Authors Note: Just a little ficcie I came up with =) Pansy's ranting quite a bit, so I hope it doesn't confuse you. It isn't supposed to make perfect sense though.

Point of view: Pansy Parkinson resident of Slytherin house.

Year: 6th

~*~

You think you know. But you don't.

It's your opinion, and it's terrible, and it stinks, but it's still yours and for some reason that's all that matters. And for some reason, that counts for something, even if it is just inside your head.

Oh, I've heard about how 'miserable' we are, and how 'terrible' we ought to feel, but it isn't quite like that. Not quite. You see when they told you about what Slytherins' are like they forgot to mention the fact that we don't 'pretend' to feel things, it costs far too much effort. It isn't worth all of that. We don't feel for someone when they trip and bleed. We don't feel for someone getting picked on. We don't feel for someone who just failed a Potions test.

And it isn't like I wouldn't like to feel, because I suppose it'd be nice, wouldn't it? Sometimes I wonder what it would be like if I could feel things that normal people do, but I don't wonder too much, because I know it's futile. It saves quite a bit of hassle though, even if it hurts sometimes.

And that's the funny thing, partly. Because you know, secretly, in the back of your mind that you ought to feel and you don't-because you can't. And even if you could it would be fake and it'd be very un-maternal.

It'd be very "There, there, there" with a pat on the back.

And it wouldn't be natural, because it doesn't 'come' naturally to you.

So, we're Slytherins, and we're apparently terrible and awful. And we are, every bit of it. Every bit of what they accuse us of, we are. It's undeniable. And that's the funny thing about being in Slytherin, we don't try to sugarcoat the obvious.

It's like seeing a bad haircut you couldn't just say, 'oh that haircut looks okay.' Because it doesn't, and even you know it. You couldn't even begin to say it looks 'okay' because it just looks so terrible that it is completely worthless to cover up the obvious.

Oh I know I'm not a great person. I know I'm not a sweetheart, or a girl who tells her Daddy, "Will you always love me? Always always always?" And I know a lot of times I am in things for money or status, and I know I'm nothing worthy of a pedestal. And I know that if someone trips in the hallway I'll probably laugh, because it's funny. I know that I don't wear those sickeningly sweet flower necklaces, and that I don't giggle. I'm a Slytherin, I'm not some Gryffindor.

And I know I'm not perfectly innocent or anything, I know I make nasty jokes with the rest of them and I know that I've kissed Draco Malfoy in a spare broom closet. I know that I don't turn crimson when I get embarrassed, and I know when Draco says:

"I hate you sometimes," in that cold voice, "I hope you know."

And I say, "Oh and I hate you too sometimes but it's more like all the time," and then, "I hope you know."

I mean it. And I've never meant anything more in my whole life. And I say it with conviction because it's true.

I know I have 'scrambled egg fights' with Blaise and that I always get it all over his white collared shirt, and I don't feel guilty one bit. And we do this every morning. Sometimes I win, sometimes I lose, but it doesn't matter because even so Draco and I will hold hands in the corridor and my egg-y hand will be one with his cold, clammy one. And it doesn't even matter, not in the slightest.

I know that Mummy and Daddy sacrificed a lot for me. Not in that lovey- dovey sort of way, you know, and they won't admit it, not really, but they have. They're both Death Eaters and I can't even blame them, not even a little, because the money that they make, it's part of the oatmeal that I eat and the books that I read. And secretly, I know that they like being Death Eaters that they love going in for the kill, and blood and flesh and every sort of cynical thing that you can imagine, and secretly I hardly care. Hardly. Because they're my Mummy and Daddy and they love me, and it doesn't even have to be affirmed. You just know it.

And I just know it, and I always have.

I know all of these things, simple things, little things. Like I'm sure Potter knows that he has loads of people behind him willing to die for him. Except it's a different sort of knowing, a knowing that comes only from being a Slytherin.

~*~

La Fin