Pansy Anne Parkinson had made mistakes her entire life. Her first mistake had been born a girl. Her second is that she had had a birth so difficult, that her mother couldn't have any more children, and with a father who no one thought could have children in the first place, she was the end of the Parkinson line.
She continued to make mistakes throughout her entire early life. She made the mistake of not getting into Gryffindor when she started into Hogwarts and not getting close to Harry Potter. She made the mistake of not getting Draco Malfoy to love her when she got into Slytherin. She made the mistake of being a bitch toward everyone at Hogwarts, and making no one believe her when she said that she wasn't one any more.
There was one person that didn't just brushed her off as a mistake from the moment they first saw her.
Professor Remus John Lupin.
Her first DADA class had been her favorite. He had come walked in and started teaching. He had been her best teacher at Hogwarts. She hadn't worked the bare minimum in that class like she did in every other, she gave her best. And her best surprised her. No one had ever known, but she was the best in Defense after that year after Harry Potter. Even after he left, even after she found out that he was a werewolf, she still remembered and she gave her best. Because he was the only person that ever believed in her.
"Pansy," Professor Lupin said, not even looking up from organizing his papers.
Pansy turned around, bored and frustrated, ready to deflect any of his comment's about her poor performance.
They never came.
"I see a great potential for you in this class. It's clear to me that you're very smart. So why don't you try?" he looked up at this, and as she looked into those sad hazel eyes, she replied to that question honestly for the first time in her life.
"No one ever expects me too."
Professor Lupin smiled at this. "Well I do."
She tried to live up to them the moment she heard him say those words.
She didn't even care that he was a werewolf later, defending him even when someone made fun of him and ignoring the comments they made about her afterward. Say what you will, he had shown perhaps the most valuable lesson she could ever hope to learn.
What you are does matter, but it doesn't always. It matters if you're kind or spiteful, smart or dumb, full of love or full of hate. It doesn't matter though if you are talking about gender, race, blood status, even species.
It would take a few years before that message fully shank in. He planted the seeds though. She stopped making mistakes though. Probably because she no longer believed that she was one.
Fourth year she didn't change, but it began to stew. Fifth year is when she started showing it though. When Malfoy started making fun of Harry Potter and how no one believed him, she looked at Malfoy and thought, 'Why do I like you?' A little voice replied back that sound suspiciously like Professor Lupin, 'Because it makes my parents happy that you like me. My parent's who don't give a damn about me otherwise.'
She broke it off then and there, both her relationship with Malfoy and her relationship with her parents. It was the best she ever felt, though she couldn't put a word to it until years later.
The next day, she quit the Inquisitor's and joined the DA. She didn't know why she did it, only that it made the feeling grow stronger.
So fifth and sixth passed by in a blur that left her on the outside of many things. Outside of the Slytherins, for being so pro-DA, and outside the rest of Hogwart's, for being so Slytherin. Sometimes she loved it, other's she didn't. Regardless though, that feeling still lasted.
She finally saw Professor Lupin sixth year again. He had been him coming into see Professor Dumbledore, and the look in his eyes were the saddest she had ever seen. He had only seen her a brief second, but she could have sworn that a smile came on his lips in that second. He must have heard what she had done last year. She hoped she made him proud.
Seventh year was scary. Scary because as she was stuck in a room with a bunch of people who weren't sure if they trusted her just yet. She felt incredibly lonely sometimes being the only one with that silver snake on an emerald-green banner. That feeling never stopped though, despite everything.
She fought when the battle happened and nothing that she had ever learned in the DA could have ready her for this. It helped, but no way did it prepare for the yelling, the screaming, seeing someone who she had known for years die in a few seconds right in front of her, never knowing if she would be next, fighting side by side with a person she had never seen in her life and having to trust them with her life and knowing that they trusted her with their's.
It was the scariest night of her life so far. Some people said that they blocked it out in its entirety. She wasn't one of them. She remembered every little detail, and lived through them every night. She was glad she did. She saw so many people die that night, she didn't want to forget any of them.
She knew Remus didn't want to either.
He had survived that night, though his wife didn't. Pansy actually watched his son, enjoying taking care of someone who was young and innocent and hopefully would never have to grow up too fast like she did. She loved it.
She wondered if he did too.
She asked him one day, and then suddenly as she looked into his and he looked into hers and before they knew they were kissing, she knew the feeling.
It was free.