"Sorry, Pans." Draco said, continuing, "I don't think I've ever, ever had someone not recognize me."

"Well, of course she wouldn't recognize you, she's a muggle!" Pansy laughed.

"You have no idea, Pans." Draco Malfoy said bleakly. "Everyone knows me as the Malfoy brat. Like it or not, that's who I am. I can't - don't - know anyone who'll let that drop."

"Draco Malfoy!" Pansy Parkinson said, with hands on her hips, "You are an offensive twit."

Draco looked up into Pansy's eyes, and she froze, her ire draining out of her feet. "I know," he said, running his hands over his hair, a compulsive habit he'd licked when he was seven. "But... it was nice to have someone who didn't know that - not at first glance, at any rate." Draco's subsequent thinlipped smile looked threadbare and raw. Pansy just stared at him, looking slightly baffled, and more hesitant than he was used to.

"We just kept talking, about big things and little ones, judgements and decisions and ideas that I've never told a living - " Draco Malfoy shook his head, saying quietly, "I didn't want her to go, Pans..."

"Oh, Draco..." Pansy said, her heart in her eyes, if not her low voice.

Draco turned away from her, in the small lav that didn't really admit such things without them brushing tight against each other, "You'll laugh."

"Draco!" Pansy said sternly.

Draco turned his head back towards her, "No, you will. Try not to do it too cruelly."

Pansy was still at that, listening with all the curiosity Slytherins ever own.

"I told her... tried to play it off like a joke... that I was afraid."

Pansy snorted at this.

"Afraid of werewolves." Draco Malfoy said haltingly, each syllable emerging like a bubble bursting.

"She came up to ... sit with me." He said, and his smile was sad. "Said it might help me sleep."

"Only..." Draco Malfoy said, his voice wistful and rueful at once, "We did a bit more than talking..."

"Draco..." Pansy said, letting each syllable of his name fall like clinking galleons from her tongue. "What did you do?" Her voice was flat, and in this Draco knew that he had stepped into danger.

"All the way," Draco Malfoy looked into Pansy's eyes, his dark and dilated as he thought back to it, "and I liked it."

Pansy's hands turned into fists, and she wanted to pummel Draco's pointy face in, but - needing confirmation - growled, "Did you use protection?"

Draco's face paled to the point of turning blue as ice. "Shite, I hadn't even - Iii- no wand, Pansy!" The last three words were shouted at Pansy, whose fists were raining a hailstorm down on Draco's back.

"Bastard! Enemy of all Women!" Pansy shouted, continuing to hit him as her insults took a more scatalogical turn, befitting Draco's heritage, he supposed. Feeling guilt rest its heavy weight on his shoulders, he let her continue to punch him.

As Pansy's rage ran out, she hugged him, saying into his shoulder, "Thank you for telling me. I'm sorry I've been so upset recently, I just miss talking to you."

"Me too, Pans, me too." Draco Malfoy said, as they both took a few minutes to straighten each other out, so that they wouldn't look utterly disheveled leaving a lav.

[a/n: Well, how'd you like it? I'm trying to get a decent read on the relationship between Pansy and Draco. I hope it works. Leave a review!

Pansy works well as a sounding board, but... Draco took to having someone who didn't know him like a duck takes to water.]