A / N : Chapter title is from the song by Fall Out Boy.

Remember Priscilla Parkinson? Narcissa's somewhat slutty sometime friend from chapters eight and nine? Well, she's back. She's also drunk in this chapter, so her grammar is not the best. Drunk people have difficulty assembling grammatically correct sentences, as we all know, so if you see a lot of repetition in hers, a lot of words that essentially mean the same thing etc, it's intentionally done . . . just in case anyone might want to point it out to me. Also, the nicknames are quite amusing aren't they? Cilla and Cissy. Strange coincidence . . . I only just noticed it.

I think that's all I have to say, for now. Enjoy, and let me know what you think, as always.

Champagne For My Real Friends, Real Pain For My Sham Friends

The wonderful thing about being a member of pureblood society was that scarcely a fortnight passed without a party invite arriving in the post. The not so wonderful thing about being a member of pureblood society, Narcissa reflected, was that by the time a girl turned seventeen, she had attended so many parties she might be forgiven for wanting to scream as another invitation for a must-attend social function dropped into her lap. Not that she wouldn't attend, of course. She just might begin a feel a little resentful about it.

This week, it was the wedding of two people – one of them Italian, both of them pureblood, naturally – that Narcissa had never spoken to in her life.

"Honestly," she complained aloud. "We don't even know them!"

"So?" Priscilla Parkinson laughed. "Who cares?"

Priscilla obviously didn't. Barefoot at the wedding reception, she had kicked off her shoes and was now perched on top of the bar in the Leaky Cauldron, downing cocktails so quickly it was almost indecent.

"Hey, Cissy," she asked abruptly. "Do I look like a whore?"

Narcissa hesitated. Her friend was wearing a bright yellow dress that wasn't particularly nice, but surprisingly, wasn't too suggestive either. If she hadn't been sitting on the bar getting roaring drunk, Priscilla could actually have passed for demure. Cissy shook her head.

"No," she said, mystified. "Actually, you don't. Why?"

"Because," Priscilla sniffed, "there was a real creep coming on to me earlier. I wasn't even flirting with him either. So he must have thought I looked really easy." She snapped the olive off her cocktail stick and popped it into her mouth with a sour expression. Cissy watched the olive turn round inside her mouth as Priscilla continued. "Avery's not paying any attention to me either. It's just not fair. You know?"

Narcissa glanced at Lucius, who was standing on the other side of the room talking to someone who was quite clearly boring him silly. She sighed. "I know," she muttered. She still had no idea what was wrong with Lucius, and her head was starting to hurt, trying to make sense of it all. Honestly, one minute things had been fine between them – more than fine, in fact – and the next, he couldn't seem to get away from her fast enough! And there was just no talking to him. He had come to take her to the wedding, of course, but every time she tried to talk to him he distracted her with drinks or dancing or introductions or something. She was starting to feel really panicked. Especially because she had a feeling – more than a feeling, really – that if he hadn't all but run away from her yesterday . . . well, they might have . . . they might have . . . Cissy bit her lip, nervously smoothing the taffeta skirts of her green dress. They might have had sex. But he had run away. What did that mean? That he didn't want to? Or that he just didn't want to with her? Cissy swirled her drink unhappily as Priscilla drained the contents of her own and smacked her lips.

"You know what I don't understand?" Priscilla demanded.

"Erm . . ." Narcissa frowned, casting her gaze about the room for a clue. This was Priscilla, after all. There were a lot of possible answers to that question. "Teetotallers?" she suggested, watching Priscilla mix her third drink.

Cilla threw an entire handful of olives into her glass. "No," she said savagely. "Men!"

"Oh." Cissy wasn't about to argue with that.

"It's like they've all got virgin-whore syndrome or something."

Narcissa choked. "They've all got what?" she asked curiously.

Priscilla began to swing her legs, kicking her heels against the bar. "Virgin-whore syndrome," she declared, enunciating carefully. "They think all women are either virgins" - she jerked a thumb at Narcissa - "or whores." She waved her free hand at herself, slopping a little of her drink down her front.

Cissy blushed. "That's ridiculous," she protested. "So as soon as you sleep with someone, you become a whore? Is that what you're saying?"

Priscilla groaned. "No," she said emphatically. "That's not what I'm saying! It's not even about sex. It's about how they think of you. I mean, me, I'm always the whore, you know? I'm always the tart."

Narcissa opened her mouth, about to point out that Priscilla had never really done much to refute this. But her friend had already charged on.

"And you're the virgin," she said acidly. "You're the good girl, you know? You're practically a nun. You could be sleeping with every man here and they'd probably still think you should be canonized. You have this whole golden girl aura, it's sickening. It's just not fair!"

She threw her hands up in the air, inadvertently splashing herself with alcohol. Seeing this, she stared at her now-soaked dress in horror, and her bottom lip began to wobble, as if she might cry. Narcissa stared at her. She had never seen Priscilla look so upset.

"Well, maybe . . . maybe it's not so wonderful to be thought of as the good girl all the time either," she suggested, hoping to appease her friend.

It worked. The merest hint of someone else's misery, and Priscilla cheered up straight away. "I knew it!" she said gleefully. "He put pressure on you to have sex, right?" she asked, her eyes sparkling. "Before you were ready? And then he made you cry!" She was all but hopping up and down in delight, pointing a finger accusingly in Lucius' direction.

Narcissa knocked her friend's arm away immediately, praying Lucius hadn't seen her pointing at him. "No!" she said firmly. "He did not."

Priscilla chewed one of her olives thoughtfully. "Are you sure?" she asked, disappointed. "Maybe he was manipulating you," she suggested hopefully.

Narcissa reddened. "No, he wasn't," she insisted. "He wouldn't do that to me. And besides, we haven't even . . . you know."

Priscilla spat out her olive in shock. "What, never?" she exclaimed incredulously. "But . . but . . . you've been together for, what" - she broke off, counting on her fingers. It seemed to take quite a long time. "Two months?"

Narcissa shrugged. Priscilla continued to gape at her. "But . . . but . . ." She fell silent. "Wow," she said at last. She stabbed her cocktail stick moodily into her drink. "He must really like you," she mumbled sullenly.

Narcissa felt her face flame. I thought he did. I thought he loved me. "He does," she murmered. "Why are you drinking so much?" she asked suddenly, searching for a distraction.

"Oh." Priscilla swallowed again, looking a little bitter, and by this stage, extremely drunk. "See . . ." She giggled hysterically. "I had a scare," she confided in a slurred stage-whisper.

Cissy blinked at her. "What kind of scare?" she asked blankly.

Priscilla shoved her rather roughly. "Don't be dumb," she said. "What do you think? A pregnancy scare, obviously."

Narcissa felt her mouth fall open. When she had recovered her wits, she realized it was probably a good thing it had only been a scare. Priscilla really wasn't motherhood materiel.

"Well, at least it was only a scare," she said diplomatically, deciding to voice only the first half of this little revelation out loud.

To her horror, Priscilla began to giggle again, knocking back the rest of her drink. She laughed and laughed, uncontrollably, throwing her head back and clinging to the rim of the bar as though it were the ledge of a seventeen story building. "S – see," she slurred. "The thing is . . . I never found out. I mean, I was too scared! So I never found out, and now I'm still . . . scared . . . Isn't it funny?"

Narcissa's eyes widened. "No!" she cried, appalled. "It's not funny, Cilla!" She wrenched the glass out of her friend's hand. "How many of these have you had?" she demanded, horrorstruck.

Priscilla shrugged. "A few. I was thinking maybe I could drink it out." She laughed. "I don't think it's working," she confided conspiratorially.

"I should hope not! I . ." Narcissa had never been so completely and utterly lost for words. "Have you told Avery?" she managed at last.

"No."

"Well I really think you should. And you shouldn't drink any more, for heaven's sake!" Cissy insisted. It was the most horribly selfish thing she could think of, though she had the feeling it wouldn't do to tell Priscilla that at this point. "It might be a good idea to start calling Avery 'Christopher' too," she added as an afterthought.

"I don't want to tell him."

"What?" Narcissa frowned. "Priscilla," she said reasonably, "you can't just not tell him. He's going to find out. And besides, he has a right to know."

"No, he doesn't!" Priscilla had turned a furious shade of scarlet. "He doesn't need to know. Because do you know why? All he'll do, if he finds out, is propose to me."

Cissy stared at her. "You don't want to marry him?" she asked, bewildered.

Priscilla shook her head vehemently. "No," she said fiercely. "I do want him to propose to me. I just don't want him to do it because of some kid, because he thinks he has to. . ." Her voice cracked. "It would be nice," she said, "just once, if someone wanted me for me, you know? Not for whatever they can get out of me, and not because they want to make someone jealous and not because I'm just there . . ."

Narcissa stared at her. "I don't understand."

"Well of course you don't!" Priscilla exploded. "Because you're such a good girl, and you're destroying people's relationships and you don't even notice!"

"I don't -"

"He's in love with you!" Priscilla almost screamed.

"What?"

"Avery," Priscilla spat. "He's in love with you or something, it's horrible. He talks about you all the time and he says all these things like .. . like how I should be more like you, and he just stares at you when we're in the same room as you, and he says your name when we're-"

"Alright, alright, stop it!" Narcissa cried, alarmed. "I don't want to hear any more!" She took a deep breath. Once upon a time – say, when she had been going out with Avery and Priscilla had been flinging herself at him at every opportunity - this situation might have amused her. But now, it just horrified her. "Priscilla," she said, as soothingly as she could, "He isn't in love with me. We were going out together, remember? And he never said it. Don't you think he would have mentioned it, if he was in love with me?" Priscilla said nothing to this. She simply stared at her companion, as though Cissy were quite possibly the dimmest person she'd ever met. Narcissa sighed. "We broke up," she reminded Priscilla. "And I haven't even spoken to him since. I'm not going to take him away from you, Cilla. He's yours. I don't love him. I don't want him."

Priscilla froze, and then she jumped off the bar, wrinkling her nose as her bare feet touched the sticky pub floor. She hefted a bottle of champagne out of a bucket of ice and blew the cork off with her wand, ignoring Cissy's attempts to snatch it away from her.

"Well maybe," she hissed nastily, "you should have been more of a bitch when you broke up with him, shouldn't you? Maybe then he wouldn't think you're such a nice girl, and maybe then he would have found it easier to get over you!"

"Priscil-"

"No! I don't want to hear it! Now if you don't mind," Priscilla said venemously, her nose in the air, "I'm going to take my champagne and my maybe-baby and find myself a good time!"

She stormed off, leaving Narcissa to stare after her, open-mouthed and lost for words. At last Cissy sighed and sat back down, fingering the stem of her champagne flute and and twirling idly back and forth on her stool as she watched Lucius on the other side of the room. She sipped her drink, wondering. What did he think of her? Did he think she was a good girl too?

Probably.

Was that good or bad?

Not that it really mattered, of course. Priscilla hadn't been too far wrong. She was a good girl, wasn't she? Sweet. Innocent. Inexperienced. Naive.

Lucius – now trapped in a conversation with her aunt Walburga - caught her eye and smirked. Cissy rolled her eyes, giggling despite herself. Aunt Walburga was probably saying something humiliating, telling him to make an honest woman of her niece or warning him not to "corrupt the girl's innocence" . . . .

Narcissa choked.

"Oh Merlin!" she said, stunned, as the pieces of the puzzle fell into place. She stared at Lucius, caught somewhere between horror and amusement.

"You can't be serious!"