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It all started on a Thursday.
Percy had taken the morning off work, a rare occurrence, since the law waited for no one, as the head judge liked to say. Pansy was out of the house already, her empty espresso cup left on the kitchen counter. As different as their occupations were, they were both equally busy – probably one of the reasons why their relationship worked so well.
But being busy had disadvantages – as evidenced by the cardboard boxes stacked in the corner of the bedroom, still not unpacked, even though Pansy had moved in three months ago. Percy should use the time before his doctor’s appointment to unpack one, do something nice for Pansy since he wasn’t working.
He squinted at the labels. Samples Summer Collection - no way Percy was touching Pansy’s perfume ingredients, that was an accident waiting to happen. School stuff/journals – too private. This was meant to be a nice gesture, not invasive. Spare clothes/Towels – that sounded innocent enough.
Percy peeked into the box. To his relief, the insides matched the description exactly. Carefully, he sorted the towels by size and floated them, neatly folded, into the cupboard. Humming under his breath, he continued to the clothes, casting quick ironing charms over the t-shirts and trousers before hanging them in Pansy’s part of the wardrobe. It was then that he noticed the jumper.
Dark blue, a little faded, nothing special besides the embroidered logo on the chest: a sort of c-shape, with two arrows (or runes?) pointing upwards through it. He studied it for a second, then shrugged and hung it in the wardrobe.
And maybe that could have been the end of it.
But there was a second incident, a few days later in Hermione’s office. Percy was there to provide legal counsel on some of the more sweeping changes Hermione was planning in her new role as Chief Secretary to the Minister for Magic. They’d just finished the first round of suggestions when Percy’s eyes fell on the mug holding Hermione’s quills and biros. There was a symbol on it, tilted such that Percy couldn’t quite make it out. He leaned forward, and yes – it was the same symbol he’d seen on the jumper.
“Everything alright, Percy?” Hermione asked, noticing his distraction.
“I was just wondering what that symbol on your mug means.”
“Oh.” For a second, there was a hint of discomfort on her face. “It’s the logo of a club I used to be part of.” She looked back down at the document, her expression professional again. “Now, where were we?”
Percy thought about this interaction more than was probably wise - it had been only two sentences exchanged over a mug on a desk, after all. But it had been… off, somehow. It wasn’t like Hermione to be this evasive. And what was this club that apparently both Hermione and Pansy had been part of?
+++
He really should have let it go, but he’d always been stubborn to a fault.
They were out for dinner at their favourite spot, a tiny little restaurant with a half-page food menu and a wine list that resembled a book. “As it should,” Pansy said every time, perusing the list for a good ten minutes. Percy loved that she knew about wine – not in a pretentious way, but she actually knew about grapes and soils and what the resulting wine might go with.
“Today is a day for a light red,” she said decisively, and Percy nodded.
Then, as nonchalantly as he could: “Hermione said you were in the same club, back in the day.” It wasn’t technically true, since he’d deduced that part himself, but Percy thought it would start the conversation off on the wrong foot if he admitted this all stemmed from a logo on a jumper and a mug.
“She said what now?” Pansy was smiling, but had stopped leafing through the wine list. “Why were you talking about me?”
“We weren’t,” Percy hastened to say. “It was just because of the mug she had on her desk… It had this symbol on it–”
Pansy cut him off. “Oh gosh, she still has that mug?” She rolled her eyes. “It’s been ten years since we left Hogwarts.”
A club at Hogwarts? Surely Percy knew about all the clubs at Hogwarts. He’d been Prefect!
But then the wine arrived, and Pansy laced her fingers through his and filled him in on her latest research into rare botanicals, and while Percy didn’t quite forget about the mysterious club, he didn’t want to break the spell of the moment. Anyone with eyes could see that Pansy was beautiful – stunning, even – but not many knew that she was also brilliant and creative. Sometimes Percy could hardly believe he got to see this side of her.
So he left the puzzle of the club behind.
+++
Until he was at Gringotts a few days later, to legally witness Susan Bones being sworn in as the new Deputy Chief. She handed him a fountain pen to sign on the dotted line. Distracted by the gravitas of the situation, he almost missed it – but there it was, engraved in silver on the side of the pen: the now familiar symbol of two arrow-shaped runes piercing the half circle.
“Congratulations,” he said afterwards, shaking her hand.
“Thank you.” Susan looked pleased, her posture radiating a calm confidence. She had every right to, having reached the heights of the wizarding finance world before even turning thirty.
“I couldn’t help but notice the engraving on your pen.” Percy tried to make it sound like an off-hand comment, not something that had been digging its way into his subconscious like a parasitic worm. “I don’t think I’ve seen that symbol before.”
“Oh, that,” Susan smiled. “It’s the symbol for Alpha Centauri.”
“Like the star?” Percy asked, baffled.
Susan huffed a laugh, her expression unreadable. “Something like that.”
+++
Percy left Gringotts, turning the information over in his mind. A club called Alpha Centauri? Was it an astronomical society? But why would Pansy, Hermione and Susan be part of it? Neither Pansy nor Susan had even taken Astronomy in their OWLs.
It simply made no sense.
Percy told himself it didn’t matter, that Hogwarts had been a long time ago. Who even cared what club Pansy, Susan and Hermione had been part of?
But it bothered him that he couldn’t fit the pieces together. And why had they kept items with the club logo? He couldn’t leave the thoughts alone. It became a habit, almost obsessive – whenever Percy had a moment to himself, he would find himself examining the pieces of the puzzle, trying to fit them together.
What did Pansy, Hermione, and Susan have in common that might make them members of the same club? They’d all gone to Hogwarts, of course. But other than that? Pansy was a perfume maker, an icon in the fashion world. Hermione was on track to become Minister for Magic, running a campaign that centered an actual push for systematic change. Susan was the highest-ranking non-Goblin in Gringotts. There was simply no overlap, except that they were all exceptionally successful.
+++
Percy was on the terrace of an ostentatious manor house, smoking a cigarette and once again pondering the puzzle of Alpha Centauri, when a glass door slid open behind him and Blaise stepped out, his black curls swept back and shiny.
“Hiding from the crowds again?” he asked, leaning his back against the railing. “Lucky for you, Pansy is holding it down for the both of you – she’s amassed quite a rapt audience.”
Percy smiled. “Of course she has.” Maybe it was the Cava that loosened his tongue, but he surprised himself by saying: “Do you know anything about a club called Alpha Centauri?”
Blaise laughed, surprised. “Know about it? Course I do. I was part of it.”
Percy’s head shot around. “You were? What is it?”
“Oh, I can’t tell you that,” Blaise grinned. “It’s secret.”
“But it was all the way back at Hogwarts!” Percy couldn’t believe it. Here he had finally found someone who wouldn’t dodge the topic outright, and he still wasn’t getting any answers. “You can’t be serious.”
“I swore an oath,” Blaise replied serenely.
Percy swore, too – quite colourfully, even. Blaise was unfazed.
“I’ve been trying to figure out for weeks what Pansy, Susan, and Hermione could possibly have in common,” Percy muttered, more to himself than to Blaise. “And now I have you to add into the mix.”
“Well,” Blaise shrugged. “I would say we’re all young and beautiful, but Susan has looked like a middle-aged woman since she was fourteen. Rich and successful though, that works, doesn’t it?” He shot Percy another grin, and with an affected wave, he returned inside.
+++
After that, things got worse. Blaise’s words kept playing in Percy’s head. Rich and successful, rich and successful, rich and successful…
Blaise was right of course: all four of them had had meteoric rises in their respective fields.
Why exactly was it that all members of this Alpha Centauri club seemed to ascend the career ladder so quickly? Did the club have anything to do with it? Percy’s mind helpfully supplied ideas of secret societies, pulling strings from behind the scenes.
Once the thought occurred to him, it wouldn’t leave. What if the Alpha Centauri club traded in secret meetings, favours, or even bribes?
Pansy had changed since her days as a teenage blood purist. Of course she had, otherwise Percy would never have fallen for her. She’d realised that she’d been a terrible person back then – she said so herself quite freely, never trying to avoid culpability. So, even if the Pansy of the past would have condoned secret backroom deals, she would never accept her current success resting on it.
Or would she?
She sometimes complained about people judging her for her past, or for not having gone to the renowned French universities.
And what about the others? Percy started to doubt every single one of them. Hermione, for example: She was a Gryffindor and a war hero, but she was ruthless, too. How far would she go to bring about a more equal society?
+++
It all came to a head when Percy came home to find Pansy curled up on the sofa, reading a mystery novel. It would have been the picture of peacefulness, if she hadn’t been wearing the jumper.
Percy could barely look at her, the embroidered logo on her chest taunting him. Here he was, in his own flat, faced with the possibility that his girlfriend’s success might be based on cronyism and fraud.
“What’s going on?” Pansy asked with a frown, closing her book. “You’ve been acting weird.”
“No, I haven’t,” Percy lied.
Pansy scoffed. “I love you, but you’re being ridiculous. Tell me what’s up?”
The easy affection was more than Percy could handle. All of the pent-up thoughts burst out of him, the evidence and his conclusions, the doubts and suspicions. When his words ran out, he was out of breath, exhausted.
Pansy looked at him, wide-eyed.
“Do you have nothing to say for yourself?” Percy challenged.
“Percy, darling,” she said, her voice soft and disbelieving. “I didn’t want to tell you about the club because it’s embarrassing. We all were teenagers, you know?”
“What?”
“Alpha Centauri was a centaur fan club Susan launched. But really, we mostly talked about how hot we thought Professor Firenze was.”
Percy could only stare. “A centaur fan club?” he choked out.
His mind was spinning, pieces of the puzzle rearranging themselves to match the evidence presented. He reevaluated the facts, one thought leading to the next like a chain of tumbling dominoes, until he reached the logical conclusion: Attraction to centaurs was the secret to success.