Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor the book's characters.
This is more about Pansy than Pansy & Malfoy. I rather like it. Take the quote in the beginning to mean whatever you wish in connection with the story. And, please - review, if you might be so kind. I like constructive criticism.
Written while listening to Ani DiFranco's 32 Flavors, which inspired this (Recommended a thousand times over!). Such phrases such as "smoldering with jealousy" and "harbored a secret hatred" were bits in the song.
Where you used to be, there is a hole in the world, which I find myself constantly walking around in the daytime, and falling in at night. I miss you like hell. Edna St. Vincent Millay
Pansy Parkinson has always fought hard to be the best, it's what she was taught. Padding her life with all the pretty things she can find, living with a boy who has the face of a rhino but a pocket full of gold, dressing in her Sunday best everyday. She has envious neighbors who are in their forties and stare from their perches on their front lawns as she walks outside in the morning's light to get the Daily Prophet wearing a white sundress that flares at the hem and that's decorated with the petals of flowers that pool at the bottom. The jealous neighbors have fought hard to be perfect, too, the difference is Pansy's got double the life they do and she's half the age.
There are not many that like her around here but she rarely finds herself caring. Has anyone ever really liked her? In school it was either disgusted glances from people or jealous stares of girls who followed obediently but harbored a secret hatred for her. Today she's widely considered a social climber who stopped courting the fortune of the Malfoys when their reputation was destroyed, and moved on to a more socially acceptable pureblood. Women didn't understand her charm because she wasn't pretty and she wasn't sweet. Men only wanted her for a night (she played the part of damsel in distress well for the men who longed to be heroes), they didn't want to keep her.
Pansy's boyfriend has most women smoldering with jealousy. He's a rich heir of a huge factory. Knowing that she may marry him one day keeps her smiling before she goes to sleep at night. She's just begun playing at nineteen and she's ahead in the game already. Sixty year old women have never seen half the gold she has.
It's greedy, but there's not much else Pansy Parkinson has to live for. The lavish lifestyle keeps her running, the opinions others have of her keep her from thinking about old habits and past relationships and dead friends. They think she's happy, so why shouldn't she be? It isn't as if I'm bad, she tells herself, I've been through hell. I deserve this.
Her to desire to be a winner is what keeps her from looking for Draco Malfoy. Ambition and doubt stand between her and him. She tells herself he was only a childhood friend (and hardly that; he forgot so quickly), and now she's at her best and he doesn't deserve her anymore.
It's a lie, and it's a lie, and it's all lies that she tells herself about Malfoy. She knows.
She's replaced him with money and a loveless partnership with a man who doesn't understand her. It's not as if her life needed anymore materials; she has enough she can't take with her. Pansy is a good liar, but she can't convince herself that all these nonsense fabrics and all the lavish pampering she does are proper substitutes for real friendship.
At this point she'd settle for mere friendship (Prince Charming is running late and she's getting rather impatient), but no one wants to be Pansy's friend. She's grown to be too much of the curtains-closed type of person for anyone to feel welcome.
Well, she thinks when she's feeling particularly lonely, Why would I even want to associate myself with the likes of these old washed-up hags?
She learned this thinking from Draco, who'd mastered it at age eight, but she can't bring herself to blame him for her aloneness. She knows him too well to get angry with him so easily even when he's not around anymore.
"Honey," says her boyfriend at dinner on a daily basis, "You're the most beautiful woman I've ever laid eyes on."
Merlin, the man was a lying liar, wasn't he? She knew she wasn't the most beautiful girl in the room even when she wore her little white sundress with the flowers. But she couldn't get rid of him, because Pansy Parkinson was not a quitter, she was the girl that fought hard to be the best. And other women thought she was. And if those other women discovered who the little girl in the neighborhood really was they'd know she wasn't perfect.
And Pansy would loose the attention - it was better to be envied and hated than to be ignored and invisible.
Even with all its shortcomings her life's good and decent. It's a functioning daily routine. Malfoy doesn't have to be part of the picture.
One day, she knows she'll go looking for him, she even has the bravery to admit this to herself. The waiting period is almost over, and she's never really been the damsel in distress who needs to be rescued. Maybe she'll find him with a family even though it's only been a couple years and she can reenter his life as that old flame who came a day late. Maybe she'll find her Prince Charming on her path to Draco Malfoy. She hopes he isn't alone. She hopes he isn't bald. Most of all Pansy holds the hope that nothing between them has changed.
For now it is not time. Let him come to her. She'll stay in this place and look nearby for someone she can fall in love with. She'll feed off other women's jealousy. She'll have a warm place to sleep at night with a man by her side. Pansy Parkinson smirks, tomorrow morning will be absolutely lovely. She'll be rewarded with the sick, empty pleasure from the green-eyed, resentful stares of neighbors and passerbys. She has a new sundress.