The twin that was most probably George left the Great Hall without once looking in Millicent's direction, which made Pansy very sad.
"It's not a problem, Parkinson," Millicent assured her as the Slytherin girls headed back to the dungeons. "You're treating this like a sprint when it has the potential to be a marathon."
"As though you have any experience with either," said Daphne scathingly before she and Tracey giggled and high-fived.
It was funny enough, but Millicent elbowed Daphne in the windpipe out of principle. Then she and Pansy giggled and high-fived. When seen in a certain light there probably was a reason that people thought the Slytherin girls were all bitches.
Daphne took the elbowing with good spirits, reaching out to yank at a chunk of Millicent's hair and calling her a name that her mother would certainly not approve of before flouncing off with Tracey.
It worked well for Millicent, really. She put a hand up to pat her hair tentatively. "She wrecked my bow!" she cried.
"It's not that bad," said Pansy dismissively, evidently still annoyed that their torture twin had not been exposed to the hideous make-up.
"It is!" wailed Millicent, making very sure that all of the students leaving the Great Hall could hear her. "I can feel it! She knew I had to look beautiful tonight too!"
Evidently Pansy wasn't really sure where they were going with this display because she frowned and wasn't particularly soothing when she said, "We can go back to our dorm and fix it."
"I'm not walking through the school like this!" Millicent wailed, heading for the closest bathrooms. "He could see me!"
"How could he see you?" Pansy exclaimed in irritation. "The dungeons don't exactly lead through Gryffindor-rich territory!"
Millicent wondered whether she was being deliberately obtuse or was too distraught over the make-up failure to realise that the situation was more than salvageable. "He could come down to the dungeons," she said. And then more quietly as though she were embarrassed, added, "To say goodnight. Couldn't he?"
Pansy scowled at her and then sighed, shoulders drooping as though she thought that Millicent was being a lunatic. "Sure," she said without any conviction. "I mean, why not? It's full moon. Stranger things have happened on the full moon."
Millicent nodded, letting out a smile and thinking of chocolate in the hopes that it would make the smile more genuine. She held open the bathroom door, motioning Pansy in.
Pansy drew back with an expression of horror. "Not those bathrooms!" she snapped. "Those bathrooms are infested with Gryffindors!" It was the perfect pitch to carry and Pansy's voice was infused with just the right amount of disgust. It couldn't have been better if Millicent had coached her.
Millicent let her smile sharpen at the corners, turning wicked just long enough for Pansy to realise she had a plan. "I'm dating a Gryffindor now, Pansy," she said plaintively. "You can't talk about them that way."
Rolling her eyes, Pansy stepped past Millicent and walked into the girl's bathrooms. Even the sharp tap of her shoes against the stone floors sounded judgemental. She had been right; when Millicent followed Pansy into the bathrooms she found three Gryffindor girls glaring at her from the basins.
"Oh Merlin, it's like a nest of them," said Pansy, pulling Millicent across to the mirrors to help fix her hair.
"That's not going to help," said Angelina Johnson. She was standing with one of the other Chasers, who might have been called Katie while Lavender Brown packed her Witch Weekly back into her purse quickly.
Pansy shot them a hard look over her shoulder, her fingers brushing quickly and expertly through the tangles in Millicent's hair as she readjusted the bow. "Did we ask for your opinion?"
Angelina straightened and smiled coldly. "I'm going to give it. You can do what you want with your hair, Bulstrode; George is still going to stand you up come the Ball."
Millicent was facing the Gryffindors and was taller than Pansy so she could see them as well as they could see her. "Why would you say that?" she asked, tilting her head and frowning in what she hoped passed as bemusement. She let her eyes narrow down. "Did George tell you he was going to stand me up?"
"No," said Angelina, her voice less harsh. She glanced at Katie quickly before going on, "But I mean…"
Millicent let her voice rise into high-pitched hysteria. "You mean what? Pansy, what is she saying?"
"I don't know," said Pansy slowly, her eyes dark as she turned to glare at the two Chasers. "What are you saying, Johnson? If the Weasley didn't tell you he was going to stand Milly up then why would you think it?"
"Yes, why?" cried Millicent trying her best to sound distressed. When Angelina and Katie both looked horrified, she thought that it was probably working. They were rather cornered now and, while a Slytherin wouldn't think twice about telling someone that they were too fat to be considered an appropriate date for someone like the Weasley twins, Gryffindors were not so callous.
"We just…" said Katie, darting an anxious look at Angelina. "He's never said he liked you, that's all."
"Oh," said Millicent, less hysterically. She pursed her lips and nodded to herself. "I like the quiet, mysterious types."
Angelina and Katie exchanged another look before evidently deciding that they were not going anywhere near that topic again. With non-committal murmurs, they went back to touching up their lip-gloss.
"Okay, your hair's fine," said Pansy.
They were done in the bathrooms and Millicent really didn't care what her hair looked like but she made a show of studying it from every angle in the mirror. "It's so sophisticated," she said, which it wasn't. It looked as though she'd been attacked by a bunch of first years who were only used to doing their dolls' hair and had more bows than common sense.
"Yeah, yeah," said Pansy, who wasn't known for her supportive nature even at the best of times. "Let's go."
She had the sense to wait until they were safely in their dorm with Daphne and Tracey again before asking, "What was that?"
Shrugging, Millicent pulled the horrible bows from her hair. "Not right now, but eventually," she said. "The Weasley clones are going to get over their horror at the predicament that they're in long enough to realise that someone got them into said situation. That was the insurance we have against them suspecting us. Even if those Chasers don't tell them about that exchange, Lavender Brown will. She's the most gossipy gossip to ever grace this green earth."
Pansy nodded. "Nice."
"Does it strike you as odd," asked Tracey. "That the pranks you play on people usually involve you making utter fools of yourselves?"
Pansy snorted. "They're the best kind," she said. "Then no one knows we're pranking and we can feel free to do it again and again on bigger and bigger scales."
"Mm-hm," agreed Millicent. "Those Weasley's don't know anything. They're only sixteen and everyone already knows not to trust them in any way. When we're a hundred we'll still be pranking people."
"Amateurs," said Pansy in exasperated good-humour. "Their pranking career already over because they just had to have the glory."
Daphne shook her head. "You guys are way too invested," she said. "But have you considered that a Hogsmeade weekend is coming up soon?"
Millicent frowned, trying to remember whether they'd made plans to go. "Do we have something to get from there?"
Daphne laughed and Tracey rolled her eyes at them. "Honestly," she said. "Stay on the ball. Couples go to Hogsmeade. You know, together. As couples."
Pansy squealed in delight and Millicent wondered blandly whether there was any way in which she could get out of spending her weekend with a terribly dull, freckled Weasley.