Hey folks! I realise this fic hasn't been updated, but there has been a breakthrough of the inspirational variety and so hopefully I should be able to write this to completion. I have a plot line and everything! Anyway. Just a little warning: in my head this fic has taken a slightly dark turn, so don't say I didn't warn you. The Souling aspect is going to have a big affect of Pansy, plus she's still working for Voldemort despite her actions, so be forewarned, some parts of this fic aren't going to be all that nice. I hope that won't put all of you off though, I'm going to try for a happy ending because those are my favourite. Hope you like this, I'd love to hear what you think so please review. Istalindar.
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The train station was busy, but Pansy kept her head down as she walked through the crowds to the barrier and then through. It was even busier here, full of students and their guardians all scrambling to grab that one last thing before getting on the train. Pansy was in danger of getting trampled until she felt a strong hand on her shoulder and she looked up to see Draco Malfoy grinning down at her.
"Get out of my way." He snapped at a passing third year, and a path magically appeared between them and the train. Pansy grinned back, allowing him to gently push her through the gap to the train. "You need to kick, Pansy." He chided her.
"Yes, well. A kick from these heels would cause bleeding, and I don't want blood on these shoes. They're suede and I don't want them ruined." Draco snorted.
"Whatever. I'll see you later, yeah? I'm just gonna go rescue more damsels in distress." Pansy rolled her eyes.
"See you." She climbed onto the train and pushed her way through the heaving corridor until she found an empty compartment. She settled herself down and stared blankly out the window at the brick wall opposite, envisaging the compartment door to be locked in the vain hope that she'd be left alone. No such luck.
She heard the door open and shut, and saw Hermione Granger in the reflection of the window. She was wearing the silver ring Pansy had sent her. Pansy smiled, at least she'd believed the story. She hadn't really considered what would have happened if Hermione hadn't believed it: there could be some awkward explanations to be told, especially seeing as Pansy hadn't put a return address on the envelope so Hermione had no idea where the ring came from.
The train whistled and shuddered, and slowly moved away from the platform and out of the station. Pansy sighed, another school year. Any chance of running off the train, not that she'd considered it, was now gone. And with Granger sat there, chances were that the gruesome twosome would soon be joining them.
As though psychic, the compartment door slid open and she heard the rowdy boys enter, practically attacking Hermione in their enthusiasm. Apparently they hadn't seen her in an hour, it was perfectly tragic. Pansy gave a long suffering sigh. She was here first, she didn't see why she should have to move. But the chances of the other three moving were next to nothing.
"Quiet down guys." Hermione lectured. "This is a small compartment and not everyone hates their eardrums the way you guys obviously do." Pansy caught Hermione's eye in the reflection and smiled wrily.
Angel Hermione to the rescue. Oh joy.
The compartment door slid open again and any resemblance of quiet achieved by Hermione was destroyed instantly.
"Malfoy! What are you doing here?" Harry sneered. Hermione and Pansy both rolled their eyes.
"Free country, Pothead, I'll go where I like." Pansy heard Draco reply. "Speaking of which, Pans, what in god's name are you doing here?" Pansy turned around fully to face the compartment and Ron and Harry looked shocked to see her, as though she'd been wearing an invisibility cloak.
"Mostly pretending I'm not here." She said drily. "Even though I was here first."
"Aw, poor Pansy." Ron snapped. Pansy sent him a look that made him bawk and she grinned at Draco. She still had her edge. "Malfoy, what the hell do you want?" Ron hastily changed the subject.
"To talk to Granger, actually." He said. He looked at Hermione, who smiled slightly. "Granger?"
"We'll send out search parties if you're not back in five." Harry grinned.
"Please, Potter, if I didn't want you to find her you never would. Actually, that's not a bad idea." Harry lunged for the smug Slytherin and Hermione threw her arm out to stop him.
"Don't let him wind you up like that, Harry." She said gently, stepping past the gangly Gryffindors into the corridor. Draco stepped to the side so she could pass him and the pair walked out of sight.
Not out of hearing, though. After a moment Pansy's enhanced hearing picked up something she definitely wasn't expecting. Hermione was giggling, and Draco was saying something Pansy couldn't quite make out, but she recognised the tone of voice well enough.
At the end of last year she hadn't really known where they'd stood. They weren't dating, but they weren't dating anyone else, either. She normally went to the Manor for the last couple weeks of the holidays, but the whole Souling business had taken up her time.
Looks like Draco had found a different way to amuse himself.
"If that bastard lays a hand on Hermione, I'll…I'll kill him." Ron muttered to Harry.
"They're just outside in the corridor, Weasley." Pansy said cooly. "Go see what they're doing for yourself." Ron glared but stood, stepping into the hallways. Pansy smiled slowly when she heard Hermione's gasp as Ron came out and found them in a compromising position.
There were few things more satisfying than sabotage.
Hermione and Ron returned, both looking a little sheepish. Draco followed, looking more than a little smug at Ron's discomfiture. He caught Pansy's eye and a little of the smugness disappeared, and he raised his eyebrows. She shrugged in return.
"What are you doing?" Ron demanded. Hermione glared.
"It's my business, Ronald. I can date whoever I damn well please!"
"You're dating him?" Harry asked weakly.
"This is why I hang out with losers like you. The entertainment factor is unbelievable.." Draco grinned.
"Shut up." Hermione snapped. "Draco, can you give us a moment?"
"Sure. Come on Pans, we need to talk anyway." Rolling her eyes, Pansy pushed herself off the chair and followed Draco into the corridor.
"Do you come here with all the girls?" She asked drily, folding her arms.
"Ha." Draco rolled his eyes. "Look, I'm sorry I didn't tell you. But I was going to, when you came over, but you didn't show."
"Yes, well, busy summer. Dad and Voldemort had alternative plans for me." Draco's eyes flicked to her arm and she shook her head. "Not that. Something worse, actually, though that depends on your perspective." She paused. "So, Granger, huh?"
"Crazy, right? I don't know Pans, it's just something about her…"
"She's a drug and every time you see her you catch your breath?" Pansy supplied. Draco stared.
"You know?"
"I know what it's like." Pansy shook her head. "Never thought it would happen to you and Granger though. What will your father say?"
"He's not going to find out." Draco stepped forward, his voice dropping threateningly. "No one is going to know."
"Alright." Pansy shrugged. "It's nothing to me, anyway."
"That's a lie." Draco caught her hand with the silver ring on it. "Silver and starburst? Never figured you for a good guy." Pansy held up her other hand, with the black ring.
"Who says I am? I see Granger got her ring though."
"You sent it to her?" Draco's eyes widened.
"I stole them from dear mother's jewelery box. The ghost of my real mother said now was that special moment. God only knows what's really happening. Personally, I'd rather everyone just fucked off and did what they normally do."
"Where would be the fun in that?"
"My life was fun." Pansy shot back. "I tortured first years, I teased seventh years, and I generally made myself a pain in everyone's backside. It was entertaining. And now I'm meant to serve some sort of higher purpose, and it's gone and made all those things insignificant and taken the fun out of my life."
"Wow." Draco shook his head. "Perhaps you need a new hobby?"
"Doesn't saving the world count?" Pansy raised her eyebrows.
"Could do. But I thought that was Pothead's job."
"Yeah, apparently me and dear old Granger in there are meant to protect the key players in this little shindig."
"Key players being…" Draco raised his eyebrows and Pansy hooked one finger under the chain around his neck, half hidden by his collar. Two slivers of metal slid down to the vee formed by the pressure on the chain.
"One of them is you. The other is Potter."
"Oh, yay. Does that mean I actually have to work with him?"
"It's possible." Pansy shrugged. "Either way, protection duty on Potter totally falls to Granger. Much as you two get on like a house on fire, I'm not spending my time watching Potter wank off to that Ravenclaw slut Tulip."
"I wouldn't dream of asking you to." Draco grinned. "Plus, Hermione has access to Gryffindor tower, so it makes sense for her to protect Potter."
"You're not jealous?" Pansy asked, "That Granger's watching over Potter and not you?"
"Pans, the day Potter steals Hermione from under my nose is the day I don't deserve her anymore. And plus, I've seen you fight. On the off-chance that I do need protecting, I have every faith that you'll do it with every vicious bone in your body."
"I'm honoured." Pansy said sarcastically. "Well, if that's everything, why don't you go and cause chaos in Gryffindor? I'm going to go see if I can find the other girls so they can tell me all about their vapid and boring summer."
"Don't enjoy yourself too much." Draco called after her and Pansy flipped him off as she walked away.
She didn't, in the end, torture herself with endless tales of Queenie's summer, but found a compartment that was practically empty (there was one Ravenclaw boy in it, already working), and sat herself down, resuming her position of leaning against the window and watching the countryside fly past.
It was only the first day, and technically it wasn't even that, and Pansy was already feeling like this year might be the worst one yet. Draco and Hermione were together, which was just wrong even without considering the Pansy-Draco pairing that had been one of the few constants in Pansy's life. God, that meant he'd need the pre-nup cancelled. How he was going to do that without alerting his father that something was wrong she didn't know. Everyone knew that prenups were just for the finances of the marriage, not the fidelity. Pansy was pretty sure that once they'd gotten married, both would have gone off and done their own thing. Well, she wouldn't have, in all fairness. She cared about him a lot more than he knew, and probably more than she should, for her own sanity.
She sighed. This was horrible. She was damned for eternity and she'd been jilted for some goody-goody Gryffindor. Her. Jilted.
The world had gone horrifically wrong.
She glanced down at the rings on her hand and watched the sunlight flash on the diamonds in the centre of the starburst. Pretty things, they were plain enough to be classy. But they got too hot in the sun. Pansy slid her hands under her legs, shifting her gaze from the window. The Ravenclaw was working away, and it made her smile. He felt her gaze on him and looked up shyly. She smiled and looked away. He looked so young, but he'd been sorted so he must be second year.
Her ring was still hot, too hot in fact, and she pulled it out to look at it. It was the black one, and it was practically glowing it was so hot.
"Oh, for fuck's sake…" She muttered, rising and striding out of the compartment, down the hall to where she could hear Draco heckling Weasley and Potter mercilessly. She threw the compartment door open and grabbed his wrist. "We need to talk." She snapped, and dragged him from the carriage.
"Pans, what?" Draco frowned at her urgency and she grabbed the necklace at his throat again and pressed the black sliver against his skin, and he flinched back. "Ow!"
"Yes, ow! The metal's too hot, Draco."
"What's that meant to mean?"
"Something's about to happen…something-" The train spun and she staggered to the side. Draco grabbed her arm, steadying her.
"Something? Pansy, come on, be specific. Is it-"
"Dark." Pansy managed. "Child of Darkness stuff. I don't know, it's…" A blinding pain washed over her, and she ripped the silver ring off her finger, ducking past Draco into the compartment.
"Selena! Hold onto this for me." She thrust the ring in Hermione's direction, and she took it, understanding dawning on her face. She didn't have a chance to say anything before Pansy had grabbed Draco's hand and run off again.
"Pansy! What's going on?" She swayed again, unsteady on her feet. The world was spinning and she could feel the silvery jellyfish-like sins roiling in her belly. She threw up. "Pansy!" She lurched upwards, wiping her mouth on the back of her hand.
"Semencia!" She gasped out with a flick of her wand. Blue light spilled from her wand and washed along the corridor and back, making their hair whip against their faces.
"What the hell?" Draco asked. Pansy grabbed his arms and pushed him back against the door of the girl's toilet. "Pans-"
She kissed him deeply, closing her eyes and sucking the sins from him, sucking his soul from him. He was dark, but compared to what she already held, he was as light as the noonday sun. He staggered, and Pansy opened the door to the bathroom and pushed his blank-eyed body inside before shutting it again. She turned and gasped.
Dementors. They hissed slightly as they moved, approaching her. Pansy took a deep breath and straightened her spine. She didn't have anything to be frightened of, she was practically a dementor herself.
"Leave." She said flatly. The dementors didn't reply, they never said a word. "There isn't anything here for you." One stepped forward, a slimy hand gripped her arm. She pushed at it, but wasn't strong enough to push it away. She was drawn relentlessly to his mouth, and she felt his slimy hollow mouth touch hers and she gagged, the sins rising up like bile. The moment they touched the dementor it screamed, dropping her like a stone and screaming all the while. Pansy clapped her hands over her ears and curled on the floor where the dementor had left her, squeezing her eyes shut.
She stayed like that until she felt something hard rap her shoulder.
"Get up, you silly girl." Someone snapped. She opened her eyes and sighed, climbing to her feet.
"Lucius. What a surprise." Lucius sneered.
"Where's my son?"
"You realise the dementors could have killed him, right?" Pansy asked, her hands on her hips.
"He's a Child of Dark. They wouldn't touch him." Lucius shrugged.
"Well, they kissed me, though they didn't much like the taste. I'm assuming you're here for Voldemort. So tell him when he asks that I saved everyone on this damned train because ingratiating myself with Dumbledore might just come in handy."
"Tell him yourself." Lucius smirked. Pansy frowned and turned around, and immediately fell to her knees. This was the first time she had met Voldemort officially without a knife in her chest, but she knew how to act.
"My lord." She said softly. Voldemort chuckled.
"Souler. You had something to tell me?"
"I saved the train from the dementors, my Lord, with the intention of ingratiating myself with Dumbledore." Pansy said.
"You did, did you?" Voldemort asked with a smile. "Rise, Emilia." She stood, but kept her head down. "I understand your reasons and am actually quite pleased. You thought first how to turn this to your advantage, well done."
"Thank you my lord."
"There is one last dementor in the engineer's cabin." Voldemort said with a smile. "You'll need to retrieve the engineer's soul if you hope to reach Hogwarts by this particular form of travel."
"Yes my lord." She murmured. He smiled and passed her a cane, much like Malfoy's.
"A toy." He smiled and he and Lucius vanished. Pansy looked over the cane, frowning. It was simple black ebony, with a spherical green crystal in the top. It didn't come out, like Lucius' did, it was just…a cane.
"Huh." Pansy frowned, then headed back up to the engineers cabin to find the engineers. There were two, passed out on the ground, and as she entered the room the dementor lunged at her. "No you don't!" She grunted as she thrust her hand into his chest, finding the two souls she was looking for and dragging them out. The dementor screamed and fled, and Pansy returned the souls to their owners. The two engineers woke slowly, and blinked groggily. When they saw her they sat up quickly and swayed as dizziness overtook them.
"Slowly." She said gently. The followed her advice. "How quickly can you get this train underway?"
"Give it five minutes to make sure everything is still in working order and we can be off." There was an edge of respect to the man's voice, and Pansy smiled.
"Good. Do the best you can. I'll make sure the students are alright." She smiled and turned to leave.
"Miss? What did you do?" She glanced over her shoulder.
"I saved you of course." She shrugged. "It's not that big a deal."
"It is to us, Miss." The other engineer said earnestly.
"If you want to repay me then let's get this train moving as soon as possible. The quicker we're at Hogwarts the safer we'll all be." The engineers nodded and quickly turned to their work, and Pansy headed back down the train.
Her first stop was the bathroom where Draco was still slumped, empty-eyed across the floor, half-draped across the toilet. Pansy pulled him across the floor so he leaned squarely agains the wall and straddled his outstretched legs, framing his face with her hands as she lowered her mouth to his, pulling his soul up through her and letting it pour into him. He started as it took hold, his hands rising to grip her thighs as awareness returned to him. Pansy leaned back, looking carefully into his eyes. It looked all there.
"Pansy, what did you do?" He demanded. "Where are we?"
"Girls toilet, on the train." She said briskly, rising and brushing herself off before offering her hand to him. He ignored it, rising unsteadily on his own. She sighed and sat him down on the closed toilet lid. "We were attacked by dementors, I took your soul away and left you in here so you'd be out of the way. I just gave it back."
"By kissing?" He asked skeptically.
"It's called the Dementors Kiss for a reason, Draco." She snapped. "I'm going to go make sure everyone else is okay. When you feel you can move, head back to Granger's compartment."
"Hermione!" He threw himself to his feet and overreached himself, sending himself falling forward over Pansy. She held his weight, but only just.
"Gods, Draco! She's fine."
"How do you know?" The urgency in his voice hurt, but Pansy ignored the jealousy.
"I don't. But I figure if she were dead the world would implode or something." Draco shot her a look and pushed past her, out the door and down the corridor towards the compartment housing the golden trio. "You're welcome, anytime." She muttered, grabbing the cane and tapping it against her leg as she walked down the corridor, checking in on the students. They were all disorientated: the spell she had cast had both sealed the compartments and put their inhabitants to sleep. She'd lifted it when she'd returned Draco's soul, hence their waking and their disorientation.
The train shuddered forward and Pansy staggered to the side, swearing under her breath. You'd think saving a train full of students would be more rewarding.
She finally made it to the end and then returned to the compartment of the golden trio, where Draco had made himself comfortable around Hermione. Pansy struggled not to puke as she stepped inside.
"Selena, the ring please." She said curtly, holding out her hand. Draco shot her a look but she ignored him. "Thanks."
"Why didn't you say?" Hermione asked quietly. Pansy shrugged.
"I figured you wouldn't believe me if it said Pansy at the bottom of the letter." Hermione stretched out her hand and dropped the ring into Pansy's palm. "Thanks."
"What just happened?"
"Dementor attack." Draco said shortly. "Pans took care of it."
"Dementors? Where?" Harry demanded.
"They've gone now, Potter." Pansy said tiredly, dropping onto the seat beside Draco and leaning her head back against the wall. "I sorted it out and cleared them off. We're back on our way to Hogwarts and should be there in a few hours."
"But how?" Ron asked.
"I'm in league with Voldemort, Weasley, and I'm actually planning to kill you in your sleep." Pansy said flatly. Hermione reached over and idly slapped Pansy's arm.
"Don't tease them like that."
"Then they shouldn't leave themselves so open." Pansy retorted, closing her eyes. "Tell me when we get there."
"What the hell is going on?" Ron demanded. "First Hermione and Malfoy are all friendly, then Pansy shoos off a bunch of dementors and now she's taken over our compartment?"
"It was mine first." Pansy mumbled around a yawn. "Shut up Weasley. I'm trying to sleep."
And eventually, she did.
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