Pansy awoke the next morning to the new (and especially obnoxious) Weird Sisters tune, being blasted at full volume right beside her head. She groaned, and flipped her pillow over her head, wishing it would all just go away. Millicent Bulstrode had a terrible speaking voice, raspy and deep and manly and not at all pleasant to listen to, and her singing voice was even worse.
"Millicent," Pansy said after a minute, realizing the music was not going to go away any time soon, "It is Saturday. It is," she lifted the pillow from her head long enough to check her watch, and moaned, shoving the pillow back over head as she continued, "Seven o'clock in the morning. It is far too early to be listening to anything, especially not the Weird Sisters. Especially not loudly. And especially not," she added, sitting up and hurling her pillow at the Wizarding wireless, which fell off Tracey's dresser with a satisfying crunch, the song immediately cutting off, "When you are singing."
Millicent gave her a dirty look, picking the wireless off the floor and looking at it forlornly.
"Pansy, you've broken it," she grunted, glaring.
"Good," Pansy said viciously, kicking off her blankets and sitting up. "Now maybe you'll buy a new one that won't sound as if it's being digested by angry crups."
Millicent sulked, setting the wireless back on Tracey Davis' dresser and storming out of the room, slamming the door behind her. Pansy rolled her eyes.
"Today's going to be pleasant," She muttered, standing up and retrieving her pillow from the floor. She tossed it onto her bed and sighed.
She had been having a lovely dream, one that didn't involve Draco Malfoy breaking her heart in front of the entire common room. It had, in fact, involved Draco Malfoy sobbing for her to take him back, in front of the entire school, while she laughed and demanded he kiss her feet again. His hair had been properly disheveled, and he'd looked a right mess.
She frowned, taking her hairbrush from her nightstand and yanking it through her hair angrily, viciously ripping through the hapless tangles. Tragically, the events of the previous night had not been only a dream, and she really had been shamed and ridiculed before the whole of Slytherin. Her feet were still tragically unlavished with kisses, she was still Draco Malfoy's cast-off, and his hair was, most likely, still in perfect order, while hers looked as though large sewer rats had nested in it.
It really just was not fair.
She sighed again, and, after destroying one last, sobbing wreck of a knot, put her brush back in her nightstand and began to ready for the day. This particular day, she decided, would require extra care. She must look perfect, every hair in place, every eyelash perfectly lengthened, every thread of her uniform perfectly pressed. Draco Malfoy would rue the day he had let her go.
She showered and changed quickly, brushing her teeth with an alarming ferocity and charmed her hair dry afterwards, performing her ritual cosmetic spells with deadly accuracy. Before long, she was immaculately groomed and dressed, ready to face the most likely horrifying day ahead. She slipped her feet into her mary-janes and buckled them resolutely, standing up and brushing her hair out of her face. Before leaving the room, she studied herself critically in the mirror on the back of the door, hands on her hips.
All right, so she would never be the prettiest girl at Hogwarts. She was short and skinny, lacking really anything in the way of curves. Sure, she had breasts, but they were just sort of… there; they didn't do anything fantastic. All right, so they weren't as completely nonexistent as Millicent's, but they definitely weren't voluptuous mounds of sex appeal, like Daphne's. And her hips were really just hips, nothing special. They didn't sway when she walked (unless she consciously focused on it, and then she just looked silly) and they weren't curvy and padded or really anything. Her hair was nice enough, she supposed, shiny and straight and fairly thick and perfectly suited to the fringed bob she wore it in, but it framed a too-sharp face, all hard angles and angry frown lines. Her eyebrows (perfectly shaped, thank you very much) were naturally thick and dark and required far too much effort to maintain, she thought, and they only served to highlight her eyes, which were a boring hazel and a little too small for her face. Her nose was the bane of her existence, it was too small and too upturned and made her face seem altogether too harsh. Her lips, like the rest of her face, were pale and sharp, but at least full enough they set off her (slightly pointed) chin nicely and balanced her face into some semblance of prettiness.
Pansy frowned slightly, applied one last coat of lipstick, and flounced out of the dormitory, slamming the door behind her as she headed up the stairs to the common room.
Walking along the dungeon toward the stairs to the first floor, Pansy's mind was miles away. What would await her when she reached the Great Hall? Would her housemates take pity on her? Would they shun her? When Draco dropped something, he dropped it hard and usually on its arse. Pansy knew this, and felt a little twisting squeeze deep in her stomach as she climbed the stairs to the first floor, turning and making her way to the Great Hall.
A suit of armor leered at her as she passed, and she rolled her eyes, smoothing her skirt compulsively as she stood to the side of the Great Hall.
Here goes, she thought, walking through the giant oak doors, chin held high.
The Slytherin table was barely half-full, most likely owing to the fact that it was Saturday, and most of the students were still having a lie-in, sound asleep in their beds. Pansy slid along the wall and took a seat between Millicent, who grunted amiably, apparently having forgiven or at least forgotten the mishap with the wireless, and Daphne, who was discussing the caloric value of toast with Tracey, who was seated across the table. Pansy felt cool relief wash over her as Daphne patted her hand with a sympathetic smile, and she smiled back tightly.
Pity, Pansy decided, though not the most favorable emotion with which to be viewed, was much better than distaste or maliciousness, and she supposed she could have gotten off far worse. She took a blueberry scone from the basket in front of her, and began to butter it, staring across the room absentmindedly.
XXXXX
Across the Hall, Ron was seated in his usual place between Hermione and Harry, shoveling cornflakes into his mouth dully, not quite awake.
He had been up late the previous night, wandering around for hours after leaving the Astronomy Tower. He had ended up on the fifth floor around one o'clock in the morning, fighting off a rather large Victorian wardrobe with a mean streak a mile wide before giving up and finally going to bed, where he'd laid tossing and turning for another two hours, falling into a fitful sleep near three-thirty.
He wasn't exactly sure why he was up so early on a Saturday. It wasn't as if he had Quidditch practice to prepare for, the next practice wasn't until Monday. He imagined it most likely had something to do with the large and criminally dusty tome Hermione had propped up in front of her. She kept making little sounds of discontent as her eyes scanned the page, flickering back and forth too fast to keep track of as she read.
"Hermione," Ron mumbled, missing his mouth with his spoon, "you're giving me a headache. Can't you just eat at breakfast, like a normal person?"
Hermione rolled her eyes, and kept reading. "Honestly, Ron, it's not as though I'm disturbing you."
Another great cloud of dust flew out of the book as she turned the page violently, and Ron yelped, covering his porridge with his napkin.
"You are disturbing me," he argued, flapping his arms wildly to dispel the flurries. "My food is going to be covered in a moment, and all that dust is going up my nose!" As if to prove a point, Harry let out an enormous, body-wracking sneeze next to him, and Ron beamed. "See? You're giving Harry allergies."
"It's a bit much, Hermione," Harry said apologetically, blinking away water from his eyes.
Hermione scowled. "Fine." She got up from the table in a huff, slamming the book shut, causing another storm of gleefully cackling dust mites to fly across the table.
"Hermione –" Ron started, but went into a fit of coughing before he could finish as the tiny particles lodged themselves in his windpipe. Harry pounded him on the back, and continued eating his eggs.
"Right," Ron said, once he'd recovered. "I'm going to finish my Defence essay." He stood up and climbed over the bench, stomping out of the hall in a huff.
XXXXX
"And so," Daphne was saying, giggling wildly, "he says, 'Oh, is that your tie, then?' and I just sort of nodded and kept looking at him, unable to even say a word!"
Pansy grinned weakly. "So what did your Mum say?"
Daphne let out a shriek of laughter, causing Pansy to wince. "She said, 'Well, he seems like a nice boy, but I just don't like the way he was looking at you'!"
Millicent let out a barking laugh, and Pansy saw Draco take a seat at the table a little farther down. She felt suddenly ill, unable to eat another bite.
"I'm going to go lie down," she said, rising from the table. "I'll see you later."
Millicent nodded, and Daphne, seeing Draco, waved sympathetically, before turning back to the table to continue her story.
Pansy forced herself not to roll her eyes, and swept out of the hall, intent on finding herself anywhere but there.
