Draco's Detour

The old woman was still staring at her. Pansy Parkinson kept her eyes focused on the magazine laid out on the table in front of her and squared her shoulders, trying to shrug off the woman's gaze. I know you are staring at me, leave me alone.

It did not work. On the contrary, the old woman took it as an invitation. "I had a lost love once," she said, her voice shaky with age. Pansy rolled her eyes at the article she was trying to read and wondered why she had wondered into this muggle coffee shop in the first place. "I was very young then," the old woman's watery eyes traveled over Pansy inquiringly. "'Bout your age, I should think."

Pansy sighed loudly and lifted her eyes to the ceiling before finally turning them on the woman. Much older than Pansy had first assumed, she had to be near a hundred, Pansy thought, taking in the thick layer of pancake makeup, the heavy rouge sunk deeply into the wrinkles, red lipstick in a shade far to bright for her pale skin was slightly smeared around the edges of her mouth. And on her teeth, Pansy shuttered as the woman smiled. Fluffy white hair thinned on top her head, pale pink scalp showing through. Skeletal thin, there was a hump between her shoulder blades and a silver cane propped up against the table she sat at.

"I loved him," the woman was saying. "And I thought he loved me too."

"Why are you telling me this?" Pansy asked haughty. Muggle women, most especially old muggle women were hardly worth her time.

The old woman nodded to the magazine, the title of the article Pansy had been reading blazed across the top of the page in bold black type.

HOW TO WIN HIM BACK,

5 Tips on How to Bring Back a Lost Love

The old woman slid herself wearily across the padded bench, nearer to Pansy. "My love ran off with another woman. Gave her his name, and his ring; those I'd so longed to wear." Pansy's pug nose crinkled at the woman's coffee laden breath. "Tell me about your boy," the old woman encouraged, lipstick smeared teeth making another appearance as she smiled.

"Draco," Pansy said, saying his name aloud somehow freeded her. "His engagement has been announced, they're to be married next spring." Tears welled up in her eyes as she imagined the hated Astoria Greengrass gracing the lawn of Malfoy Manor, the only part of Draco's home she had ever seen, never having been invited to enter. She'd gone to Draco, the day after the battle, running up the front path in her anxiety to comfort him, only to be turned away at the door by a haughty Narcissa Malfoy. Three weeks worth of daily owls had gone unanswered. That had been two years ago, and the pain of the silent rejection still stabbed. What did Astoria Greengrass have that she did not, Pansy wondered. Each family was in good standing; true the Greengrass' more so since the war, but still… And it had been she, Pansy, who had been Draco's girlfriend at Hogwarts; true, he had never taken her out on Hogsmeade weekends, but still…

Pansy wiped away one spilled tear from her cheek and glanced at the old woman, "She doesn't deserve him," she whispered.

"Nor did the woman my Tom married," the old woman grimaced with the remembrance.

"She was the village tramps daughter; an ugly little thing with one eye that always pointed that way," a knarred, arthritis ridden finger pointed sideways toward the large coffee shop window. Pansy brought her fingers to her mouth, stifling a short laugh. "My Tom was handsome. The most handsome in all of Little Hangleton," she glanced at Pansy, beaming with pride. "That's where we lived, Little Hangleton. This was long ago," she patted the back of Pansy's hand, veins jutting out from her own hand like mountain ridges "just after the Great War."

Pansy's brow furrowed, how could a muggle know about the war? Unless… yes, she had heard tell of muggles warring; one, or was it two, that they defined as World Wars.

"Draco is quite good looking," Pansy interjected.

"Tom was an only child, and lived in the largest house in the village. And oh, what a grand home it was."

"I've been to the Manor," Pansy sounded almost defensive.

"My Tom used to take me on carriage rides in the country," the old woman said wistfully, her eyes glazing over again.

"Draco took me to the Yule Ball," Pansy interjected and the old woman's gaze returned to the present.

The old woman blinked, "He returned less than a year later," she continued with her remembrance; reveling in the ability to tell the story, it had been so long since she had been able to speak of Tom aloud, even though she thought of him every day since. "Without his wife. It was whispered that she had tricked him into the marriage," lifting a napkin she dabbed at her eyes as the pang of Tom being with another woman reached out through time and twanged at her heart. Sighing deeply, she regained herself. "I was engaged by then, and could not go to him, as much as I'd wanted to," she saw the confusion in Pansy's eyes and realized just how much the rules of society had changed. "It would not have been proper for an engaged woman to call upon a married man," she explained quietly. Pansy's chin lifted slightly with the sudden understanding and her lips parted with an unvoiced 'oh'.

"I would see Tom from time to time, at the shops or a dinner party." This gave Pansy great hope, and she imagined running in to Draco at Flourish and Blotts; his confession of his great love for her, and only her. His begging of her forgiveness and their running away together, giggling in their defiance of his parents, who, Pansy was sure, were the only reason Draco had removed her from his life and were behind this travesty of an engagement.

"I married my fiancé, even though I did not love him," the old woman continued, and Pansy's dream burst like a wet bubble. "There was nothing else to be done. Tom could not divorce; not only was it unheard of then, but he did not know where she was. And even if he'd been able to, or if she were dead," the lipstick smeared mouth curled into a sneer, "society would have not allowed it."

"He died, sixteen years later," another tear fell from her red rimmed eyes. "I'd moved away by then, my husband's career brought us to London," she gestured toward the large window and the street beyond, "and read about the deaths in the newspaper. Very odd deaths they were too, he and his parents all found dead in their drawing room."

"How did they die?" Pansy asked quietly, her eyes wide. She would not regret the death of Lucius or Narcissa, but the image of Draco lying dead in the drawing room of Malfoy Manor terrified her.

The old woman shrugged. "No one knows. Food poisoning perhaps. I was unable to attend the funeral," she continued, passing over the cause of the deaths, it no loner mattered, "quite swollen with child and it was unwise for me to travel at the time. But I did visit his grave several years ago," she thought of the disturbance of the earth that covered Toms grave.

The old woman stood slowly, her bones protesting as she leaned on her cane. The story weighed heavily on her heart and it was time to go home. She paused and patted Pansy on her shoulder. "Good luck to you dear, I hope you find the love you are looking for. But should it turn out that your boy is not the boy for you; do not dwell on his memory." She inched toward the door and the street outside, "Take it from me, it does no good."

Pansy watched the old woman shuffle out the door and down the street. Draco was the boy for her, and she would get him back, she thought and returned her attention back to the magazine article.