After the Willow Tree | Theo Nott

CHAPTER ONE

(the falling star)

One month later

Daphne's soft snores ebbed and flowed in the same steady rhythms Pansy had gotten used to after enough time spent as roommates. Now wide awake on her best friend's bedroom floor, Pansy wondered if knowing this was yet another bad sign for her mental health.

But growing up as a pureblood Slytherin was much like being a medical school student. Everyone was suffering, but they'd push themselves harder towards their breaking point if they noticed themselves struggling. So, denying the cracks was always the go-to method for a Slytherin, generally paired with performative self-confidence and workaholism. All of which was very familiar territory for Pansy.

She huffed and turned toward the window on the other side of the room. Through the faint crack in the bedroom curtains, Pansy looked at the nearly full moon and wondered if anyone else was still awake, staring at the too-bright night sky.

Lorelei probably wasn't, she'd guessed, although it was hard to say following the incident during the Battle of Hogwarts. The incident that everyone knows as the self-sacrifice that led to Lorelei's death. For twenty whole minutes, her heart was frozen, motionless in her chest before she woke up, miraculously and confusingly alive.

Now, in the weeks since her reawakening into the land of the living, Lorelei spent most of her spare moments sleeping or gasping out in a panic about some nightmare with her father.

Pansy could relate a little. Not to the "dying and seeing your dead dad" part, but every time she closed her eyes, Pansy also saw her father's face.

It had been almost two years since she last saw her parents, when they got swept up in the toxic side of their pureblood heritage. Even if Pansy had her fair share of cruel moments growing up, she could never stoop to what her parents believed. Not when it came to the murder and torture of anyone whose blood they didn't consider to be "pure enough."

Slinking out of her long-term makeshift cot, Pansy grabbed her leather jacket from its hook by the Greengrass' front door and stepped out onto their wraparound porch. Her hands easily found her lighter in her left pocket and a pack of cigarettes in the other. The makings of her worst habit, one she'd picked up from a group of older Slytherin girls during third year.

Blazing red light burned through her cigarette as she destroyed her lungs and watched the sky light up with a shooting star. Her eyes lazily traced its path, and truth be told, she almost didn't make a wish on it this time, but she thought the sorting hat would revoke her rights as a Slytherin if she stopped dreaming for the future. So, she plucked her cigarette from her mouth and relented, "My wish is that everything works out with Daph and my soulmates this year."

Nothing momentous happened, but she still watched the sky as if waiting for some sort of sign that her wish was received.

When nothing came, she leaned back on the dewy grass and tried to slow down on the smoking to prevent herself from coughing more at this angle.

Pansy flinched back up into a sitting position when a creak near the house interrupted the peaceful nighttime silence. With her wand clutched in her steady left hand, she peered through the dark at the blonde slowly shuffling off the porch and over to her.

"Hey, Daph," Pansy said, pocketing her wand in relief. "Can't sleep?"

"I was going to ask you the same thing," she said through a yawn.

She plopped down with one of her throw blankets wrapped around her like a cocoon and took a seat beside Pansy. It amused Daphne how Pansy always sat at the one cracked chunk of cement on the sidewalk, and tonight was no different.

Pansy's fingers subconsciously skimmed the few tufts of grass poking through the gaps while she finally put out her cigarette.

"What's wrong?"

Pansy shrugged. Nothing had changed really; it was all the same heartache as it had been, but she couldn't seem to find a way to climb out of her hurt. She was stuck, and she often decided that Daphne didn't need to hear her groan about the same old problems again and again if neither of them could do anything about it anyway.

"Feeling restless a bit," she finally settled on, giving Daphne a gentle smile. "Started to wonder if mum or dad are up now too."

"They might be," Daphne said. "Would it comfort you if they were?"

"I don't know." Pansy stared up at the sky and the sudden cloud cover.

Daphne slowly shifted and wrapped half of her blanket around Pansy's shoulders. Pansy smiled at her gratefully.

To anyone else who might have been looking on, Pansy's smile often looked a bit mischievous or even sinister, but Daphne had known her long enough to know that smiles from Pansy were typically genuine. It was when the smile disappeared that everyone needed to be concerned.

"I picked up my late-night habits from them, you know," Pansy said. "Dad always loved to read at all hours of the night. If you ever lost dad in the house, you were sure to find him in the library."

Daphne reached down and squeezed Pansy's hand.

"I never was much into reading, not like he was," Pansy said, "but I loved to do my studies there, on the big sofa by the fireplace."

"Was your dad often in there while you studied?"

"Always," Pansy laughed. "His face was so much gentler while he read through his copies of classic novels. I even spied him reading works by Muggle authors sometimes...but that all changed of course."

Even if she knew her face had fallen now, she couldn't muster up a fake smile. Stuck with the realization of how much had changed in her parents in such a short time, she missed what they used to have. She missed when her parents pushed her to be her best, to be better than all of her competitors, and yet still walked with the grace and dignity that came from respecting others.

"I know you miss your family," Daphne said, "but I hope you know we are happy to be your family too."

Pansy turned her face back towards Daphne and scanned her face for any sign of a lie. When she didn't find one, she nodded. "Thanks."

"And Pansy?"

"Hm?"

"I hope everything works out with your soulmate as well."

//

/AN: hello everyone!!

Welcome to the new and improved Pansy-centered first chapter! As you may have noticed, this book follows Pansy's postwar life, but her and Lorelei's storylines are greatly intertwined, which is why these two books are connected to one another!

Feel free to read this story if you haven't read Lorelei's book (Under the Willow Tree), but you may be confused and have a lot of questions because I've written this with the assumption that readers know who Lorelei is and what happened in her book.

Also! There are a decent amount of chapters with Pansy in the first book, which sets up a lot of background for her character in this story as well.

I hope you all enjoy the chapter, and I will post chapter two on Monday!/