Hell Tastes Sweet

Chapter Twenty One

As she was walking back to the classroom, for her Charms lesson, it occurred to Pansy that she had agreed to go to the ball without thinking of the consequences: she now had to find something suitable to wear.

Unfortunately, since she had taken for granted she was going to go to the ball alone, she had not bothered getting new robes like the rest of the girls and, Pansy knew that since she usually set the example among most of the Slytherin girls, presenting herself in the school ball with a set of old robes, was not really an option.

She started making a mental inventory of everything she had in the wardrobe hoping she had something that could be magically transformed to create a nice outfit for the ball.

Finally, she decided to ask Professor Flitwick for a charm that would help her change the colour of her old pink robes, a nice shade of dark blue would look good with her dark hair. She also needed them to be a little less frilly so they would look a bit more grown up.

She left the classroom and went quickly to the girl's bathroom to hide in one of the cubicles so she could take a look at the coin. Pansy was actually quite surprised about the fact of being called in for a D.A. meeting since she had been under the impression that Harry had meant the previous gathering to be the last of the term.

Looking at the coin she found out that they were summoned to be at the usual place only that they had to be there at six o'clock instead of the usual seven. This would give her very little to get ready so she decided that she would skip her last lesson in order to be able to prepare the dress with the charm Professor Filtwick had given to her.

At the end of Herbology, instead of heading to Divination, her last lesson of the term, Pansy ran to her dorm, took her pink robes and transformed them into a nice dark, glittery blue robes and, as a final touch, she replaced the lacy ends with a nice silver ribbon that covered the edge of both the sleeves and the bottom. She used a bit of the ribbon to trace a line that would be just under her breasts. 

Finally happy with the result, she put the new robes back in her wardrobe thanking her lucky stars that her mother had insisted so much she took that course of magic sawing when she was younger.

Seeing it was almost time for the meeting, she took a quick shower and changed into more comfortable clothes getting ready in case Hermoine wanted to continue their kickboxing training.

Ah yes…kickboxing, some muggle martial art…at first Pansy was horrified that she was learning something to do with the muggle world, but after a few lessons, she realised that it was really useful…it didn't require of you to be particularly strong, you just needed to hit or kick in the right spot and then get the opponent as tired as possible with quick, evasive moves…even Harry found it useful for the D.A. and they were now all training to become as agile as possible.

In any case, now Pansy felt a little bit more alert, like earlier on in the corridor with Theodore,  this made her feel a little bit more secure and that was really comforting.

As she arrived at the meeting point, she saw the trio talking to a few fellow D.A. members…by the looks of it Harry looked worried and, strangely enough, in some sort of discomfort.

"Are you alright Potter?" Pansy asked seeing now that Harry was actually leaning on Ron for support.

"He will be…he just needs rest" replied the red headed sixth year.

"Yeah…that's right…" replied Harry now bringing his hand towards his head touching the scar on his forehead.

Pansy didn't buy it but in any case, she didn't want to insist, specially now that there were more of the D.A. members joining them.

They went all into their room and, oddly enough, it wasn't Harry who spoke to the group, as usual, it was Hermoine.

"Hey, I'm sorry for calling you with such short notice but…something has happened today…Harry's been getting some feedback from Voldemort…apparently they are preparing some attack at the Ministry…Harry is not sure of what Voldemort meant since we don't think he was consciously telling Harry…it was more as if Harry had eavesdropped on a conversation Voldemort was having with his Death Eaters."

Hermoine paused and, seeing she had the room's attention, continued:

"In any case, I will ask of you to stay alert during the ball…if we need to, we must be ready to leave for the Ministry as soon as possible…and, if nothing happens, as we are all hoping, then, please, do stay alert over the holidays…but please be careful and don't overdo anything, the majority of us is still underage…that is all…have fun tonight and Happy Christmas."

Harry then stood up and said with a voice a tad less firm than usual:

"Thank you for all your efforts…you're all really good and I'm pleased with your progress…have a nice holidays…"

With this, the D.A. considered the meeting adjourned and started emptying the room.

Pansy was leaving feeling as though as she had a stone in her stomach. She was really surprised with this new bit of information. Draco had been very sure that the attack would have been at the school…surely Voldemort had changed his mind…

"Pansy?" the Slytherin heard Hermoine's voice behind her.

"Yes?" Pansy replied turning round to face the trio walking towards her with Ginny and Neville following them closely.

"Don't you have anything to tell us?" Ron asked keeping his voice very neutral.

"No…" Pansy replied a tiny bit too fast.

"Ah…ok…" Hermoine said looking at her straight in the eye.

Pansy turned around to leave and started walking away from them, confused. Her instincts told her she really ought to tell them what Draco had told her, just in case, but again, she didn't want to tell them that she had seen Draco because that would lead to entirely too many questions and, so far, she was not ready to answer any of them.

She was nearing the entrance of the dungeons when, after a fierce verbal battle between the two annoying, little inner voices in her head, the one that voted to tell the Gryffindors about the school grounds attack, finally won the fight.

She started running to the marble stairs and was about to open the door that lead to that section of the castle, when she heard a high pitched voice, it clearly belonged to Ginny Weasley.

"But she's lying…how can we still accept her in the D.A. meetings?"

"Harry knows what he's doing Ginny." Replied another voice, this one was Ron's low, soft voice.

"Yes, but you heard Hermoine, don't forget she's mastering occlumency as well…she saw pretty clearly that Pansy's been seeing Draco and writing to him…" Ginny insited.

"Precisely…that is all going according to Dumbledore's plans…" Ron said tiredly, as if he didn't want to tell the whole thing.

"What do you mean? Which plans?" Ginny asked curious.

"You really should know by now…" Ron said, his voice getting fainter, obviously he was walking up the stairs away from the door where a very shocked Pansy stood still, "She's been reporting whatever we wanted for her to report…and we've been getting very useful information from Hermoine during the Kick…coxin…no, kicksox…oh that muggle sport…that's why Dumbledore insisted so Hermoine mastered the art of Legilimency…she's been reading Parkinson's mind for quite a while now…"

To be continued…