dolorous_ett | Artichokes, anyone? (or Dinner Party From Hell) (Reply)

For ages now I've been toying with a fic in which Hermione, having recently become engaged to a member of the pureblood elite, is asked to take part in a dreadful evening at the Malfoys', as her initiation into pureblood society.

The idea is workable. Individual scenes are fine, but they don't fit together properly, and there's a block in the middle that just won't take shape, and I find myself doing the oddest things in order to avoid writing!

I'm tired of ignoring writer's block and hoping it'll go away, and am now just attempting to write the story in any way I can, and hoping it'll sort itself out. So I thought I'd post the first couple of pages, which are in reasonable shape, and hope that someone reads this and feels able to give me some feedback.

By the time she was walking up the carriage drive towards the Great House, Hermione was beginning to wonder what had possessed her to accept an invitation to “a little supper party” at the Malfoys’ in the first place.
She had had to stand outside the gates for over an hour before she even made it to the Great House, waiting, shivering as dew seeped into the hem of her expensive velvet evening gown, and her carefully styled hair reverted to its usual sorry frizz in the evening damp, while the servants and master of the house disarmed the anti-Muggle wards on the borders of the Malfoy property.
Her hosts had been most solicitous and apologetic. Pansy had come rushing within minutes of the first roar of energy, a train of House Elves in her wake, laden with shooting sticks, rugs and hot chocolate laced with rum. “Darling, so sorry, how mortifying!… Such a nightmare… we just never thought… so careless – quite saw you as one of us!” as unholy energies crackled and dissipated harmlessly in the dark. “Thank heavens for your curse-breaking skills – I’ll never say a word against women’s libbers again! – you could have been killed!”

The last time they had met face to face had been the day they left Hogwarts. Pansy’s mother had been sent to Azkaban after Voldemort’s defeat a month before their finals, and she had done very badly in her NEWTs as a result. Hermione’s clumsy attempts at commiseration had been very badly received.
A girl of Pansy’s background was generally expected to marry straight out of Hogwarts, and with such poor NEWT results, no other options had been open to her. Narcissa Malfoy’s health had been failing since Lucius had been sent to Azkaban, and at Voldemort’s defeat she had crumbled – with both Pansy’s parents now in Azkaban and Narcissa unable to cope with the household, an early marriage had seemed the only logical step. The last Hermione had seen of Pansy was a bridal photograph in the Daily Prophet from which she had waved, smiling demurely, on Draco’s arm.
While Pansy was perfecting her social and housekeeping skills, Hermione had spent the past four years in Nubia, working as Gringotts’ youngest ever accelerated-entry trainee curse-breaker. With Voldemort out of the way, she was now free to take up the job she had always secretly dreamed of, where pursuit of knowledge of long-lost cultures went hand in hand with adventure and hard cash.
There, she had met Geraint Rodway, handsome only child of the Hampshire Rodways: thirty years old, Level Three curse-breaker, tall and tanned, with a shock of floppy blond hair, a flashing white smile and a cut-glass accent. It had not been love at first sight. Hermione had despised Geraint as an upper class twit who owed his career to friends in high places, while he had made no secret of the fact that he found her shrill, pushy and far, far too serious. That is, until a booby-trapped secret tunnel was discovered in the notoriously tricky Pyramid of Eternal Torment, and Hermione and Geraint were sent together to deal with it.
It had proved more than their masters had bargained for. Two months had passed and Hermione and Geraint had been given up for dead by the time they emerged, racked and twitching with curses, skeletally thin and covered in weeping sores – but with the fabled Scarab of Doom in Hermione’s backpack, together with a score of lesser artefacts. While trapped in the pyramid, they had obviously managed to come to some form of understanding: from then on they were inseparable, and the engagement had been announced a mere month after that.
So when Hermione had a fortnight’s home leave, it was only natural for Geraint to ask Cousin Pansy to introduce Hermione to polite Pureblood society. “You’ll be moving in these circles when I’m promoted back to London – better get used to it now,” he had said, and Hermione, delighted at the prospect of meeting Geraint’s childhood friends, had been happy to agree.
The day after she arrived at her parents’ house in Bicester, a little gilt supper invitation from Pansy Malfoy had arrived, clasped in the talons of a haughty, well-groomed eagle owl. Her father, an enthusiastic member of the RSPB, had been in raptures over the creature, which had hissed and snapped at his fingers before leaving through the kitchen window with a contemptuous swoosh.

***

Once the Muggle-repelling charms had been properly neutralised, Pansy led Hermione through marble halls to an antechamber where drinks were being served.
“Here at last, my love!” Pansy cooed at her husband.
“Well – what are we waiting for?” came an impatient voice. “Let’s eat! Dining Hall, isn’t it?”
“No, darling,” said Pansy. “I thought – since Ceridwen and Urgulanilla are indisposed and the Ponsonbys cancelled – so cold and empty at this time of year – the Winter Breakfast Room… there’s a lovely, roaring fire…”
“Fine, splendid, whatever. Let’s get a move on, please! Crabbe here’s going mad with hunger – don’t want him breaking up the furniture now, do we?”
The bulky figure of Vincent Crabbe, looking uncomfortable in itchy Harris tweed dress robes, sidled through the door, acknowledged Hermione with a clumsy bow, and lumbered off determinedly in the direction of the food. After him came Blaise Zabini, whom Hermione vaguely remembered from school, a slim, elegant young man with laughing dark eyes, which he rolled at Draco as he passed.
There were going to be six of them, it appeared: Hermione, the Malfoys, Crabbe, Blaise Zabini and Professor Snape. As they proceeded down the hall, Hermione noticed that she and Pansy were the only two women there.

***

They sat down to supper in a cosy, wood-panelled room, with a view of empty November flowerbeds, a park, and beyond that, dark and rather sinister woods. There was indeed a fine fire in the grate, and what had probably been ancestral portraits lining the walls, but these now only featured hurriedly deserted background scenes. Was it Hermione’s imagination, or could she hear scandalised whispers of “Mudblood!” coming from the empty frames?