• so.
• pansy’s mother sends her back to school after the war ends.
• and pansy doesn’t want to go, of course. doesn’t want to see the crumbling walls or the curse-scarred paintings, the shredded tapestries or the splintered house tables or the fiendfyre-singed slytherin banners–because hogwarts is where all of her nightmares came to life, turned fiercely, ferociously tangible; and that was before voldemort and his army of death eaters stormed the castle grounds.
• and.
• and.
• and surely she should be allowed some reprieve. (she isn’t.) surely she doesn’t have to do this. (she does.) surely this isn’t necessary. (it is. the azkaban tattoo on her father’s wrist says so.)
• it’s just that it’s so much worse than she could have ever anticipated it would be.
• there are muttered insults and suspicious glares and silence. an eternity of silence. her and draco and daphne–no greg, no vince, no theo, no blaise–are instructed to turn their wands in to mcgonagall every evening before bed. for safekeeping. for nothing.
• and since pansy doesn’t sleep well, or much, or at all, really, she starts to take walks. strolls. midnight excursions to the blown-up bits of the castle, the towers that haven’t been rebuilt, the windows with the shattered glass, the burnt-out husk of the seventh floor, a whispering trickle of darkness still lingering around where the room of requirement used to be.
• thats where she finds it.
• the sword of gryffindor.
• it’s a hulking thing, impossibly heavy and weighed down with jewels, the elaborate metalwork around the hilt somehow blinding in its delicacy. she reaches out to touch, to drag her finger along the flat, tapered end of it–but the steel is cold and sharp and ultimately unforgiving, because there’s a quick, needling pain, not unlike a papercut, and then there’s blood. her blood. a few drops of stark, vivid red, smeared across the blade.
• she doesn’t think about it.
• except when she wakes up the next morning, she isn’t in her bed, or her dormitory, or even the slytherin dungeons. no. she’s outside, and her body aches like she’s had her ribcage split open, and a peculiar sort of film is coating both of her eyes.
• she blinks.
• she notes that there’s faint chill in the air causing her teeth to chatter and her bare skin to ripple with goosebumps. her surroundings remain blurry. mind cloudy. memories decidedly murky. she thinks she might be lying on a bed of grass.
• she blinks again.
• her vision slowly clears, and she’s greeted by a very grey, very sparse, very ominous skyline. until she turns her head, trying to shake out the cobwebs, and she sees…a man.
• a tall man, broad shouldered–broad everywhere, really–and thickly muscled, with piercing green eyes and milky white skin and a mane of copper red hair that’s tied into some kind of knot at the nape of his neck. he’s handsome, distressingly so, even if his clothing is uncomfortably reminiscent of the founders’ portraits in the great hall; leather breeches, soft and worn and mud splattered, brown calfskin boots without laces, and a great fur cape, wild and matted, parted just enough at his torso to reveal a a white linen shirt and a firmly flat abdomen. and a sword. a hugely intimidating, shockingly familiar sword with a gleaming crimson ruby on its hilt.
• oh, no.
• “who are you?” the man asks, sounding equal parts curious, irritated, and flustered. his cheeks are pinking rapidly. “that is to say–perhaps–my cloak–if you wish–”
• pansy stares at up at him, nonplussed, and then she realizes.
• she’s naked.
• she’s naked, and she’s flat on her back in the middle of a field of wildflowers, and she’s almost positive that godric gryffindor is standing in front of her, blushingat the sight of her breasts.
• “who are YOU?” she retorts, coughing a little past the crack in her voice.
• the man studies her for a long moment, gaze resolutely trained on her face–tracing the shape of her mouth, the furrow between her eyebrows, the freckles on her nose–and it’s almost erotic, how focused he is. intent. she wonders how much blood he’s spilled with that sword. she wonders if he’d looked like this as he spilled it.
• “i am godric,” he finally says, and her breathing falters. oh, no. oh, no, oh no oh no oh no. “and you are quite lost.”