For reasons that are beyond me, my heartfelt apology about the er... slight discrepancy in new chapters, was cut out of the previous post.
The gist was: SO SORRY, but I entirely mean to finish this story. Mostly because I haven't even had a chance to play with my favourite characters and have Pansy shout at them. I'm excited about the future shouting.
Current delays include the joys applications- but fear not, I am actually a few thousand words ahead in the story. This is a bit of a teaser chapter- it was originally part of a monster post that became so grotesquely gargantuan that I had to put it out of it's misery Jack the Ripper style. Hopefully it'll shape up better- I know where I want to go, it's just getting there without getting distracted by the potential of adding surprise manticores.
Many thanks for the lovely comments (it's so nice to know that you're still interested!), especially the optimistic cynic (I promise there will be banter), ClumsyTonks and the ones from guests that I excitingly had to use google translate for. Chapters will keep coming, and will continue to do so until we reach the (unseasonal) Christmas drama I had planned.
"I don't know what you've done to Charlie, but you better stay away from him," commanded a voice behind Pansy. She was making more glorious coffee to fuel her through the next few hours of essay writing (or, more accurately, Professional –Probably Factually Correct- Bull Shitting), and this unpleasant tone was really distracting her whirling brain from the tedium of dragon husbandry.
"And what have I done to him?" enquired Pansy tiredly. Luckily being physically and mentally exhausted helped her acting skills, though they did not dull the guilty clench in her stomach.
Mona was leaning against the edge of the door. She was long, lean and menacing, despite her perfect golden curls and chipmunk face. It was the kind of look that Pansy wished she could pull off- sadly heavy features and a pug nose did not translate to "Sweet Girl Next Door" in quite the same fashion. Pansy couldn't quite work out why Charlie hadn't hit that already, when Mona was quite so pretty and obviously so very keen to be hit… Pansy blinked. The coffee was messing with her language skills. That or the tangible aggression coming from the killer blond was aggravating Pansy's less polite side.
"…I don't know," Mona stated sharply. "Charlie's too nice to tell anyone. But it's clear you've done something. The pair of you hardly do any chores or wrangling together-"
"My choice," interrupted Pansy. The faster she escaped this conversation the better. "I thought having a variety of experience here was best, seeing as I'm not planning on staying here long. Plus I presumed Charlie would want to get back to his Top Secret Research, of which Wynne has forbade me from taking part in."
Mona hmmphed. "Yeah, I'm sure it was your choice. Plus, you two don't act normally around each other. Either you avoid each other's eye contact, or take it in turns to glare."
"Charlie's gingerness offends me. Sometimes I try to stare it into submission."
"Hilarious," she replied, voice dripping in sarcasm. It didn't suit her. Mona was used to being smiley and getting on with people. There was a slight wideness to her eyes that hinted that she found interrogating Pansy distressing. "And he glares at you because…?"
"It's not for me to say. Though others may put it down to my insatiable good looks. Others. Not me. Any who, I've got the joys of recessive genes in Swedish Short Snouts to get back to…" Pansy gabbled desperately, as she and her dearest caffeinated savior tried to make it to the door.
Mona stood tall and blocked her path. The unexpected movement almost made Pansy drop her coffee. She let out a very girlish, un-Slytherin shriek as the precious fluid almost spilt- a shriek which Pansy quickly covered with a challenging bellow.
"HOW DARE YOU!" she yelled, as Marcus popped his head helpfully round the corner.
"What's up?" piped Marcus, his bat-like ears questing for gossip. "Please tell me there is a showdown happening. I love me some showdowns."
"She spilled my coffee-"
"I'm trying to find out what this-this- Dragon Disliker did to Charlie-"
"MY COFFEE. (Also you had the whole of the English language to work with and you went with "Dragon Disliker?" Amateur.)"
"He's been acting weird recently- and round here that IS an insult!"
Marcus raised his hands placatingly. The 'Dragon Disliker' couldn't help but notice that his jaw line was so strong and square, it was almost painfully perfect. "Girls, girls. I think the only way to sort this out involves a sensible sit down. Followed by mud-wrestling."
"Ugh," Mona punched Marcus in the stomach with such force that would have crippled a lesser man. "Aren't you worried about Charlie and what this girl is doing to him? He's quiet and moping and… not Charlie!"
"If Mona isn't up for the mud-wrestling, I supposed that only leaves me and you, Marcus…" Pansy flirted, before catching an unfortunate glance of her reflection in the window. "Okay, pretend I said that when I wasn't looking like an essay-ridden wreak."
Marcus smiled his easy smile. There were tinges of Charlie in the way he grinned that made Pansy wonder who was mimicking who. "Just name the time and place, Damsel."
Mona let out another ineffable sigh of rage. "Great. Now if the two village bikes would stop flirting with each other, can we please get to the bottom of what is wrong with Charlie?"
Pansy shook out her dark hair, and adorned an expression of angelic wisdom. "Really Mona, I feel we shouldn't over-simplify people. There are probably many, many things wrong with him-"
Mona, sick of the interruptions and impatient with the direction her interrogation was going, suddenly gained a mad glimmer in her grey eyes. Possessing feline reflexes and leonine strength, Mona ripped the coffee cup from Pansy's hand and tipped the contents to the ground.
Leaning close to Pansy's face, she whispered; "Damsel isn't an ironic nickname."
"…." Pansy said. "…."
With what was either cowardice or an acute sense of self-preservation, Marcus made a flimsy excuse about needed to feed Wynne and have a disciplinary meeting with a dragon, and ran as fast as he could down the corridor.
The Slytherin gazed at the Coffee-Exterminator, her new Arch-nemesis (at least for today), and worked out whether it would be more satisfying to punch her on the nose or turn her into something nasty. Mona returned Pansy's unyielding look- which was impressive as it made a knife look cuddly in comparison.
"I think you should know," said Pansy, her voice laced carefully with calm. "That I'm not known for my patience, my ability to forgive, nor the tendency to lose battles. I pulled out a wand on the last two people who argued with me, and in both cases I was trying to be diplomatic. You come to me with coffee-bothering plots and accusations when I'm working to a deadline, and therefore at my most volatile." She sighed, the knot of guilt weighing heavy. As much as she wanted to deny Mona's accusation and send the little madam flying; Mona was undeniably correct. Pansy had done something wrong.
She admitted to Charlie that she was best friends with a guy who was intimately entangled with the horrors his family had to go through. Charlie hated Harry Potter merely because of the unpleasantness he brought, and at least Potter saved the wizarding world in some semblance of retribution. Pansy was probably a constant reminder of the awfulness he tried to leave behind. A perpetual shadow representing all the wrong done to Bill and Fred and Ginny and whoever else Charlie knew. There would be a long list of the dead. There always was.
"Oh for God's sake, Mona," Pansy said exasperatedly, changing tack. She couldn't deny she'd done something to Charlie, but perhaps he could try to fix it just a little. "Why don't you just ask him out?"
"What? I- no! I'm just worried about him! Concerned for his welfare!" Mona blushed and stammered, quickly looking about her to make sure no one had heard Pansy's outburst. "Don't change the subject!"
"If we go back to the previous subject, it would end up with me turning you into a Crumple-Horned Snorkack. And I don't even know what one of them looks like. Please don't deny that you've got hots for Goldilocks. It's obvious, and in my fragile, uncaffeinated state I really can't be doing with the arguing thing. I've got to save my intelligent thoughts for the Journal of Magizoology and remembering how to stay upright."
Mona looked caught in indecision, and completely derailed by Pansy's alarmingly amiable tone. Her nose, that looked like it really belonged on an adorable woodland creature and not a person, wrinkled with unhappiness and she exclaimed. "Is it really that obvious? Does he know?"
Pansy chuckled. "No, your Prince Charming is more likely to sense the subtle nuances of a dragon's emotion than he is to notice the flagrant overtness that you've got a whopping great crush on him."
Mona looked like she was about to crumble. "I've had this crush for seven months. It never takes a guy seven months to ask me out. Never." Good for you, Pansy thought sardonically. Seven months was nothing in her Endless Saga of Unrequited Love. "And I have no idea if he even likes me. He's nice to everyone."
"I find that disturbing too. Now, if you'd make me more coffee, I will tell you your new Plan of Attack. There will be a diagram, and seven easy steps that even an idiot like you can manage. I will even give you permission to use me as bitching fodder…"