femexchange_mod (femexchange_mod) wrote in fem_exchange, @ 2008-01-14 23:22:00 |
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Entry tags: | millicent/pansy, pg13 |
Happy holidays, joeyjames! (Millicent/Pansy, PG-13)
title: she loves me, he loves me not
author: sappholococcus
recipient: joeyjames
rating: PG-13
length: 3,240
pairing(s): Millicent/Pansy (unrequited), very small hints of Pansy/Draco and Pansy/OMC implied
summary: At Hogwarts, Pansy occupied all of Millicent’s attention. Years later, Millicent encounters her old crush – and many things have changed, but others have not changed at all.
warning(s): spoilers for DH (epilogue not included).
author's note: this came out much more bittersweet than actually angsty, for which I apologise. But there are copious amounts of UST, and I tried my best to incorporate the prompts secrecy, during/post war, reassessing first impressions as situations change, falling in love and angsting about it. Happy holidays, joeyjames!
The estate was enormous, even by the standards of the wizarding world's pureblood elite. It was made of imported white marble, its walls adorned with frescoes reminiscent of ancient Rome, and fresh bouquets scented the air from every corner. Every inch spoke of abundant wealth, but it was a secretive estate too - Harold Peabody was a collector of magical artefacts, and though he had bought himself the right to many of the less than legal items, it was required that he keep them under guard.
This was where Millicent worked after graduating from Hogwarts. She was either too intelligent or too Slytherin to guard the artefacts themselves - she suspected it was the latter - so her talents were reserved for protecting Peabody himself. Though she was un-Marked, her unusually large and muscular appearance instilled fear where her brainpower often didn't - a fact which had been exploited by Slytherins higher on the food chain during school, especially Pansy.
At times, she thought that Peabody respected her, at least a little. He certainly never looked at her funny, the way some men did: the kind of look that said they knew she wasn't in a relationship and never really had been. The sort of 'oh, I bet that crazy spinster would love to tumble in the sack with my sorry arse' look, which made her want to claw their eyes out. It was for this reason that Millicent disliked men.
To get them to stop looking at her, Millicent tried gaining weight. She tried putting on more muscle with extra training. It only earned her a few snide comments from the other Peabody Estate guards, mostly concerning her agility. That stopped when she sicced her cat on them.
"Now, Bulstrode," Peabody had said, clearly trying to hold back a grin. "How on earth will my guards be able to stop a real threat if they can't even stop a cat?"
"Perhaps you ought to get new guards, sir," Millicent had replied succinctly. Much to her very great surprise, he had. He even joked about testing them against the black, yellow-eyed cat that never left Millicent's side - a cat that had somehow survived past normal magical pet age, simply because she was cranky and spiteful enough - but that never happened.
Millicent decided she liked her boss.