There came in a time in every girl's life, Pansy mused, when all the cigarettes and moping in the world would fail to be any help in the valiant fight against the inner ragings of being brutally and cruelly scorned by pointy blonde boyfriends. Luckily for her, this was not that time, and as she sat at the top of her favorite pine tree, the wind blowing gently through the branches, she was quite a bit more at peace with the world than she had been the day before.
She sighed contentedly, and flicked the ashes into the breeze, taking a deep drag. She realized that yes, she would eventually have to stop chain-smoking Gauloises and climb back down to the relative insanity of the social whirlwind that was Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, but now was not the time to think of such things. She leaned back against the trunk of the tree, staring out over the grounds. If she squinted just right, she could see the Quidditch pitch, where Ravenclaw was holding practice.
She inhaled again, and smiled slightly. Maybe things wouldn't be so bad, after all.
"What the Hell?"
Then again...
She squinted down through the branches, where, thirty or so feet below, Ron Weasley was straddling a low-hanging branch, looking up at her with an expression she could only describe as royally pissed off.
"Grand," She muttered to herself, flicking the dying butt of her cigarette away from the tree and lighting another with the tip of her wand. "Just what I needed."
A minute or so later, Ron had made his way up to her, and clung to a branch three feet below her, looking absolutely furious.
"What are you doing in my tree?" He demanded angrily, brushing a stray bit of hair out of his eyes. It was getting far too long to be anything but unruly, she noted.
"This is not your tree, Weasley," she said, putting an arm down for support.
"Like Hell it isn't!" He climbed up another branch, until he was eye level with her. "I've been climbing this tree since first year!"
"Yeah, well, I've been climbing it since I used to come visit my older sister," she retorted, blowing smoke in his face.
He coughed, looking furious. "You're a bloody liar, that's what you are!"
"You're right, I haven't got a sister. Get out of my tree!" She demanded, clinging to the trunk and stepping up so that she was standing on her branch, still delicately grasping the cigarette between two fingers.
"It is not your tree!" Ron roared, climbing yet higher.
"Eat shit, Weaselby!" Pansy shot back, deftly inserting the cigarette between her lips and continuing to climb.
"Get out of my tree, Parkinson!"
Ron climbed swiftly after her, and she realized with consternation that his long and gangling limbs, instead of hindering him, enabled him to climb much faster than she ever would have imagined. She swore bitterly, and continued upward.
A particularly spirited gust of wind shook the tree just then, causing it to sway back and forth merrily, and Pansy shrieked, slipping off the branch she'd just stepped onto and biting her cigarette clear in half. She dropped several feet, narrowly avoiding a rather nasty looking broken twig, before Ron, in a stunning display of Quidditch-honed reflexes, grabbed her around the waist, hauling her back against the tree and away from mortal peril.
"Are you all right?" he asked, face white. He was still grasping her waist, his long fingers digging into her side.
She composed herself, brushing her hair away from her face and spitting out the end of the poor, mangled Gauloise.
"I'm fine," she said, pulling away from Ron angrily. "Get off!"
Ron looked hurt for a moment, but it was gone in a second, replaced with annoyance and anger. "Well pardon me for saving your life, then."
"You didn't save my life," she shot back, glaring.
He looked at her in amazement. "You really are a compulsive liar, you know that?"
She sighed. "I really am."
Still grasping the trunk of the tree in a death hold, she fumbled in her breast pocket for another cigarette, drawing one out and bringing it to her lips, noting with annoyance that her hands were shaking. She turned to face Ron, and he looked away quickly, flushing crimson to the tips of his ears.
"Oh what now," she said in annoyance. "Embarrassed about your little bit of heroism, are you?"
He went ever redder, and continued looking away. "No, it's… Your, err, your blouse's come undone a bit," he said.
She looked down, and indeed, the top three buttons of her white oxford had popped open, and her lacy red bra was making a mad dash for freedom.
"Oh Hell," she muttered, cigarette dangling from her lips. She buttoned her blouse one-handed, still not letting go of the tree. "You can look now, Weasley."
He turned to her, still a deep shade of pink. "Errr. Right."
She rolled her eyes.
"I'm not stupid, you know," Ron burst out, looking angry again.
She gave him a Look. "…What?"
"You. Rolling your eyes at me. As if I'm some sort of idiot, just because I've the decency to be embarrassed when some bint goes about flashing her underthings. That doesn't make me stupid, that makes you a bloody tart!"
She gaped at him, furious.
"I am not a bint!"
"Could've fooled me," Ron muttered, glaring off over the grounds.
"Look, Weasley," she began, jabbing a finger at him. "If you hadn't come stomping up here in the first place – "
"I was not stomping!"
She ignored him. "If you hadn't come stomping up here in the first place, none of this would ever even have happened. So don't get all on me about being some sort of mad tart. This is your ownfault!"
He knocked her hand away, face burning, and they watched as the cigarette she had been grasping fell to the ground some fifty feet below. "Maybe if you hadn't been in my tree to begin with, you wouldn't have looked like a mad tart!"
They stood there, glaring at each other. Ron was awkwardly holding on to two smaller branches as he balanced on a larger one a foot or so below Pansy, who was holding the trunk of the tree in a death grip as she did her best to look dignified with sap in her hair as she stood on one of the thicker branches.
"Fine," she said coolly, brushing her hair away from her face with all the dignity she could muster. "Fine. Have your bloody tree, then. I'm so bloody sorry for tarting it up!" She started down the tree, but had only stepped down a foot or so when she felt Ron's hand on her arm.
"No, err, stay. I'm sorry," he said, helping pull her back up. "You can stay, it's your tree as well, I suppose, and it's only fair…"
She narrowed her eyes at him. "It's fair because you saw my brassiere?"
He blushed, and rubbed the back of his neck. "Erm... yes?"
She glared for a moment more, before shrugging, and sitting down on the same branch as Ron. "All right, fine." She pulled another cigarette out of the package, noting with dismay she was running out. She would have to pull another carton out of the bottom of her trunk soon. She sighed, and pulled her wand out of its hiding place in her sock, lighting the tip of the cigarette.
Ron made a face. "Those are disgusting, Parkinson." He coughed waved a hand about, trying to air the smoke away from his face. He frowned and re-adjusted on the branch, dangling his long legs off the side.
Pansy puffed daintily at the cigarette, holding it between her long, thin fingers, which were still trembling slightly. "They're not all that bad. They do wonders for the nerves, you know…" She grinned devilishly, and held it out to him. "Want to try?"
"No! Get it out of my face!" He pushed her hand away, looking scandalized.
Pansy rolled her eyes, biting back a grin. "Come on, just a little puff!" She waved it at him again. Gryffindor-baiting was far too easy, she decided. It should probably be illegal: most things that afforded this much fun usually were.
"Eurgh!" Ron said, scooting as far away as the branch would allow.
"Oh come on, Weasley, it's not going to eat your face."
Ron stared at the cigarette as thought it would, indeed, eat his face if he let it come any closer. "You don't know that!" he protested, edging further away. "Dad says those'll kill you!"
Pansy let out a short bark of laughter. "Oh for… I thought you were a Gryffindor, Weasley. Laugh in the face of danger, You-Know-Who can eat my dung, all that lot? You're afraid of a little smoking stick?"
Ron purpled. Yes, Pansy thought, far too easy.
"Fine," he said, taking the cigarette from her gingerly. "Fine."
He held it between his thumb and forefinger, still looking at it as though it might explode any second. He closed his eyes and brought it to his lips, scrunching his face up at the last second, and inhaled too deeply, sputtering and coughing as smoke came out his nostrils. Pansy laughed, and plucked the cigarette from his fingers, putting it back between her lips.
"Good show, Weasley!" she chirped, still grinning sadistically. "Really bit the bullet, there." Ron was still coughing, and she smiled merrily and took another drag, blowing the smoke up into the air.
"What the hell are those things," Ron managed to choke out, awkwardly trying to pound himself on the back. "I think I am dying!" Pansy laughed again, and Ron looked at her incredulously. "This was all a plot to kill me!" He burst out, before falling into another hacking fit.
"Oh honestly, Weasley, if I actually wanted to kill you, I'd be much more subtle about it."
Ron looked at her incredulously, eyes still watering. "You? Subtle?"
She sneered at him. "I am a Slytherin, you know. Subtle, cunning, and ambitious is my calling."
"You're about as subtle as Goyle's left bicep!"
Pansy sniffed. "I'll have you know Gregory is very subtle. Nearly a genius, even."
"…Goyle?"
"You've never heard him speak, have you? That's because he reserves all his witticisms for sitting around the common room fire during our nightly philosophical chats, during which he makes bitter and cutting remarks about the whole of Gryffindor house."
Ron looked at her like she was mad. "You're a bloody liar!"
"Oh, all right, you've caught me—he's so thick that we're not sure if he even can speak." At this, she chuckled, and beside her, Ron laughed heartily, his blue eyes twinkling. "One time," she continued, still giggling, "Draco and I came into the common room, and he and Vincent were sitting at the sofa with this piece of parchment and a quill, and they stowed it away when Draco asked what it was, but…" she leaned in conspiratorially, hair falling across her face, and continued, "we think Vincent was trying to teach him to spell his name!"
Ron burst out laughing again, leaning back against a conveniently-placed branch, and slipped, falling off. Pansy shrieked, reaching out to grab his arm, and he managed to grab onto the branch, dangling awkwardly for a moment before scrabbling to pull himself up onto a lower branch.
"Whoops," he said shakily, straddling the branch. "I'm err… I'm a bit dizzy."
"Cigarettes. I forgot they do that when you're not used to it…" She looked worried for a moment, before shrugging it off, a frown settling on her face.
He looked up at her quizzically. "What?"
"Nothing." She stubbed the cigarette out on the trunk of the tree, sliding off her branch and beginning down the tree.
"Where are you going?" Ron asked, still holding onto the tree with a death grip.
"Away," she called up, still climbing down rapidly. "This conversation never happened, Weasley." She hung off a low branch before dropping the last ten feet to the ground gracefully, looking up at him once more before brushing a stray pine needle off her shirt and running away, back towards the castle.
Ron made an annoyed, frustrated noise, and edged closer to the trunk of the tree, holding on to it until the horizon re-focused.
"Maybe she really is trying to kill me," he muttered, giving an owl perched several branches away a dirty look, and beginning to make his way down the tree.
