Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters
Summary: Pansy Parkinson realizes one spring day in 6th year just how envious she truly is. She realizes that not every friendship is granted the same form of simplicity that we may hope for.
A/N: This is my first one shot and it has just been begging to be realsed. But don't worry, to all the other readers of Fa Battere il Mio Cuore, there will be a new chapter up soon, I just had to get this one out. Enjoy!
Envy is a Soft Shade of Green
One Shot
They made her sick; all of them made her sick.
They were sitting below the aged oak on the rolling hill of green. Just sitting there, huddled together, practically breathing in each other's breaths. She watched as the petite red head stood and began skipping about and the other three laughed gleefully with her. She watched as the one with glasses fell back on his strong arms and smiled up at the prancing girl. She watched as the other two, another red head and the girl with a book waiting calmly beside her, stole glances that she knew held more than mere friendship. She watched as the four of them laughed and picked at the budding grass and breathed in the sweet smell of morning showers.
They made her sick.
Behind the cracked glass, Pansy Parkinson watched as the world was contorted before her; she watched as four friends laughed with naïveté even while the storm clouds from earlier seemed to be rolling back in. Their outburst of joy could not reach her ears nor did their lips move slowly enough for her eyes to decipher and yet with each intake of spring air, Pansy felt another pang to her stomach, another scratch in her throat, another throb in her head.
She couldn't take it anymore—watching them.
She turned back towards her Common Room but the sickness still lingered. Her piercing blue eyes scanned the room for some sort of distraction; anything to make her forget what lay beyond the window behind her.
Blaise Zabini sat behind the closest desk, scribbling away frantically on a long roll of parchment. His back was straight yet strained—he had sat their nearly the entire morning only moving his left hand as he scratched away with the dark feathered quill. She watched with a small smile as he stopped only momentarily to reorganize his thoughts and then dove back into his assignment.
Perfectionist, she thought wistfully. Even in their first year he had always shown the signs of a future Head Boy: his diplomacy, his menace, his perfection. There was no better candidate and whatever could change in the school by the end of the year, would never take that simple bit of knowledge away from him.
Pansy licked her chapped lips and pushed back pieces of blond hair. A small cough across the room caught her attention; Daphne Greengrass lie on the carpet before a roaring fire with a book unfolded before her. Pansy took a moment to cement the image of Daphne's dull brown hair and slender fingers as she turned a page in what appeared to be a new novel of hers in her memory.
The two had been friends since third year when Pansy had formally met her through Blaise. It seemed that both Blaise and Daphne and grown up together traversing the shores of France and England and sharing the stories of broken families. She was a quiet girl—which was not odd in the Slytherine House. Yet unlike many of the other girls she was not quiet due to a social awkwardness or hidden cunning; Daphne was simply the girl everyone overlooked. She was in the corner, watching, waiting.
The memory of their first encounter came flooding back to Pansy as the girl suddenly met her brilliant blues with soft hazels. You see, what other people failed to see in Daphne, what Pansy had overlooked for the first two years of her time at Hogwarts, was the conviction behind those eyes. If Daphne whispered submissiveness simply with her body language then she screamed dominance with that stare.
She was beyond bright; she was quick, witty, sarcastic, and undeniably wise. Pansy, upon meeting her, had asked her frankly why she never made herself known. Daphne had only smiled and replied that she preferred to observe than participate. Their friendship had grown ever since.
Daphne retreated back to her story while Pansy let go of the old memories and continued to scan the room. It did not take her long to find the last of her comrades as she already sensed where he would be.
Sure enough, tucked between the two overstuffed cushions of the forest suede couch sat the brooding Draco Malfoy. Pansy noticed his once luminescent skin was an ashy, broken replacement and the dark puffs below his unmoving steel grey eyes were more punctuated than they had been last month, or the month before that. And yet still, with his shoulders slumped forward in despair and his eyes hollow of life looking through the dancing flames before him and his hands resting on his lap as if death had already claimed him, she had never seen a more beautiful man.
Perhaps it was the memories that propelled her disillusioned façade for the young Malfoy heir, but she still saw the sharp features as if they were chiseled from a sculptor, still felt the weight of his laugh on her heart, still yearned for a love that he would never return. She had known him since birth and hoped she would till death. He was her constant: he never failed to tease her or fight for her or laugh with her. He at once invited her closer and rejected her for not being his equal in every way. If she could not match his marks she was not good enough; if she could not show him strength she was not good enough; if she could not challenge him, in anything and everything, she was not good enough. She would never be good enough for him. And yet, while he constantly reminded her of this, he was always there. He was there for all of them. He carried their troubles on his shoulders and the troubles of his family as well.
Pansy always believed he hated Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs so much because he couldn't come to terms with the fact that they shared so many qualities. She found it comical that he chose to hex them and look down upon them not because she sought out their misery, but because she found the situation ironic. Yet she would never voice this to Draco—he was her best friend, her brother, her lover, her everything. Why tear him down?
It was raining.
Pansy turned her attention, ruefully, back towards the window. The four friends she had seen earlier now huddled even closer than they had before. They were partially protected from the canopy of leaves the old oak provided yet she could tell they were quickly formulating a plan to escapes the torrents of rain. The red headed boy held his sister and the other girl close, clearly asserting his protectiveness while the boy with glasses seemed to be searching for something beyond Pansy's gaze. And even in the rain, when each was shivering down to their knickers, they were laughing and smiling.
She remembered a time when she, Draco, Blaise, and Daphne could escape the confines of the castle and would laugh and run and smile. She remembered the time when Blaise had tricked Draco into skinny dipping in the Black Lake and then stole his clothes. Or when Daphne had first confessed her blossoming crush on Draco to both Pansy and Blaise beside that same oak, as if asking for their blessing. Or even when Draco, on that same day, had taken a hold of Pansy during Magical Creatures and had pushed her against the cold stones of the castle and given her her first kiss.
But not anymore. There they were, separated yet forced to remain in each other's company. They each lived in an entirely different world. There were times, even, when Pansy could not remember the last time she had laughed at Blaise over his obsession with perfection, or confided in Daphne and listened to her sage advice, or dropped innuendoes with Draco that she knew were never to be fulfilled. She had accepted that there would be a change coming into sixth year. Her parents had told her that this year was critical in the war. She knew Draco now literally carried the weight of their world. She knew Blaise had broken off ties with his mother and was now being coined a traitor. She knew Daphne had no protection from either side and had thrown away any hope she had on survival.
And could she blame them? Could Pansy really blame them for desperately trying to hold together a family, or realizing that one last act of defiance could reverse years of slavery, or even letting go of hope because nothing seemed to ever work out in your favor?
No, she couldn't blame them. They were her friends. They shared secrets and jokes and would sometimes fight and yell but would always come back to one another. So why didn't anyone notice? Why had they been forced to grow up so fast? Why couldn't they be free to run around without a care and know the simple things like love and respect and hope, even freedom?
Pansy turned back towards the four other students on the ground. They seemed to have concocted some scheme to get back into the castle and were now darting behind various boulders and trees and anything else that may grant them some shelter from the rain. And though the window had begun to fog up and the rain had created a misty haze across the grounds, Pansy could have sworn she saw them laughing and seen them smiling just as they had only moments earlier.
They made her sick; all of them, made her sick.
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