Heaven Tastes Sweeter
Chapter Twelve
As Blaise advanced towards her, Pansy's brain raced trying to come up with something to say or to do that would buy her time.
Because that's all she needed, a few minutes to think of someway to escape. The odds were all against her but, they had been so previously and it hadn't mattered.
Suddenly, with Blaise's face only centimetres away from her face, something clicked and an idea as simple as it was brilliant, formed inside her head.
"Blaise…I should think that this ropes are not going to make it easy for you…" Pansy suggested as tartly as she could manage, looking first at her ankles and then at the hands she had tied in front of her.
Zabini gazed her through narrowed eyes. Pansy knew that her ex-classmate didn't trust her but she also knew that she just had to make him think she could, even remotely, be reconsidering her options.
"Alright then…you win this one…" Zabini replied removing a small knife from somewhere inside his robes.
Pansy observed, as nonchalantly as possible, how Zabini proceeded to cut the robe that tied her ankles up. Then, just as Zabini was removing the rope, Pansy started putting her plan in action.
"How about this?" Pansy asked showing Zabini her still tied wrists.
"No…we'll leave those just the way they are…" Zabini replied.
Pansy wasn't discouraged by it. Instead she leant back against the wall as if expecting Zabini to make the first move.
He did.
And he would regret it later.
Zabini knelt in front of her and tried to grab her face with his hands. Pansy, with a quick move courtesy of all the training hours spent with Hermione, punched Zabini under the chin sending him flying to the ground falling sideways.
Quickly, Pansy got up and, with three quick kicks and in this order, connected her foot against his ribcage, his stomach and, ultimately, the place where men really don't want to be kicked.
The pain of falling on his head and the last of Pansy's kicks, was all Zabini needed to pass out.
And it was all Pansy needed to get away, fast.
Pansy thought of trying to find Zabini's wand but, since it was too dark, she decided against it.
She just raced towards the door, happily enough, it wasn't locked, so the Slytherin just opened it and started running through the corridors, again.
This time, finding the exit was a bit easier, the problem is that the door she and Terry had used was now guarded.
Pansy decided to turn round and started walking downwards. She had had the time to analyse the situation a bit more carefully and she realised that if they were in a seaside castle, there had to be some kind of harbour inside it.
Pansy started hearing voices shouting somewhere near her. This made her run even faster.
She fell on the ground of one of the corridors and she was about to start panicking when she saw that she had fallen on some sort of grid.
Looking a bit more carefully, she saw that under the grid, there was some dark liquid that smelt salty. It was sea water. The Slytherin was sure of it.
Pansy got up once more wishing her hands were free but she decided that, worrying about something that had no solution, was useless.
She tried pulling the grid up and, for her immense relief and surprise, the grid actually moved itself upwards allowing Pansy to remove it.
"Great!" Pansy exclaimed happily, placing the metallic grid next to the hole it covered.
Pansy then jumped inside the hole and…oh by Merlin and all that was holy. The water was freezing cold and, a lot deeper than Pansy had thought.
With her hands tied up, it was really difficult for Pansy to stay afloat. She thanked again Hermione's training which reinforced the leg's muscles.
'Come on Pansy, you can do it…' Pansy thought trying to encourage herself.
She looked around herself trying to see where she was.
The fortune was beginning to smile at her. Right ahead of where she was, she could see the small harbour that she had cleverly predicted to find.
She just had to try to swim towards it and ignore the stinging pain the salt was causing to her wounds.
She decided to get the water on her back and to just propel herself with her feet avoiding the use of her hands.
After a huge effort, she finally made it. She leant back against one of the poles used to keep the small harbour's deck stable and, for the first time that night, allowed herself five minutes to rest.
Almost at the same time, Draco Malfoy, flying on his broomstick, had arrived to Scarborough.
From there, finding the castle had been a piece of cake. Draco had been terrified to find that Terry was right after all and that they had indeed killed Pansy.
The very thought made him so mad with fury that he felt compelled to kill Voldemort with his bare hands.
Draco made himself calm down. One lesson he had learnt from his father was the importance of keeping a cool head in every situation.
For this reason, and not wanting to be discovered, Draco landed at about half a mile away from the castle, right next to the cave where, a few hours earlier Terry had hidden.
Draco started running grabbing with one hand, his broomstick and, with the other, his wand. He wanted to be ready to face anything.
He had almost reached the castle when, something made him look at the shoreline. He could see the small harbour from there.
He remembered that harbour because, as a small boy, Father had allowed him to play on the sand near it while he attended his 'meetings'.
Suddenly, he saw something odd. A bump next to one of the wooden poles. At first it looked just like some dark material just gathered together, maybe a boat cover or something like that.
He was about to dismiss it when, looking a bit more carefully, he realised that the 'bump' had moved and it had now legs.
Instinctively, he changed direction and, instead of keeping up, he started marching downwards.
The closer he got, the surer he was.
It was Pansy. His Pansy.
He knelt next to her and realised the girl was sleeping. She was all wet and had bruises everywhere he could see.
His heart shrank to a small bit of nothing. He would kill them all. No one would get away with it.
Delicately, he shook her awake. Praying for all that was holy that she would wake up.
She did.
Opening her eyes slowly, Pansy saw the blond hair of her favourite Slytherin. She smiled at herself thinking she had actually died and that this was some weird vision.
"Pansy…Pansy…can you hear me?" the vision said to her.
'Of course' she wanted to mutter but she couldn't get her throat to work. She felt really odd. She was shivering although she felt incredibly warm.
The vision put one of his hands on her forehead and shouted:
"You're roasting hot! You need to get to a doctor…immediately!"
Pansy felt the vision taking her in his arms and, somehow, the vision managed to get on his broomstick.
"I'm taking you back to Hogwarts…you'll be safe there…" Pansy heard the vision say, then her eyelids became too heavy again and she let darkness fall onto her once more.
To be continued…
Special A/N: As you may have read on the note I've posted on my bio, my laptop's HDD died about 15 days ago. I had the laptop sent to the factory to repair it and I only got it back yesterday.
Unfortunately, all the data I had stored in it was lost, including this chapter and two more I had almost finished. I also lost future projects that I will now have to try to remember and re-write.
In two words: A tragedy.
Anyway, I hope I'll be now back to normal updating schedule…technology permitting, naturally.
Thank you for your patience and I hope you're still reading this!
Take care, Sanae.