Author's Note: Whoo! Chapter four up already. This chapter is going to feature a lot of background info on Pansy, so you have been warned. Much less dialogue in this chapter than the others. But I had a lot of fun writing it. Pansy isn't a character you learn much about in the books or from J.K. (except that J.K. hates her), so it was fun making up a back story for her, explaining why she was so mean and how she became reformed. Hope you all like it!

"So, Pansy, how was your first week back at school?"

She pondered the question. She didn't have any problem being honest with Sophie. Draco had told her he didn't intend on talking to anyone about anything because it wouldn't change what had happened. And Blaise…well, Blaise had never really been much of a talker. She knew both of them would be guarding their secrets and feelings from anyone who tried to discern them. But she had no problem talking. In fact, she thought she might rather enjoy it.

"It was okay. A bit weird, being surrounded by people that hate me, although I suppose everyone that's not in Slytherin has always felt that way. But this year, there's a lot less Slytherins for me to hide behind, so it was much more apparent."

Sophie nodded encouragingly, obviously pleased with her unreserved response. "What do you mean by that? Hiding behind your peers?"

Pansy blew some air out of the corner of her mouth, causing a lock of her black hair to fly around wildly. "Well, I've always been a bit of a…bitch, if I'm honest." She grinned wickedly at Sophie. "It's almost as if I can't help it. Mostly to girls, but I never discriminated."

Sophie nodded some more, a slight frown appearing on her face.

"A bitch how?"

Pansy was glad to see this woman didn't have any problems tossing around foul language. She decided she liked her. "Oh, you know. Cutting them down. Calling them ugly."

"Why do you think that was?"

Pansy crossed her legs, leaning back in the armchair, thinking. Then she shrugged. "Self-esteem problems? I don't know. Daddy issues, more likely."

"What makes you say that?"

Pansy snorted, amused. "You've read my file, haven't you? My Mum died when I was eight. She was always rather fragile, got ill and couldn't recover. It was hard on me, I loved her so much, wanted to be just like her. She was so beautiful. And my father, he treated her like a queen. And while she was alive, he treated me well too. His Queen and Little Princess, he used to call us. And then she died, and all of the sudden he was never around anymore. Always off on business."

"That must have been very hard on you. Losing your mother when you were so young, and then not having your father to help you through it."

"Yes, it was. I tried everything I could think of to get him to notice me. First just little things, girly things, drawing pictures, baking sweets, with our house elf's help, of course. But then I thought, maybe I need to impress him. So I started going into his study and reading his books, and trying to understand them and talk with him about them. But…he was never home. I used to fall asleep in our parlor, waiting for him to arrive. I could never stay up late enough, and by the time I woke up the next morning, he was already gone. So I stopped trying to get his attention, and focused on the attention of others."

Sophie nodded again, her brows furrowed in thought. Pansy watched her, letting the silence stretch, not finding it the least bit uncomfortable.

"So why do you think that translated into you being mean to other people?"

Pansy began jiggling her foot, thinking. "I don't know, I guess I always felt…jealous of them, or something. If I saw them acting happy, I was-I was jealous, and wanted to cut them down and-and bring them down on my level, because I was completely miserable." The words seemed to cost her a great deal to say, not because she didn't want to say them, but because it was now, in this moment, that she was actually thinking hard about it, the why behind her malice.

"Do you regret the things you said, looking back?"

Pansy was silent for a moment. "Yes," she said finally, definitely. And she was, honestly. It was so stupid of her to have been so mean, there was no reason for it, she had finally realized. She used to be so frivolous, only concerned with looks and marrying well and being taken care of. Even after her father had abandoned her, she had still believed that she would be able to rely on a man to take care of her. But the war had changed that.

The war had brought a change to her way of life, her way of thinking. Neither of her parents had ever been fervent Voldemort supporters, although her father had held some pureblood beliefs that her mother had not shared. When her mother was alive, her parents had gotten over their disagreements on such matters simply by not talking about them. And it had been easier to do so in those days, after Voldemort had fallen and it didn't seem he would ever be returning. Her mother had passed many years before he was reborn, and it wasn't until then that Pansy's father began having issues at work.

She had never been quite sure what exactly it was that her father did. She knew he owned some sort of business which participated in the importation of magical products. Before Voldemort's first downfall, he had avoided being forced into the ranks of the Death Eaters by secretly allowing the importation of Dark objects. And he honestly had no qualms with that, although Pansy was sure if her mother had known she would have had something to say about it. After Voldemort was reborn, though, he was not so lucky. He began to be pressured to join the inner circle, to have the Dark Mark burned onto his arm. At the time, Pansy had wanted him to do it. She thought it exciting and glamorous. She thought it would bring her closer to the Malfoys, with whom her family had always been pleasantly acquainted but not close enough. Pansy was in awe of Draco, his beauty, his charm (when he wanted to be charming), his family's power. She wanted nothing more than to marry him and be a dutiful Death Eater wife as her husband and the Dark Lord led the way to creating a New World.

How naïve she had been.

The summer before her sixth year, her father had finally started coming home. But he often locked himself in his study with a bottle of fire whiskey, passing out in an armchair by the fireplace to be covered with a blanket by their house elf Prissy. Pansy used to sneak peeks at him through the crack in the door, and what she saw disturbed her. When her mother was alive, her father had been a handsome man, retaining his youth well. He seemed to emit a glow of happiness when he was around her mother. A usually kind but reserved man, her mother was able to bring him out of his shell and make him sparkle with life. And while after her mother's death her father had never been around, Pansy had been able to retain that image of him in her mind. But this man she saw slumped before the fireplace…she didn't recognize him. He looked old, tired, and defeated. Broken. Helpless. Pathetic. She had never been so scared in her life. She counted down the days until her return to Hogwarts. She couldn't wait to get back to school and be surrounded by her Slytherin friends, who all seemed to crackle with an unknown energy when they talked about "the cause". She wanted to see their energy and be reminded that when you served the Dark Lord you would reap the rewards, not be turned into what her father had become.

But that didn't happen. She watched the entire year as Draco steadily became more reclusive, began looking ill and exhausted all of the time. And it finally dawned on her that serving the Dark Lord wasn't glamorous at all. The few times Draco was around her she was able to see the horror in his eyes, and just how terrified he was. He wasn't enjoying himself. He was in agony. And she hated it. Not just because he was her friend and she cared about him, but because that look in his eyes would soon fill hers, if she wasn't careful.

So she began thinking. Pansy had never been regarded as a particularly smart girl, but that was because she had never tried very hard in school. She wasn't dumb, she just had never thought she would need to try very hard, because she planned on marrying and having a man take care of her as soon as possible. To her, it looked like the Dark Lord was going to win. After Death Eaters invaded Hogwarts, and Dumbledore had been killed by a man the Order of the Phoenix had thought was on their side, how could he not? So she needed to do whatever was necessary in order to survive. And she had done just that. It didn't matter to her much about muggleborns or muggles or any of that nonsense. It never had, really, she had just said it because she thought she was supposed to. And because Draco believed it. But now, she said it because she had to, if she was going to stay alive. Weren't Slytherins famous for only being concerned with saving their own skin? Well then she was Slytherin, through and through.

And so she had carried on through her seventh year, taunting the members of Dumbeldore's Army, ratting them out when necessary. And when Harry Potter had shown up in May, and the Dark-freaking-Lord demanded he be handed over or they would all die, who were they to refuse? So she had jumped up and screamed, terrified that it might be the end of them all, the end of her, if they didn't.

Of course, all the members of bloody Gryffindor and Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff refused, and at the time, all she had thought was good riddance. She had left the castle as quickly as she could, apparated home, and sat in her father's study all night, waiting for him to come home. But he never had. And as the sun rose on that fateful morning, news came streaming in over the radio that the Dark Lord had been killed, Voldemort had been killed by Harry Potter, and Death Eaters were being rounded up as they spoke. She had sat frozen in her chair for she didn't know how long, ten minutes, or an hour, or five. And all she had thought, over and over again, was: he's gone. He's gone. He'sgonehe'sgonehe'sgonehe'sgone. And finally, it's over. And a huge grin had spread across her face, and her screams of joy had brought a frantic Prissy in the room, and she had grabbed the old elf's hands and spun with her around the room.

It wasn't until then that a heavy weight seemed to lift off of her, and she realized that she had been living with such fear for so long, and now she wouldn't have to! Her father wouldn't have to! They were all safe, safe from such nonsense because who cared, really? Who cared that much about something so silly that they were willing to waste their lives, their very happiness on it? She had seen that happen to her father, to Draco, and she had been terrified it would happen to her. But she had escaped it. Everyone left had escaped it. They were going to be okay.

Doors began opening for her that day, as she sat in her father's study. As she had said before, when she was younger, all she had planned for her life was marrying well and being the wife of a prominent Death Eater (Draco had always been the aforementioned Death Eater in her mind's eye). But for the last two years, she hadn't thought about her future at all, she had just been living day to day. But now…now there were whole worlds open to her that she had never even thought about. She didn't even have to marry, if she didn't want to, because she had learned how to survive on her own! She could do anything, be anything!

Her few hours of bliss were interrupted later that evening when a pair of grim-faced Aurors had knocked on her door. They had taken her father into custody, and could she please come down to the Ministry? She had grabbed her cloak hurriedly and followed them suspiciously, wondering if they were going to do something to her. Her father, it turned out, had handed himself over to the Aurors quietly after the battle. He had always tried to stay as uninvolved as possible in Death Eater affairs, and for that the Ministry was going to be lenient. Only three months in Azkaban. They had allowed her to see him before they took him away, and it was a reunion she would never, ever forget, as long as she lived.

Her father was sitting on a low wooden bench in a dimly-lit stone corridor. There was an Auror guarding him, and they retreated a bit as Pansy approached, allowing them some privacy. Her father looked up at her face only when she stood right in front of him.

He studied her quietly for a few moments. He looked much the same as when she had last seen him: lines around the tired blue eyes, hair going gray, unkempt. But something had changed. In his eyes, she saw something she hadn't seen in them for almost ten years. At first she almost couldn't tell what it was, but then she realized it was hope. She felt something swelling up in her heart, and she felt like in a moment it might burst.

"Pansy," he had breathed quietly. "My sweet girl. My Little Princess. You look just like your mother." And with that she couldn't take it anymore, she had fallen down crying, her arms around his shoulders, her head buried in his chest, and he was crying too. After about ten minutes they finally stopped, got a grip on themselves. She was sitting on the floor in front of him, her legs folded underneath her, unaware of the cold stone cutting into her shins. He had put two fingers under her chin and raised her face to look at his.

"Pansy, when I get out, I promise things will be different. They'll go back to how they were before. And you promise me one thing, okay? Promise me that you won't ever make my mistakes."

She had nodded up at him, biting down on her lip as her eyes filled with tears again. The Auror came over and led her father away, and she remained sitting on the floor, silent tears streaming down her face. No one came over to ask her to leave, or offer her help, or ask her if she was okay, or said anything to her, really. But she was glad for it. She didn't think she could have taken them being mean or indifferent, but she thought she would have been equally unable to bear any sympathy they might have offered. She couldn't just feel sorry for herself forever.

Finally she had gotten herself up off the floor, dusted herself off, and went back home. And she vowed to herself then that she would not break the promise she had made to her father. She would not make his mistakes. She would be different. She knew it might be hard. Seemingly impossible, in fact. But she would prove to everyone that she was not the stupid, callous girl they all thought her to be.

First things first, though. She needed to figure out who she really was.

"Are you going to try and change?" Sophie asked her. She didn't say it like she expected it of Pansy. Not in a mean way, though, as if she didn't think Pansy could or would do it. Just in a way that showed she understood Pansy would do whatever she wanted, and Sophie didn't expect her to be one way or the other. It was nice.

"I am. I promised my father I would. We reconciled before he was sent to Azkaban, and had a few weeks together before I came back to school. We're both trying to get our lives in order, which is hard, since so many people are judgemental toward anyone who was sympathetic with Voldemort."

Sophie didn't flinch at the sound of the name, which only increased Pansy's amiable feelings toward her. Pansy had never said the name before he was killed, but now that he was dead she thought it was silly when people were still scared to say it. He was dead, for Merlin's sake! What was he going to do to them?

Sophie smiled at her. "I'm glad to hear you want to be different. I'm sure it is very hard encountering negative attitudes when you are trying to change."

Pansy nodded. "It is, but I don't blame them, really. I'm just waiting for the day when I finally prove to them that I have changed, that me and my father both have, and hopefully then, they'll be willing to accept us."

"What if they don't?"

Pansy shrugged. "Then screw them. I don't need to waste too much time on it. I've got a life to live, after all."

Sophie smiled at her again. "Yes, you do. If you try to show people that you've changed, and they refuse to accept it, they probably aren't worth your time anyway."

"Exactly." Pansy was glad Sophie felt the same way she did about it. She was obviously going about this whole thing the right way, which was good to know.

"Well, Pansy, I have thoroughly enjoyed our session together. You're one of the few students who has opened up to me so far, and I appreciate that you feel you can trust me. The group session with your fellow seventh years is a week from this Saturday, but if you want to talk to me about anything before then, just let me know."

Hope you all found it enjoyable! I won't make promises about the next chapter (I'd hate to break it), but I expect it won't be too long before it's up...