Hogwarts (Challenges and Assignments), Assignment #4.

Muggle Music: Show Tunes — task 8 — "Be Our Guest" — write about being invited.

The Golden Snitch; Canopus, Aurora Academy.

Through the Universe: 14 — atmosphere — (feeling) suffocation

Harry Potter Fanfiction Challenges (HPFC).

The Unforgivable Competition: the Cruciatus curse.

Word count: 748

Won't you join us? the invitation asked.

I didn't want to. I wanted to run.

Far, far away, where no one would ever find me.

I was trapped. Trapped in my web of lies and deceit. Of wealth and everything else that was precious.

Everything except love.

I refused to step one foot out of my room. No matter the pleading words that fell from my mother's silver tongue.

I had one, too.

It was needed for survival.

But survival felt like suffocating.

I would play along, but a piece of me would die.

Ours was a forbidden love; unable to be together in the eyes of society, he had withdrawn and instead married the girl his father wished him to marry.

We had not seen one another since the wedding shortly after they had graduated, where I had watched, dry-eyed and dispassionate, as he vowed fidelity and ever-lasting love to another woman.

I gazed out the window, watching the snow fall on the horse-drawn carriages below. I placed a manicured hand on the frame and shuddered at the chills that raced up my spine.

There they were: the perfect couple. She looked happy and glowing — what could that possibly be from? — while he looked even paler than usual. His blonde hair was slicked back and all I could remember was how it felt as I ran her hands through it, the strands silky and smooth beneath my fingertips.

My mouth turned downward as their heads tilted close, and he smiled tenderly at his wife before placing a sweet kiss on her lips.

A painful clenching of my heart made me grasp for the nearest object to regain my balance: the bureau. It was mental only, but it felt so real.

Had he already forgotten me?

I dressed, refusing help from the house elves, determined to show him what he had lost. I knew he had had no choice but to marry that girl, but he could have at least fought for me a bit more. I left my long dark hair cascading over my shoulders and down my back like a shimmering waterfall. As I swept eyeshadow across my lids and blush across my cheeks, I studied myself in the mirror.

I knew I looked good — much better than I had during my school years, at least. Now it was a test to see whether he noticed it.

I descended the staircase, smiling around at the assembled guests. My father smiled at me, but it was tight-lipped and his eyes were narrowed. I breathed deeply and stepped off the last stair.

"Darling!" exclaimed my mother. "I was just about to come up after you!" Her voice was high and shrill, and her face, no matter how much makeup or how many Glamours she used, still resembled that of a pug's. "Let me tell you the wonderful news!"

"No, no, let us," interrupted the woman who had stolen my love's heart. Beside her stood her husband, blonde hair shining under the crystal chandelier.

I smiled tightly. "Of course."

She glanced at her husband, who wore a proud smile. "We're pregnant!"

Nothing could have hurt more.

I congratulated them, and made my leave. As I wandered the gardens and trailed my hands through the silky flowers in the beds, my mind flew above and I daydreamed.

So lost in my reverie, I didn't hear my mother come up behind me. "Pansy? Darling, no matter what you're feeling —"

"Don't let it show," I finished, sighing. "Yes, mother, I know."

She sighed and placed her hand on my forearm. "Draco Malfoy is a good man, Pansy. But you are not fated to be. We are not Malfoy level."

I bit my tongue so hard I tasted the coppery tang of blood. How I wanted to tell her that not everything was about status — there was such a thing called love.

Just a little thing.

That ache in my heart — that empty space — it never really went away.

Draco and Astoria had a boy — Scorpius. He was the spitting image of his father, for which I was thankful. I couldn't have stood seeing part of her in him.

I married eventually — to a half-blood my parents didn't approve of at all.

We got along alright, but it was by no means my perfect fairytale ending.

That would be when I died.