The Most Impossible Soulbond

Family Dinner

To say that dinner was awkward would be a vast understatement.

Not once, not even in the farthest recesses of her mind, had Pansy ever even considered that there could be the most minuscule of chances of sharing a family dinner with Harry Potter.

And now, here he was, sitting in the dining room and across from her at the table, looking a bit lost with the different cutlery displayed before him, while Biffy was serving smoked leeks and salt marsh lamb. She caught him staring at her hands and trying to imitate her before he relaxed visibly.

"I'm just using a fork and a knife. Merlin, calm down. Just try not to drip the gravy all over the place."

That made him tense up again and eat slowly and methodically. She had to stop herself from snorting and rolling her eyes.

"So, Harry," her father began, breaking the silence of the dinner table, "I would like to know more about you."

Harry frowned and waited until he had swallowed the mouthful of lamb he was chewing. Pansy was pleased to see that at least and that he was chewing with his mouth closed. Eating next to the likes of Vincent, Gregory and Theodore was always an extreme exercise of patience. Even Millicent was capable of showing more decorum at the breakfast or dinner table than those three.

"I'm not going to answer everything."

Her father smiled. "That is only fair. I wouldn't either if I was in your position. What I am most curious about is if there is a kernel of truth around the events of your first years in Hogwarts. Rumours are wont to take a life of their own, as you surely must have experienced by now." Her father then glanced briefly at her. "Still, Pansy was with you in school and some of the things she has seen and heard must have come from somewhere."

Harry didn't answer immediately but eventually sighed and relented. "I still can't tell you everything, sir."

"Understandable."

"So...what do you want to know then?"

"Well, first and foremost, I am curious about the events leading to this soulbond's creation," her father said while cutting a piece of lamb for himself, "and I don't mean you, or that bond, wondrously chasing away hundreds of Dementors." Chewing his mouthful, then swallowing it, her father dabbed at his lips with a napkin before looking Harry in the eyes. "What were you doing outside, in the middle of the night, with a werewolf and a wanted criminal on the loose?"

Instead of answering, Harry glanced at her with surprise written all over his face. "You haven't told your parents?"

"Well...no?" She avoided his eyes and concentrated very closely on her leeks with hot cheeks and a deep frown.

"I didn't expect that. Thanks, Pansy."

Pansy just shrugged and resumed her dinner, ignoring his soft gratitude. It wasn't like she could go and blab out secrets like that at her leisure. Plus, she still couldn't really close her mind to him. If she had told, he'd surely have noticed.

She heard Harry take a steeling breath. "I guess I can tell you this. Pansy already knows and it can't be used against me or others anymore anyway."

Her father looked intrigued. "I'm listening."

"Sirius Black was actually my godfather and had been framed by Peter Pettigrew, who is still somewhere out there." He said it in such a monotone voice, Pansy could've mistaken him for Binns.

"Peter Pettigrew is dead, Harry," her mother said, looking and sounding as disbelieving as one could be.

Harry slowly shook his head. "He isn't. He is an unregistered rat animagus who hid himself as the Weasley pet rat all these years."