Disclaimer: Harry Potter is the property of J. K. Rowling. No copyright infringement is intended. The old man's dialogue was based loosely on the song "Lovely Ladies" from Les Miserables.

MC4A Challenges (Retroactive): Romance Challenge
Representations: Pansy Parkinson; Draco Malfoy/Astoria Greengrass; Suicide
Word Count: 2685

Written for Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Charms Class, Assignment #6: The Legilimency Spell. Extra Prompt: Pansy Parkinson. Also fulfills the HPFC If You Dare Challenge #862: Suicide and the HPFC 1991 Challenge: Pansy Parkinson.

Move On

"Here, this way."

Darshana Mandeep beckoned to the two Mediwizards, with their pitiful burden hovering between them. She crossed the Odetta Malone Ward with long, sure strides, swift but unhurried. The junior Mediwizards, especially the women, tended to come in flustered and fluttering like a bird caught in a snare. Darshana had found that her exaggerated calm could sometimes settle them enough to make them answer her questions with coherence. It had saved lives more than once, she was convinced.

Not that the girl's rigid body and staring eyes didn't unnerve her, too. It looked like a case of entrapment, the girl imprisoned inside her own mind, and that meant that whatever horrors were going on in there, Darshana herself would have to face them in order to bring the girl out. The secret to remaining calm wasn't not to look, or not to care, or not to think about it. The secret was to look and to think, and then to care enough to make rational decisions in spite of herself.

Darshana thrust back a set of curtains and directed the Mediwizards to lay the girl on the bed inside. They did so and then stood side by side at attention, like prisoners waiting to be interrogated.

Darshana sat on a chair beside the bed, placed so that she could examine the patient while facing the two women. "Who is she?"

"Pansy Parkinson," the blonde one supplied. "Hogwarts graduate, a few years ago."

"Slytherin," the other added with a hiss.

"Hush!" The pulse was very weak and slow, the muscles stiff and rigid. The dark eyes stared, unblinking. The breathing was barely perceptible, a whisper of fog on the tiny mirror.

"Where was she found?"

"Outside Malfoy Manor," the blonde woman answered. "Mr. Draco Malfoy and his wife brought her here. He said they heard a cry outside their drawing room, and when they rushed outside they found her lying on the ground like this."

"Spying, I'd bet," the other added. "Jealous. They were married just today, you know, Mr. and Mrs. Malfoy."

"Silence your tongue, or I will silence it for you," Darshana said. Of the blonde one, she asked, "Was anything found with her?"

"A glass vial, broken in pieces."

"The contents?"

"Being tested as we speak."

"Are the Malfoys still here?"

"Yes. He's filling out the paperwork for Miss Parkinson now."

"And his wife's in hysterics," the other added.

Darshana whipped out her wand and hissed, "Silencio." The gossip's eyes widened and her lips began moving frantically. Darshana serenely tucked her wand away. She did not make idle threats.

Sychos Argyris, the potions expert, appeared around the edge of the curtain. "Dr. Mandeep?"

Darshana half rose. "At last," she said. "Someone who will talk sense." Her eyes flickered to the Mediwizards. "Be gone," she told them. "I have no further need of you."

The blonde one turned to go, but the other lingered, gesturing angrily at her throat. Darshana gave an annoyed little shake of her head, saying, "I don't doubt that an evening of silence would do you more good than harm." Nevertheless, she drew out her wand and performed the counterspell.

The woman's angry chatter floated back through the ward until the door had closed behind her.

Darshana turned back to the potions expert, who was looking down at the girl on the bed, pity and sadness on his pale bespectacled face.

"Tell me the worst," she said.

Sychos glanced at his clipboard. "Death-Cap Draught. Or at least, that's what it was supposed to be."

Darshana let out a long, slow breath. "Poor child."

Death-Cap Draught was essentially a black market suicide potion, a compound of four of the most dangerous potion ingredients used by the wizarding community. The brewing procedure was highly complex, and because of the interaction of the ingredients, the slightest imbalance of the items could have wildly unpredictable effects. The potion was forbidden by the Ministry, but it could still be found on the black market (at a tremendous price) by those looking to end their lives with a dramatic flair.

Darshana's eyes slid toward the door. "The little gossip may have been right after all, then," she added.

"What?"

"She suggested—quite without my solicitation—that Miss Parkinson was jealous of the Malfoys' marriage. Admittedly, all the signs do seem to point to it: a young girl attempting suicide outside a young couple's home on their wedding night. But using a black market suicide potion—"

"—which she either got from a highly malicious dealer or brewed herself," Sychos interjected. "Personally, I suspect the first. The results of the test indicate—You are familiar with the composition of Death-Cap Draught?"

"Marginally."

"One of the active ingredients is pure adder venom. Based on the testing, this particular brew contained the ground fang of an adder instead."

Darshana's eyes widened. In potency, the pure venom would have been stronger, but with this draught, nothing was predictable. It was not about the individual ingredients but how they interacted. And if Sychos's theory was correct, less potency may have been exactly what the dealer intended, killing the body but stopping the mind just on the threshold of death.

"So," Sychos continued, "either she found instructions for brewing it that were egregiously wrong, or someone did this to her deliberately, for whatever inconceivable reason."

Darshana nodded slowly. "All right. Now I know what I'm dealing with." She took a deep breath. "Anything else I need to know?"

Sychos glanced at the clipboard. "No."

"Very well." She closed her eyes and brought her mind to a profound stillness, then slowly drew her wand.

"Be careful," she heard Sychos say, his voice sounding vaguely distant. She did not acknowledge him.

"Legilimens."

"You're lying."

Blaise shook his head. "They announced it today."

"She's two years younger than him. I mean really, how long have they known each other?"

"Since soon after the Battle of Hogwarts. It's been four years, Pans. You can hardly call that rushed." The look of pity on his face was almost insulting.

"Okay, four years. He's known me for eleven!"

"So have I, and I don't see you complaining that I'm not dating you."

"Stop trying to reason with me!" There was the hateful sting of beginning tears. "You don't understand! I can't live in this world ruled by Potter and the Weasleys. All people think of when they see me is, 'That's the girl who wanted to give Harry Potter to Voldemort.' I can't open my mouth without being treated like I'm going to say something treasonous. Draco is the only person who still cares about me. My only hope these past four years has been that eventually he would come back to me. What am I going to do without him?"

"I'm sorry you feel that way, Pans. It's not true—"

"Shut up! Just leave me alone…"

The sinister darkness of Knockturn Alley at night had become familiar. It was almost comforting, knowing you were surrounded by people as miserable and out of place in this post-Voldemort world as you were. Of course, you had to keep your wand always at the ready; they were no more your friends than they were the Ministry's. But still, they were like you, and there was something in that.

They're like me. But what about Draco? Is he like me anymore? Or has he found a place here? Have I lost him completely?

No. No more tears. There had been too many of them already. But they came anyway…

"Lovely lady, what're you doing here?" The lilting voice came from an old one-eyed man, standing in the shadows just beyond the open door of a pub.

"It's none of your business."

"Ah, the cat has claws. Don't be so bitter, my lovely. Can't an old man ask what's wrong?"

"What isn't wrong in our world?"

"Politically conscious, eh? Well, we're not supposed to say we're not happy with things, now are we? But that's not all."

"It's none of your business."

The man advanced, still keeping to the shadows. "Lovely lady, crying all alone. Always means a man's involved, and likely one who's gone. Come now, darling, tell me, am I wrong?"

A sob slipped out, rebellious. The man grinned in satisfaction and reached into a satchel at his side. "I'll warrant the lovely lady's got some education, so you'll know magic can't create love. Ah, my lovely, there's only one choice for you, and you know what it is, don't you? You've been thinking about it for a while now."

His gnarled bony hand moved hesitantly into the light from the doorway. In the center of the palm lay a tiny vial, full of a liquid blacker than the night.

No. I can't. I—Can I?

"Come on." He held it closer. The blackness had the draw of a vacuum.

"Lovely lady, wandering all alone. Just a drop can end it all, can take away the pain. Is that not worth everything you own?"

The bottle had somehow changed hands. The fingers that now curled around it were young and strong. Able to do what had to be done.

"Name your price."

"A thousand Galleons."

"I have a vault at Gringotts. Follow me."

The vial sat in the center of the table, seeming to draw all things into its emptiness.

There's still hope until the wedding. I don't want to die.

Coward.

Just a few more days. Engagements can be broken. It happens.

It won't happen. You have nothing more to live for. End it.

Wait.

Whirls of color. Shouts of laughter. Shimmering lights. Sounds of people being happy, far too happy.

Images. Flashes of memory, the past and the present playing side by side. The present showed Astoria Greengrass by his side, but the scenes from the past said that it was wrong. I belong there.

A kiss—on the wrong lips. The effort not to scream at the words "your bride." The word "Congratulations" sounding very like "I hate you."

The glance through the drawing room curtains, the final proof that it wasn't a dream. The vial, finally leaving the canvas bag where it was concealed. Nothing more to live for. No choice left. Nothing…

Darshana gasped and reeled back, almost falling out of her chair. At once Sychos was at her shoulder, supporting her.

"Are you all right?" he asked.

She stared at him for a moment in confusion as she slowly came back to herself.

"What are you doing still here?" she asked at last. "You should have gone back to work."

Sychos cracked a half smile. "You're all right."

"Never mind. Go tell them to send Mr. Draco Malfoy here. Not his wife, just him. Quickly."

"As you wish."

Within ten minutes, Draco Malfoy entered the Odetta Malone ward, panting slightly.

Darshana stood to greet him. "Mr. Malfoy. I must ask you a question that I suspect you will not want to answer. I give you my word that it will not be used against you, and your answer will remain in confidence beyond the hospital report. But Miss Parkinson's life may ride on your answer."

"Ask," Draco said.

"Are you a Legilimens?"

The young man did not hesitate. "Yes."

Relief flooded her. At once, Darshana began explaining what she had seen, omitting nothing. Draco's face grew solemn, and several times he looked at Pansy with deep compassion. He listened without interrupting, and even when she had finished, he said nothing.

"None of this is your fault, Mr. Malfoy. She has made the choices she has made, and you were not obligated to her. But I believe that you are the only one who can bring her back from the edge of death, not by giving her false hope for you but by convincing her that she still has something worth living for."

Draco nodded. "I understand. May I?" He gestured to the chair, and Darshana indicated that he should take it. He took one of Pansy's hands in his own and leaned over her. Then he became completely still. He did not move again, did not reach for his wand, spoke no incantation. He was a master, Darshana realized.

It might have been hours she stood there, watching them, before a gasp broke the utter silence. The sound was not Draco, coming back from the depths of Pansy's mind, but Pansy herself, awakening. Darshana stepped forward as Draco stood, reeling slightly from exhaustion. She took the chair and began checking Pansy's vitals again, saying, "Thank you so much, Mr. Malfoy. Do you need anything?"

"No, thank you," Draco answered, steadying himself. "I think, if you need nothing further, that my wife and I will go home now. I will return in the morning to check on her."

Darshana nodded her thanks again and turned her attention to Pansy…

THE DAILY PROPHET, p. 2

WITCH FOUND DEAD OUTSIDE ST. MUNGO'S; SUICIDE SUSPECTED

A witch was found dead this morning outside St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries. Groundskeeper Eldrich Beauregard reported having found the body at 6:13 AM while on his rounds, surrounded by blood on the ground below a window. Medical examination has placed the time of death between 2:00 and 4:00 AM and revealed the cause of death as severe head trauma due to impact. The victim has been identified as Pansy Olga Parkinson of London. Parkinson, 21, had been admitted to St. Mungo's yesterday evening at 8:40 PM after ingesting 4 ounces of Death Cap Draught. Darshana Mandeep, the nurse who attended Parkinson, confirmed that the effects of the Death Cap Draught had been reversed but alleged that the potion had been taken in an unsuccessful suicide attempt and added, "It is my opinion that, having failed to end her life once, she decided to try again through a more reliable, non-magical means." The healer on duty in the ward at the time of death denies having seen or heard anything, claiming to have been attending to a patient at the far end of the ward. No note or evidence of the reason for the alleged suicide has been found.

Draco set the newspaper down on the side table and laid his head in his hands. Astoria had begged him not to look at it, to let their first morning together be about them and only them, but reading the Prophet was an old habit, and a hard one to break. He wished now that she hadn't gotten up to go to the loo, that he hadn't summoned Conkey on the sly to give him his morning paper as usual, that he could have put off knowing about this for just a few more hours.

He had never loved Pansy Parkinson. He wasn't sure he could honestly claim to have loved anyone before Astoria; every relationship before her had been about his pleasure, his status, his ego. Pansy had been a pureblood, as small and mean and snobbish as he was, and a real looker. In his Hogwarts years, he hadn't required much more than that.

And yet... she had been a friend. A real friend. Every despicable thing he had ever done, she had supported him in it, and yes, some of those things had been done to impress her, and yes, he regretted all of them now. But she'd been there for him, and somewhere in the depths of his selfish adolescent mind he'd known it wasn't just because his last name was Malfoy. He'd known she cared about him, for him, and the guilt of how he'd exploited that had followed him for years, had nudged at him every time he'd been tempted to boast in front of the few friends he had left from the old days about Astoria's pureblood status or her hot body, had made him check himself when a thought crossed his mind that reduced Astoria to a possession instead of a person. Without ever meaning to, Pansy had made him a better man.

And now he'd never get the chance to tell her. To thank her. To try to help her change, too.

It was too late.