A/N: I am so sorry for the delay in this chapter! I had a pretty hard time phrasing everything correctly and making sure my pacing all made sense. The next chapter will be up before the weekend, I promise!

Summary: There's a fight between two friends, a fight between two enemies, an accident, then a fight between friends again. However, in the middle of it all, Pansy and Harry finally reach an agreement that actually may stick.

October 7th, 1996 (late afternoon)

The next couple of weeks were just as much of a whirlwind and turbulent as the first couple. Though the first few days after her second shag with Theo she felt as if she was beginning to loosen up, become her old self again, laugh sometimes, eventually things went back to the painful new normal. She and Potter had fallen into a mutually beneficial system of silently hating each other and only speaking when it strictly had to do with potions, she felt his ire radiate off of him, meanwhile she was sure he could feel a similar feeling from her. If she wasn't bottling up her angry, then she was shouting her frustrations across the common room; yelling at first years to shut up and snapping at her friends.

It particularly got worse once Draco began regularly showing up in the common room again, though he spent more of his time whispering in the corner to Crabbe and Goyle, who were flanking his right and left side as if they were in their second year again. Once or twice, Blaise attempted start a light-hearted conversation, even offer to fly with him, but Draco would only sneer. Pansy and Theo didn't fair much better, either, adding to her own sour mood.

As they entered October, and the leaves on the grounds' trees reminded them how much time has passed since the beginning of the year, Pansy recalled what Draco had said on the train. On to bigger and better things, apparently, and that excluded those he used to call friends.

It made Pansy sickly. It angered Blaise. The Slytherin House seemed to splinter around them. All the while, the drama of it all pushed away Theo. Though, every couple of nights, when she knew the coast would be clear, she would appear by his bed side in the middle of the night again. After spending those fleeting hours together she could tell Theo held on to the same hope she did; that she had changed, and things would go back to the way they had been before.

But things never did.

"Pansy," she heard a familiar voice call her as she turned the corner. She cursed under her breath and turned to see Theo making his way towards her, in the slow yet purposeful way he always strolled. "You've been avoiding the common room."

She sighed and placed her hands on her hips. "I've been busy. N.E.W.T-level Divination is no joke. That Firenze bloke is one hell of a-"

"I'm serious-"

Theo reached out to place a hand on her shoulder but Pansy quickly took a step back and scowl, her face twisting in disgust. "Don't touch me," she exhaled in a hiss, her anger – like usual – flaring up at the littlest thing.

He reacted in shock for a moment, but then he quickly frowned.

"Alright, then," he said quietly. "Loud and clear, Parkin–"

"Oi, you two!"

Pansy immediately recognized the voice and let out a tired groan and lowered her face into her hands; she wanted to hide her stinging eyes and escape from this interaction, to be alone in her own distress and away from the disappointed and annoyed expressions that seemed to constantly be framing her friends' faces.

"What's wrong here?" Blaise said in confusion. The past few weeks haven't been easy on him either, and the last thing she wanted was his anger to turn to her. Before she could respond, unfortunately, Theo answered for her.

"Ask her," he spat, angrier than she had ever heard him before.

"Merlin's sake, what now?" Blaise exhaled in frustration. Pansy looked up and glared at the pair of them, her teeth showing as she curled her lip in an ugly sneer.

"Oh, fuck off. I don't need this."

"Pansy–"

"I said fuck–"

"Malfoy!"

The unmistakable voice of Harry Potter forced all three Slytherins to stop in their tracks. Blaise and Theo, who has been following her down the corridor, shared a look with her and seconds later they changed direction and darted towards the direction of raised voices

As soon as they turned the corner, Pansy eyes fell on a flurry of spells bouncing off the wall and banisters. The three friends gaped as Potter and Draco, seemingly in a fit of rage, dueled in the open corridor in front of a moving staircase.

"You did it!" she heard Potter shout, though Draco only grunted another spell and frowned as the bright red beam missed him. Both boys stopped for a moment as they caught their breaths, leaving Pansy, Blaise, and Theo an opening and get closer to the pair.

Blaise called out, "Hey, idiots! Do you want a month's worth of detention?" while Theo reached for his wand, presumably to get a shield charm ready should they need it. Potter and Draco both noticed, though neither cared.

"I haven't the faintest what you're talking about, Potter," he snarled, his gaunt features becoming even more pronounced.

"Katie Bell–"

"I don't know who that is!"

"Yes you do, you nearly murdered her-"

Before Potter could finished his accusation, Draco flicked his wand imperceptibly and Potter looked genuinely surprised when his wand went flying to Draco's hand. Blaise also stopped just as he started to shout again, and Theo lowered his wand. Things were still for a second before Potter launched himself forward and connected his fist solidly into Draco's jaw. Draco immediately dropped the wands and pushed back, his fist landing into Potter's gut and in the blink of an eye the two were fighting again, this time with their hits actually connecting.

"Stop it! Stop it! You brutes!"

Pansy was the first to move from her secure spot between Blaise and Theo, who seemed frozen in place now. None of the four boys heard her as Draco and Potter continued to pummel each other, stepping back and forth around the narrow corridor. Draco, who was taller though thinner than Potter, managed to get an arm around his throat while Potter was sinking his fist into Draco's gut over and over again. She managed to step around them and grab a hole of Draco's shirt for a moment, attempting to pull him back, but the fighting pair continued to twist and dance around and her lost her hold, and very quickly she was losing her patience.

"How stupid do you two need be–"

A fist, loudly and soundly, connected with Pansy's eye, and through the pain she had no idea who did it, though – right up until she lost consciousness – she was aware when she hit the stairs with a loud thud. Luckily, darkness had already taken her by the time she started to tumble.

October 10th, 1996 (early morning)

"-and Flora, well she's just been miserable. You'll be glad you missed the the ridiculousness that bint tried to pull. If you were there, you would have gotten it under control in seconds, love, I know it. Anyway, Flora, well she's still angry about Hestia, isn't she? Those twins are fucking bonkers as it is, but apparently one bad break-up and now they're practically unbearable. You were never like that, Pans, not when you and Malfoy split. You handled with like a proper lady, not like these morons. Anyway, Flora, she pulled the worst stunt the other day, like you wouldn't believe-"

For her part, Pansy had no concept of time or place. Sometimes she was awake, but felt unable to open her eyes and her muffled, inaudible noises around her. Most of the times she was asleep, or something that resembled it, and she heard the voices of her friends and others who weren't her friends. Other than dreaming with the voices of Draco, Blaise, and Theo; she heard the bustling of Madam Pomfrey, pithy but polite; a curiously soft yet curt Snape, which was odd but reassuring; Potter, which in its own way was comforting and equally jarring; Dumbledore, who was the strangest voice of them all; though she didn't know how to differentiate what was real from what wasn't. Sometimes she felt pain - intense and deep, like it was real - and other times she felt weightless, like she was on a cloud, hovering between death and life; peace and pain. It vaguely felt as if she had a choice. She could choose the cloud or she could choose the voices. They were so distinct from each other, one so clearly filled with pain and confusion, versus one that was free floating happiness. The choice was obvious.

Daphne fucking Greengrass had other ideas.

The beautiful blonde Slytherin was in the middle of her riveting tale when Pansy's body convulsed her into consciousness. Suddenly Greengrass' voice became much louder, shouting for something in the distance, and Pansy's body stilled long enough for her to croak-

"Goo - Merli - sh - t up."

As Pansy slumped back onto her hospital bed, she calmed at the silence around her. Her senses seemed more awaken than her dreams, yet everything seemed equally unreal.

The silence didn't last long. Pomfrey came to the rescue of her sanity and her voice sounded crisp and clear, grounding Pansy into reality.

"Out! Out! She's awake and you're all causing disturbances - yes, all of you - Mr. Zabini, don't make me call your Head of House. Now, Mr. Malfoy, I'll have none of that, and take Ms. Greengrass with you. That's it - I'll let you know when she's ready for visitors, Mr. Nott, please assist in guiding your housemates out. Yes, yes, of course. Goodbye now!"

If she felt capable to move, Pansy might have laughed. Though it was a good to know her friends her being terribly difficult on her behalf.

"Miss Parkinson?" Madam Pomfrey's voice echoed around her. Pansy opened her mouth to speak, but she felt the nurse's soft fingers over her lips. "Don't speak. You've had the bones of your neck broken. Fixing those bones, you see, it's all very sensitive. Particularly if you want to save the brain. You may not be able to speak for, well, quite a bit, my dear. I'd recommend keeping it all still the better part of a week."

Pansy, against the specific advice given her, began to attempt to voice her displeasure, but the words came out even more raspy than they sounded before and the pain was more apparent. Her face twisted up in agony and whatever noise of discomfort she had attempted to pronounce came out like a long, hoarse groan. Madam Pomfrey quickly moved around her bed until she gripped a vial in her hand. Gently, the older woman tilted Pansy's head back and dripped the potion down her throat.

October 12th, 1996 (mid-afternoon)

"I must see if she's awake. I gave her a mixture of Paralysing Potion, Sleeping Draught, and pain relieving potion, poor girl, so she quite out of it. And Mr. Potter, I have two girls in my beds who can't receive guests all willy-nilly. But you said Professor Slughorn sent you, did he? Well I suppose Ms. Parkinson mustn't let her school work pile up. Come on then."

It must have been a true sign that Pansy was going insane for the fact that she had dreamed of Potter before he arrived at her bedside. The dream itself was nonsense, though even stranger was the fact that he was actually there.

"Parkinson?"

He whisper came softly yet abruptly, and though her had been blankly staring at him for several moments, he shocked her and she attempted to respond.

"Mr. Potter, she's unable to speak at the moment. Simply speak at her and she can hear you, and perhaps she'll be able to move slightly but don't worry if she doesn't respond. I must check on Ms. Bell, now - please excuse me..."

While Pansy's eyes stared unblinkingly up at Potter, he shuffled back and forth on either foot, seemingly unable to know where to start. It was clear that her dream was merely a dream. While she was unconscious, Potter was daring and unafraid. The boy in front of her now seemed unquestionably nervous.

Ridiculous.

Potion-fueled ridiculousness.

"Parkinson," he finally said again. "I've - I've brought you some materials. From class, I mean. Transfiguration, Charms, and Potions. I just- well, I thought I might as well pick them all up for you. Since they're the classes we take together, and well- of course, you'll- you'll need them all, right? I mean. Once you're- you're up and at it."

He chuckled awkwardly, and Pansy wanted to smile and mock him. Such a Gryffindor.

"I suppose, uh, I suppose that'll be it then.

"Well, damn it, Parkinson," Potter placed the books on her bedside and had started to turn around before stopping himself and removing his glasses to massage the bridge of his nose. "Damn it. This is my fault, it's it? I've been thinking about the whole damn thing and Malfoy punched you, then you screamed, and I- I- I pushed you. I pushed you down the moving stairs. And we just had to watch while you fell and- and we didn't do anything. Until Zabini thought to float you before you fell further and cracked you skull open.

"Jesus, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to say it like that. It's just you seemed- you looked just... I've seen bodies before. Dead ones. And they looked like how you looked at that moment. And I thought if I never got to apologize, then I'm just as bad as - I just wouldn't be who I'd like to be. We've never gotten along, but you don't deserve to die. And I'm sorry for having said so before, and I'm sorry for pushing you. I'm sorry, Parkinson."

Pansy nearly rolled her eyes at the epic melodrama that is Harry Potter's life, and she wanted to life, but she couldn't. The potion was wearing off too slowly - her facial expressions were minimal, and she could barely bring herself to life before Potter left. She needed to look him in the face one more time but he had already turned around by the time she shifted her head.

He was the one who pushed her.

He nearly killed her.

She needed to see his eyes, and she needed him to know that she had heard.

Though her body still wasn't entirely cooperating, Pansy slowly began to scratch her nails against the bed sheet. The itchy hospital beds were almost perfect for the level of sound she needed to grab his attention. She scratched slowly first, as his back turned away, then with increasing intensity.

Potter turned around with curiosity and looked at her unchanging face first, then at the source of the noise, and his eyes widened at seeing her hand moving purposely.

"Parkinson?" he tried cautiously.

It felt as if hours passed before Pansy's head moved - a short nod, but enough to get Potter to drop his bag once more.

"You're awake?"

Her head nodded again.

"Did you hear me before?"

Pansy moved a bit more this time, but failed and simply blinked.

It took Potter a moment to try to imagine what she was thinking. "And this time it was all me, not Hermione. I just - I had thought I killed you, Parkinson."

Pansy tilted her head to the side and tried to give him a particular look, like a question, and it took Potter a moment to know what she was asking.

And for his credit, Potter was sharper than he looked, "I think, well, I think we deserve a new start. You need a good grade in potions and I bloody hate how I feel around you. You annoy me, you irritate me, you make me go back to my dorms feeling worse than before. And it's not just who you are; I do feed into whatever it is that's the worst part of you. I'll stop doing that, if you try to. We have to try together, Parkinson. I know - I know what it's like to feel angry all the time. Like the world isn't fair and there's nothing you can do about it. It's enough to drive a person mad."

Pansy remained still for a moment, though she noticed she didn't feel frustrated or annoyed or miserable. Though she was largely immobile and unable to speak, she was able to think logically about Potter.

Slowly, she pointed at him then gave the O.K. symbol with her thumb and index finger. Potter grinned at that.

"And I know I've done this before, but I'm sorry, alright? We're starting new."

Pansy nodded. They stared at each other for a moment, perhaps they were both thinking about the other's intentions, before Pansy meekly pointed at her point eye, then at him. After a second, it seemed to hit Potter what she was asking.

"Oh, this?" he said as he lightly touched his bruised eye. "Right. Hermione refused to fix it, so I'll be sporting an ugly one for a while."

Pansy stared at him and blinked.

"Alright, now you're thinking-" Potter rolled his eyes and throw his bag over his shoulder, "I've already had an ugly one. It's called my face."

Pansy smiled.

And to her surprise, so did Potter.

October 13th, 1996 (afternoon)

The next days of slow, magical hearing weren't much easier than the first couple. Pansy was awake most of the time now, but to control the seizures that came as a side effect of the intense healing that was concentrated to her neck, Madam Pomfrey needed to keep her immobile for hours on end. As a result, she was typically still every time she had visitors. She needed to suffer Granger's horrendous' long-winded apologies and excuses for Potter's behavior, Greengrass rehashing of the day's gossip, and occasionally one of the boys visiting her. She had been confused about their lack of visiting until Pomfrey's explained that she had banned them from visiting all at once; apparently even a gravely injured friend wasn't enough to quell their pretentious attitudes and behavior.

In all honesty, Pansy couldn't blame her.

"Tilt your head up. Good," Pomfrey guided her wand from Pansy's chin to down to the center of her chest, a bright green appearing briefly on her skin, "Now tilt down. Good," she repeated the action, this time tracing the wand from the nape of her neck to between her shoulder blades.

"Well?" Pansy exhaled, sounding more tired than impatient.

"You healed quite nicely, Ms. Parkinson. A broken neck is quite brutish but all seems to be in working order now, thankfully. You'll probably still have a sore throat for the neck week, but you're fit as a fiddle now, dear."

Pansy let out a sigh of relief that quickly turned into a short coughing fit. A sore throat was an understatement. Even her coughs didn't lessen the consistent tickle she felt at the base of her throat.

"That's that then," she said bitterly as she slowly slid off the bed.

"You have permission to miss the rest of today's classes and tomorrow being Friday perhaps you'd like to skip tomorrow as well and start fresh on Monday-"

"I can't miss a week's worth of my N.E.W.T. classes," Pansy countered. She began shoving the books and notes her classmates dropped off her throughout the week into her bag. "Potions alone will be a nightmare to catch up in..."

"Be that as it may, Ms. Parkinson," Pomfrey bristled, interrupting her train of thoughts. "I recently sent off another young witch to St. Mungo's and I'd rather not send another due to your inability to rest and heal as fully as possible."

After restocking Pansy's supply of pepper-up and invigoration potion, Pomfrey sent Pansy on her way with strict instructions to sleep off the remainder of her discomfort which she begrudging accepted.

October 13th, 1996 (evening)

"I'm supposed to be napping."

Pansy yawned and stretched out the tired knots in her body, twisting around on the leather common room sofa as she did so. Though she wasn't actually annoyed by Blaise's interruption, looking up at his smug face was enough for her tired crankiness to push through.

"You've been napping all a week, darling."

"I don't think magically-induced comas can be called napping, love."

"Right," Blaise rolled his eyes as he leaned against the armrest of the love seat behind him. He crossed his arms over his chest and gave her a curious look. "Can I ask you something?"

"Have I got a choice?"

Blaise chuckled softly, though he didn't sound happy at all. "It's been... I've just been wondering since the day you fell. When I walked in on you and Theo having a row-"

"We weren't-"

"And I just didn't understand why," he pushed forward, ignoring her interruption. "You two, well, you've never had a reason to fight at all. We were so shaken after your fall that I'd forgotten it for a bit, but it stayed in the back of my mind. I'm not one who easily forgets, you see.

"So I asked Theo," Blaise's face hardened then, his cavalier attitude gone. "And I've got to hand it to you, Parkinson. Theo? That's is cruel. Even for you."

Pansy let out a shaky breath but said nothing as she shifted on the sofa to sit properly.

"First I've got my hands full with Draco's disappearing for hours on end, not talking to any of us, and now I need to be wary of a heartbroken Theo-"

"It was never meant to be-"

"It doesn't matter what you intended," he snapped. "Not everything is about you, what you want. He's holding a torch for you for years and you know very well that he'll never really have you the way he wants. So you will stop this, whatever it is. If Draco doesn't want to shag you, don't go on to use Theo."

"Blaise," Pansy said in a low voice, her heart sinking like the anchor that has been holding her down all semester, but he was already beginning to walk away from her. Pansy reached forward and gripped his wrist and repeated urgently, "Blaise. I- I won't... anymore."

He said nothing else but nodded curtly before pulling his wrist away from her and walking away.

After staying motionless for another moment, Pansy stood and numbly began making her way to the girls' dorm. After that conversation she was beginning to think Madam Pomfrey was right, and taking a few days off to fresh on Monday was a good idea. Once she was back in her room, Pansy took great care to slowly take several healthy sips from the potions on her vanity; one for blemishes, another for contraception, a large gulp of the blackhead potion Mother had given her, and lastly her Draught of Peace.

After a yawn that brought tears to her eyes, Pansy laid her head down to sleep once more.

AN:N

Sneak peek for the next chapter:

Daphne," Pansy said sweetly, her scowl of annoyance melting away as she turned around to face the blonde. "Did you miss breakfast?"

"Waiting on you, of course," she answered as if it were obvious. She. "I saw Blaise and Theo leave without you, so I thought it best we walk together to Charms."

"What a wonderful thought," she said in a drawl.