Author's Note: I do not and never will own Harry Potter.

Written for the Tarot Card Challenge and 10 Femslash Drabbles.

Prompt: The Magician (One of poor self image, timidity, and self-deprecation.) Millicent/Pansy. Chocolate.

She's always afraid until Pansy finds her. Even in her first year, Millicent knows better than to cry in the main halls or a classroom. There is no compassion for snakes. So she hides, down a deserted dungeon corridor, and she covers her face in her robe sleeves, and she pretends for a moment that she's not a snake, because snakes don't cry, and snakes aren't weak.

When Pansy's shadow falls over her, Millicent nearly stops breathing, and she feels only slightly relieved when her head tips up and she sees Parkinson there. Pansy is brilliant, Pansy is pureblood, Pansy is beautiful. Pansy is everything Millicent wants to be.

"Buck up," Pansy tells her in a trying-to-be-encouraging voice. "Slytherins don't hide."

"That's the problem," Millicent blurts out without meaning to. "I'm not meant to be-"

"Don't be ridiculous," Pansy interrupts. "Of course you are. And Slytherins stick together."

Pansy pulls her to her feet, and Millicent can't quite grasp what's just taken place, though she knows it means more than she could ever imagine.

In second year, there is the Dueling Club, and she faces Hermione Granger at the other end of her wand. She doesn't admit that she's afraid. Instead, she leaps for the bushy-haired girl, getting her in a headlock before that dunce Lockhart intervenes. The other girl is spluttering for breath and disheveled, and for a moment, Millicent feels powerful. She can't get her stride in magic, but perhaps she can in other ways, and Pansy's look of delight agrees.

When her Head of House assigns her detention (only one, and his lazy drawl assures her that she will face no loss of House points, which is what all Slytherins are really afraid of), Pansy waits up for her after, with a box of Honeydukes chocolate "borrowed" from an older student.

"You were great," Pansy grins, offering her a chocolate. Millicent blushes and pops it into her mouth.

"Maybe," she replies, but she can't stop the smile spreading across her face. Pansy's arm hooks around her shoulders and pulls her closer. There will be kisses later, furtive touches in hallway alcoves and slipped beneath bed covers. There will be breathy declarations of love and sweet nothings murmured into the cloud of Millie's hair or against Pansy's jawline.

For now, they just sit curled together on the sofa, watching the flames crackle green with a colour charm and sharing bits of chocolate.

Word Count: 427 words.