Hell Tastes Sweet

Chapter Five

Being extra careful not to be seen, Pansy left the Slytherin common room a quietly as possible and not mattering the destination, the girl just started running trying to get away as soon as she could.

Now, after what seemed quite a long time running, blinded with her tears and almost choking for the unusual amount of exercise, she found that she had to stop.

Leaning against a random wall, she let her back slide against it and sat down on the cold stone bringing her knees to her chest and putting her face between them. It didn't matter how cold the stone floor was, too many thoughts in her head prevented her from feeling anything else but a sickening mix of fear, anger and angst.

'Why? Why didn't he tell me what he was going to do…' Pansy asked herself repeatedly. She was scared that something would happen to Draco, she didn't even want to imagine the amount of pain that losing Draco would cause to her.

Although she couldn't help being angry with Draco for his idiotic pride that made him behave so stupidly, she was a lot more angry with herself. Having allowed herself to believe things were going to be different this year had definitely not been a good idea. True, she still believed that this year things were going to drastically change but, the tranquillity that had reigned during the past few weeks had made her forget the imminent danger and she had been enjoying the bliss of having a good humoured Draco by her side.

Surprisingly and against all odds, Draco's predictable rage at having his father sent to prison had subdued considerably during the summer. Something had happened back there that had made Draco behave in a very un-Malfoy way.

To start with, they had stopped their 'duels', the official excuse being that Draco believed himself to be in a much superior position now and didn't find it useful anymore. The real reason, at least that was what Pansy hoped, was that Draco didn't want to hurt her anymore.

Then, the way Draco made love to her was a lot different this year. He was a lot more generous and was willing to give as much as he took.

The truth was that Pansy had allowed herself to secretly hold the romantic notion that Draco was in fact beginning to care about her.

This thought made her even more upset since, if something happened to Draco in his attempt to rescue his father, Pansy would never have the chance to see if her hopes were based on facts or she was merely daydreaming.

She was so distraught with her trail of thoughts that she failed to notice three people walking towards her.

"What the…hey, are you ok?" she heard a familiar voice ask. Pansy had to think very hard in order to match the voice with a face. After wiping the tears off her eyes, Pansy lifted her face from between her knees and found herself staring at none other than Hermoine Granger, standing next to her there was a red head, obviously a Weasley, and one step behind them, the famous Harry Potter.

"YOU!!!" Hermoine exclaimed half disbelievingly, half disgusted, Pansy didn't blame her in the slightest, she couldn't remember a single time that she had spoken to the Gryffindor girl without either insulting her or making fun of her.

"What's going on…what are you doing here?" Weasley asked every bit as disgusted to find her there.

"I…I'm sorry…I'll leave now…I…" Pansy said getting up from the floor. She was about to start walking when Harry's voice made her stop.

"What exactly was a Slytherin like you doing in front of the Gryffindor's common room's entrance?."

Turning around slowly hoping the corridor's dim light would conceal her red eyes, Pansy realised she was indeed in the Gryffindor's area of the castle.

"I…got…I got lost…I'm going to…yeah…I'll go back to my common room…" Pansy said hoping they would drop it there.

"Yeah right…like we're going to believe that…" Ron snorted causing Hermoine to look at him a bit disapprovingly but understanding at the same time.

"I was actually looking for you…before the feast we had a meeting with all the prefects and our two Slytherin representatives were missing. I've found you now but…where is Malfoy?" Hermoine asked.

"I…I don't know…" Pansy lied beginning to regret her own stupidity and damning the misfortune that had led her to this specific area of the castle.

"You're lying…you're covering him up for something…aren't you?" Harry said looking at her suspiciously.

"I…no…I really don't know…" Pansy said getting desperate, now she was on her own, without any of her friends and most importantly, without Draco there to back her up.

The three Gryffindors just stood there staring at her. Pansy made it to her wand's handle and was desperately trying to find a useful spell that would get her out of this situation when Ron, seeing what she was doing and pulling his own wand out of his robes, said:

"Don't even dream of it…."

Hermoine and Harry realised what was happening and pulled their own wands out as well.

"Not so brave now that you haven't got any of your friends around, are you?" Hermoine said amused.

Pansy, realising the huge mistake she'd just made, left her wand inside her robes and put her hands up terrified of what the famous trio may want to do to her.

"Just tell us where Malfoy is and we'll leave you alone…" Harry asked not really wanting to carry on such uneven confrontation, Harry, being Harry, much preferred confronting an enemy of his own size rather than attacking a weak, silly, outnumbered girl.

Pansy chose this time not to even reply. She was just too scared to speak.

"Whatever…we'll find out sooner or later…" Harry replied impatiently seeing that the girl was not going to speak. Then motioned his two friends towards the painting that covered their common room's entrance.

He was about to whisper the password not wanting Pansy to hear it when Neville came towards them running and obviously out of breath.

"Ha…Ha…huff!" Neville gasped trying to get all the air back to his lungs at the same time than trying to deliver what it looked like a very important message.

"Neville…just take your time…otherwise you're going to collapse on us!" Ron said impatiently.

"Azkaban…they've attacked Azkaban…they've tried to free all the prisoners!" Neville said his voice just above a whisper, then added a bit louder, noticing for the first time the Slytherin girl still standing there, "The guards and the Aurors stationed there have managed to get some of them…the Death Eaters have lost one of them…I don't know who though…."

Pansy let out a scream and started running again back to the Slytherin common room not even giving time to any of the four Gryffindors to stop her.

To be continued…