.
Part Two | Pain & Fire
Thirty-One. This is Cosy
"So, Pans," Theo nudged Pansy's side playfully, "put me out of my misery."
She rolled her eyes. "About what, exactly?"
"Your nighttime rendezvous...in the greenhouse…" Theo continued to nudge her.
Pansy shot him a sideways glance, trying, and failing, to hide her smile. "It was...a lovely evening."
Theo snorted. "What has he done to you?"
"That question has been asked rather a lot recently," Pansy admitted, much to the further amusement of Theo.
"He's good for you, Pans."
Nodding slightly, more to herself than Theo, the corners of Pansy's mouth twitched. "I know."
The pair walked quickly. Neville had instructed them to meet himself and Luna Lovegood, of all people, in an empty classroom on the third floor corridor that was now rarely used.
"Why Lovegood?" Theo hissed, and Pansy noticed his pace had slowed somewhat, she eyed him suspiciously.
"She's a big deal for their resistance club thing, I think, and I imagine she's the one who'd be the most...understanding," Pansy answered. "Why are you walking so slowly?"
"Lovegood, and I...well, right at the beginning of September, had an...encounter."
Pansy's eyes widened. "You...and Loony Lovegood?"
"She's…" he trailed off, throwing a glare at Pansy as she began to laugh.
"You...and batshit crazy blondie," Pansy gasped through her laughs.
Theo shot Pansy a sideways glance at her words. "You're so charming, has anyone ever told you that?"
Pansy straightened her back and lifted her face forward. "Lots of people have told me that."
"Don't tell Mills," Theo snorted as they turned their final corner. "Must be one of these rooms."
"That one," Pansy said, confidently, as she pointed towards a door diagonally from them. It was incredibly familiar and she knew he'd choose that one, the same room that she'd pulled him into only a few days previous. Months might as well have passed, Pansy thought with an inward sigh.
Pansy and Theo shot each other a final glance, before Pansy reached forward and grabbed the door handle, pulling the door ajar.
Theo followed her inside, where they were met with not two, but three figures.
Theo's eyes narrowed at the sight of the three individuals. Pansy gulped, her eyes darting between Neville, Luna Lovegood... and Ginny Weasley. You never said anything about Weasley, she thought towards Neville.. Eventually settling her eyes, that were narrowing slightly, to solely rest staring into Neville's. She said nothing, as did any of the others, until Neville himself eventually spoke.
His eyes didn't leave Pansy's. "Ginny has a right to know," he said simply.
"You should have-" Pansy began.
"A right to know what, exactly?" Ginny spat, her eyes were also fixed on Pansy's face, just like Neville's, only, unlike Neville, they were positively burning with hatred.
Pansy felt the hairs on the back of her neck bristle, part in shame and part in a conflicting annoyance.
"Gin, it's fine." Gin?
Her eyes refused to leave Pansy's face. "You told me to trust you, Neville, and I do, but if you don't mind, I'll wait until I know what this is about to decide just how fine everything is."
"Hi, Theo," Luna suddenly spoke, out of nowhere, startling Pansy.
"Theo?" Ginny whirled around towards Luna, her face having contorted into a gobsmacked look.
"Yes, Ginny, this is Theo Nott," Luna replied, airily, as though oblivious to the tension that was currently present. For all Pansy knew, she was, although a more reasonable conclusion would be that she simply chose to ignore it.
"I know who he is!" Ginny snapped, "I just wasn't aware you were on first name terms."
"Oh, well, yes we are, I suppose."
Theo did not reply straight away. Instead, it took Pansy elbowing him in the side for him to splutter an almost indecipherable, "Hi, Luna," back at the Ravenclaw.
Luna positively beamed at him, and Pansy couldn't help but feel a slight sense of amusement at the exchange. Ginny, on the other hand, was clearly in no mood to feel amused and the fiery red head turned her head from Luna and, looking back up at Neville, spat a very pointed, "Tell me." It wasn't a question, or even a request.
Neville let out a deep breath. "I'm not sure we shouldn't go somewhere different," he gestured vaguely around the empty classroom.
"Here is fine," Ginny snapped.
Luna's eyes flickered to various parts of the room. "It does have a nice enough aura."
Pansy shot Theo a Really? Expression, before all four turned their attention back towards Neville.
"Alright, Gin, first you need to know that all, or most, of the Slytherins that you think are going to become Death Eaters, aren't. Pansy and Theo definitely aren't."
"'Pansy', 'Theo'? So you're on first name terms, too?"
"He's on a bit more than that with Pansy," Theo snorted.
Pansy groaned and hit Theo in the stomach as Ginny's nostrils flared. "Neville, please, do not tell me that he means what I think he means."
Neville shook his head slightly once and crossed the few steps it took to reach Pansy's side, "I can't."
"You, you've been getting it on with Parkinson?" Ginny hissed, clearly in disbelief. "You? Neville Longbottom, leader of the DA, the person who was bullied by these arseholes for six years of his fucking life, is now screwing one of them!?"
"Alright, Gin, calm-"
"I WILL NOT CALM DOWN! HARRY IS OUT DOING MERLIN KNOWS WHAT TO DESTROY THE BASTARD THAT THEY CALL THEIR LEADER, AND YOU'RE SHACKING UP WITH HER! I mean, I knew she was easy, but I'd have expected more from you."
"Alright Ginny, st-"
But Pansy's resolve had cracked, there were only so many unpleasantries that any person can take being thrust at them, or the one they cared about most, without feeling the need to defend them, and Pansy's amount was less than most. "Now just hang on a fucking second Weasley," she spat Ginny's name in exactly the same tone as Ginny had said hers in, "we aren't screwing, as you so delightfully put it, and I am not ea-"
"Oh, please, next I'm going to hear that you're in love, THIS IS A LOAD OF SHIT!"
"WILL YOU LET SOMEONE ELSE SPEAK!?" Pansy roared.
This time, the shout came from neither Ginny or Pansy. "ENOUGH!" Neville was standing, between the two witches with his arms outstretched.
Neville faced Ginny, "I do love her, and she's not," he purposefully waved the hand that was directed at her once more, as she opened her mouth, thankfully, she relented and allowed him to continue without interruption. Instead, she chose to glare at Pansy, to which Pansy shot just as equal an expression of dislike back at the Gryffindor, "what you think. She, and Theo, and Draco, and Millicent, and Daphne and Blaise all want nothing to do with You-Know-Who."
Ginny swallowed, her brown eyes scrutinising. "How long?"
"Around Halloween, but I've had feelings for her since the start of the year."
"That's barely even four months, Neville, you can't possibly know-"
Pansy felt a gush of pride rise in her chest as Neville interrupted Ginny, his voice holding no shadow of doubt. "Yeah, I can."
"She's in your classes, she watches you get tortured every week, how can she love you if she can bear to watch that?"
"She throws up shields every time so that it's not as bad, she's the only reason I haven't gone mad from it."
Ginny remained unconvinced. "I've seen her torture students, Neville."
Pansy let out a sigh, pointed her wand casually at Neville and lazily cast she and Draco's homemade screaming spell. The result was instantaneous. Neville's screams echoed around the room, the force of his own shouting knocked him forward onto his knees. Pansy winced as Ginny's curse hit her, breaking her concentration on her own spell.
"WHAT THE FUCK!" Ginny yelled, "I KNEW-"
"You don't know shit," Pansy snapped, forcing herself to not wince in the aftermath of Ginny's hex to her side, and with a smirk she couldn't help, added, "how you feeling, babe?"
Neville had risen to his feet, and after shooting Pansy a brief look of exasperation at her show, was once again attempting to calm Ginny down. "It's not what it looks like, it's what Pansy and Draco do, it doesn't cause any pain, you just scream. I'm fine."
"Wha-"
"Don't tell me you are actually lost for words, Weasley," Pansy asked with a cock of her head.
"But she's Head Girl, she's in deep with the Carrows-"
It was Pansy's turn, once again, to interrupt. "The Carrows are the vilest and most idiotic people I've ever come across, but I have to be in deep with them because my family are in deep with the Dark Lord. I don't act in deep, I die."
"Correct," came a voice Pansy did not expect to hear, and the one that was possibly the worst she could hear at that moment. Her breath hitched somewhere close to her throat as the door was flung open, the realisation they had stupidly forgot to lock the door or cast a silencing charm washing over her. Alecto Carrow stood, menacingly, in the doorway.
"Well, this is cosy."
The reactions of the five teenagers were instantaneous. Neville, Theo and Ginny stepped forward, towards Alecto, Neville sidestepping to position himself in front of Pansy and Pansy noticed, even in spite of the Carrow-shaped distraction, that Ginny did the exact same, placing herself in front of Luna. Interesting.
As it turned out, neither Neville or Ginny need have worried for Pansy or Luna, for their, along with Theo's, stunning spells had all hit Alecto at the same time and the Death Eater was knocked unconscious within a few short seconds, hitting the ground with a hefty thud.
For a long moment, no one spoke, until Luna, who alone seemed unphased by the intrusion noted that, "Well, that was interesting."
"Not the word I'd use," Pansy remarked, her fingers intertwining with Neville's, something she noticed Ginny didn't miss and she watched the way the redhead's eyes flickered between Pansy and Neville's hands, Neville, and Luna. She evidently decided not to comment however, and her attention was broken by Theo.
"So, what the fuck are we supposed to do with her?"
"Kill her?" Pansy offered, glancing at Neville, the images of him undergoing torture over and over at the hands of the woman roaming across her mind.
"We can't…" Neville began, unable to finish the sentence.
"Why?" Pansy demanded, "she's been torturing you for-"
"I know that," he interjected, his voice a tad sharper than she knew he meant. He squeezed her hand gently, "but we can't just commit murder. Could you even...I don't think I could, and I don't want you to do it," he added kindly.
"I'm fairly certain I could, yes," Pansy grumped.
"You'd be looking at some very bad karma, Pansy, even though she's a very bad person" Luna stated, as though she were discussing the weather.
"Right," Pansy mumbled, not at all sure what to respond to that.
Theo cleared his throat. "Well, we don't want any bad karma, so why don't we take her back to your dorm, Pans?"
"My...excuse me, why on Earth would I want that in my dorm?"
"Well, it's not far from here, and-"
"I fail to see how that's a good enough reason for-"
"It makes sense," Neville said thoughtfully.
Pansy blanched and rounded on her boyfriend. "Excuse me?" she hissed.
"Well, it'd give us time to think about what, you know, to do...with…" he gestured in the general direction of the comatose Death Eater.
Speaking for the first time, Ginny, shooting Pansy a look of something not entirely full of the hatred she had expected. "It's not ideal, but it's the best plan we've got."
"It's the only plan we've thought of," Pansy hissed, knowing she was entirely outnumbered.
"Can you think of a better one, Pansy?" Luna asked, annoyingly chipper, at which Pansy breathed a sigh through her nose.
"Fine! Fucking fine! Let's get a fucking move on," Pansy snapped, wrenching her hand from Neville's and marched towards the door. "But you lot are moving the…" she halted, attempting to think of an apt enough insult.
"Cow?" Ginny offered.
Pansy whirled on the ball of her feet. "Don't you ever insult cows like that in my presence, Weasley," much to the amusement, despite their less than favourable circumstance, of the others.
Opening the door, which was sitting ajar thanks to Alecto's unconscious form lying in the doorway. Shit.
Somehow, they managed to levitate Alecto and make it back to Pansy and Draco's living quarters without being seen. The only problem that now remained was that the odd group was now standing in a semicircle, all staring down at the Death Eater. Alecto Carrow had been dropped on the floor, landing rather ungracefully with one leg bent backwards awkwardly.
They remained there for several seconds, all five simply staring down at the comatose Alecto, and with the exception of a few wayward glances between each other, they didn't move.
Thankfully, negating the need for further small talk, the door that led to the rest of the head quarters swung open and a nonplussed Draco Malfoy stepped through, stopping suddenly at the sight of the unexpected group that were all now staring - now at Draco, unspeaking.
"I'm guessing the meeting went...okay?" Draco queried, his brow furrowing as his eyes drifted over each of the others, in turn.
"Not too shabby, mate, although we didn't get a whole lot of meeting-ing done." Theo ventured, "Weasley screamed a lot, so did Pans, Neville did too, a bit, and Love-err, Luna gave us a lesson in karma, oh, and we were caught by Alecto."
"You were what?" Draco demanded, and Pansy didn't miss the way his body language automatically shifted into a defensive stance.
"Caught by Alecto," Theo repeated, and Pansy rolled her eyes at the sheer blatantness that for some absurd reason Theo seemed to be enjoying himself.
Draco, clearly already to exasperated by Theo to continue their exchange, rounded on Neville, something which in spite of the circumstances, Pansy found half annoying, and half endearing.
Draco spoke directly to Neville. "What happened?"
"Theo, Ginny and I stunned her," Neville began to explain, "she took all three in the chest so I don't think she's waking up anytime soon."
"Please tell me you didn't leave her in an empty classroom."
"Not quite," Neville replied, before all five simultaneously shifted, and Draco's, now wide eyed, gaze caught sight of a wave of ginger hair, which was currently sprawled, ungraciously, over his living room carpet.