so shaken as we are
The corridors are quiet. Too quiet, as the cliché goes. Pansy raises her chin in defiance of the unease in the air. She tries to keep her pace steady, and unconsciously, she touches the Prefect badge pinned to the front of her robes. It isn't as if she'll get into trouble, because no one knows that she's not patrolling the school like she's supposed to. No one knows that she only just slipped inside the castle after walking the perimeter of the grounds for an hour.
Pansy sniffs and bites down gently upon her lip, wiping her eyes though they are dry.
Suddenly, she hears footsteps that are not her own.
"Hello?" she calls, and then she adopts a more demanding tone. "Who's there?"
But there is nothing there to reply to her query. Pansy casts a nervous glance at her surroundings, though since it's after dark, she can't see much. And when she swallows, she can almost hear the muscles in her throat.
Almost, because she hears something else first. Not footsteps this time, something quicker; something scuttling like an insect across a wooden surface.
There's still nothing there.
Pansy stifles a shriek, abandoning her Slytherin indifference as she stumbles forward. Whatever it is that's behind her is getting louder, as if it's following her…
She is near hysterics when the wall whispers to her softly. In spite of the circumstance, she stops dead, searching for the true source of the strange sound.
When she can't find it, she tries once more to hurry in her chosen direction, the one in which she wants to run. But she can't move. She can't go anywhere… She panics, losing all sense.
At once, Pansy feels herself being pulled forcefully toward the wall, a cool hand clasped over her mouth so that she can't cry out or scream. Though she expects to collide with something, anything sturdy or solid, she doesn't. Pansy falls back comfortably through the air until she crashes against an object that is neither soft nor hard.
"Oomph!"
She jumps up as if burned.
"Ssshh."
Something slender is pressed against her lips, silencing any fears she wants to voice. It feels like a finger. Instinctively, Pansy reaches out roughly and curls her own fingers around what is nearest to her; it's a wrist, and then an arm and a hand.
"Who are you?" she hisses.
"Ssshhh… We mustn't be found." The voice is soft and musical, full of fright and whimsy all at once. It's familiar.
"Lovego—?"
Pansy freezes. The footsteps are rattling, thundering, shaking whatever filthy cupboard or room they're in.
"What is that?" she squeaks, shuffling backward. Her body quivers as the floor begins to bend beneath her.
"It's a Flompwurt," Luna tells her with a small gasp at the very thought.
"A what?"
"Ssshhh…"
"It's not real!"
"You let it inside. It's only natural for it to follow you."
"I can't see—"
Pansy almost screams; just in time, Luna keeps her quiet. The air outside the door pulses and glitters like a landscape in the desert sun. There's a phantom monster, and it's right there, passing by them. Right there. Right there. Her mind panics.
Pansy clutches at her chest where her heart probably is. She can't feel it beating, though she knows it must be fluttering so quickly that it is now emitting but one single, prolonged pulsation. Her eyes are round and she can't blink until this creature, this—whatever Lovegood called it—is gone.
And then, all of a sudden, it stops.
The tension in the air dissipates like a sigh at last being released. Without realizing it, Pansy puts her head on Luna's shoulder. Her hands are shaking, and Luna trembles. They remain that way, so shaken as they are, and wait for the certain disappearance of the imaginary beast.