Celestine's fics (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} celescribbles) wrote,@ 2007-10-26 23:07:00 |
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Vincit Qui Se Vincit
Chapter 5
Chapter 5
Chapter summary : Pansy couldn’t believe her ears – clearly, this girl knew nothing of the world whatsoever, and it was indeed a very unpleasant surprise to realise that the Spanish witch wasn’t the only one who didn’t know the first thing about Hogwarts. How could this be? It was a finishing school for young witches they were sending her to, her parents had said, one of the finest in Europe, where she’d meet other girls her age. Get away from England for awhile. Keep clear of unnecessary trouble.
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A shrill giggling sound and a burst of excited voices resounded from the down the hall. Pansy pursed her lips and felt a jolt of annoyance. She had been living here less than three weeks and had not yet trained her ears to shut out the frequent exclamations of the other girls.
“Masha told me the line at the cafeteria isn’t so long if you get there at -”
“Well, yeah, I don’t mind skipping dinner or…”
The dormitory was a big improvement over her quarters at Hogwarts - that much was undeniable. Pansy had her own room, her own shower, her own desk. She could come and go as she liked. There wasn’t much work to be done and besides, no one ever bothered to check if she actually did it.
No one seemed to care about anything at all.
A year ago, this would’ve sounded like heaven. Pansy had often complained about Hogwarts, about the strict teachers, the curfews and the rules and the homework. Even Snape, who was always said to favour his own house, could have been far easier on the Slytherins than he had been in practice. Pansy had never liked to study, and she certainly didn’t like to be told what to do either. In fact, she claimed to whoever was willing to listen, usually a band of Slytherin girls as shrewd and self-aware as she was, that the only good thing Hogwarts had ever brought her was her rather fetching Prefect badge.
And Draco, of course, but that was a different matter entirely. Pansy sighed and distractedly flipped through the magazine on the table, not really seeing the colourful adds for the latest fashion and layouts of pretty accessories. The giggles had not subsided, and now seemed to be right outside her door.
A year ago, she would’ve given anything to leave Hogwarts, but this wasn’t what she would have called satisfying. She was trapped inside the four bleak walls that bore no other decoration than a calendar hanging from a tack. Her room was a solitary, impersonal universe she didn’t know how to make hers, by decorating or arranging the furniture, simply because she had never had to bother before – it had all been done for her back at home, and it had all been done for her at Hogwarts as well.
In fact, it was only coming here that Pansy had realised how ridiculously easy everything at Hogwarts had been. She’d never had to make friends – they’d just naturally converged towards her. She’d never had to fight for her place, or claim it, or even question it. For years, she’d had her seat reserved at the Slytherin table, next to Draco, she’d had her silver and green pennant ready for every Quidditch match, she’d had her skirt and her blouse and her jumper ready to wear, making her fit to glare at Gryffindors and smile at housemates.
“So where do you come from?” a Spanish witch living in the room across from hers had asked, the day she’d arrived.
“Hogwarts,” Pansy had replied. “I was in Slytherin.”
The girl had seemed confused. “Hog-wots? That’s in – Ireland, right? Or is it England?”
Pansy couldn’t believe her ears – clearly, this girl knew nothing of the world whatsoever, and it was indeed a very unpleasant surprise to realise that the Spanish witch wasn’t the only one who didn’t know the first thing about Hogwarts. How could this be? It was a finishing school for young witches they were sending her to, her parents had said, one of the finest in Europe, where she’d meet other girls her age. Get away from England for awhile. Keep clear of unnecessary trouble.
A mere six days after the battle, they’d packed her off to Paris.
But instead of companions similar to those she had at school, she had found only strangers who didn’t give her a second glance. And nothing at all - not her parents’ recommendations, not Draco’s empty words of reassurance - nothing had prepared her for life on her own. She didn’t speak French. She had to buy her own groceries, cook her own food – the cafeteria dishes were simply too vile for words – and there wasn’t a House-elf in sight to do it. She didn’t even know where to start, waking up alone every morning, finding her way in through the maze of streets and Magi-metro lines.
And French wizards were decidedly unhelpful, she’d concluded almost as soon as she’d arrived. Grouchy, lazy, finding satisfaction in working as little as possible, and largely disorganized – it had taken her no less than two days to find, after several people had given her contradictory directions, the Boulevard Flamel, a hidden magical avenue adjacent to the Seine. But that was nothing compared to the shock of finding out from a former Beauxbatons alumna that Christian Lacroix, a famous designer, was actually a wizard selling last season’s castaways to Muggles. “Well, why shouldn’t he?” the girl had said as if it was the most natural thing in the world. “There’s no danger in being caught – the Muggles don’t care about anything but what the new trends will be.”
A wizard dealing with Muggles, above all the rest! Pansy was shocked and outraged and completely helpless. This was the world she was to live in now.
I’m coming back as soon as I can, and when I do, it’ll be to stay, she’d written to Draco in her last owl. I’m not going to live in this wretched city a day more than I have to.
And no doubt there would be screaming and crying and slamming doors, but her parents would give in eventually, like they always did.
I miss you terribly, I wish I could be with you.
She was far away from Draco too, and for some reason, the words she scrawled at the end of her letters, words she had told him a thousand times, seemed awkward and incongruous glaring back at her from the parchment. But that didn’t matter – they loved each other, that was what mattered. It would be hard not to see each other for so long… but they had owls, and she would come back for Christmas anyway. His father would be cleared from all charges by then, and she would be able to invite him to her house…
A knock on the door wrenched her from her thoughts.
“Pansy?” There was a small laugh, followed by a loud shush. “Pansy, can we come in?”
Pansy reluctantly opened the door. She knew who that voice belonged to. Ashley was one of many American girls who lived in the dormitory. All of them were tall, outspoken and friendly, if a bit high and mighty, and Ashley was the friendliest and most outspoken of them all, which thoroughly irritated Pansy. She never seemed to know what to say to her, nor did she know how to react when faced with such a carefree display of sympathy, drawled out with the greatest ease in that loud, ungraceful accent.
“Hello,” she told the three girls standing outside. Behind Ashley was one of her friends, Kris, and the Russian witch who lived two doors down, Oleina. The three of them took this as an invitation to come in and Pansy stepped aside, hiding her annoyance. They seemed to think they owned the place. If only they knew who she was - who she had been at Hogwarts - they wouldn’t even have the gall to knock on her door.
“Wow, Pansy, it’s so… prim and proper in here,” Ashley said with a big smile. “Are you planning on decorating the walls at all?”
Not for the first time, Pansy wondered how on earth Ashley always managed to keep her hair so perfectly arranged and shiny – there must be a spell she wasn’t aware of, a secret carefully guarded by American witches. “I haven’t decided yet.”
Actually, she’d tried to hang up her Slytherin pennant the day before, but it looked so lonely and out of place on the white wall that she’d taken it down almost immediately.
“Oh, wow, is that the British edition of Teen Witch Weekly?” Kris asked, tracing a finger on the magazine. “That’s so cute!”
For some reason, the other girls seemed to find this amusing. Pansy shifted her weight from one foot to another, unable to move, unable to speak, boiling inside but holding her tongue. No good could come out of confronting these girls – this, at least, she had calculated right.
“Pansy, we wanted invite you to come with us tonight,” Oleina intervened, her tone pressing heavily on the vowels. “We heard about really great club - ”
“A wizarding club?” Pansy blurted out before she could stop herself.
The girls exchanged a glance. “Well, a lot of wizards go there, from what we’ve heard, but it’s sort of half and half,” Ashley said.
“It’s a ‘bar-boite’, actually,” Kris said, as if that explained anything.
“And what’s a bahrr-bwatt?” Pansy snapped, exasperated.
“It’s one of the trendy clubs,” Ashley replied, rolling her eyes in an amused way. “They’re all the rage here. And like, it’s Friday night, so I thought it might be nice if we all had fun together. You didn’t come with us last week, but we thought… Well, we’re all going to live together this year, so we should get acquainted. And you look like a really sweet girl.”
Pansy blinked at her. A really sweet girl? How dare she! Anyone who would’ve called her that at Hogwarts… no, it wasn’t even imaginable, simple as that. Suddenly, Pansy felt slightly scared that Ashley saw her as a potential rival, and might be hiding something under that surreal smile – some dark plan to run her out of the house, to make her an outcast, or perhaps simply to make her look like a fool.
“So, what do you say?”
“I – um – I don’t know, I was planning on… getting a bit of work done…”
The three girls started to laugh. “No, not this night, you have whole weekend for work,” Oleina said, planting her hands on her slim hips.
Pansy looked away, embarrassed, angry that she didn’t have the nerve to tell them that she didn’t want to go out, that she only wanted to curl up on her bed and hide under the covers and wait for this miserable school year to be over, because she was scared of these streets she didn’t know, this freedom she couldn’t handle. And she couldn't tell just by looking at people what sort of people they were -- she wasn't able to Sort them into Hogwarts-like houses based on their faces.
“I – well, all right.” Pansy gave them a tight smile and the others looked pleased with her answer.
Patient. She had to be patient and conciliating and sweet if she wanted to take the place that was rightfully hers, right at the top, next to these girls. They were crass and boorish, but they were wealthy, and they were smart.
Through her smile, Pansy suddenly wondered what on earth she was going to wear, because the fancy wizarding robes, tailored-made, beautifully cut, the robes that had cost so much and had been so gratifying to wear, were out of style, were useless here. She was useless here.
She’d have to go shopping. She’d had to fix her hair nicely, that would show Ashley who she was dealing with. She’d have to find her way through this mess, and through the night, and the day after that, onto the next.
“Masha told me the line at the cafeteria isn’t so long if you get there at -”
“Well, yeah, I don’t mind skipping dinner or…”
The dormitory was a big improvement over her quarters at Hogwarts - that much was undeniable. Pansy had her own room, her own shower, her own desk. She could come and go as she liked. There wasn’t much work to be done and besides, no one ever bothered to check if she actually did it.
No one seemed to care about anything at all.
A year ago, this would’ve sounded like heaven. Pansy had often complained about Hogwarts, about the strict teachers, the curfews and the rules and the homework. Even Snape, who was always said to favour his own house, could have been far easier on the Slytherins than he had been in practice. Pansy had never liked to study, and she certainly didn’t like to be told what to do either. In fact, she claimed to whoever was willing to listen, usually a band of Slytherin girls as shrewd and self-aware as she was, that the only good thing Hogwarts had ever brought her was her rather fetching Prefect badge.
And Draco, of course, but that was a different matter entirely. Pansy sighed and distractedly flipped through the magazine on the table, not really seeing the colourful adds for the latest fashion and layouts of pretty accessories. The giggles had not subsided, and now seemed to be right outside her door.
A year ago, she would’ve given anything to leave Hogwarts, but this wasn’t what she would have called satisfying. She was trapped inside the four bleak walls that bore no other decoration than a calendar hanging from a tack. Her room was a solitary, impersonal universe she didn’t know how to make hers, by decorating or arranging the furniture, simply because she had never had to bother before – it had all been done for her back at home, and it had all been done for her at Hogwarts as well.
In fact, it was only coming here that Pansy had realised how ridiculously easy everything at Hogwarts had been. She’d never had to make friends – they’d just naturally converged towards her. She’d never had to fight for her place, or claim it, or even question it. For years, she’d had her seat reserved at the Slytherin table, next to Draco, she’d had her silver and green pennant ready for every Quidditch match, she’d had her skirt and her blouse and her jumper ready to wear, making her fit to glare at Gryffindors and smile at housemates.
“So where do you come from?” a Spanish witch living in the room across from hers had asked, the day she’d arrived.
“Hogwarts,” Pansy had replied. “I was in Slytherin.”
The girl had seemed confused. “Hog-wots? That’s in – Ireland, right? Or is it England?”
Pansy couldn’t believe her ears – clearly, this girl knew nothing of the world whatsoever, and it was indeed a very unpleasant surprise to realise that the Spanish witch wasn’t the only one who didn’t know the first thing about Hogwarts. How could this be? It was a finishing school for young witches they were sending her to, her parents had said, one of the finest in Europe, where she’d meet other girls her age. Get away from England for awhile. Keep clear of unnecessary trouble.
A mere six days after the battle, they’d packed her off to Paris.
But instead of companions similar to those she had at school, she had found only strangers who didn’t give her a second glance. And nothing at all - not her parents’ recommendations, not Draco’s empty words of reassurance - nothing had prepared her for life on her own. She didn’t speak French. She had to buy her own groceries, cook her own food – the cafeteria dishes were simply too vile for words – and there wasn’t a House-elf in sight to do it. She didn’t even know where to start, waking up alone every morning, finding her way in through the maze of streets and Magi-metro lines.
And French wizards were decidedly unhelpful, she’d concluded almost as soon as she’d arrived. Grouchy, lazy, finding satisfaction in working as little as possible, and largely disorganized – it had taken her no less than two days to find, after several people had given her contradictory directions, the Boulevard Flamel, a hidden magical avenue adjacent to the Seine. But that was nothing compared to the shock of finding out from a former Beauxbatons alumna that Christian Lacroix, a famous designer, was actually a wizard selling last season’s castaways to Muggles. “Well, why shouldn’t he?” the girl had said as if it was the most natural thing in the world. “There’s no danger in being caught – the Muggles don’t care about anything but what the new trends will be.”
A wizard dealing with Muggles, above all the rest! Pansy was shocked and outraged and completely helpless. This was the world she was to live in now.
I’m coming back as soon as I can, and when I do, it’ll be to stay, she’d written to Draco in her last owl. I’m not going to live in this wretched city a day more than I have to.
And no doubt there would be screaming and crying and slamming doors, but her parents would give in eventually, like they always did.
I miss you terribly, I wish I could be with you.
She was far away from Draco too, and for some reason, the words she scrawled at the end of her letters, words she had told him a thousand times, seemed awkward and incongruous glaring back at her from the parchment. But that didn’t matter – they loved each other, that was what mattered. It would be hard not to see each other for so long… but they had owls, and she would come back for Christmas anyway. His father would be cleared from all charges by then, and she would be able to invite him to her house…
A knock on the door wrenched her from her thoughts.
“Pansy?” There was a small laugh, followed by a loud shush. “Pansy, can we come in?”
Pansy reluctantly opened the door. She knew who that voice belonged to. Ashley was one of many American girls who lived in the dormitory. All of them were tall, outspoken and friendly, if a bit high and mighty, and Ashley was the friendliest and most outspoken of them all, which thoroughly irritated Pansy. She never seemed to know what to say to her, nor did she know how to react when faced with such a carefree display of sympathy, drawled out with the greatest ease in that loud, ungraceful accent.
“Hello,” she told the three girls standing outside. Behind Ashley was one of her friends, Kris, and the Russian witch who lived two doors down, Oleina. The three of them took this as an invitation to come in and Pansy stepped aside, hiding her annoyance. They seemed to think they owned the place. If only they knew who she was - who she had been at Hogwarts - they wouldn’t even have the gall to knock on her door.
“Wow, Pansy, it’s so… prim and proper in here,” Ashley said with a big smile. “Are you planning on decorating the walls at all?”
Not for the first time, Pansy wondered how on earth Ashley always managed to keep her hair so perfectly arranged and shiny – there must be a spell she wasn’t aware of, a secret carefully guarded by American witches. “I haven’t decided yet.”
Actually, she’d tried to hang up her Slytherin pennant the day before, but it looked so lonely and out of place on the white wall that she’d taken it down almost immediately.
“Oh, wow, is that the British edition of Teen Witch Weekly?” Kris asked, tracing a finger on the magazine. “That’s so cute!”
For some reason, the other girls seemed to find this amusing. Pansy shifted her weight from one foot to another, unable to move, unable to speak, boiling inside but holding her tongue. No good could come out of confronting these girls – this, at least, she had calculated right.
“Pansy, we wanted invite you to come with us tonight,” Oleina intervened, her tone pressing heavily on the vowels. “We heard about really great club - ”
“A wizarding club?” Pansy blurted out before she could stop herself.
The girls exchanged a glance. “Well, a lot of wizards go there, from what we’ve heard, but it’s sort of half and half,” Ashley said.
“It’s a ‘bar-boite’, actually,” Kris said, as if that explained anything.
“And what’s a bahrr-bwatt?” Pansy snapped, exasperated.
“It’s one of the trendy clubs,” Ashley replied, rolling her eyes in an amused way. “They’re all the rage here. And like, it’s Friday night, so I thought it might be nice if we all had fun together. You didn’t come with us last week, but we thought… Well, we’re all going to live together this year, so we should get acquainted. And you look like a really sweet girl.”
Pansy blinked at her. A really sweet girl? How dare she! Anyone who would’ve called her that at Hogwarts… no, it wasn’t even imaginable, simple as that. Suddenly, Pansy felt slightly scared that Ashley saw her as a potential rival, and might be hiding something under that surreal smile – some dark plan to run her out of the house, to make her an outcast, or perhaps simply to make her look like a fool.
“So, what do you say?”
“I – um – I don’t know, I was planning on… getting a bit of work done…”
The three girls started to laugh. “No, not this night, you have whole weekend for work,” Oleina said, planting her hands on her slim hips.
Pansy looked away, embarrassed, angry that she didn’t have the nerve to tell them that she didn’t want to go out, that she only wanted to curl up on her bed and hide under the covers and wait for this miserable school year to be over, because she was scared of these streets she didn’t know, this freedom she couldn’t handle. And she couldn't tell just by looking at people what sort of people they were -- she wasn't able to Sort them into Hogwarts-like houses based on their faces.
“I – well, all right.” Pansy gave them a tight smile and the others looked pleased with her answer.
Patient. She had to be patient and conciliating and sweet if she wanted to take the place that was rightfully hers, right at the top, next to these girls. They were crass and boorish, but they were wealthy, and they were smart.
Through her smile, Pansy suddenly wondered what on earth she was going to wear, because the fancy wizarding robes, tailored-made, beautifully cut, the robes that had cost so much and had been so gratifying to wear, were out of style, were useless here. She was useless here.
She’d have to go shopping. She’d had to fix her hair nicely, that would show Ashley who she was dealing with. She’d have to find her way through this mess, and through the night, and the day after that, onto the next.
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