial bond before. Her parents had never seemed comfortable in their roles in regard to her, and she had returned the sentiment. It was all right, because they didn't seem comfortable with each other either. Arranged marriages between strangers can turn out that way. The outward displays of affection that she used to witness on the platform for the Hogwarts Express had only confused her.

However, she believes that there is love there. But the love isn't woven into the walls and tapestries of that house back in England, and nor can it be found in the familiar, synchronous behavioral patterns that are supposed to develop naturally after years of cohabitation. No, the house is too big for that, and its inhabitants have always been too awkward to allow it. There will never be the kind of intimacy that she used to crave while watching other children and their parents with jealous eyes.

No, but being here, with Draco and Snape, in their shelter from the rest of the world...

Pansy finally feels like she has a real family.

* * *

Finis.