The Right by Parks and Fiction, narrated by Briar and Tones.
Chapter 1. The sharp tap of her heels
against the cobblestones echoed in the near silent streets.
Spring was on its way, but the nights were still too chilly for
people to linger outside. Most of the shops had closed,
but the pubs and restaurants still open bustled with
activity. The higher the heel, the higher
the confidence, her aunt always said.
Obviously, only if you could actually walk in them, which
accounted for the countless hours she spent walking up and
down her family's manna stairs since she was seven, in
increasingly higher heels. While other little girls were
allowed to play, to practice their magic, how to even read a
book, Pansy Parkinson practised walking in high heels until she
could strut in five inch heels even as her feet bled.
That wasn't the half of her training, of course.
Hours were poured into learning the differences between hosting
A luncheon and an afternoon tea. A formal dinner party versus a
ball. How to plan a menu map, a
seating chart, How to properly discipline ourselves.
Memorising pure but lineages until her eyes bled.
Metaphorically, of course. Above all else, she needed to be
pretty. Luckily, her aunt told her over
and over again she was a Parkinson girl.
But she was a lucky 1 because she had been born in the same
year as a Malfoy heir and had the chance of becoming a Malfoy
wife. So she poured her entire life
into becoming everything Draco Malfoy wanted or needed.
And now the idiot had fucked up her entire life.
Perhaps in another life, one where she wasn't a bargainson
girl, perhaps she could be happy for one of her best friends.
Perhaps him falling in love with someone would be a cause for
celebration to open up one of the rare bottles of wine in her
family Cellars. At least from what was left
after a yearly Ministry raids anyway.
But the fact remained, she was a Parkinson girl and Draco Malfoy
owed her. He knew it, she knew it.
Six weeks away from her 24th birthday and she was cashing in
on everyone. It was only when she considered
Grainger that she felt that prick of something that someone
else might call guilt. But if ever there was a feminist
fight for the downtrodden, sacrifice yourself for the
greater good Gryffindor who took things to the extreme, it was
Hermione Granger. Attributes that she was going to
exploit to their furthest once she finished reminding Draco of
each and everything she'd done for him over the years and
forced him to agree. Which was why she'd asked him to
meet her first half an hour until she had him promise that
if Hermione agreed to her proposed arrangement, he would
too. Hence the five inch heels.
Stepping into the crowded pub, it was easy to find the shock of
white blonde hair at the bar. Longer than he'd worn it in
school and with significantly less styling Grainger to blame,
of course. However, tonight it looked like
he was the one who would be dragging his hands through his
hair, perching on the stool next to him.
She signalled to Liam, the owner and current bartender.
Grabbing Draco's drink, she sipped from it while waiting for
her own to arrive. It took all the pure blood
training to not spit it out. Fire whiskey, but bottom shelf?
Merlin, that's cheap. Draco grinned, a full, wide
smile lighting up his entire expression in the purest form of
joy. A look she might have been
familiar with in another life. Not this one, full of dark
Wizards and blood, purest fathers willing to sacrifice any
and all for their own selfish ambition.
No, that look, she hadn't seen her friend, her wants upon a
time future intended ever make. Not before Hermione Granger,
post war Hermione Granger, of course.
The confident Order of Merlin First Class Golden Girl of the
Golden Trio, who had actually learned how to use her potions
to tame her riotous mane of curls.
The Hermione Granger who had spoken at Draco's trial, who had
definitively sworn that Draco Malfoy knew exactly who she was,
exactly who Harry and Ron were, the knight at Malfoy Manor, that
he could have turned them all over to the Dark Lord, ended the
war that night. Instead, he lied, protected
them, saved them, and in so doing, saved the entire
wizarding world. It was a stretch, perhaps as
much as Harry's testimony at Narcissa's trial that her lie
that he was dead allowed him the chance to kill the Dark Lord for
real this time. Pansy had instantly seen that
action for exactly what it was. Slytherin self preservation,
pure and simple. A mother's love, perhaps?
The pure blood belief that was ingrained in every pure blood
girl of the Sacred 28 since birth.
Protect your pure blood air at all costs.
More likely, a sentiment the half blooded Dark Lord would
never have known, could never have understood, and was his
ultimate downfall. No matter Narcissa or Draco's
motivations. When a member of the Golden Trio
requests leniency, it was granted.
Especially when there was literal gold to grease palms.
It was how Lucius Malfoy, actual Death Eater, was able to
convince the Wizengenbot that he had turned sides in the last
minutes of the battle. His punishment was a snapped
wand and house arrest for the remainder of his life instead of
rotting away in Azkaban with the rest of his brethren.
Her hand drifted to feel her want, feeling the smooth Willow
beneath her fingertips. A life without a wand was hardly
a life for a witch or wizard, but lording over a Manor, half a
dozen ourselves at your backing call, and more galleons than you
could spend in a lifetime certainly made it variable.
Draco had got a year of house arrest and orders to spend a
year working for the Ministry as soon as his education was
completed. He spent his year of house
arrest earning his Newts, then packed his bags the minute he
was allowed to leave. A year in Brazil followed by two
in Egypt. He returned as a Potions Master
with a self invented cure for cursed scars.
Upon his arrival back in England, he did nothing until he
was able to secure a meeting with Hermione, until he could
give it to her in person, apologise and offer her the
chance to remove the vile word his aunt had carved into her
skin in his own home. Both of them thought that was
the end of it. Then Draco's ministry assignment
had come in a year in house elf relocation, working under their
busiest employee. Someone at the DMLE had a sense
of humour. She could see the poetic justice
in it Make the formerly blood supremacist, old money pure
blood wizard spend a year doing unpaid grunt work for the
muggleborn witch who defeated the Dark Lord and wanted to free
all ourselves. After the first eight, possibly
9, neither of them had been particularly forthcoming on the
particulars. Months it had stopped being a
punishment for both of them. Now that stupid smile on Draco's
face was here to stay until she opened her mouth tonight, that
uneasy prick in her gut, clearly not guilt, but more likely food
poisoning from a vindictive house self who'd finally taken
Granger's rants about slavery seriously.
Returned Draco. In all the years we've known
each other. Liam set the glass of expensive
Bordeaux she ordered every time in front of them.
Draco slid it the rest of the way towards her.
She froze as he pulled his hand away, drink forgotten.
Where is your ring? On the fourth finger of his
right hand, there was a thick white tan line.
Since the day he turned 17, she had never seen that finger bare,
ever. And she would know.
It was her salvation after all. He grinned down at his hand, a
look of disbelief and wonder on his face.
The same 1 he got whenever Grainger referred to him, Potter
and the Weasel as one of her boys.
Disgusting, really. Gone.
Panic gripped her heart in a vice.
What do you mean gone? I destroyed it.
Her body flashed hot, then cold. No, no, no, no, no no he
couldn't, wouldn't. I told them I'm done.
He said that I reject everything they are and what they stand for
and that it ends with me. Again, a lass of disbelief and
relief. I destroyed the black family
ring as well. His grin was almost manic as he
shook his head. 2 sacred 28 families no longer pure blooded
because of me. She swallowed, tasting bile as
he went on about the look on his father's face, the vindictive
joy at finally getting back at the man who took so much from
him. She tuned him out.
She had contingency plans, of course.
It wasn't going to be pleasant, but Theo would help her.
Perhaps he didn't hold her as much as Draco, but he was her
friend. He wouldn't let this happen to
her. Draco turned to her, expression
earnest. Vans, I've never felt this way
before. What way?
He closed his eyes, as if savouring it for a long moment.
Free, he looked it. Every inch was a man no longer
shackled to generations, centuries of expectations and
law and archaic practices. The jealousy hit her, sharp and
cold and cruel. She took a long drink before she
let her tongue loose to bring him down.
I think it hit me, finally, he said.
None of that matters anymore. I've known it was bullshit for a
while, but that ring, that manner, they're all tied up in
that legacy and leaving them behind.
Pans. It was freedom.
She saw it on his face. I flewed straight to Theo's, he
said. You know, he's been struggling
with all of that, almost more than me.
He's been saying his only regret was that he never got to
disinherit before his father died, never got to punish him
for what he put him through. When I told him what I did, he
saw it too. Destroyed his ring on the spot.
What? Theodore, not great grandson of
the man who defined the Sacred 28, who created the rings in the
1st place, destroyed his? He laughed again.
Can you believe it? Her stomach churned.
No, Merlin, why had she waited? Why hadn't she demanded her due
the moment Draco returned from Egypt?
There had been no third cousin from Bulgaria yet, but still,
she was a Parkinson girl. She knew better.
And now the last of her hopes was in pieces, somewhere on the
Malfoy Manor floor in Blaise Sabini's living room, since Theo
had cheerfully burnt his own manner to the ground ten months
ago. Draco.
The joy in his eyes seemed to multiply as he spun in his
stool. She turned with much less
enthusiasm. Hermione, with red rimmed eyes,
blinked at her only once. Oh, Pansy, she said.
You're early for no reason, apparently.
Draco started to get up, but froze when Hermione flinched
back, holding up her hand. Draco, I've been thinking.
She looked down at her disgusting, scuffed up Ministry
approved flats that Pansy would curse into oblivion one of these
days. We can't.
I can't keep putting you through this.
Draco settled back into his stool.
They're your parents. She said.
We know they'll never accept me, and I'm not going to force you
to choose. So I think that we should take
some time apart. Merlin, did she really have to
be here for this? If only Draco hadn't blown apart
that stupid ring, everything would have been perfect.
Instead, as her carefully laid plans crumbled into pieces at
her feet, any hope of a future blown to pits, she had to watch
her oldest friend grinning like an idiot as his girlfriend
attempted to dump him. Hermione apparently had had
enough of the shit eating grin as well.
I'm trying to break up with you. Why do you keep looking at me
like that? All that was missing was the
foot stomping, but Pansy knew her well enough to know that
that wasn't far off. Draco held up his right hand.
Hermione blinked. They, they took it from you.
He slid down from his stool. I blew it up.
She stared at him. It's it's your family legacy.
You're yes, and if anything deserves to be blown up, it's my
family legacy, he said. I disinherited instead of
looking relieved, happy, or whatever the standard emotion
was for a woman to feel when her boyfriend chose her over the
entire world. Hermione looked terrified.
Draco, you, you can't do that, she said.
Not for me. I, it wasn't for you, he said.
It was for me. I am not that man anymore, and I
want nothing to do with that life.
I want an honest future starting fresh, just you and me, building
a family, a new legacy. We can be proud.
Whatever impassioned speech you've been working on was cut
off as Hermione flung herself into his arms.
Lovely. Their inability to keep the
hands off one another had now spread to public.
She took a large gulp of her wine as Draco tried to suck the
face off his girlfriend in the middle of a crowded pub.
When they finally surfaced for Ere, it wasn't for further
declarations of love or promises of the future, but for her idiot
friend to say. And now we're going to be poor.
So poor you're going to have to start stealing good liquor from
Blaze and Theo, because Pansy's right, that swill is shit.
And what was romantic about that?
Enough to have Hermione go back to devouring his face in public?
She had no idea, but apparently it somehow worked for her
friend. Pushing aside her Bordeaux, she
downed what was left of Draco's cheap fire whiskey.
He was right, it was shit, but some things were easier to
swallow than others. Apparently being part of the
Golden Trio meant that when you dumped your boyfriend, the other
two members showed up 5 minutes later to watch you while you
cried or drank yourself into oblivion or whatever it was that
Gryffindors did after they made a depressing decision because it
was the right thing to do. It was the usual suspicion and
threats of hexing on Potter and Weasel's parts until Hermione
managed to explain what Draco had done.
Next thing she knew, the Weasel was slapping Draco on the back,
calling him a blood traitor, apparently a compliment these
days. And Potter did something with a
charmed galleon and somehow she ended up in the largest booth in
the bar, now packed with Gryffindors, sandwiched between
Loony Lovegood and one of the Patil twins.
Catching a gag inducing look between her and Weasel was Padma
2. Ravenclaw buffers did not make a
snake more comfortable in a den of lions.
Draco didn't seem as affected, though she caught more than one
look of long-suffering and jawing Passover his face.
All it took was a hand squeeze or a kiss on the cheek from
Hermione, and he melted into a puddle of contented goo.
Disgusting, really. Theo was never going to forgive
Granger for celebrating this without him.
To be fair, if Theo was half as happy as Draco was about blowing
up his ring, he and Blaze were probably doing the celebration
of their own. She twirled to the last dredges
of her wine around in her glass. She'd lost count of how many
she'd had so far. It was the only way to endure a
crowd of Gryffindors on a good day, which today was certainly
not. Still, she wasn't far enough
gone to not register another voice coming to the table,
though Granger's banshee shriek of joy certainly sobered her up
by at least a drink or two. Sorry I'm late, you should have
seen the mess the second years made of Mandrake repotting.
Draco drawled something about earmuffs and the entire table
burst into laughter, switching Granger to A1 armed hug.
The new arrival reached the other hand out to Draco to shake
as it passed in front of her face.
The ring on his hand sobered her up faster than any potion Draco
could ever invent. A gem encrusted family Crest
surrounded by 28 tiny diamonds. The fact that she didn't
immediately know the Crest placed its owner as a blood
traitor. But if he had a ring, it didn't
matter. The fragments of what he'd said
on his arrival came back to her. Mandrake's second years.
Her eyes trailed up his arm as a heady mix of hope and dread
coiled in her gut. Hope because it meant one last
chance. Dread because Neville fucking
Longbottom Fuck.