A/N: So after reading a bunch of Abigail-Nicole's Slytherin-based weirdness, this randomly popped into my head. Just a little bit of rambling/incoherent thoughts from our (third) favorite Slytherin—Pansy. I picture her as a bit like me when I'm in a bad everyone-hates-me-I-want-to-die mood. Only not quite.

Warnings: A bit weird, and a bit confusing, because I had no idea what I was writing and was just rambling. Also: Slytherin (Pansy, to be exact) sympathies. And het, I think, which is a warning to people who read just about any of my other fanfics. Oh, and lots of random repetition.

Disclaimer: I don't own them. And at this point, I don't think I should.

Summary: And maybe she loved him, and maybe he loved her. Or maybe they would if only it were allowed. If only they were normal. But they never would be normal and couldn't hope to be and didn't want to be anyway.

Title: Confused

We wear the mask that grins and lies,

It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes—

This debt we pay to human guile;

With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,

And mouth with myriad subtleties.

"We Wear the Mask" by Paul Laurence Dunbar

Good people confused her.

No, not Good people. Nice people. Because you can be Good without being nice and nice without being good. She knew nice people and she knew Good people—she only knew one who could pass as both. He was perfection—maybe a god. The god of life and love and goodness and everything nice, sent down to Earth to mend it, make it a bit less of hell. Or just an angel of the one God, speaker of the heavens. Metatron. Was that the Voice? Maybe. She didn't know—religion meant so little to her. There had never been room for religion in what passed as her life. Because there was no Good for her, just the Evil. She lived surrounded by Evil.

Except, perhaps, for him. He could never be considered Evil—corrupted, maybe, or tainted. Yes, tainted was a good word. Because he was not himself, never had had a chance to be—he was what his so-called family had made him, what the Dark Lord's soul had turned him into. But still, he was Good and he was nice (and he was handsome and funny and charming and every other word she could think of to describe perfection). And he was the only one. Nobody else could be like him, nobody else would. He was the only Good person to be nice to her in…forever. The Evil had been nice, on occasion, but only when it would suit them. He hadn't a reason to be nice to her. But he was nice anyway, giving her the drink and sitting with her because they were the only ones around capable of having anything akin to an intelligent conversation. And he had refused her offer to pay him back or do something for him—because all he had wanted was to make her look a bit happier, a bit less lonely. He was nice.

And she would never understand it.

It didn't matter, of course. Nothing mattered to her—she was Evil and not even nice, after all. Emotions, humanity—they had no use in her life. She was just Evil, only meant to be the trophy wife of a pure-blood man of Evil. Her opinions didn't matter. She had learned long ago not to have opinions of her own when others were around. She was nothing but a girl and a child and Evil, just like the people around her, so she was of no consequence and neither were any thoughts she might entertain in her little brain.

But, like with everything else, he was different. He had asked her opinion, had forced her to give him the real one and not just the words he wanted to hear. He wanted to learn about her, he had said, because there was no Good without Evil and there was no life without understanding and he was tired of judging her on the company she was forced to keep. So she had done what he had asked and told him, but had never expected to be caught up in an argument on who was right, had never expected him to change a few of her opinions, and had certainly not expected him to change a few of his. But of course, he was different. But still Good. There was no doubt about how good he was—no matter the cynical way he had come to view life and love and everything that goes along with it. He could be nothing but Good, no matter what side he fought on. Because the people saw him as the hero and he was therefore always right.

But here he was, practically giving up that pedestal just to talk to her. To get to know her. Because he had felt that they had more in common than anyone could have imagine. And perhaps he was right, because she was everything he wasn't—Evil to his Good, mean to his nice—but that was only because she had to be that way and maybe he saw it. She would always be Evil, no matter that she was far more optimistic than him and that she was seen as the villain and therefore was always wrong.

He had explained to her about the shades of gray that he felt life had come in—she had told him that he was an idiot and that there was only black and white. Because she had been raised like that and it was expected of her, even when she knew that it was far from the truth. And he had just looked at her knowingly, had understood exactly what she had not said, but didn't try to argue. Because he knew, as well as she did, that the people only saw in black and white and it was their opinion that mattered—not the opinion of a little boy destined to save the world or the opinion of a little girl that was nothing and nobody and never would be. They only saw in black and white, good and evil, and that was their world. There was no point in wondering otherwise, because nothing else existed. There would never be a gray for them.

But they knew otherwise and it would always be a secret just the two of them shared. Nobody else was to know of this, and that was their unspoken agreement—silent support, maybe. Perhaps something akin to friendship. But the Evil didn't have friends, only allies, and she was Evil, so it was just a secret. She would forever be the dirty little secret of the perfect boy, his only flaw. Because obviously he could have only one. He had many flaws, little cracks in his perfection, but only they saw it and only they would. The people didn't care. But she liked it that way, and so did he—and he was perfection, so was she perfection as well? No, of course not, because Evil could not be perfection even when it was the exact same as Good, only opposite. So he was perfection and she was his flaw and they fit together like puzzle pieces.

And maybe she loved him, and maybe he loved her. Or maybe they would if only it were allowed. If only they were normal. But they never would be normal and couldn't hope to be and didn't want to be anyway.

It still confused her. She had a feeling it always would. But it mattered no longer, because she knew perfection—and perfection was just as confused as she was.