A/N : There is a teensy bit of swearing in this. Sorry, I guess?

House: Slytherin

Category : Short

Prompt : Pansy/Astoria [pairing]

Word Count : 556

.oOo.

Once upon a time there was a very good little girl called Pansy Parkinson. She always said "please" and "thank you" and chewed with her mouth closed. She smiled and smiled until her cheeks were sore and she let her mother dress her up in all kinds of uncomfortable dresses and pointy shoes.

Her mother taught her to bat her long eyelashes at boys, and how to laugh and walk in heels high enough to stab a man. She was taught to sneer and turn her perfect little nose up at other girls, and, perhaps most importantly, how to lie.

So Pansy simpered her way through her Hogwarts years, barely scraping by in all her classes - after all, who needs O. when you have a rich husband? She said she didn't care when people said she looked like a pug and was thicker than a concussed troll. It was a good thing she had learned to lie at such a young age.

And yet, it was all for nought, as Pansy quickly realised when Draco Malfoy showed up to breakfast with his hand tucked in Hermione Granger's.

To hell with Draco Malfoy, she thought. To hell with all of them. See if I care.

That was when another very good little girl showed up, with her ebony hair and sparkling eyes. "You think this is bad for you?" the girl, whose name was Astoria, asked bitterly. "We've been bloody betrothed since I was in nappies."

Pansy's mouth hung open in shock. "He's called everything off, of course. It was incredibly awkward. What did he say to me again? Ah yes - 'I wish you all the best in your future endeavors.' Charming, truly," Astoria continued.

"Bastard," Pansy growled. "Leaving you for a Mud-"

"Oh, give it a rest. You're better than that. If you're going to make a comment, try the mess she calls her hair."

"Blood purity -"

"-is a load of utter crap."

Pansy's eyes narrowed for a few moments before she sighed and sunk her head into her hands. "No one cares about her hair."

"It's more important than blood purity."

"I mean, both are the only thing we have. A good family and nice hair. Fat lot of good it did us."

"Sodding idiots. All of them."

"I beg your pardon? Who?"

"Our mothers, our fathers, the patriarchy that molded us into wallpaper women."

"It's the only thing they've ever known."

"We both know you're smarter than to think that counts as a valid excuse."

"If you're so angry, why don't you just run away? Ride off into the sunset and start campaigning for women's rights," Pansy snapped.

Astoria smiled. "Oh, I think I will. But you're coming with me."

And so the two girls raised their perfectly painted middle fingers at the world that had raised them and they tasted freedom and they learned what not caring felt like. And they met people who liked them for who they were, and not for the whiteness of their teeth or the price of their shoes.

Pansy and Astoria became the bestest friends the world had ever seen, and it wasn't very long before they began to fall in love. So they bought a castle next to the sea, where they lived happily ever after, never ever caring about pureblood etiquette ever again.