HD 'Seeing Is Not Believing'
For subtlefire, for her birthday (belated, as I am, always)
Part One
Seeing things, that's what.
A whisk of distinctive black school robes, slapping 'round corners where they'd no business being. Two sets, if her eyes didn't deceive her: one bespoke Italian and the other Malkin-made and tatty at the hemline. Unexplained mouth-shaped purply-yellowing spots on Draco's neck at breakfast, just where he'd not see when performing a shaving spell—and wasn't that a tooth mark smack in the middle of Potter's nape, as well?
Pansy sat behind the little git in DADA and instantly noticed it. Blinked. Who was biting Potter, for Merlin's sake? Who would?
Four sets of trouser legs and two pairs of shoes that should have absolutely nothing to do with one another in a world right and proper sighted playing peekaboo from behind the tapestry of Gwendoline the Three Quarters-Giantess, over in the corridor that led to Hufflepuff.
Granted, it was a very large tapestry, as Gwen herself had also been very large, thereby abiding only a glimpse of footwear and attached legs in passing and, granted, Pansy would never admit she was snogging a Hufflepuff boy and thus owning up—by default and easy inference—to having a reason for her scurrying through that particular Hufflepuff-leading corridor two hours after curfew, but…still. It was an… anomaly.
One of many…recent…anomalies.
She paused for the merest of moments, cocking her chin enquiringly at the telltale feet in the manner of a terrier, that especial anomalous evening, and regarded well the half-untied trainer laces trailing over and intermingling inextricably with the handcut leather tracery on a certain pair of well-known loafers. The feet were shifting over one another and hark! Was that not a groan she heard, ever so faintly?
This, in the midst of her own mad rush back to Slytherin, for to offend Snape by skiving curfew was to take one's life in both hands and fling it willy-nilly to the winds. But…still. How odd. Those shoes, together?
Those sorts of noises, issuing from behind the very large tapestry?
Hmm. Huh. There'd been a great lot of uncouth slurping noises, too, or so she reflected, returned to making hasty tracks for fear of Filch. Someone had forgotten their silencing spells again, she'd warrant. Boys! Dratted boys!
Boys, yes; mates, no.
Partners, though. The two of them. In Potions of all places and it wasn't even always Professor Snape's doing. Thrice now they'd nonchalantly slid into the same work table bench and proceeded to huddle over a shared classroom cauldron, bickering, and thrice now Pansy and her opposing number Granger hadn't been able to keep their furtive gazes from the sight of those two heads butted up that close together. Was unnatural, that. Shouldn't be happening.
F'r'instance.
Wasn't that Potter with his lips practically grazing Draco's ear, nibbling away like some rodent? And wasn't that not her Draco—her closest male mate since childhood—not only allowing the liberty but giving the horrid Gryffindor a companionable poke in the ribs with a sharp elbow? And sneer-smirking too, in that fond manner he seldom let slip before the Slyth Youngers, much less before denizens of other Houses? And then didn't he slide a fortuitously unoccupied hand beneath the tabletop and proceed to make forearm and wrist motions that clearly indicated a grope-and-tickle in progress?All this directly under the gimlet eye of their Head of House? Her Draco?
No. Really, no. Couldn't be.
Pansy blinked, lips parted in faint horror. She shook her sleek head and swallowed hard. When the Mudblood glanced over at her again—meaningfully, and for the fifth time in as many minutes, the silly cow; she'd land them in suds with Snape if she wasn't more careful !—didn't the two of them then have to share an appalled and very speaking Look, lasting the space of several too-long seconds?
Oh, Merlin! Pansy did her best to deny it.
It couldn't be that Draco Malfoy—of 'the' Malfoys—high in the instep as he was, had taken up with that horrible nasty failed Pretender to Heir Slytherin! That—that Gryffindick! Of all things, that was the most ridiculous notion Pansy had ever had the misfortunate to muse over. Besides, the two of them despised and detested each other. The enmity level was well known; Pansy herself had contributed nobly to the cause.
Bah! Pish-tosh and nonsense. She was simply seeing things that simply weren't occurring. Not enough rest was the only possible explanation for such abominations; her Huffle was entirely too demanding a lover, keeping her out of the dungeons all hours. Her mind—it was playing silly tricks upon her, that's what.
Never mind that her mate Draco would slither out of the Commons regularly every night at about a quarter after ten, ostensibly on his way to the Prefect's bath but really not, judging by the way he smelt when he snuck back in again, hours later. Brutish, boyish and whiff-full of testosterone. Not by any means purely redolent of the lemon verbena soap he preferred nor the lavender-vanilla scented shampoo.
Pansy knew Draco had a bit of an obsession with self-maintenance but no teenaged boy bathed so particularly every single night for that long a period—not one! Nor claimed to. Not unless they were engaged in wanking and in dire need of some privacy to do it in, and teenaged boys could care less really about privacy when it came down to wanking. (Pansy was possessed of an elder brother, the nasty git, and she knew; stupidhead Erwin would pull one off over Playwitch with only the flimsiest of wards set on his rooms, as if he could care less who might stumble in, unawares. Bother! 'Cause she had, once, and it had been quite the grossest, most disgusting view ever!)
Boys! Icky beings, and very careless.
But not generally Draco. Draco was different; he liked being clean and tidy. And still, this was too much, even for the mildly anal-obsessive…it was hours in the Prefect's bathroom Draco was spending if that were actually the case and no simple wank took a normal boy hours. It was actually just a matter of moments, really. If that. Even if it was mutual sort of hand-to-bits shuffling fumble (this Pansy knew, too; she was possessed of a—of a boyfriend, currently, if that's what one would term that awful Huffle sop she was, er, seeing. On the sly, naturally. As her Housemates would understandably flay her and then roast her dead person alive for daring to do so.)
No. No one singular rapid cock-yank took up that much time nightly. Nor five nor ten. either. Not even if her mate were a regular sex-holic. Even teenaged boys had their limits.
In any case—Pansy shook her head solemnly over it, tossing back her trailing locks—she knew whereof she spoke, metaphorically, on the subject of teenaged boys and Draco was acting peculiarly, even for one.
As was Potter. Poor bewildered Mudblood; the famed Gryffindor Brain spent a large part of her swotting in the Library time with her eyes popped wider than wide, staring at Potter, and sporting an expression of not-too-well disguised horror on her little Mudblood face. Pity. Even Pansy had to feel for her, really. If she was shocked by the idea, how might the Mudblood be coping?
Not well. Not well a'tall. But it was the Weasel prat who truly amused Pansy. She saw—along with various sights she was positive she'd no business seeing—the way in which the Weasel's eyes followed after his mate. It was pathetic. Poor prat was literally green. The colour, not the feeling. She really couldn't, by any miraculous stretch, bring herself to believe the Weasel entertained softer feelings for either his best mate or his arch-enemy. It was more in the manner of a conscientious chap observing a train wreck from the sidelines: helpless to do anything about it but absolutely knowing the worst was happening, right there, right then, directly under his freckled nostrils.
Pansy shuddered over her DADA essay, hard at task, fudging one set of facts as she mentally ticked off others.
Yes, Potter was acting oddly. Moon-struck, calf-like, and fixated on Draco.
Not that she cared to observe Potter in a deliberate manner, other than as any normal person would observe a freak in passing. Not that she cared a fig for Potter, either, but this—this exacerbated oddness of his, in combination with Draco's distinctive weirdness; it was all telling.
For instance. (And here Pansy chewed her favourite self-inking quill in her immense abstraction.) There was evidence it wasn't just her addled mind deceiving her.
The empty fourth floor classroom in Astronomy Tower, the old unused one everyone who was anyone employed (even she and her dangerously Hufflelish boy) for their romantic assignations, was now sticking fast and the door simply couldn't be opened, even with a barrage of Alohamoras. And if her ears didn't deceive her, she recognized the breathy little yelps and moans one could just discern if one pressed an ear to the gap between the hinges or the antique keyhole...or half of them, at least. But Blaise agreed—it was Draco behind that door.
Worse yet, and this after she and Blaise (and her poor, shuffling, ill-at-ease Huffle date, who'd likely entertained high hopes for the night, bless him) had bumped, quite by coincidence, into a shocked and not terribly civil Weasel and Mudblood, it was Potter as well. Yes, Potter.
Behind the door. With the door locked against intruders. Firmly. Shutting he and Draco in.
It had been an unpleasant evening, all in all. She'd not managed to meet up again with her pet Huffle after, in private as planned, and the irritating Two of the bloody Golden Trio had insisted that she and Blaise come away with them to their ghastly Common room and waste time attempting to sort out the burning question of 'what to do about it!' As if—Pansy sniffed over the recollection of the bint's annoying screeching—there was anything to be done!
Hah! She'd like to see the Two drag Potter off of Draco. Or vice versa. Not fucking likely. Not from what she'd already witnessed. With her own eyes, sod it, and her vision was tip-top and no mistake. No Parkinson had ever worn specs—not like that grabby, panty, Draco-molesting Pottyhead.
No…no. These things…they happened. Pansy—to her eternal shame—now knew all about it.
The spring to her mate's stride he couldn't quite hide, no matter how he attempted to slouch along sedately. The look perpetually appearing in his eyes recently—far away and dreamy-like, as if always in the midst of pondering lovely vistas; no, no, that look couldn't be clicked off, no matter how often her friend publically brooded darkly over his texts in the library with his pointy chin tucked well down, concealing it. A fool would think he was completey absorbed; he wasn't. Pans had eyes and her eyes noted his eyes, which were always on Scarhead.
Silly boys. Really!
There was Potter's gaze, too, to be accounted for. That set of toad-green orbs which spent its every speccy moment stuck on a certain platinum blond bloke from a hostile House—that was undeniable. They were blatantly eye-fucking one another, the two of them. Right out in clear view of any observer with half a brain!
Pansy rolled her own, black with temper and snapping, and relished the feeling of superiority. No one had a clue as to what she got up to after hours, thanks ever so!
Bloody impolitic of them both but not to be naysay'd—and Potter's eyeballs, despite the specs, were an amazing shade and intensity of toadskin, even from a distance. Just as Draco mentioned...often. Pansy would give him that, at least. That Draco—her Draco!—had taken up randomly flushing and nervously licking his lips when caught in the twin beams of Potter's stare for no reason whatsoever simply folded itself into the dirty mélange of speculation Pansy stewed over.
There was something going on…something fishy as the ruddy Lake, something tangled as the Squid or the Whomping Willow.
Bookbags carelessly lying atop one another in seemingly empty classrooms. Scuffling noises, interspersed with giggles. Giggles! The immense amount of moisturizer Draco brewed up, every chance he could sneak into Potions when the Head wasn't in attendance. Potter's suspicious lurking 'round Slytherin territory as if he'd a right to be there. Merlin! Potter's neck, which was black-and-blue and love-bitten all over! And Draco's suddenly volatile attitude, which had notched down from its arctic altitude and fast approached human and p'raps even soppy, with it—why, he'd not randomly hexed the Third Years in ages! Nor insulted a Hufflepuff, which was unthinkable, really, as it practically his hobby, after Potter-baiting.
Odd events, occurring. Often.
Odd like the fact both boys walked bowlegged often enough even when it wasn't a Quidditch match scheduled. Stiff of leg and straight of spine but undeniably gimpy, as if they each overcompensated for...for whatever strenuous exercise it was that had them shake-kneed after. Potty's lips, normally bitten dry and chapped, now moist, swollen and the exact shade of Gryff scarlet more often then not. Draco whispering what sounded shamefully like cushioning Charms when he sat down to brekkers of a morning.
...There was, too, at least with Draco, a certain 'come-hither' shimmy to his pelvic bones that had not been evident before. Shameful!
And more than once Pansy had been forced to physically turn her head to the one side and gaze fixedly into the Mudblood's shocked eyes, so as not to retch after glimpsing Potter's crotch; this area which bulged outward against his flies in the gap visible between the flaps of his never properly buttoned robes after a typical Slytherin-Griffindork hallway confrontation…not that Potter was in any way deficient. Quite the contrary, if Pansy had down pat her basic Arithmetical Intuitive Tables and could accurately guesstimate circumference and mass. Potter might be a scrawny little git—as Pansy's best mate had always pointed out—but he was golden where it counted, apparently. Which might then go on to explain her best mate's air of blowsy distraction and the blackest night of his blown pupils, after yet another of those sill hallway run-ins.
Pooh! Pansy sneered to herself, snapping her teeth in frustration and hurridly scribbling out at least three inches of her dratted DADA essay. Boys—randy boys! Nothing but hormones walking, and they seemed to be toting about bushels of those! Being all of an age, of course, Scarhead and Draco, and then naturally the exact age to be thinking only of sex every seven seconds, religiously. Pansy admitted her inner horror, yes, but she wasn't a'tall surprised. Neither was she alone in her state of appalled revelation.
Mudblood. Granger—the Brain—had taken to elbowing Pansy familiarly after class in passing and then hauling her abruptly off into nooks-and-crannies to whinge, decry, bluster and then ultimately to bat about useless suggestions as to how to go about separating Potter and Draco. Or p'raps alternately to force the two gits to admit it, openly. Either/or, the Gryff contingent lusted after some action. Seemed the suspense was killing the poor Muggleborn bint; she just had to know for sure.
The Weaslelbee just hung about, in the role of accessory, mute as the rare Cringing Hedge Hare and wringing his overly large, ginger-spotted hands, looking greenish still. Shuffled his giant feet, too, something awful, when La Granger stuffed them all in broom closets to blather back-and-forth. Pansy was growing irked at having her spit-shine spells disrupted during these pointless little conferences. It was always in small cramped spaces and out of the way of the rest of the student body, as if the two Gryffindicks were ashamed to be seen in the company of a Slyth. And nothing was ever resolved and nothing ever decided and still—after being forced to converse without outright blows resulting with the Two Wankers—the other two, her Draco and that perv Potter, persisted in their highly secretive and disgustingly deviant behavior.
They did. Pans could not help but to notice the signs as she went about her own. Secretively, yes. She was no fool. Ashamed? No! Not sodding likely. Bloody damned Hufflepuff and his excessively gifted tongue! Who knew Huffles were that affectionate, really?
No one knew anything—not for certain, at least. Not even Pansy.