Assignment #11 - Voodoo Magic: The Loa; Task #8 Write about two people coming together. Written for the forum Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry (Challenges and Assignments).
One of the best things about being a witch is the ability to wave your wand, say a word, and then have a glass of water beside you when you get thirsty. Of course, this only works when you have a class already – which Pansy doesn't.
And so, pulling on a thick woollen sweater that she wouldn't normally be caught dead in – except, it's cold and the sweater's warm and comfortable – Pansy sets off at some point after midnight into the Common Room. She isn't too surprised by the fact there isn't anyone in the Common Room – after all, it's only the first week back, even the seventh-years don't have work that requires all-nighters just yet. Besides, anyone who wishes to meet up with friends or talk have likely gone off to hidden places elsewhere in the castle.
Glancing about once again, Pansy leaves the Common Room behind, shuffling along the stone floors of the dungeons in slippers. Wary of staying out in the main hallways for too long, she decides to take a shortcut that's known to Slytherins only. In front of a golden-framed painting of a starlit night sky, trees decorating the bottom in black, Pansy searches for the north star. Once she spots it, she taps it with her wand. The painting shivers, and the moon arises from behind the trees growing larger and larger before it fills the whole painted sky. Then, at last, the painting swings inward, granting Pansy access to the passageway.
She walks quickly, the cold starting to seep into her fingers and snake its way up her arms to the rest of her body. But, as she's metres away from the end, almost at the kitchens, she sees a doorway that she's never seen before.
Hogwarts is strange, a place that changes at random, but there are patterns, usually. This doorway though – she's never seen it before, and she's walked this passageway both ways numerous times. Deciding that suffering through the cold is too big of a deal, Pansy pushes the door open with the desire to know more curling around her bones.
The hinges squeak, causing Pansy to wince and tighten her grip on her wand reflexively. But, the room seems empty – cosy, but empty. She steps further into the room, standing in the middle and looking around. There's a fireplace at one end, a fire cheerfully throwing light into the room and keeping it warm. Two couches bracket the fireplace, with a woven rug between them. On one wall, a tapestry hangs, depicting winged humans flying through the sky at sunrise, the sky streaked with colours. Based off of the image alone, Pansy can tell it's an old tapestry – there have been no winged humans since the muggles killed them all in medieval ages before the witch trials of the period occurred.
The door slams shut, and Pansy whirls around, torn from her thoughts of history and old tapestries and the magic that they can contain. Half-a-dozen spells rest in her mind, one on her tongue, and she grips her wand, white-knuckled.
Leaning against the door, one of Pansy's year mates' slouches – Blaise Zabini, son of the infamous Zabini Matriarch. He holds his wand in a loose grip, deceptively at ease, and gazes at her with dark eyes – calm. It makes her uneasy, unsure, because, somehow, he isn't panicking and that doesn't seem right.
"Parkinson," Zabini drawls, reminding her of Draco, "can I help you in some matter?" The words, for all that they are rather monotone, somehow manage to convey Zabini's scepticism and scorn for her simultaneously.
"Did you need my help?" Pansy asks in return, pulling herself together. She has nothing to fear from Zabini – who hasn't proven himself to ambitious or strong or intelligent or anything. Which, now that she thinks about it, is rather cunning in and of itself.
He raises an eyebrow. "You are the one who stumbled in here," he points out, managing to relax further against the door, appearing almost boneless.
Pansy narrows her eyes, and this time catches the flicker of Zabini's gaze, the tightness to his shoulders, the way his wand remains almost pointed at her. "I wasn't aware anyone was here," she replies.
Zabini stares at her for another few seconds, before pushing off the door with an eloquent shrug. "Then I'll just let you leave."
Out of all their year mates, Pansy is the one who probably has the most insight into people, able to read them and understand their current emotions. Zabini has always made her second-guess herself, but there's something not quite right here. She's a Slytherin, so she knows how to take a knut and make it a gallon; but she's a Slytherin, and they look out for one another above all else.
"You alright?" She asks, meeting Zabini's gaze evenly.
And Zabini – just pauses. Stares at her, like she's some arithmetic equation he can't quite solve. He sighs, shoulders moving with the movement, and drops himself onto one of the couches. "Depends why you want to know," he says at last, and Pansy sits down on the opposite couch, and rests her elbows on her knees, cupping her face in her hands.
"Because you're a Slytherin," Pansy replies, hesitates, and then adds, "Because you look like you wouldn't mind talking to someone."
Zabini looks at her – and there's something steady and deep in his gaze, and Pansy meets it; holds it. There are words she won't ever say, because she knows her own weaknesses, her own vulnerabilities; not all of them, but some. She thinks Zabini can see some of them, that she's opened herself up in this manner.
"Alright, Parkinson," Zabini says, "but you don't get out of this – once you hear this, you'll always know."
Knowing. Curiosity. The insatiable desire to know everything she can. Ambition. Pansy is a Slytherin and Zabini has her hooked. She cannot escape, and so she smiles, slow, steady, "Do tell."
In response, Zabini leans forward, places his hands palm-up on his knees, and says, "My mother wants my help to murder another man. It's not the first time, and I doubt it will be the last, but I don't really wish to partake in murder, again."
"Murder," Pansy repeats, testing the word more than anything else. She'd previously assumed Zabini to be someone she didn't have to worry about. Clearly, she had been wrong about that – Zabini is dangerous, but maybe he didn't want to be.
Zabini shrugs, "So the rumours say, but you wanted to know what's up, and there it is. I somehow need to get my hands-on poison once again, but that's never been too difficult. Still want to stick around Parkinson?"
Pansy is a Slytherin, ambition and cunning are words she knows well. She wants to be the best, wants to prove herself, use people's own stereotypes against them. Zabini is dangerous – but he would make a good ally too, even if she doesn't know him that well. She thinks of Pureblood parties, of whispers and rumours, of the way everyone talks as if she isn't there, of how she can easily ruin alliances between Pureblood families with a single sentence. They're all dangerous, but they learn how to control themselves as well.
"You aren't the only one with secrets, Zabini," she replies, steel hidden within her words, "mine just aren't so deadly."
Zabini laughs and Pansy leans back in the couch and thinks that this could be something new, and it might even be good.