Chapter 6: Pansy's Party Pooper
Everyone gasped as two figures, one green and the other red, suddenly dived from above the game. Both blurs of colour were neck to neck following each other's every move. Leah, who had been watching for the last half an hour of the very exciting game of Quidditch, snapped her vision towards where everybody else's eyes were fixated on.
In the last half an hour, the game had steadily gotten itself in the favor of the Slytherins. Gryffindor had scored only thirty points but Slytherin, on the other hand had achieved nineteen goals which put them up at a hundred and ninety points much to Gryffindor's dismay. At this point there seemed to be no hope for Gryffindor in the least that they would win this match. Gryffindor, their determination still unwavered, were persevering in cheering relentlessly at their team, but Slytherin, whose determination had shifted from winning the match to making sure that Gryffindor wouldn't take their losing so easily.
But at this point in time, Slytherin had stopped jeering at the Gryffindors and stared after the colourful blurs fast approaching the ground.
Malfoy, who was now grinning, gripped firmly to his Nimbus Two Thousand and One, clinging as close to it as possible in that he might build up more speed. Harry, on the other hand was also grinning (though not aware of this) and made his every movement mimic with that of Malfoy's. They both had very few in common, except now, they had one common goal; to retrieve the winged, golden Snitch.
Harry realised that Malfoy was gaining speed, and concentrated on pushing his Firebolt to go faster, his hands slipping slightly in the process from the sweat. It was all or nothing, he thought. The point score that Gryffindor now possessed didn't help the situation Harry was now in, but there was a small chance that they should recover. Malfoy had discovered the snitch first, and so, rather than losing with a two hundred and ten-point gap, he would have to lose with more dignity; with just ten points at loss.
Meanwhile, Malfoy had realised to his glee that he was in the lead. He felt cold sweat run across his forehead, wind-swept with the speed he was flying at. He ignored it, trying to put all his concentration into getting the snitch into his clutch.
He was nearly there. The golden ball was so close to his out-stretched hands, but the darn thing wouldn't fly on the one plain. He grew frustrated, but just as he thought he had it in the sack, his confidence faltered. He saw in his peripheral vision, right at the edge, an unpleasant sight.
Harry Potter, the one and only saint of Hogwarts and his rival, was gaining his level with him. Malfoy's eyes widened as his fear rose to meet the figure he loathed caught up with him. He fought, but before he knew it, it was over. To his dismay, Harry swung hard to his right, ripping away from the contour he had kept with Malfoy, hand raised in the air and smiling.
Malfoy felt a similar feeling of anger start to boil but was suddenly put out as fast as it came when he saw the score board. On it, it read Gryffindor: a hundred and eighty, Slytherin: a hundred and ninety.
Slytherin had won. It didn't matter if Harry had gotten the snitch, because they had still won. Malfoy felt another sensation come to surface and topped it off with a look of triumph that even Harry couldn't measure up to.
Malfoy suddenly looked around and finally noticed the roar of victory coming from the crowd of Slytherin supporters. He felt the uplifting feeling of victory and flew a couple of rounds around the stadium, waving and smiling a toothy smile to the Slytherins and a sneer to the others.
Leah saw this, though not as close up. She smiled, yet half-heartedly and returned to the Slytherin common room to find a party going on. Leah was caught dead in her tracks and looked around at the decorated room, the dominating colour being green. There were dozens of smuggled flagons of Butterbeer and pumpkin juice and foods such as pies, pastries, cakes and little savories. There were of course sweets such as Every Flavour Beans, Chocolate Frogs, Toffee Apples, Fizzing Wizzbees, Cockroach Clusters and a sweet that had made a debut in the Hogwarts grounds; Fire Toffee. These of course came from the shop situated in Diagon Alley, invented by no one less than the Weasley twins. These were fast to go down, and for a good half an hour there were spouts of fire from all over the room. There by the time the flames had died out, there were a couple of people who had singed brows and smoke still stringing out of their ears.
Leah made her way around the room occasionally chewing on some caramel chews or some other lolly of another kind. She had caught up with a few people she knew, but most of the people there were either faces not seen before or others vaguely familiar. This continued until a face vivid in her mind popped up in front of her. It was Pansy.
Her black hair was tied up in a bun with a moldy bit of leather looking somewhat like a snake reinforcing it. Her face, Leah was pleased to see, had red, shiny patches looking like burns. She also wore a look of pleasure for herself. She had a big flask of Butterbeer in one hand and said, "So, how do you like my party? It's a pretty good gathering, isn't it?" She took a deep swig from her flask.
"Yeah," Leah said half-mindedly. She didn't fancy having a conversation with her, also not wanting to give her the pleasure of knowing that her party was next to descent.
However, Pansy was oblivious to Leah's reluctance and kept on going, "The food's good, eh. I guess I didn't do such a bad job, don't you think?" taking on credit for herself. Leah mumbled a response that agreed with Pansy.
Pansy, still oblivious, kept on talking about the preparation and how she had guessed from the beginning of the Quidditch season that they would finally win over Gryffindor ("I just knew it, you know. Draco's such a good player.") Leah took this time to listen to the people around them while Pansy's blabbering became a faint "blah, blah, blah."
A third year boy commented, "Potter got what he deserved. He's such a show off, what with all that publicity on 'the boy who lived'."
Another boy with a spectacular scar on the side of his face agreed with him, "It won't be long until he'll end up like his stupid parents. He's just a prick that plays hide and seek with the Dark Lord and takes all the credit for it."
Listening to this, Leah guessed that Harry wasn't popular around here and the influence of the Dark Lord had played a big role in the people of Slytherin house. Leah recalled the words of Elise; you might want to be careful with some of the people you meddle with - a lot of the Slytherins are children of Death Eaters. There aren't many that aren't. She could see what she meant.
She snapped back to where Pansy and herself were standing. Pansy was now drinking down the rest of the Butterbeer with gusto. Thinking about Elise brought Leah to realise that she hadn't seen her ever since the match either.
Her thoughts were cut short with an entrant into the room that got most of the people's attention. Malfoy had entered, fully changed from his Quidditch clothes and was immediately lifted onto the shoulders of Crabbe and Goyle. Pansy also immediately flocked towards him, trying on her most seductive smile, making her face look gruesome. Malfoy hadn't noticed this; he was too happy with attention and heroism that everybody was feeding him. She looked at him and smiled, though without meaning to. She thought to herself, how immature he was. He was such an attention seeking, little boy that it was almost cute, the way he just thrived on everybody's attention. After Malfoy did a couple of laps around the room, smiling, waving and punching the air, he was finally put down onto the ground and was then crowded around with the remainder of the room congratulating him and piling food and drinks into his hands.
Leah was at the back of the room quietly watching what was happening and a quiet voice said behind her, "What a kid."
Leah immediately turned around and saw who it was. "Elise!" she cried with relief. "Where were you all this time?"
"I met up with an old friend."
Leah could see a sort of far-away look forming in Elise's eyes and asked, "What's wrong?"
"Nothing," she quickly said and went up to gather food.
A further ten minutes passed and the food rapidly disappeared. It was then that Pansy stood up on the low coffee table in the middle of the room and motioned for everyone to be quiet. After a couple of rounds of "hem hem," from Pansy, everybody's attention was finally on her.
She cleared her throat once more and said, "Well, I hope everyone's having a good time. But we wouldn't be having such a good time if it wasn't for one special person – Draco Malfoy. So I thing we should all raise our drinks to Draco."
Draco reared with a grin as everyone around him lifted their flasks and chorused, "To Draco." His face reddened with superiority. He gave small nod of acknowledgment from where he sat.
Pansy continued, "Now that the food is becoming short, some games wouldn't be a bad idea, I think. So, any suggestions?"
Draco stood up from where he was sitting, "How about Truth or Dare? Yes?"
None of the people in the room objected. A couple of seventh-years magically moved the furniture to the sides of the room and all sat in a circle in the middle of the room. Once everyone had settled down, everybody automatically looked at Draco for assistance. After a moment's silence, Draco said, "Ok, I'll start shall I?" he said looking around. His gaze settled on Goyle and finally said, "Goyle, truth or dare?"
Goyle's eyes widened and he stumbled on his words, "Er, t-tr-t-truth."
Malfoy's eyes gave a malicious twinkle and said, "Goyle, state the name of the girl you like."
Goyle looked very sorry for himself and mumbled a name sounding close to "Millicent."
Everyone laughed and rolled on the ground holding their stomachs. But no one laughed as hard as Pansy; she was shrieking like a tickled banshee. Close by, Leah could see Millicent's face buried deep in her blockish hands and her ears a brilliant red. She took pity on the girl, although she didn't know her very well.
It was now Goyle's turn but after his episode of sheer embarrassment, it was very hard for him to even get his voice out. After struggling mentally for sometime, he spoke in a low, dumb voice, "Um, Crabbe. What do you choose?"
"Erm… Dare," he finally answered in a gruff but also dumb voice.
"Er, I dare you to… to go and punch a first year. Yeah… he he he," he laughed stupidly thinking that his dare was such a great idea of his.
Crabbe looked awfully relieved at his dare and got his huge body up and walked over to a scrawny boy on the opposite side of the circle. As he approached clumsily, the boy got out his wand and put an incantation on Crabbe before he could even get as close as five feet. Before Crabbe could file into his small brain what had happened, his eyebrows began to grow longer and longer. With in the space of about thirty seconds, they had grown past his nose and had become blonde and curled into neat ringlets. Crabbe hastily left to go to the Hospital Wing, holding up the hair that covered his eyes occasionally bumping into things and everyone sending him off with shrieking choruses of laughter.
Since Crabbe was unable to choose anyone, it was passed onto the person sitting next to Crabbe. This ended up being Blaise who sat sullen faced and silent. After sometime had passed, Blaise said in a dull voice, "Pansy, Truth or Dare?"
Pansy, unlike the others before her, looked excited at the prospect and said with a dark twinkle in her eye, "Dare me."
"Ok," Blaise said sounding a little bored. "I dare you to do a pole dance on the coffee table."
Pansy, who had been so enthusiastic and confident until Blaise spoke, now looked very much like a beatroot. She cursed under her breath and got up on to the low table. She started off clumsily into what seemed like the macarina, then gradually gained her confidence. People were laughing from all directions and pointing, some were too embarrassed to look. Towards the end, Pansy seemed to be having a ball of a time on the table but others on the floor and on chairs lost interest. In the end, Pansy was pushed off the table from behind, falling ungracefully and sitting down again, looking flushed.
By that time, people had thought they had seen enough (most of them thoroughly put off by Pansy) and they walked out of the room to their dormitories or out of the common room all together. There was only a small group of people left, containing Pansy, Blaise, Millicent, Leah, Elise, Melissa, Goyle, Draco, Montague, Pucey, and a handful of seventh years.
The group huddled together into a smaller circle, as not to be in the way of anybody passing. It was now Pansy's turn to embarrass the hell out of someone and she made a quick job of choosing who that was going to be. As she looked around the circle of possibilities, her eyes met with Leah's as a malicious sort of twist formed on her lips. Leah's heart sank.
"Leah, you look quite the darer. Truth or Dare?" she said amusingly as if about to squash a nastily big beetle.
Leah thought carefully. What's the worse that can happen, thought Leah. If I chose truth, then I'd have to tell them something that I probably wouldn't want anybody knowing. And if I chose dare? Well, I guess it can't bet as bad as lap dancing in front of Goyle, can it? She went on thinking like this for another minute and carefully weighed out the two possibilities. She finally took a big sigh and said, "Dare."
Pansy's eye's glimmered and she said excitedly, trying not to trip on her words with the excitement, "I dare you, Leah," she paused. Leah took in a breath, "To go kiss Scar Head."
Leah groaned, and from the corner of her eye she could see Malfoy smirking.
A/N: Hope you liked it! If you do, please R&R. If you don't, R&R. If you just don't care, then R&R anyway. Thanks!