Pansy

Sitting in the Quidditch team waiting rooms I held my head in my hands, the light lingering smell of sweat helping to distract me from the pounding in my chest. I glanced at Ginny from beneath my hands, wondering just what was going on with her, why she'd acted so weirdly earlier, and why it had such an effect on me. I'd been able to ignore my own feelings for the girl for the better part of two years now, but out of the blue, she's just smashed her way through my barriers.

"Hey Pansy," I jumped at the sound of Ginny's voice, "Woah, are you okay?"

"Yeah, yeah I'm fine what's up?" I asked as my face flushed with embarrassment.

"I just wanted to apologize for earlier, I was just trying to mess around a little," Ginny said, her voice a little shaky.

"I see…" I deflated as I listened to the girl speaks, mentally cursing myself for raising my hopes even a little bit.

"Yeah, I just wanted to explain, you know, I just wanted to get a little payback, but then I realized it might not have been such a good idea after the whole curse thing, so I'm sorry, I just wasn't thinking."

"No, no, it's fine," I spoke quickly as pain flared in my chest, "I understand… I guess."

Ginny stayed silent after that, the two of us sitting in awkward silence as we listened to the roar from the crowd above as other teams walked out and dueled each other. Emmaline and Hannah, having overheard our conversation, sat awkwardly glancing between the two of us and each other, no one really knowing what to say, or even if we wanted to say anything. Deep down I knew that I wanted to speak, could feel something bubbling deep in my chest, but it wouldn't come out, couldn't come out.

I put my head back in my hands and closed my eyes, I listened to the beating in my chest, focused on nothing but my own breathing as I successfully drowned out the sounds of cheering. I needed to prepare, needed to calm myself down, to erase the feeling of longing that continued to burn deep in my stomach.

A warm hand was placed on my shoulder, and without thinking I moved towards the owner of the hand, enjoying the comfort as my shoulders were wrapped in a warm embrace. In my mind I could see clearly who it was, the only person that had been sitting next to me was Ginevra, I buried my face into the crook of the girl's shoulder and sighed in contentment as I allowed myself to get lost in the feeling of the redheaded girl.

"Thank you," I whispered.

"Hey, we may not have been getting on, but you were clearly in need of some comfort," I almost jumped at the sound of the girl's voice. Slowly I opened my eyes and saw that the hair in front of me was not red but blond, looking to the left I saw Ginny leaning against a pillar and looking towards the doors that lead to the Quidditch pitch. I felt as a loneliness crept over me as I stared hopelessly at the redheads back, wishing that it was her that was next to me right now.

"You wanted me to be her, didn't you?" Hannah asked, her voice just barely registering in my ear.

I shook my head, quickly dispersing the feeling of longing and loneliness as I put an arm around Hannah's waist. "I'm happy with you," I forced a smile before rising to my feet.

"Would the next contestants please make your way to the field, Ginevra Weasley," I tuned the announcer out as I heard the first name of my group and quickly followed after Ginevra, Hannah and Emmaline walking along beside me.

We quickly came upon two Aurors just before the grass to the Quidditch pitch, "Time to put your game faces on girls," One of the men yelled over the roar of the crowd, "Things are about to get real."

I huffed in annoyance, they didn't know the meaning of the word, I listened to the chanting of the crowd, not caring what they were saying, I simply listened to the excited noise. I smiled as I approached our designated dueling area, one of six that had been set up on the Quidditch pitch.

Professor Snape nodded at my team and me as we approached "Are you girls ready for this?"

"We're ready, let's get this thing going already," I said as I looked at the other dueling areas and watched as curses and various other spells were sent flying across them, each stray spell being dispelled by an invisible barrier.

Professor Snape motioned for my team to step into the large painted rectangle, as out opponents timidly approached their side of the field. Adhering to proper dueler's etiquette, each member of each team approached the middle of the field, rose their wands and then bowed to the other team before heading back to their respective sides.

"Now you all should have been notified about how this is going to work, but just in case I'll tell you again, you are to stay in your team's area of play if you step a foot out of bounds you will be disqualified from participating in the match further. The middle area is strictly a no crossing zone; this is a test of your magical ability, not a fist fight, any use of melee force will result in immediate disqualification for your entire team with possible Expulsion. Understood?"

"Yes sir," We spoke almost in unison.

"Good. Now… Begin!" The moment the Professor yelled the word I thrust my wand forwards, but it was in vain as our opponents all immediately took a step forwards and crossed the line into the 'no cross zone'. I heard Snape sigh and watched as he pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger, "Well I guess it's over. Pansy, your team wins, now all of you get to the stands," the Professor growled in frustration.

Fearing the Professor's wrath our 'opponents' scurried quickly towards the stands like the cowards they were. I shook my head as I walked away from the pitch, "What was that?" Emmaline asked from beside me.

"They probably didn't want to be in the Competition and got out the first chance they had," Hannah said with a grin on her face, "Guess that means we won the first Competition, and we didn't even need to cast a spell."

"That wasn't a victory," I spat with frustration, "Not even trying… How can they be worthy of this school, let alone their Houses after pulling a stunt like that."

"They just didn't want to be a part of it," Hannah tried to defend them, but I wasn't having any of it.

"Even if you don't want to participate you still should, this is a school event, and it was designed to find the best Student, not only that, it was designed to allow us to interact with people we usually wouldn't, they could have at least had some fun with it!" I yelled as I quickened my pace to catch our 'opponents'.

"Hey!" I called out, but the students I was pursuing didn't seem to hear me as they disappeared into the crowd of other cheering students. I snarled as I scanned the crowd hoping to catch a glimpse of one of the Students but instead found my gaze being returned by Draco. A snide grin settled on his lips as our eyes met, he was close enough that I was able to clearly hear the words that left his mouth.

"How fortunate that your team was able to face one of the "immediate forfeiters" as they have been dubbed. Would've hated to watch you get destroyed before coming out of the first round of tests." The boy laughed along with a few others that had surrounded him as they continued to jeer my teammates and me.

I clenched my fists tightly in anger, as I spat the vile taste of bile from my mouth, "Maybe we should have at it then!" I yelled over the roar of the crowd as another team went down. Draco's grin faltered slightly at my words, but he quickly recovered, "I mean you said it yourself, my team didn't get to duel, and I have to wonder whether or not that is actually fair."

Draco approached me, his face coming within inches of my own, forcing me to take a step back, "My team isn't with me otherwise I'd take you up on that offer."

I smiled a cocky smile, "Fine then, no teams, just you and me," I was itching to relieve some tension and was digging for a duel.

"You're on," Draco spoke pointedly before taking to the Quidditch Pitch.

Professor Snape quickly intercepted the Blond as I walked leisurely towards them, "You all need to leave the Pitch this instant, you are holding up the duels!"

"No, we aren't," Draco spat back at the Professor, "You are, we would like to duel."

Professor Snape looked back at me then to the rest of my team who had followed Draco and myself back out to the Quidditch Pitch, "Just you against the four of them?"

"No, it's just going to be me and Pansy, no one else."

"I cannot permit that, even for you two. Now get back to the stands!"

"But sir."

"No buts, Malfoy" Professor Snape sneered, "You want to duel, you do it in your own time with a Professor to supervise, Now. Get. Out. Of. Here."

Draco cowered under Professor's scrutiny, attempting to hide his fear behind bravado, the blond shoved me as he walked past, snickering as I staggered to keep my feet in on the ground.

"You're lucky the curse was lifted Draco," I growled as I glared at his retreating back, "I'm heading back to the castle, I can't spend another second in that idiot's presence.

I left for the castle alone, I was surprised as I half expected someone to follow me as that had been happening more often lately, but I guessed the Duels were more interesting than me. And if I was being honest, I would have preferred to watch a few of them myself, but here I was heading back to the castle alone.

I headed straight to the Slytherin dorms and made my way into the girl's toilets, splashing some water on my face I stared into the mirror and the reflection staring back at me. "Don't do it," I told myself, "You've grown past that."

I repeated the words to myself over and over as I closed my eyes, but they didn't seep get through to my mind as my anger was quickly replaced with pain. Tears started to drip down my cheeks as I gave in to the pain and let allowed it to take over, suddenly missing the curse as it had helped me overcome times like this with anger. I opened my eyes and stared into the mirror again, watching as the tears gathered in my eyes and slowly dribbled over onto my cheeks before sliding down my chin and dripping into the basin beneath me.

I didn't know how long I spent in front of the mirror, didn't know how much time had passed before I collapsed onto the floor and started to sob in the toilet. Didn't know or care if anyone had even entered the toilets and found me or not as if they had, they clearly didn't care enough to help me before I drifted into a restless sleep.

Ginny

Sitting in the Great Hall, I couldn't keep myself from doing what I'd found myself doing a lot of recently as I watched and waited for Pansy to show herself. I knew things were strained between us, and since it was Sunday there wasn't a need for the girl to show her face for Breakfast as the only thing that was happening today was the first trip to Hogsmeade of the year. But for some reason, I wanted to see the girl, "For some reason?" I asked myself indignantly, as I knew exactly why I wanted to see the girl.

I waited in the Great Hall even as Harry, Ron and Hermione begged me to go to Hogsmeade with them, I just couldn't bring myself to go until I saw Pansy. My friends didn't understand, but how could they, I hadn't told them what my true feelings were, but even if I did, I got the feeling that they still wouldn't understand.

I felt my heart-beat pick up as a familiar head of hair rounded the corner, I smiled gleefully as I jumped to my feet and raced towards the pale girl. I didn't quite understand myself, but I couldn't seem to stop myself either as I ran towards the girl. She watched me curiously as I approached, she barely reacted as I grabbed her arm and didn't say a word as I led her out of the castle.

Once out of sight and earshot of the students that hadn't yet left for Hogsmeade, unless they weren't going, Pansy finally decided to speak.

"Why'd you bring me out here? And why are you so happy?" She asked, and my heart broke into pieces as I listened to her hollow voice.

I narrowed my eyes slightly as I looked at the girl properly and noticed the dark bags under her eyes, the redness of her nose and her disheveled robes. Without answering or even thinking I took the girl into my arms, my right hand instantly finding its way to the back of the girl's head stroking her hair comfortingly.

"W-What are you doing?" Pansy asked in a shaky voice, as she hesitantly wrapped her own arms around my waist, her hands settling on the small of my back.

"Are you okay?" I asked, my voice soft as I spoke.

"What do you mean? I'm fine," Pansy replied.

I moved back a little, not allowing my hands to leave the girls sides as I looked into her eyes, "You're not, I used to notice it all the time before, but you seem… Worse."

Pansy's eyes narrowed, "What do you mean worse?" She asked trying to pull away from me.

I pulled the struggling girl back towards me, and held tight as she tried to force me off of her, "I'm just trying to help Pansy, I had other plans for today… Well not really plans but, you're in pain Pansy, I'm not going to ignore it anymore."

Pansy stopped struggling and instead pushed my shoulders softly; I moved with the girl's hands which stopped as we came face to face. Without warning the Pansy quickly moved forwards, her left hand pressed against the back of my neck and pulled me forwards while her right hand pulled my waist towards her. Our lips met in a sharp kiss just before our bodies met and the warmth that wafted from the girl seemed doubled to what I had felt when we were simply embracing.

I sighed as electricity ran through my body, starting from my lips and radiating throughout the rest of my body before settling in my core, setting it ablaze. My eyes closed and for just a few fleeting moments I felt blissful, as our lips pressed together everything else in the world simply floated away, or maybe Pansy and I had floated away from the world, it didn't matter.

But all too soon Pansy pulled away, as I opened my eyes, I saw that Pansy's eyes were shining with tears, "Now you know just one of the reasons," Pansy hissed as she pulled away.

I tightened my hold around Pansy's waist, "It's okay Pansy," I spoke quickly as she continued to struggle against my grip.

"How is it okay?" Pansy asked painfully, "I've developed feelings for someone who hates me."

My brow furrowed in confusion as I wondered how she didn't realize how I felt after the kiss that we had just shared and in an attempt to show her the truth I pressed my lips to hers. After a quick shove, Pansy successfully pushed me away from her, but I still had a hold on her waist.

"Pansy stop, I'm trying to show you how I feel," I pleaded but she didn't seem to hear me as her face flushed with anger.

"Let go of me!" The Slytherin yelled as she continued to struggle against me, but I held strong, determined to convey my feelings to the older girl.

"Pansy please just listen! I'm trying to tell you something important!" I yelled, but Pansy continued to struggle, huffing in annoyance I stopped fighting Pansy and instead pushed in the same direction that she was pulling me in, toppling the both of us over and onto the moist stone pathway. Pansy grunted in pain as I landed on top of her, but before she could react, I planted a forceful kiss onto her lips.

"JUST LISTEN!" I screamed as she was silent beneath me, breathing heavily I buried my face into Pansy's neck, "I'm trying to tell you that I have feelings for you too," I whispered into her ear.

"No," Pansy said, her voice shaking, "No that can't be. I've been horrible to you, how could you have… No there is no way you have."

"Pansy I have, I know its hard to believe, it was hard for me to believe at first too and I fought it as well, but I just… I don't know there is something about you, something that draws me to you," I explained.

"Oh, how sweet," My blood ran cold as the voice filled my ears, "The little redhead and the bitch fell for each other." Pansy and I scrambled to our feet, Crabbe and Goyle stood a few feet away snickering at us while Draco stared at Pansy with a deep look of contempt and hatred burning in his eyes. He shook his head as he smiled dangerously at his fellow Slytherin, "I'll be seeing you later Pansy," His words held nothing but malice as he spoke before the three of them left for the castle.

"Shit!" Pansy cursed.

I quickly grabbed her hand in mine and held it tightly, "Don't worry Pansy. We can deal with Draco together." Pansy squeezed my hand comfortingly as she glared at the door that the three other Slytherins had disappeared through. Thinking as quickly as I could I jumped into Pansy's line of sight, "Pansy, listen to me," Her glare softened as she looked into my eyes, "We will deal with it together okay?"

Pansy nodded, but I could still see that the black-haired girl was worried, and I couldn't blame her, the look in Draco's eyes was somewhat terrifying.