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Part One | Strike the Match
Sixteen. Light and Dark, and Everything In Between
Their session of Occlumency had been, by far, the longest they'd kept at it. Pansy watched, as the images flashed behind her lids.
Each memory faded as a new one was pulled forward.
"I swear, child. If you don't stop that incessant snivelling, I'll smack you so hard you won't be able to sit down for a week."
"Fuck! Draco! NO!"
Panting, Pansy opened her eyes; she hadn't the faintest clue as to why she was on her knees. She looked up, blinking; her hands were clamped shut and damp with sweat, her right grasped tightly around her wand atop her thigh. Her hair, which was partly dripping in sweat fell over her face in a big, dark wave, obscuring her vision. The living area of their quarters had been cleared, all furniture had been magically shrunk and stacked on the kitchen counter and Draco was directly opposite Pansy, occupying a space near the door as he lay on the ground in a crumpled heap. Pansy watched as he gingerly got to his feet, wiping his hands on the front of his trousers, his face was grim before it suddenly broke into an uncharacteristically large smile.
"That's the strongest you've ever blocked me."
"I don't understand why you have to keep going to that bloody memory," Pansy grumbled, as she too raised herself to standing, retrieving a hair tie from a pocket as she did.
"I've told you, because that's the memory you want to bury the most. I'm sorry," he added, his voice genuine, "but it worked. You threw me out of your mind entirely."
"Yeah, I guess."
Draco paused, regarding Pansy with his steely eyes. "You know, I never knew she was such an arsehole."
"Well, once I started Hogwarts I was out of her hair enough to mostly avoid being, you know, beaten."
Draco nodded and pulled his t-shirt off, he appeared to be just as sweaty as she was. Pansy, determined to push all memories of her childhood back into the depths of her mind once more, wrinkled her nose slightly as she observed Draco dab his armpits with the damp shirt.
"You know," Draco began, "there was a time you'd have pounced on me for looking like this. Merlin knows what fucking happened, to make you drool like a rabid dog over Longbottom, and you to look at all of this," he gestured arrogantly down his naked torso, "with that look on your face. That's a fucking sin, Pans," he finished with a quick shake of his head and a sigh.
Between their classes, Occlumency practices and prefect patrols, somehow their days at Hogwarts had now rolled into weeks. Pansy found herself writing the date at the top of the newest prefect's schedule and realised, with a slight eyebrow raise of disbelief, that time had somehow surpassed a month and a half, and it was now the middle of October. Pansy hurriedly scribbled the final two names into the schedule, her own along with another. With a sigh, she examined the last line in particular: Friday, 24th October. Patrol Duty - P. Parkinson (Slytherin) & N. Longbottom (Gryffindor).
Pansy's Herbology lessons over the past month had consisted of a strange partnership between Pansy and Neville. The week after their near-kiss in the Greenhouse left her feeling more confused than ever. Had it not been for the interruption of Crabbe and Goyle's horrific torture practice - who had annoyingly appeared later the same day, having somehow avoided the Dementor's kiss - what would have transpired between them? And then the even nearer kiss in the library, which Pansy was still seething at Finnegan for interrupting, she wanted more than anything to heed Draco's words; go be happy, but the truth was, the Carrows frightened her, and her parent's involvement with Voldemort frightened. The fact she still hadn't heard from Rabastan frightened her, as did the prospect of hearing from him, especially now she knew the incredibly sad truth of Neville's parents, she just didn't know if she had the strength to go be happy, right now. Coupled with the fact that Neville seemed mysteriously busier than usual, and Draco insisting that they practise Occlumency on an almost daily basis, the very concept of happiness felt a lifetime away.
The Carrows had informed her and Draco only earlier that day that they were going to keep a much greater eye on the older Gryffindor students, since learning of the secret club most of them had been a member of, two years prior.
"Some sort of Army, they called themselves," Alecto had explained.
"Yeah, we, err, helped catch them in fifth-year, actually…" Pansy trailed off, glancing sideways at Draco, which earned her a look of admiration from Alecto. She felt a surge of embarrassment at the memory. Umbridge, Umbitch, as Daphne had coined her, had filled the Slytherin's heads with a ton of promises for their assistance in catching the Gryffindors in the act: rewards, money, favours from the Ministry - the list had gone on, until one day she'd disappeared into the forest, led by Potter and Granger, and was apparently sexually assaulted by a Centaur heard. They had been informed afterwards that Umbridge had no right to promise any such prizes and they'd done her bidding for nothing. Pansy had vowed that was the last time she would blindly follow anyone, and the humiliation that she'd been a part of the joke that was the Inquisitorial Squad was still raw, two years on.
If anything, it explains why he's seemed so busy, Pansy thought, wondering what Longbottom got up to in his secret club. An odd jealousy she would never admit to coursed through her as she imagined Weaslette and the other Gryffindor girls being a part of the club with him. But he doesn't look at them the way he looks at me. The way he watched her, his piercing blue eyes seemed to all at once soften and yet still drive straight through her. Lingering, yet brief, and soft, yet serious - somehow the way in which Neville Longbottom looked at her was both light and dark, and everything in between.
Pansy, herself, now felt an alteration in the presence of Neville. Whereas at the very start of the year she had shied away at every and any look he cast in her direction. Now she found her eyes following him at whatever chance they got, welcoming the chance meetings that their pupils had. She now possessed a well-researched knowledge of his many expressions and mannerisms; the way his long fingers automatically hurriedly pushed his sleeves up at the beginning of every Herbology lesson, the way his fringe now sat upwards to the right, a wave of deep brown above his forehead, the curved indents that appeared in the corner of each eyebrow when he frowned. Whatever the Carrows' did, how close an eye they kept upon the wizard she so desperately yearned to be hers, they couldn't take the way she was able to look, really look, at him, unseen by many surrounding eyes. It was the smallest victory Pansy could imagine, yet all she held onto as she went searching for him, her steps as slow as her heart was heavy, having bid Draco farewell after their Occlumency practice, was that he seemed to hold the same victory by the way his own eyes sought her out.
She'd caught up to him finally, although much sooner than she would have liked, in a first-floor corridor. Briefly, Pansy stated that the Carrows were going to be watching him more closely than before. If she could have described Neville at that moment, the moment she informed him that she had to keep a distance, she would probably have used the word downtrodden, but, downtrodden was a large understatement for the sheer unhappiness that had befallen the Gryffindor at her words. Harder for Pansy still, Neville had relented at her words without question, with what she knew was an entire understanding of her current situation.
In any other circumstances, it may have been almost funny, the chilly demeanour she tried to upkeep. She knew, of course, that Neville saw through her guise completely - which was something of an odd comfort, when the rest of her life felt like an exhausting chaos. It was one thing to have the whole of Hogwarts believing she held Longbottom in the same regard as a flobberworm, which, Pansy was fairly certain 99% of the student body would confirm had they happened to be asked, yet it felt entirely more terrible were Longbottom himself to believe so, especially after the Greenhouse, after the Library...
Daphne, who, true to the word she'd given not to say anything, had become something of a Pansy-Neville advocate. She relentlessly questioned Pansy whenever they were together. Daphne was a big believer in a Muggle something she'd heard of, which she called moon-crossed lovers. Pansy didn't know what a moon-crossed lover was, but humoured her best friend's incessant droning on about the concept. She found herself hoping against hope that Daphne's constant insistence that she and Neville would find a way to just...be, was an untold prophecy and not a hopeless dream.
Draco remained oddly supportive to Pansy's relinquishing, yet unwanted feelings towards Neville - even in spite of him being present during the conversation with the Carrows. The conversation which had ultimately all but forced Pansy to distance herself from the Gryffindor.
Until one day, after even more of their usual nightly fill of firewhisky, Draco had admitted, whilst in the process of falling into yet another whisky-infused slumber, that ever since the night in which he, Pansy, and Neville had drunk whisky and shared a number of stories, he thought "Longbottom wasn't that bad a bloke", and Draco felt he could "actually trust him with his Pans."
Pansy smiled sadly whenever she recalled Draco's words, and longed for him, if they were to somehow make it through this war, that Draco found the love that Pansy knew he deserved, someone who Pansy could trust with her Draco.
Entering the Slytherin common room for the third time that week, Pansy immediately spotted one of her most encouraging sights; her friends lounging across a set of two grand, green leather couches, a coffee table centred in the small group.
"You took your bloody time! I thought you'd be desperate to spend more time in my presence."
"Hah! Sorry babes, you're out of luck!" Pansy hastily replied, shooting Theo a look of mock pity.
Her imminent arrival at the common room had indeed been made longer, initially by the coming across of a couple of first-year girls, both, Pansy noted, were Hufflepuffs and their tear-stained faces looked nothing short of terrified as they huddled together in a corridor not far from the Entrance Hall.
"We can't, Jessie. The woman one said they check all of our owls home." Pansy heard one girl say. The other, Jessie, had gulped hard and nodded, saying nothing in response. Pansy watched, Jessie was the only one of the pair that was facing her, and Pansy could see the girl was close to tears again. She's pretty, Pansy had thought to herself, noting the girl's soft natural curls, which fell in a frenzy of black ringlets down the sides of her pale face. Her eyes, ringed with red, were a bright green and not too dissimilar from Pansy's own.
"Do you two need me to walk you back to your common room?" Pansy hadn't known what made her say anything. She was supposed to be keeping up Draco's stupid pretence, but she knew she couldn't leave these two frightened eleven-year-olds here unprotected, not when she'd witnessed, at yet another of their ridiculous meetings she and Draco had been summoned to, only the day before, the look in Alecto Carrow's eyes when she'd openly spoken of the cursing of certain students. The Death Eater had briefly mentioned something about first-years being easy target practice, in such a manner than Pansy had found herself forced into pretending she was experiencing a coughing fit to disguise her body's desire to dry-heave.
"N-no, thank you." The first girl had spoken, her blue eyes, which bore a striking resemblance to the eyes that were worn on all three of the Greengrass women, were sad and her short, blonde bob needed a good wash.
"Okay, look. The Carrows, right now, are probably still in the Great Hall. So, go back to your common room. If they appear, I'll be able to see and distract them, and you can walk past safely, okay?"
Both girls looked positively more terrified and Pansy, not one for offering much in the way of a comforting arm, stood tall and beckoned the girls to start walking. As they turned away, Pansy found her speaking aloud to them once more, "Once you're back, do any homework you have for tomorrow then go have baths, and try to relax, okay?" Two pairs of eyes, one green and the other blue, stared up at Pansy as they nodded in unison, something Pansy knew countless people had witnessed her and Daphne do over the years. Beckoning to them once more, she watched as they hurriedly tore across the Entrance Hall and disappeared down the corridor Pansy knew led to the kitchens and the Hufflepuff common room.
Pansy watched, just as she had promised, for any sign of either Carrow. "Thank fuck," she said aloud after no such Death Eater had been spotted, and Pansy felt relatively sure that Jessie and her friend would more than likely be safe in the confines of Hufflepuff House by now. She made to leave herself in the same direction when a voice rang out from behind her. A voice that made her equal parts on edge and completely comforted.
"Just when I think you won't do anything that'll surprise me more."
Pansy closed her eyes. Her mouth, which had initially gasped, closed and the briefly tightened grip, loosened around her wand. Taking a deep breath, Pansy retorted, "Dangerous time to be sneaking up on people, didn't you know?" Before she turned around and was propelled, once again, under the scrutinising and perfect stare of Neville Longbottom.
Neville snorted. "Trust a Slytherin to say something like that when they receive a compliment." Which gave Pansy a turn to snort.
"If that's the best compliment you can come up with Longbottom, then-"
"Believe me," he cut her off, "I could think of about a hundred better compliments right now."
Pansy's breath was somewhere in her throat, caught and with no hope of being relinquished. Say them, she internally pleaded with him, please, say them all.
Somehow, she managed to swallow and briefly scanned their surroundings, which, although mostly empty, still held a handful of students exiting dinner. Pansy, for some unbeknownst-to-herself reason, grabbed the arm of Longbottom's... is that a cardigan? And dragged him through the closest door to them, which led to an empty storage room. Spare desks and chairs lined three of the walls and five dusty blackboards were lined up against the fourth.
"Cosy," Neville remarked.
Pansy released Neville's sleeve and turned on her heel, annoyed at his remark, It's not supposed to be cosy! Taking a deep breath, Pansy began, "You...you can't...You heard what I said about the Carrows! I don't know what you think you're…. you just...this can't."
"Why? I mean, really, why?!" Neville demanded. All his previous sarcasm lost, he looked a certain way Pansy couldn't place, angry, maybe?
"BECAUSE WE'LL BE KILLED, YOU FUCKING IDIOT!"
"Killed for what?" Neville asked whilst flicking his wand in what Pansy could only guess was a silencing charm.
Oh, you are fucking relentless.
"You know what!"
"I need to hear you say it!"
"FOR FUCK'S SAKE LONGBOTTOM. YOU! ME! ME! YOU! YOU...I KNOW YOU WANTED...I KNOW YOU WANT...TO…I WAS THERE, YOU KNOW, IN THE GREENHOUSE AND...AND THE LIBRARY!" Pansy's arms were being thrown about, her hair was wild, and her voice was a shout.
Neville's whole body halted, his breathing came out ragged and uneven, his eyes bored into hers as he stood, unmoving.
Say anything!
Neville let out a relieved-sounding bark of laughter.
Oh yes, this is fucking hysterical.
"What the fuck is so funny?"
"I just, it's supposed to be Gryffindors who are the reckless ones; Slytherins are meant to observe a situation first."
"Oh yes, that is funny. See how much I'm laughing now." Pansy shot him the most loathsome look she could muster; her arms crossed her chest and her face burning with embarrassment.
The room was silent for an excruciatingly long minute, all the while Pansy wishing she could transfigure herself into a floor tile and leave him standing there alone, until Neville finally spoke, his voice small, none of his earlier passion remotely visible.
"You're right." he mustered, shooting her a quick glance before continuing an examination of his own shoes. "Of course, you're right. In fact, you are so right, I don't think about much else. And after that day, in the Greenhouse and then later in the library..." Pansy watched as he swallowed and raised his eyes to meet hers once more.
Pansy took a deep breath, finding her voice came out not much louder than a whisper, "I told you, we have to stay away from each other. We'd be killed."
"You don't know that, you can't possibly know that."
"I do. My...family, they... they're in too far... if I can't be, what everybody already thinks I am, I'm as good as dead."
"We'll work something…"
"No!" Pansy stopped him. "You don't understand, we'll never be safe to…" She wondered, fleetingly whether she should glamour away the tears that had begun to fall. Figuring there wasn't much point now, she left them to fall, and fall they did. Until a pair of rough, yet gentle hands swiftly wiped each one away. Breathing had now become an arduous task as Pansy found herself gasping, her tears now falling so thick and fast, she erupted in sobs. And his arms, the only arms Pansy wanted to feel around herself, snaked their way across her sides to rest on her back, as she fell forwards into the waiting chest of Neville Longbottom.