I would like to formally thank, and apologize to, my wonderful beta. She read a draft of these chapters for me, and in my supreme forgetfulness, I forgot to mention her before now!! Arrrgg. Anyway, this chapter (and the last one) was beta'd by Ogis, and I am immensely grateful for her help! It would have been significantly more crappy without her ; )
A/N: This is coming in just a day before my self-imposed two-week deadline…but it's a bit of a longer chapter this time! And we get to see what Pansy thinks of all this…
2. Potions Class
The Gryffindor trio stormed out of the hall, and Pansy sat back down at her place and accepted the congratulations of her housemates, as was her due. Gryffindor-baiting was considered the highest form of amusement in her house, and Potter-baiting the highest form of that. Pansy had just pulled off the two at once, and admiration was only to be expected for such a masterful feat.
Pansy smiled and laughed along with them and let them see what they expected to see. Any one of them would have been the gloating victor in her place – the golden trio brought low, and before classes had started, too! – and she played the part just as well as they would have.
Pansy smiled to herself. That had gone over pretty well, all things considered. She hadn't planned on asking the Gryffindor out until the argument had broken out right in front of her, but she was no stranger to making good decisions on the fly, and she could tell this would be one of them.
Granted, the timing wasn't the best it could be – the next Hogsmeade weekend wasn't for more than two weeks, giving Granger plenty of time to find a way out of it, or more likely, feel increasingly awkward about the whole thing. That would be unfortunate - Pansy preferred the snapping, conviction-filled Granger who she had trapped just a minute ago, but she would take what she could get.
As soon as their schedules had been handed out, Millicent leaned across the table to consult with Pansy.
"So, what did you get? I have a free period right now, but then Potions." She wrinkled her nose at this; even though Snape had blatantly favored his own house in that class, Potions was still one of Millicent's weaker subjects.
Pansy scanned her own schedule. "Same as you; free then Potions," she reported, without looking up. Not many students made it to Advanced Potions; she would probably be in the same class as Granger still. Millicent jabbed her tactlessly in the arm to get her attention, and brought up the topic that she was obviously burning to talk about.
"So, are you really going to go on a date with that Mudblood?"
Pansy inclined her head. "I said I would, didn't I? Besides, the Gryffindors are probably counting on me backing down." Millicent nodded. Pansy grabbed her schedule and her bag and headed down the Hall toward the entrance, letting Millicent meet her at the end of the table. Draco, who had been sitting a few seats down from her, got up and followed her.
"Got a free period now, too?"
Pansy nodded.
"Good, then we're going to the same place. Don't mind if I join." It was neither a question nor a demand, just a statement of pure fact as Draco saw it.
Pansy batted her eyelashes at him and allowed him to sling an arm over her shoulders. Well, it wasn't entirely his fault if he saw things a certain way.
Millicent caught up with them at the entrance hall, breathing a little heavily, and picked up their conversation as if it had never been interrupted. "But why did you do it, Pans?"
Pansy cringed inwardly, but didn't show any sign of her discomfort on the surface. She hated it when Millicent called her that; it was too familiar. Though of course telling Millicent this was out of the question unless she wanted to grant her that power over her.
"She was just asking for it," Pansy explained, as they made their way through the crowded halls back down to the dungeons. She didn't need to let anyone know the deeper motivation for her actions; the more immediate reason would be a perfectly satisfactory explanation for Millicent or anyone else who asked.
"One couldn't very well let a claim like that go unchallenged," she continued. She could tell Draco was paying attention to their conversation, even though he generally liked to pretend that anything that could be construed as girlish gossip was beneath his notice. "Honestly, do Gryffindors even think before they speak?" Millicent giggled, and Pansy repressed a cringe. Millicent giggling was not a sound one generally wished to have introduced into one's auditory experience.
Pansy was used to it, though, and went on with her simplified explanation undaunted. "And seeing as no one else was stepping up, I thought I might as well be the one to call her out on it. 'In the spirit of inter-house unity? Sure, I would date a Slytherin,'" she quoted, making her voice into a high and whiny parody of the Gryffindor's. "Really, the things they say…as if we weren't the only house worth dating anyway…" She let out a short laugh, and Millicent and Draco joined in.
"I wouldn't have done it though…" said Millicent when she had stopped laughing. "I mean, if even if I was…you know." Pansy rolled her eyes and intoned the password under her breath; they had reached the blank stretch of wall that marked the entrance to the Slytherin common room.
Millicent claimed to accept Pansy's 'deviant' sexual preferences (Pansy herself preferred the word 'unusual'- just because something was uncommon didn't make it wrong), but the mere mention of it still made her comically uncomfortable.
"And besides," Millicent continued, having mastered her discomfort, "she's a Mudblood…just the thought of having to spend time withthat, much less…" She shuddered, and Pansy rolled her eyes again. It was times like these that made her wonder again at the fact that Millicent didn't object to sharing a room with her, although Pansy supposed that it would have looked even worse for Millicent to have put up a fuss.
"I admit, it will be hard," – she injected a long-suffering sigh here – "but imagine the looks on the Gryffindors' faces when they realize that one of their own is going out with a member of the Dark House."
Millicent guffawed. "And they won't be able to do anything about it!"
"No, not if I have any say in the matter. I'll have their precious little know-it-all wrapped around my little finger…" She struck a pose, and Millicent laughed again.
Draco gave her an impressed look, and mouthed, We have to talk later, before drifting off toward the corner where Crabbe and Goyle were lurking.
Pansy ejected a couple of grumpy-looking fourth years from her favorite corner of the common room (that's what they deserved for trying to skip class, anyway), and sat down on the couch. She pulled out a book from her bag, intending to read until her next class, although she knew it was unlikely that she would be allowed to do so. She imagined that her actions at breakfast had made her too much of an interesting person to be left alone for long – Millicent, for one, probably wasn't done with her, and she couldn't be the only one with something to say.
However, Millicent drifted over to some of her other friends in another part of the room, leaving Pansy in welcome solitude for the time being. She didn't get much reading done, though – her thoughts were still caught up around the events at breakfast. She pulled out a many-times-folded parchment from her bag and unfolded it safely behind her book. Out of all the Gryffindors, she hadn't expected it to be Granger. The thought had crossed her mind, of course, but she was trying to be practical, above all else, and that meant sticking to people who would actually consider going out with her – which meant boys, realistically speaking.
Now, though… She summoned a quill from her bag and circled the nameHermione Granger in the list labeled Highly Unlikely, and allowed herself a slow smile. (She had actually wanted to label that list Would Be Ideal But Highly Unlikely to Actually Happen Unless By Some Miraculous Chance, but that hadn't fit on the page.) Things were off to a much better start than she could have hoped for, already. In any case, she had Granger committed to one date already, and that was all the toehold she needed. Pansy's smile grew wider.
-) U C (-
Pansy, Millicent, their dorm mate Tracey Davis, and Blaise – Draco seemed to be running late – arrived at the potions classroom before anyone else, and queued up by the door. The girls fell into a gossipy conversation about Millicent's sister's new fiancé, while Blaise stood aloofly off to the side, pretending not to listen in.
Before long, voices could be heard echoing down the corridor, signaling the arrival of the three Gryffindors. They fell silent as soon as they rounded the corner and noticed the Slytherins standing there, but it looked to Pansy like they had been arguing. And judging from the way Potter and the Weasel studiously avoided looking her way, she guessed it had been about her. She tried to catch Granger's eye, but the other girl was blocked from sight by her two bodyguards. They had probably done it on purpose. Pansy looked away, affecting disinterest. Well, let them do it then, and see how much she cared.
Millicent and Tracey carried on their conversation in low voices, but everyone else stood around in a stony silence as the rest of the students arrived and queued up. Presently, Professor Slughorn opened the door and ushered them in. Draco slid in the door at the last minute, looking smug, and either didn't notice or didn't care when Professor Slughorn gave him a disapproving look.
The three Gryffindors took a table with a Hufflepuff boy that Pansy didn't know, and the four Ravenclaw students in the class took a table together, of course, leaving the five Slytherins to distribute themselves among the two remaining tables. Draco, who had taken a table by himself in the back of the room, gave an arrogant jerk of his head, beckoning her over to join him, which she did. She thought he could be an insufferable prat most of the time, the way he acted, but what he didn't know couldn't hurt him.
Slughorn started lecturing the class on the wonders of Potions brewing (as if they didn't already know), stopping to ask questions at strategic points (all of which Granger answered correctly, Pansy noted) and pointing out showy examples brewing in cauldrons around the room.
Pansy was singularly unimpressed. She sneered, not caring if Professor Slughorn saw it. Professor Snape had never had to resort to this kind of showmanship to hold a class's attention; he had been able to do that by sheer skill and force of personality.
Pansy pulled out a scrap of parchment and began doodling a picture of Snape, wand outstretched in one hand and a vial of glittering potion in the other. Draco leaned over in his seat to watch.
The lecture continued to be worthless, so the picture branched out across the blank page as she added what looked like Slughorn, kissing the hem of Snape's robes; a figure representing Potter – if the exaggerated lightning bolt scar was any indication – engulfed in a cloud of smoke emanating from a painstakingly-shaded cauldron; and, curling around the top of the page, an indeterminate species of dragon, breathing a large amount of rather stylized fire at Slughorn's expansive backside. No one seemed to notice that she wasn't paying attention to the class, except for Draco, who snorted when she made doodle-Potter clutch his neck and stick out his tongue as the clouds of smoke surrounding him grew heavier.
Pansy looked up from her increasingly crowded page in time to hear Slughorn announce a brewing contest to take place during the rest of the period, with the prize of a minute vial containing twelve hours worth of Felix Felicis potion. Pansy perked up at this, and noticed Draco do the same thing at her side. Well, wouldn't that be a most handy thing to have around…
Pansy arrived at the supply cabinet before anyone else did – the Gryffindors, who were in the frontmost table, were hanging back to discuss something with the professor – and rummaged around surreptitiously for the book she hoped was still there…and yes, here it was. She transfigured it into a scoop of violet petals before she withdrew it from the cabinet, and brought it back to her table with the rest of her ingredients.
Draco was getting his own ingredients when she got there, so she took the opportunity to slip her own copy of Potions, Grade 6, back into her bag, and transfigured the book she had retrieved from the cupboard back into its natural shape.
She flipped the book open to the passage on the Draught of Living Death, and was gratified to find these pages well marked up. It was the work of a few seconds to cast a glamour on the book such that the pages appeared clear and crisp and the cover whole, and by the time Draco, looking immensely peeved, sauntered back up the aisle with his ingredients and joined her at the table, it was indistinguishable from her own brand-new copy.
Pansy smiled sweetly at him and started dicing ingredients, mentally thanking Snape yet again. It was thanks to him that she knew about this textbook, which contained alternate directions to almost every potion they studied, and which, as a rule, produced better results than the official instructions.
In their third year, Snape had insinuated to the Slytherins at large that any of them having trouble in Potions would be well advised to refer to a certain used copy of their text in the supply cupboard. Not all of her classmates had taken him up on his offer – she suspected that Vince and Greg hadn't understood it; and Blaise would never admit to needing help in Potions, no matter what the source – but she had found the book helpful and used it on more than one occasion. And a bit more sleuthing revealed that the miraculous manual did not stand alone, but was the first in a set of books for each year until they left Hogwarts. The Slytherins' potions grades were always quite high after third year.
Pansy murmured the incantation that would let her alone see through the glamour on the pages of the book – that one had been a lot of work to master, but well worth it in her opinion – and peered at the alternate instructions, trying not to squint too much. It wouldn't do to let her housemates know that she had an advantage. She added the preliminary ingredients to her cauldron and sat back to let them steep.
She passed the time by watching the Gryffindors. Granger's potion appeared to be progressing nicely – she was already well ahead of Pansy – but she could tell that the other two, who appeared to be working with borrowed materials, were already well on the road to failure.
Her own housemates, however, seemed more concerned with talking amongst themselves than working, though she knew that Blaise, at least, would be able to pull off a passable result nevertheless. Draco, on the other hand, was applying himself with a fervor that Pansy had not often seen even in this, his favorite subject; he was chopping his ingredients with mathematical precision and referring to his book with practically every other motion.
Pansy smirked. Apparently someone thought he really needed that lucky day. Well, sometimes, we just can't all get what we want…
She didn't go as far as sabotaging his potion – she already knew that hers would turn out better – but she wasn't above keeping up a lively whispered banter with him as the class wore on. It wasn't her fault if he was easily distracted, and she wasn't. By the time Slughorn called time, her potion was the palest lavender that the book described as the mark of the ideal ending stage, while Draco's potion could more accurately be described as light violet. Pansy smirked again.
She did catch him eyeing her own perfect potion suspiciously, however, and so she ostentatiously picked up her apparently new textbook off the table and dropped it in her bag. He knew very well that the Slytherins' secret version wasn't allowed to leave the room, and none of the Slytherins had ever violated this rule, out of silent respect for the advantage Snape was giving them. However, Snape wasn't here anymore…
Slughorn exclaimed loudly over Pansy's potion when he arrived at her table, and gave her a patronizing grin that rivaled Draco's own.
"A superior Draught! Truly magnificent!" he proclaimed, and producing a minute vial full of clear golden liquid from within the folds of his robes, presented it to Pansy. She took it and thanked him, beaming back especially ingratiatingly, since she was sure that Draco was glaring daggers at her back.
Granger, whose potion could only have been half a shade darker than Pansy's, was looking at her with an expression of new respect on her face. Pansy caught her eye and smiled, more sincerely than she had to Slughorn, and was further surprised to see the Gryffindor's mouth lift slightly at the corners in return. Pansy would have expected her to drop her gaze and turn away. Pansy felt a curl of anticipation unfurl in her gut. She had assumed that the girl's bravado at breakfast had been mostly a front for her friends, but if not…well, this could be even more fun that I thought…
As soon as Slughorn turned away, Pansy immediately transfigured her own Potions text into a flask, and filled it with the potion from her cauldron before stoppering it and shoving it back in her bag again.
Draco gave her an odd look, but she just stuck her tongue out at him and cast a glamour on her cauldron to make it look full again. This wouldn't be the first time that one of them had snuck a potion back from class, out of mischief or plain curiosity.
She knew that Draco wouldn't talk; she hadn't turned him in when he "accidentally" brewed Hangover Potion instead of the migraine cure they were supposed to be working on, and then brought it all back to his dorm with him in the most conspicuous fashion…Boys.
Pansy rolled her eyes and followed him out of the classroom, catching a whiff of something intensely alluring as she passed the table with Slughorn's demonstration potions on it. She inhaled again, and would have stayed to savor the scent, but then Millicent grabbed her arm, jabbering something about not wanting to be late to Snape's first Dark Arts lesson, and she was pulled along and out of the room before she could take another breath.
-) U C (-
Hermione paused to watch the Slytherin girl breeze out of the room surrounded by her gang of friends, without so much as a "see you later," and turned back to her own friends with the slightest sigh. Well, excellence in potions-brewing didn't necessarily translate into any other good character traits, and maybe it was too much to expect Pansy to act like a friend right away. And if Hermione were to be honest with herself, she really had no idea what the other girl's motives were; they could be far from friendly.
She tapped her foot a bit impatiently. Harry and Ron were conferring with Professor Slughorn about an extended loan of their Potions supplies, until their orders came through from Diagon Alley. And after they were done there, she would have to wait even longer, while they packed up their things and cleaned off their half of the table, which was an unholy mess, as though they had endeavored to spill as many different things in as many different places as possible. Boys.
Partly to pass the time, and partly out of curiosity, she went over to the table where Professor Slughorn had put out the sample potions. She walked along the table, inspecting them, and was immediately arrested by the Amortentia bubbling innocently away in its cauldron.
She had encountered this potion once before, on her first trip to Diagon Alley with her parents, on which she had pulled them into every single shop. This included a high-end apothecary which had a cauldron of the stuff out, sitting in a display of tiny red bottles that had cost an obscene number of Galleons each. Then, it had smelled strangely familiar, and had drawn her in with a scent like freshly cut grass, and books, and parchment.
But this time, it smelled different. Theoretically, she knew that the smell of Amortentia would appear to change to any given witch or wizard as he or she matured – it could certainly not be expected for one to be attracted by the same things at age four as at age fourteen – but it was another thing entirely to experience the difference in real life.
This potion smelled better than it had before, first of all – she had the urge to just lean over the cauldron and take in huge, gulping breaths of it – and the scent itself was different, too. She could pick out the scent of the air after a thunderstorm, and of books again, and under it all, the heady scent of something like flower petals that was velvety and a deep, dark, purple. She started at that last idea – how was it possible for something to smell purple? – and found, not surprisingly, that she had begun to lean in the direction of the cauldron.
She quickly withdrew, flushing slightly, but no one had seen her. Harry and Ron were at their table, cleaning it up, though it looked like they were arguing far more than necessary over who had spilled what. Hermione wandered down the table, and peered into the other cauldrons with a more academic interest, trying to commit all the visible details to memory and file them away for later reference, should there ever be a need.
Harry and Ron eventually finished at their table, and came by and collected her on their way out. As soon as they had left the room, they resumed their argument with her from that morning (which they had picked up again between classes, to her dismay), as though Potions had never intervened.
Hermione really wished that they would just lay off.
And their arguments weren't even coherent anymore.
"But a Slytherin, Hermione! Snape's their head of house, don't forget – Snape!"
Hermione just narrowed her eyes and kept walking, trying to ignore Harry. Neither of them had found any new points to bring up since the beginning of the argument; Harry was still trying to convince her that all Slytherins were evil, and Ron still couldn't get over the fact of Pansy's femaleness.
Ron started spluttering incoherently at that moment, as though he had heard Hermoine's thoughts. "But – but – Pansy….and you – and you're a girl too!" was what he came out with in the end.
"Yes, I know, and I don't see why it should make a difference." Hermione found herself growing increasingly irritable.
Ron was completely baffled by this answer. "But, Hermione, you didn't even have to accept her offer – I don't care about principles or whatever; that doesn't even enter into it here - she's a girl; that's just not normal, what she asked you! You don't have to do it!"
Hermione stopped in her tracks and whirled on him. "Ronald Weasley! That is the most intolerant, prejudiced, pure-blooded thing that I have ever heard come out of your mouth!"
Ron stumbled back a step, and opened and closed his mouth several times. If he hadn't already been dark red in the face, he probably would have flushed more.
She rounded on Harry next. "And you! Trust is a two-way street; or did no one ever impart that little piece of wisdom to you? Of course we can never expect to find a trustworthy Slytherin if we're not willing to give them a bit of trust in turn!" She took a step back so that she could regard both Harry and Ron at once. "I don't expect either of you to support my choice; clearly you both have some work to do before that's even conceivable. But I don't think it's too much to ask for you to just respect my decision here, or at the very least, keep your criticisms to yourself until something bad has actually happened." She stared them down until they closed their mouths. "This topic is closed for discussion until you have something new to say," she stated in a tone that brokered no argument. "If I hear one more 'but she's a Slytherin' or 'but she's a girl' from either of you, I swear I'll –"
Hermione was surprised to find that her hand was tightly grasping her wand in her pocket, as though making ready to pull it. She forced herself to breathe and relaxed her grip, and then whirled around and strode off to class without saying another word.
Ron and Harry followed her in equally stony silence, but probably more out of fear then a genuine wish to stop arguing.
They managed to slip into the Defense Against Dark Arts classroom just as Snape was closing the door, resulting in a deduction of quite a few points from Gryffindor and muted giggles from around the room. They were apparently sharing the class with the Slytherins.
Hermione did not attempt to sit with Harry and Ron; they made a point of taking seats in the back of the room, about as far away from her as they could get. Instead, she slipped into an empty front-row seat between Pansy Parkinson and Dean Thomas.
"Boys," Hermione spat, to no one in particular, as she got her copy of their textbook out of her bag and slammed it on the desk with a little more force than necessary.
"Oh, I know," said Pansy, to her surprise. "They're impossible, aren't they?"
Hermione could only roll her eyes and nod in response, because Snape looked about ready to tell her off again. But she felt an unexpected kinship with the Slytherin rising up. Maybe Pansy wasn't so bad, after all – her company might be tolerable, at least. Then Hermione told herself to be reasonable. The other girl had agreed with one thing she said, and she was ready to base her entire opinion off that? She would have to wait until she had more to go on to make judgments like that.
And, almost as proof that Hermione had judged too fast, she looked over and saw that the margins of other girl's notebook page were entirely filled with little drawings – was she even paying attention to the lecture at all?
Hermione shook her head and turned back to her own notes. And what she had said earlier – that wasn't exactly the deepest comment one could have made in the situation. In fact, she was sure that Lavender Brown would have said the same exact thing. Bad mood thus preserved, Hermione happily ignored everyone else for the remainder of the class, and involved herself in a loud conversation with Dean as soon as the period was over.
She ate with a rather baffled Dean and his friends at lunch, and feigned much more knowledge of Quidditch than she really possessed, and pretended not to see the lazily inquisitive face looking at her from across the hall, or the two sullen ones shooting her glances from down the table. She pretended not to see the glares, and went on eating her lunch as if nothing was out of the ordinary. Hermione wasn't avoiding her friends. She was just…giving them space.
-) U C (-
