Hell Tastes Sweet
Chapter Ten
Pansy woke up on her bed surprised to find herself there. Then, she remembered that Draco hadn't allowed her to fall asleep the previous night reminding her about his Quidditch match versus Gryffindor.
While the rest of her roommates were sleeping, Pansy had a shower and got dressed. Then she decided to head to the Great Hall to have a very early breakfast. Not surprisingly, being so early in the morning, the Great Hall was almost empty. Only a couple of Hufflepuffs, three Ravenclaws were there. In the Gryffindor table, Pansy saw Harry Potter sitting alone having breakfast.
He didn't even look at Pansy when she walked by heading to her table. She sat down and was about to butter a piece of toast when she started thinking about her conversation with Draco. Although she didn't want to tell everything to Dumbledore, she knew that she had to say at least something to the Headmaster if she didn't want to appear to be in the wrong side.
Pansy knew well what it meant to be a Slytherin nowadays, her house had been in trouble ever since the Ministry had acknowledged the return of the Dark Lord and whereas Harry Potter's hero status had been reinstated and now Ravenclaws, Hufflepuffs and specially all Gryffindors adored him, almost half of the Slytherin had found themselves emarginated due to their relations with presumed Death Eaters.
Pansy was actually one of fortunate ones. She had always been quite popular and her group of friends were still loyal to her. Her parents' non-Death Eater status allowed her to still appear as a respectable member of the school, even though she had made a huge mistake joining the Inquisitorial Squad the year before. It was just lucky that she had not been involved in the whole incident that ended with Umbridge being taken away by the centaurs.
In any case, things were not so easy for the Slytherins at the moment and Pansy just hoped things would go back to normal as soon as possible.
Slowly, and making sure no one was watching her, and even more important, that no one from the Slytherin house was there, Pansy got up from her seat and walked quickly towards Harry. Even though it seemed a bit paranoid, she decided to take every precaution possible in case she was seen and, when she passed by Harry, she dropped the latest edition of Witch Weekly that she was carrying so she had to crouch right next to him.
He looked a bit startled when he turned around to see the source of the noise but, before he could say anything, Pansy whispered as low as possible:
"Tell Dumbledore I've heard from Draco that You-Know-Who is preparing an attack with the Dementors...It's all I know so don't ask me anything else...."
Then before Harry could even register what she had said, she grabbed the magazine and left the Great Hall looking around herself hoping no one had seen her.
A few hours after, the whole school was heading towards the Quidditch pitch, Pansy included; she surrounded herself with her group of friends just in case Potter or any of his friends decided to ignore her request and tried talking to her.
Finally, after everyone had taken their seats around the pitch, a seventh year called Lee Jordan, started with the commentary.
"Good morning everyone, this is Lee Jordan for the first, most interesting match of the season, the great, twice in a row and current Quidditch Cup holder, Gryffindor versus...er...yeah, Slytherin...."
Pansy saw both teams coming out to the pitch while their names were announced. Draco was the first one to come out and Pansy felt a wave of pride, seeing him flying around the pitch with his brand new Firebolt. She also saw Potter's shock, caused by the fact that the Gryffindor probably hadn't known anything about Draco's newest purchase.
The match started with Gryffindor scoring, unfortunately for Slytherin, the Gryffindor's keeper, Ron Weasley, had greatly improved over the summer and it was really difficult for any of the three chasers to get passed him.
In addition to this, Ginny Weasley was now one of the chasers and, being small as she was, she slipped passed most players and was able to score the first thirty points of the match.
Pansy saw Draco and Harry looking for the snitch. Finally, Slytherin opened their score count when Ron had been forced to take a dive to avoid one of the bludgers.
The game became rougher after that. Slytherin had come near scoring again when, suddenly, Pansy saw Madam Hooch flying up from the ground whistling with her magically enhanced golden whistle, doing something that no one had ever been heard of: stopping a Quidditch match.
"All students must head back to the castle immediately. The match must be postponed to a date to be confirmed. Everyone move NOW!."
Professor Dumbledore's voice, enhanced with the 'sonorus' charm, reverberated through the pitch. Pansy looked around herself to see whether anyone was actually moving. It looked like everyone had had the same thought as her because it took a couple of seconds before none of them actually stood and started running towards the stairs that led all the way down from the grandstands.
There, some teachers were meeting the students and started organising the unprecedented evacuation of the pitch.
"What's going on?" Pansy heard Sonia asking her.
"I don't know, but it mustn't be good...I've never seen a Quidditch match being interrupted before..." Pansy replied.
"Come on, hurry up..." Pansy said to a group of first and second years that were in front of them.
Finally, all the students were gathered in the Great Hall and, after a while, were joined by Professor Dumbledore and the rest of the staff.
"I'm sorry everyone, you are to stay here for at least until we deem it is safe for you to go back to the grounds...all the teachers will come with me. The Head Boy and Girl will be in charge and I expect all prefects to cooperate with them..." Professor Dumbledore said stepping up the stand in front of the staff table.
"Professor, what's going on?" asked one seventh year Ravenclaw.
"We are being attacked...but, do not concern yourselves...we have already asked the Ministry for help..." with this, Professor Dumbledore stepped down and started walking along the Gryffindor's table. He stopped briefly by Potter's side and whispered something to him. Whatever it was, it made him get up and say something to Granger and Weasley, then Potter started following Dumbledore outside the Great Hall.
As soon as the professors, with Potter, had left the Hall, everyone started talking to each other and the noise they all made was almost deafening.
Soon, the Head Boy and Girl had their hands full trying to quiet everyone.
Pansy saw Draco walking towards her with his trademark smirk. He took her by one of her hands and pulled her with him towards one of the Hall's wall.
"Look up..." he said pointing one of the window with his free hand.
The girl looked up through the windows and saw the reason of the commotion. An entire army of black, floating Dementors was closing around Hogwarts…
To be continued...
A/n: Sorry it took so long…been a bit busy…I will try my best to post the next chapter tomorrow…I hope you're still enjoying this and, thanks everyone for your reviews!!! You're lovely people!