She shouldn't be out at all hours of the night in Regent's Park.

Pansy shouldn't be fantasizing about having a proper witch's ritual, dancing on he father's grave and damning his soul to every seven of the hells, either.

Sane people didn't spend their nights planning it to the last detail, though most sane people were able to sleep. The luxury of sanity; to be blissfully unaware during the witching hour.

At least it was a clear night, albeit cool, and she pulled her jacket tighter around her person before her hand slipped down to check for her wand tucked into her boot. The wood was comforting against her skin as it had ever been; the only defense she'd had besides the wiles her family had been keen to cultivate. Sex was not what she looked to trade on these restless nights out, however, and so her wand was close at hand.

When her mind drifted to the spell-book lying open in the library at home, the dark magic to dabble with souls and the dead, Pansy had to wonder again if she truly was a bit mad. It wasn't really worth it. Not really. Though, the surety of hell for the man who'd made hers didn't seem so very terrible.

Surely justice was a pastime of the sound of mind?

Whin Terrace just wasn't as good for sleepless wandering as Ivy's Run had always been, and though his workshop was mostly intact, Tristan could not quite bring himself to take up an idle project simply to occupy his hands. He would have to find real work, soon, or create something far-reaching for himself; stillness sat very ill with him, indeed, these past several days, due no doubt to so many months of its enforcement upon his person.

He chafed at the necessity of eating more or less regularly, to provide a stable environment for the dual dose of potions he was yet required to take, and which made him, if possible, more restless than was his usual wont at night. Worse, his body vividly remembered curling around Gwen's slim form and acquiring several hours' rest at a time, and the mocking reminder embittered him against sleeping at all.

There were other places he might have gone, but enough had changed elsewhere in the past year that he felt it might be wise to ascertain that all was as it should be in London, and at least peeking at the wee hours of morning meant that there were not throngs of people to avoid in the streets. His feet turned him toward the park without his conscious acknowledgment, and he looked up to gaze at a familiar lake, shrugging to himself and beginning to wander its perimeter. He could not have identified one sense, but something alerted him to another human presence, and he glanced around indifferently, eventually spotting a small figure on a bench some several meters away.

Struck by an odd memory, he edged in that direction, mentally shaking a fist at fate as he neared enough to make out a face.

"Somehow I feel as though we have done this previously," Tristan observed wryly, pausing a few steps from her seat. "Greetings, Miss Parkinson; I see your perhaps less-than-advisable evening habits have not altered greatly since last we spoke."

The voice, a man's, had Pansy's hand at her wand again, but a glance over her shoulder and that he could name her had her smoothing her hand over denim and leather instead. "I've never been terribly good at advice, Mr. Bole," she replied evenly, rising sinuously from the bench and moving about the other side, dark eyes on him.

She didn't like having to look up at any man. Not anymore.

"It was not my intent to disturb your repose," Tristan said sincerely, bowing his apology. "I shall leave you, if you would prefer it, and be on my way; I was simply surprised to see a familiar face about at this hour."

There was something... off... about her presentation, based on what he recalled, but it had been quite some time ago, even ignoring the year he'd missed, and he was not about to base a character assumption on information so aged and unclear. That she was wary was understandable, but the chill that clung to her held his attention a moment longer than was necessary.

"I should think it is I who would be surprised, as this is my haunt for the witching hour," she commented, voice cool and disinterested. It'd been years since she'd spent any time with the tall man before her. Though she'd not seen her 'friends' for at least six months, more for Blaise in his wedded and familial bliss. At least Tristan Bole was genuine as far as the members of their House went; he'd never claimed to be a friend then or now, only to let the years gather.

Pivoting about on her stiletto'd boot, she began to clip along the paved path. "You may accompany me if you wish," she said then, hands slipping into the pockets of her little leather jacket.

Oddly amused by the hazily-optional command, so in contrast with the deliberate apathy of her initial response, Tristan fell into step beside Pansy, his much longer legs allowing him to keep easy pace as she punctuated her way along the stone walk. Little as he had seen her, to begin with, he'd not ever expected to find her in denims and a leather jacket, but both suited her, in a way, beyond being well-fitted.

"Is there a planned route, to this haunting? An agenda, perhaps? I believe I must have been going about it quite wrongly to have overlooked so many details." There was a decided spark to Pansy's sort of humor, and if he caught the wrong end of her wand for it, at least he would be sure he was awake.

A glance over at her unlikely companion showed an odd look to his face, canny and something else, though she couldn't place it. "Three times around the lake, a bonfire when the moon reaches its zenith and incense to draw the spirits. Or did you know?" she said dryly, dark eyes finding the path again.

This eve's, or more likely early morning hours', chance meeting was as unusual to her as their first re-acquaintance two years prior. Pansy couldn't recall the details of their conversation, but the odd feeling of picking up in the middle instead of starting anew was an echo from the past and it nearly irritated her. She did not want familiarity that wasn't of her choosing.

"Clockwise or widdershins?" Tristan prompted, strangely pleased by the utter absurdity of this conversation when he had not set out expecting to find any at all. "And what of the new moon, when the point of zenith is invisible to mortals on this earth? There must surely be some specific rite for such a thing. Perhaps I ought to be making notes."

He'd had no goal, really, in engaging her in the first place; it had been whim and available opportunity, and contrary to character as it was for him, particularly of late, to seek interaction for its own sake, he had chosen in that direction.

"Perhaps you ought. You obviously have not studied your grimoires as you should have. Tsk," she replied humorlessly. Her dark eyes slid to him again and a part of her was irritated to find a slight turn to his lips. "It is widdershins when you wish hell upon a person and don't mind the consequences to yourself," she added, forcing her gaze forward even as her brows knit in a delicate frown.

Pansy was half tempted to walk away, disappear, but the prickle of pique was the most warmth she'd felt on her skin since she'd torched Choyer and despite the source, it was welcome. For now.

Noting with something between mild suspicion and amusement that they were, in fact, circling the lake anticlockwise, Tristan persisted, "Be assured that I find myself verily ashamed, though I believe the family book, itself, to still be hidden away in one of the attics, safe from my then-six-year-old sister, who I was somewhat concerned would manage to call demons upon the house by accident."

The story was true; Regan had unearthed the book in one of her escapes from her nurse's overbearing supervision, and he'd found her poring over its pages, the tome having evidently recognized her as blood, despite her age.

"Might I inquire as to whom I am aiding you in the damning of, or is that too personal a question for the evening?"

"It should be a personal thing, you'd think," Pansy commented, voice warming for the first time as anger pricked at her, the same spark of it that had driven her to destroy the business she'd created from the ground up. "But as it's a matter of public record that my father was a Death Eater, that he committed atrocious crimes against humanity and the wizarding world and that someone ought to pay for that, I figured it'd be just to be sure he was in hell."

"Though," she added, warming to the subject, "it'd be more effective if I actually danced naked upon his grave under a blood moon, widdershins, with a few accoutrements to help things along." The anger abated some and she sniffed. "This will do for tonight, however."

She did not glance at him, but added, "likely best if you kept such things from little girls. Your sister is lucky to have someone who cared to do so."

"She was, yes," Tristan murmured, dropping off into thought for a moment. Would that there had been someone to protect her from her protector. At least she has had Gwen. My one grace.

Shaking himself as free of the shadow as much as he was, would ever be, able, he watched Pansy with a slightly arch expression. From her heated report, the Parkinson patriarch's death had not done nearly enough to repay his crimes against his daughter, nevermind humanity and the wizarding world, and he was struck by how very low the lives of so many of his schoolmates had been brought by a war that a great number of them had had little enough to do with.

"Well, as there is no blood moon this eve, I suppose you must make do," he observed, picking up the thread of original conversation once more. "Are there not park regulations for bonfires, or does the task at hand supercede such niceties?"

"Niceties are for those who give a damn," Pansy said idly, lids shutting as she tipped her face to the sky. She could still see the brightness of the full moon through her lids and she wondered at her love affair with the celestial being that occasionally deigned to gift her presence to the night instead of the sun who chased nightmares away with the dawn. Perhaps when she'd lost the knack of sleeping when it was actually dark.

Or perhaps because the shadows hid a multitude of sins and transgressions, the cracks and blemishes that couldn't be ignored in the starkness of the light.

"Rebellion it is, then," Tristan concluded, a wry twist to his lips.

He studied Pansy unabashedly as she lifted her face to the moon-drenched darkness, aware of some, but wondering at what else had wounded her, turned her from jaded to bitter in the length of time they'd not spoken. He'd not made himself close to her, in their brief reacquaintance, and they certainly were not close, now, but something in the razor-edged defeatedness of her manner caught his attention and held fast.

"It's some sort of living," she replied, lids fluttering open again. "An affirmation you're here even if it's only to be rebuked."

It was a melancholy thought, or should have been, but the only thing that filled Pansy at that moment was apathy. She wondered at Draco, where her errant boy had gotten himself, mind flitting to Blaise and Theo, to Miles and Tracey. They were all so very broken, though Blaise had found his salvation in the disgustingly light Hufflpuff, one who tried to be like them and never would.

It made her skin crawl to think of the closeness she'd feigned for him, the veiled approval of Blaise's union with Hannah. The woman was a sticky, honey sweet thing who Pansy always felt that she couldn't quite scrape off for several days.

Her thoughts meandered back to her present companion though, and again Pansy turned her gaze to his profile. He was looking at her and in the darkness she couldn't see the color of his eyes, nor could she recall from years prior. Tristan was exceptionally tall and it irritated her that she had to tip her face up to study him.

"Where have you been then? Unlike most of my appearances outside my home, yours are not a matter of public record."

"Waverly, and mercifully, no, they are not. I'm fairly certain it would be bad for business, at least presently." He had no reason either for giving her the truth or lying, and having chosen the former, Tristan was surprisingly unworried about her spreading the information about. There was nothing to gain by it, and she did not strike him as a gossip, even given that most of her yearmates of their house were dead or mad.

It was obviously not to become a habit, this easy grant of information, particularly that information, but as much else of their encounter had been formed, whim won out over potentially wiser options.

Pansy glanced sharply in his direction. She knew of Waverly. Hell, she wasn't sure she wouldn't end up there herself, but the quietly canny and competent man at her side didn't seem like one who'd ever have cause to find himself there. The institute was for the wizards and witches unsafe for the general public, or themselves, and once put there, were never spoken of, much like the Squibs who cropped up in their pure lines.

"A little madness is the spice of life," she commented absently, finally looking at him.

Pansy wasn't sure, exactly, what she was looking for, but for that first time that evening she really focused on Tristan. "What was it like?" she asked then, wondering at what might be in store for her, too, wondering if he'd say anything more about it at all.

"Sterile," Tristan answered succinctly, which was most of what he remembered about the place, from the last fortnight he'd spent, aware, within its walls. "Quiet, I suppose, though not moreso than living alone."

He didn't know what other information she might have sought with the question, but left his words to that, not feeling the need to go into what detail he knew unasked.

Beaumaris was much that way these days, devoid of any life save herself and the few rooms she'd fill with the warmth of humanity, and deathly quiet. It was a haunting thing if one thought too long on it, even moreso considering what had transpired in the manor when her father was alive.

She had grown up there, though, and while some rooms were avoided with keen deliberation, Pansy was familiar and comfortable at the drafty castle manor.

"Quiet," she agreed finally, voice soft and introspective, almost spoken more for herself than the benefit of her current companion. "Much time to think. Too much time."

It was difficult to reconcile how very old, and yet how very young Pansy seemed in that brief flash of time, her voice fading almost to inaudibility in her absent observation. His innate reaction was the same, and Tristan kept his hands securely in his coat pockets, too wise by half in some things to think that she would welcome a comforting touch. She was not his sister, and from what he remembered, would not have the history to understand such an intent.

"Solitude is a weapon as much as a haven," he responded at length, contemplating his own time stranded with his thoughts.

Pansy glanced over at him then, the comment having sluiced through her internal musings. She'd not really paid Tristan much mind for the most part, but somehow the conversation had devolved and she found herself frowning slightly as she studied him.

Waverly. He would know the deep sense of solitude, madness even, though to what degree she could not guess and didn't care to know. That he'd been there was all that mattered, made his words heavier to her than they'd been when he'd first interrupted her solitude.

"Either way, it echoes. Reminds you over and over that you're quite alone, whether for good or ill." It was more than she might have shared with anyone else, all of it, but Tristan was not hers to care for, to punish with her silence, nor would he spread her words about. He had his own secrets to keep as it was.

Still, she did not like the edge of her irritation anymore. It prickled, lacked the heat of her anger, and she felt more restless than ever.

Alone. That much was certainly true. He had family, the tiny scrap remaining, but peripherally now. Regan, his little shadow and companion, had become Gwen's without him, and rightfully and gladly so; he still would not think on what would have happened to her, alone, but she was not what she had been, and, of course, nor was Gwen.

He was grateful to have woken, but his nightmare had deposited him in a much-changed and imperfect reality, and there was little enough solid footing to start anew that did not begin in mud.

Their trek around the lake had slowed to the occasional step, and Tristan started them walking once more, needing motion to stir his stagnated thoughts. "Alone is capable of being pleasant enough; lonely is an unfortunate creature, and a greedy one... quiet being ideal nesting for either, though it feeds the latter to bloated proportion."

"You speak in rhyme, Tristan," Pansy said, a sigh in her voice though the breath of air did not pass her lips. She was tired, though not in any way that would allow her to sleep. Just weary of it all, dispassionate. It'd been a state of being she'd become intimate with this past year and though she was visiting the listless apathy less of late, it was never far away from her consciousness.

"Tell me a story. Dragons and a princess. A hero," she said then, not wanting any more talk of quiet and loneliness. Part of her wanted to leave and yet a stronger part was loathe to depart from this bit of human contact she'd allowed herself. "There should be a unicorn too," she added.

Brow arching at the odd request, though it was as in keeping with their sort of conversation as anything could be, really, Tristan started sifting his memory for something likely. "Walk with me, then," he requested, offering his arm and pausing for her decision. "Unicorns and dragons don't get on well, you know... you've deeded quite a challenging set of parameters."

Her dark eyes flicked up to his face. Half was shadowed, half lit by the moon.

For the first time that evening, Pansy's lips curled slightly. "Such are the only things worth having." She slipped her hand into the crook of his arm then. "Do carry on."

A mild smirk gracing his features, Tristan pointed them widdershins, and continued as he'd been bid. "Once, not so long ago, nor so very far from here, there lived a unicorn..."


SUMMARY: Tristan and Pansy come full circle, two years later, as they once again get reacquainted in the wee hours of the morning at Regent's Park.