This chapter was greatly inspired by listening to Flyleaf's Dear My Closest Friend, with some contribution by Jenifer Lopez' The One and, strangely enough, Eminem & Rihanna's Love the Way You Lie (only for Rihanna's parts, though).

Okay, I love this chapter. Seriously. I didn't lie, there's some Draco. There's some Hermione. And there's also a lot of another character... and I really like her.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything.

Chapter 26

Pink and Silver

28th November, 1998

It was cold already. They had had a warm summer, though no-one had really been in the mood to enjoy it. September and October had also been crisp, warm, and welcoming months, the sun shining on the Hogwarts grounds in an attempt to make everyone forget the darkness that had happened there. During the first week of November, however, the temperature had dropped several degrees, and now it was downright chilly. The students had stopped pulling at the necks of their robes to relieve themselves of the heat and were now prone to drawing their cloaks tighter around themselves. Some had even already started wearing gloves and scarves.

"You know," Ginny said, "The Slytherins have been keeping a low profile this year."

"I'd noticed," she said absently, scanning the pitch on the lookout for when the teams would come out.

"Not that," Ginny said. "I mean, I don't even know who's on the team. I've never seen them practice."

"They've got a decent team this year," she said, the words escaping her stupidly.

She kept her eyes on the pitch, but even so, she could feel Ginny's eyes boring into her.

"Who told you that?"

"No one" she lied. "Just something I've heard said." Then, because she couldn't help it: "And they say the Captain is real good, too."

Ginny sounded doubtful when she spoke. "Slytherin's always had a decent team, but a 'real good Captain' isn't what I'd call any of their players from the previous years."

"Yeah, well. I suppose we'll see."

"Hermione," Luna said out of the blue, "That's a beautiful clip."

She stiffened, and her hand immediately rose to finger the clip in her hair. She'd tied it back into a ponytail to keep the wind from slapping it into her face, and almost in an afterthought she'd added a single hairpin to keep the shorter locks of hair, the ones that wouldn't be tied back into a ponytail, out of her face as well. It was a slim, silver pin, the type you could buy in any Muggle accessories shop. Hermione had had it for years, but for some reason, she couldn't recall a single time she had worn it at school. She had put it on today for ridiculous, childish reasons...

There was a small, green, plastic gem on one end of the pin.

"Silver and green," Luna said, echoing her thoughts. She really was a Ravenclaw. "Do you like green?"

"This?" Hermione said, pulling the pin out of her hair, staring at it and still avoiding her friends' gazes. "Oh. An aunt gave me a dozen of these years ago for Christmas. Surely you've seen me wearing them before."

"I don't think so," Luna said. "Here they come."

"Here they – " Hermione looked back at the pitch and saw fourteen figures of various sizes stride onto the field, following Madam Hooch in an orderly line. She slipped the pin back into her hair. "Oh," she said, wondering how long it would take for Ginny to realise who the tall, blond boy leading the green-clad figures was.

She focused on the rest of the team and realised she only knew two of them, neither of whom had been on the team in previous years. Theodore Nott, a Chaser she would guess, since he wasn't carrying a bat and he was probably too tall to be a Seeker, too slight to be a Keeper. She had never seen him play Quidditch that she could recall, and he didn't exactly look happy to be out on the pitch. And Parkinson. She wondered why they were there. Out of loyalty to Draco? The other four members of the team were much younger, second years that looked titchy enough to be first years. There was only one other girl. They looked nervous.

A decent team? Hermione wondered, feeling her heart sink. That was when she realised how badly she wanted Slytherin to win this match. She tried to catch Draco's eye, but he was standing in front of his team members, facing them and sternly saying – something.

"Holy shit," Ginny said in a sort of awed voice. "Malfoy is Captain?" Then: "A real good Captain? Hermione, you'll need to check your sources."

She watched, though, eyes alert as the Ravenclaw Captain shook Draco's hand. He was his team's Keeper, taller and heavier than Draco, and it was obvious that he was trying to crush the other's hand. A flash of annoyance visible even at this distance crossed Draco's expression, and Basset – the Ravenclaw Captain, Luna said – dropped his hand as though he'd been burnt. Behind Draco, Pansy leaned over to say something to Theo. Draco looked like he was telling them off, or maybe giving his team a last word of advice, and then the whistle blew.

After that it was like any other Quidditch match Hermione had ever attended. A confused blur, too fast to follow in its every detail had not the commentator been very dedicated and Ginny, beside her, even more so; bellowing whenever a point was scored.

"Bloody hell," she said at one point. "Ravenclaw is being murdered!"

"Are they playing badly?" Hermione asked.

"No," Ginny said, "but Slytherin is playing better. Merlin. Malfoy, Captain – now that's an idea. Wonder whether he's bought them all Firebolts or something?"

"Don't think he can afford to anymore," Hermione said."

"They do seem unusually fast, though," Ginny said thoughtfully. "Maybe it's their weight. All those second years are so small."

There was one major difference with the rest of the matches she'd attended. Her attention, this time, wasn't focused on Harry – Dementors, a cursed broom, the rain in his eyes – but on Draco. She found herself holding her breath whenever a Bludger came close, or when he suddenly darted down as though he'd seen the Snitch. The rest of the time she watched the Chasers, Nott, Parkinson and the only second-year girl. They rarely missed their shot, and after the first two Hermione noticed that the Slytherins on the bleachers cheered just as loudly as the Ravenclaws, forgetting their initial reservations about their team. The Keeper, another second year, was surprisingly good at the post for his size, his speed and agility making up for his titchiness. The two Beaters weren't much good at hitting the other team – they weren't strong enough – but they were fast enough to deflect the Bludgers aimed at their fellow team members.

After forty-five minutes of play and two false alerts, Draco spotted the Snitch. It was a spectacular catch, a neck-to-neck chase with the Ravenclaw Seeker, and when he rose up toward the skies with the Snitch in his outstretched hand, Slytherin went wild with enthusiasm.

"Damn," Ginny said as they filed out of the bleachers. "That's two good teams we'll have to face. I just hope Hufflepuff are really bad this year."

"Draco," a voice he knew too well said. "That was a good match."

He turned, looked at her. Everything about her was warmly familiar. Soft, soft hair, almost black in the darkness of the dungeons. Bright eyes that seemed to capture and reflect the flickering candlelight as they looked – impassively – straight at him.

"It was," he agreed cautiously. "You played well."

"So did you."

There was a pause. An uncomfortable one. Her gaze was heavy with reproach, her face expressionless.

"Let's go outside," he said impulsively. "Have a walk like we used to."

She winced, and for a second Draco thought she would refuse. He wouldn't blame her, either. Not after what he'd done to her. How could he ever make her understand he'd only wanted to protect her?

But: "All right," she said.

She fell in step with him. She was almost as tall as him and matched his stride easily. Even when they had been children, she always tagged along beside him. After a few seconds, he felt her warm fingers slip between his, and he remembered the first time a round, chubby hand had first found its way into his, when they were six years old.

"My name is Draco Malfoy." "I know," a little girl with wide eyes says. "Mine is Pansy."

"For old times' sake," she said.

He squeezed her hand.

They walked, as had been their habit, to the lake. The lake was a place Draco appreciated and Pansy loved. Last year, they had come here often. Pansy loved skipping stones over the water and watching the ripples she made. She could make her stones skip up to six or seven times. She had tried to teach Draco, who had gamely agreed to try and less gamely failed.

When they reached the side of the lake, Pansy stepped forward until the tips of her shoes were submerged and the hem of her robes brushed against the water and stooped down to pick up three round, flat stones. Draco, out of habit, sat down in the grass behind her to watch. The first one she tossed skipped four times; the second, five. For the third, Draco saw in the way she threw it that it wouldn't skip; her wrist flicked too sharply, her arm was pulled back too far. The stone sank as soon as it touched the water, and Pansy backed away and sat down beside him.

"Metaphor," she said.

Draco looked at her quizzically for a moment before it hit him. Last year...

Pansy, kissing and stroking his hair on these very shores, beneath the same tree. Every so often he will catch her hand with his own and kiss it lightly, and Pansy will smile.

"Look," Pansy says at one point, nodding at a bird on a rock in the middle of a lake.

It dips its head into the water.

"Is it fishing,, do you think?"

"Probably," Draco says. "What is that, a crane?"

"I don't think there are cranes here. But it's beautiful."

Draco is inclined to agree. The bird is long-legged and elegant, with soft-looking, swan-like white feathers. As they watch, it raises its head and shakes it a little, as though to dry itself, and stretches its wings and takes off. It circles high above them, beautiful and free.

"Metaphor," says Pansy then.

He looks at her. "What?"

"That's us," Pansy clarifies. "Taking off."

Their metaphor had gone from flying to sinking. He caught the implied reproach.

"I'm sorry."

"I know."

She was sitting, cross-legged, beside him, and he felt the urge to lean his head against her shoulder. Instantly her hands were in his hair, fiddling lightly with it, just like old times, and in seconds he was lying with his head in her lap, the way they used to do. She was running her hands through his hair. She loved his hair and he knew it; over the years, she had come up with a million metaphors for its colour ("not blond, gold") and texture ("silk"). He loved her touching his hair, gently, caressingly, because it meant someone cared. He had fallen asleep to it more than once.

She hadn't touched it once since the Final Battle.

"Pansy," he said quietly.

She said nothing, but her head tilted forward to listen more closely.

"I've missed you."

Her dark hair fell forward to cover her face.

"I am sorry. I worried about you, you know. I only wanted to protect you."

She stiffened.

"But you were right... you're always right. You're not weak; you're much stronger than I was. You were the one protecting me, all along."

"Yes," she said.

"I shouldn't have kept you at arm's length all the time. And last year, I shouldn't have..."

Shouldn't have let you believe I loved you back.

"I used you. I played you. It was selfish, and I'm so sorry. I l – " The word stuck in his throat. "I care about you. I need you by my side. You know that, right?"

"I always knew. It's about time you realised it."

"Yeah," he said. "You can thank Hermione for that."

Her hands stilled in his hair.

"You've talked about me?"

"Only in good, I promise. She's quite scared of you."

He could hear the smile in her voice when she spoke.

"Really?"

"Yeah, positively terrified. So am I, by the way."

Her hands smoothed his hair back against his head lovingly. "You should be."

"You're scary as hell," he murmured. "I should be grateful you like me."

"I don't," she said. "I love you."

The words didn't surprise him anymore. They never had. The first time she'd expressed, in those words, the depth of her affection, he had said nothing. She hadn't seemed hurt. That was in fourth year, right after the Yule Ball. He had gone with her; who else could he take? Certainly not Daphne, whom he hated. Not anyone who was less than pure-blood, and not someone from the older classes. He hadn't even considered anyone but Pansy. When she had asked him, her voice almost tremulous, whom he was taking to the ball, he had looked at her and had said, "You, of course. Who else?" He wondered now whether she had thought that romantic; whether she had been ecstatic. She hadn't let it show. But that evening, they had danced. Not every dance. He had sat out more than he had danced, but he had allowed Pansy to coax him onto the dance floor a few times. She had been wearing dress robes that were somewhere between rose and lilac. He remembered that they had twirled with her as they danced, and that she had smiled a lot. He remembered thinking she had never looked happier. He supposed she treasured the memory. He did, too, but not in the same way. Not for the same reasons.

She wasn't waiting for an answer, and he couldn't give her one.

"I know," he said to fill the silence, knowing it sounded callous, wishing he could say something else.

But he couldn't lie to her, not again.

"If you truly were my best friend," she said, her voice very low, her lips almost brushing against his ear, "if you truly loved me, then you wouldn't have lied."

She kissed him on the cheek and left him lying there.

Pansy knew she would always be Draco's. She had known it practically ever since she was born. She had been born a day after Draco, and their mothers – who already knew each other, but only in passing – had bonded at the maternity ward. As a result, almost as soon as Pansy had got out of the hospital, she was spending at least one day a week at Malfoy Manor. Their mothers had become close friends, and so had she and Draco. They had played together, they had attended receptions and balls together, they had grown up together. Inevitably, they had come to call what they had friendship, but Pansy always said it went deeper than that. They knew everything about each other; having known each other practically since birth, they trusted each other implicitly. And they loved everything they knew about the other. Draco was the one who begged Narcissa to take Pansy in for a few weeks when her aunt died from the disease he had been fighting against for years and her mother fell into a depression over her sister's death. Pansy had been almost disappointed when her father came to take her back after three weeks. She had enjoyed living with Draco.

When she was seven, Pansy became very ill. She contracted a severe case of dragon pox, a highly contagious disease which was easily curable in its minor forms, but more difficult to treat when it affected young children as harshly as it did now with Pansy. She lost weight and was sometimes delirious. Draco spent all day, every day by her side, not caring that he might contract it himself, not caring that some days Pansy was too ill to even recognise him. His worried mother tried and failed to keep him away. Pansy herself, when she was conscious enough, begged him to go; she wanted him to go. She was so afraid he would become sick, too; Draco had been fragile as a child and sick far more often and far worse than she had. But Draco held her hand, smiled, and guided her soothingly back to health. In the days when her fever was high, she would open dazed eyes, catch a glimpse of platinum blond hair and grey eyes and know that everything was all right so long as her guardian angel was here with her. She insisted, for years afterwards, that he had saved her life. It was the first time she realised she couldn't live without him.

Most children fall in love for the first time when they hit puberty, and then it's often just a romanticised crush. Pansy fell in love when she was seven, and she fell hard.

When they were nine – it had been her idea –, they had made a promise to each other. They had spent an afternoon making pink and silver friendship bracelets (Draco had originally imagined silver and green, but Pansy loved pink and he had given in), and they had tied them around each other's wrists when they were finished.

"Now promise me something," Pansy had insisted when he had finished tying the knot. "Something nice."

"I promise I'll always be your best friend," Draco had said after a moment's thought. "I promise I'll never let you down, no matter what. I will always protect you with my own life."

"I promise I'll always be yours," Pansy had said. "I promise to always give you strength when yours fails you. I promise to never lose faith in you and to never give you reason to distrust me."

She had expected, even then, that she would one day marry him.

To him, she was a sister; but she viewed him as her other half. She gave everything for him; it cost her nothing because he was her everything. In first year, she had begged the Sorting Hat to put her in Slytherin with Draco. She had duelled Blaise (a half-blood who acted too superior around Draco) one night in the Common room and had busted his lip with a curse taken from one of Draco's fathers' books. From then on, all the Slytherins knew she was Draco's, and a more dangerous bodyguard than Crabbe and Goyle because she had a few more brain cells.

"Blasted animal," Blaise had said, touching his hand to his bloody mouth, a gleam of grudging admiration in his eyes. "Where'd you get her, Malfoy? She's like a wildcat on a leash."

This had pleased her, not offended her. She liked the idea of being Draco's guardian. The nickname, Wildcat, stuck among the kids in their year; even Draco used it sometimes. Her tongue wasn't anywhere near as sharp as Tracey's, but she was better at getting revenge. Her outbursts – like the very public duel with Blaise – oddly earned her respect, despite them never being very Slytherin (she knew she was more aggressive than cunning).

She remained loyally attached to Draco all throughout Hogwarts, dogging his footsteps. In third year, he had been attacked by that blasted hippogriff. Everyone, even Theo whom she had thought almost as loyal as her to Draco, everyone said he'd asked for it. She hadn't left him for a second during the entire time he spent in the Hospital Wing. Deep inside, she knew what she was trying to repay him for. When she was seven years old and abed with dragon pox, he hadn't left her side despite the risk for his own health.

"Leave me alone, Pansy," Draco said. "Go to class."

She had shaken her head. "I won't ever leave you."

She felt like she'd always known she loved him and wanted to spend the rest of her life with him, but puberty only hit them around their fourth year with the preparations for the Yule Ball. No one had asked Pansy to go with them. She was sure they all thought she would go with Draco. She had been sure, too. But when a week before the event, no invitation had come, she wasn't so sure anymore. Had he asked someone else? Her heart sank at the thought. Pansy had never thought of herself as a jealous person, mainly because she had nothing to be jealous of. Draco was hers. No one could ever be closer to him than the person who had known him since they were born. Now that they weren't children anymore but teenagers, she discovered the terrible ache of jealousy.

"Who are you taking to the Yule Ball?" she asked him, because Pansy, whatever else she may be, was not a coward.

He had looked surprised. "You, of course. Who else?"

Her heart stuttered, if such a thing were possible.

The night Digory died, they stayed in the common room together all night, wrapped around each other on the couch. He was scared, she could tell. She said nothing, but stroked his hair and kissed his forehead again and again, wishing she could take the moment and live it over and over again for all eternity.

Their sixth year was the year everything went truly wrong. Pansy watched helplessly as Draco withdrew into himself and wasted away. Something was terribly wrong, but she couldn't get him to open up and tell her what it was.

"It's nothing, Pansy."

"Don't lie to me. You know I hate it when –"

"Then don't ask!" he had snapped. "For once in your life, Pansy, just leave me alone."

She had given him space, then. She had cried in shock the first time he snapped at him, but then she had toughened up and done what he asked. She stayed by his side just to let him know she was still there, would always be there, but she stopped asking him questions. She watched from a distance as he grew more and more tense. She knew the necklace was him as soon as the story spread around Hogwarts, which it did like wildfire. She knew about the poisoned mead, too. She was terrified, but she said nothing because Draco had asked her not to.

Until the day he gave her back the friendship bracelet.

She had stared at it in shock. The bracelets had been enchanted to never break by accident. Someone – Draco – had cut through it with magic; the pink and silver thread was unravelling itself in her cupped hands. She felt a sharp, ridiculous stab of pain in her heart as she looked up at Draco.

"I can't wear it anymore," he had said.

No...

"I can't protect you and I can't ask you to protect me."

"You don't need to ask anything," she had said fiercely. "I'll always –"

"Pansy."

She had fallen silent.

"I can't be your best friend anymore," he had said quietly, shattering her heart – her entire world – into a million pieces.

That night, Dumbledore had died and she had learnt everything: what Draco had been doing, why he had been doing it, who he had been doing it for, why he hadn't let her touch his arm that year. She also figured out that he had, once more, in his own way, tried to protect her.

She kept the bracelet in her pocket at all times. Over the summer, she had often taken it out and stared at it, trying to give strength to Draco through it. She had known what he was doing. She hadn't cared. She only wanted him to survive it. She hadn't written to him, not once, because she knew who he was with. On the Hogwarts Express before their seventh year, she had allowed herself to hope, a fierce, terrible hope. Her eyes had scanned the platform, then the train, then the compartments in desperation. She had found the compartment that Draco always rode in, but only Theo and Blaise had been there.

"Hello, Wildcat."

She had turned on her heel and found an empty compartment where she could stare out the window in piece, thinking about Draco. And then the compartment door had slid open, and he had been there.

She had flung herself at him and kissed him.

That year, everyone else had been hurting, terrified, miserable, grieving. But not Pansy Parkinson. Pansy had been in seventh heaven, because Draco had chosen to keep her closer than ever before. They had shared their first kiss that year, and hundreds more. It had been everything Pansy had ever dreamed for, and more. He had whispered sweet things in her ear, had held her in his arms and had told her he loved her.

She would never forget the way the words had sounded, even though she now knew it had all been a lie.

So, what think of this Pansy? It's a new angle for me. I've never actually gone in depth with Pansy's character. I know Rowling doesn't like her, and obviously neither does the trio. I don't know where all this came from. I think it's me trying to justify Pansy. I really, really like her now.

I don't think Pansy is a nice girl. I think she's cowardly, when it comes to her own life, or Draco's. I think she's easily cruel. But I do think she really cares for Draco.