The Man From H.O.G.W.A.R.T.S. (A Drarry FanFiction)

Chapter Twenty One

   Several years later...

Agent Pansy Parkinson sat on the edge of the padded chair that Director McGonagall had indicated for her to wait in. She causally drummed her crimson nails against the armrests, and ignored the Scottish woman's occasional glares up from the report she was reading. She wondered how long this was going to take. She had things to do.

McGonagall sighed and rubbed her eyes, then rested her chin in her hand. "And you're sure there was no trace of them to be found after the explosion?"

Pansy considered the other woman. She was in her late sixties, but had a steeliness that lurked behind those wire-rim spectacles. She would not easily be fooled, but Draco had always spoken of her with the same respect he reserved for his mother. He and Potter had hoped her obvious affection for the pair would work in their favour.

She realised she was dangerously close to a grin, and quickly dropped her expression. "Yes, yes, very sad. Terrible tragedy." She cleared her throat and nodded. "No trace left of bodies." English was a strange language, so different to her own mother tongue. But it did have a sort of eloquence to it she supposed.

McGonagall glanced down at the file, tracing her finger along several words. "And yet, somehow you were able to escape the building without a scratch, whilst also retrieving the blueprints?" Her tone was light, but Pansy didn't miss the accusation there.

She despised silly games like this, but she reminded herself what was at stake. No more tagging along on missions with two bickering old nannies. No more listening to rampant sex through thin motel walls. No more pretending she had no idea that two grown men were hopelessly in love and practically married, because it was much simpler to just fuck and argue than to care and cherish.

Urgh. Men. Who needed them?

"We got separated," she said, shaking her head ruefully. She dabbed at her eyes to with the back of her hand for good measure. "I would never have escaped if not for them. I do not know how I can live with myself, knowing this. It is too cruel, they were best agents, best of men."

Draco had paid her extra to say that bit.

McGonagall regarded her for a minute, then went back to studying the finer details of the report.

Pansy glanced at her watch. Mauritius was only four hours ahead. She imagined the two of them were probably arguing over the counter in the bar that Potter had spent the past year slowly putting together whenever he could get down to that little shack on the beach. Draco would no doubt be saying very little back, listening as his lover prattled on about the weather and politics and any one of Draco's many annoying domestic habits. Maybe he would be polishing his boat, the one he intended to take tourists fishing on.

As much as she had abhorred their incessant, juvenile company, she couldn't help but picture both idiots smiling when they thought they were alone, when no one else was watching. She had teased Draco mercilessly about the way she'd spied him caressing his lover's cheek, or the way he would yank him bodily from a fire-fight, like he wasn't a fully trained and capable agent. They never had to say they were in love. They showed it every day.

McGonagall sighed, bringing Pansy's attention back to London and the overwhelmingly grey office that she had become accustomed to during her time with H.O.G.W.A.R.T.S. She hadn't decided if she wanted to stay with the operation yet. Maybe she too would fake her death and go travel the world?

"They shall be missed," McGonagall said, closing the file. "They were indeed unparalleled in what they did. Britain, and in fact the world, owe them a great debt. Neither of them had much in the way of family, but I will arrange for them to be informed."

Pansy nodded solemnly, hiding her delight as she pictured the letter that would make its long journey across the Baltic states to Draco's mother Narcissa, a wonderful woman whom Pansy had long adored. That letter would slip through the door of that cold apartment, where it would sit on the mat with all the other correspondence.

That was, until it would be picked up once a week by a discreet neighbour for a good price, and shipped all the way down to another hut on the Mauritian coast. Draco had told her that his mother had relocated to the village along from theirs, and was almost overcome with joy at the glorious heat and bountiful food.

Pansy wished them all well. She truly did.