Thanks to Sanguiyn my wonderful beta, who not only saves me from grammatical errors, but also dresses as a super hero when she does it.
Disclaimer:
Loosely based on '10 Things I hate about you', which was based on Shakespeare's 'Taming of the Shrew'.
You all know that I don't own the Harry Potter characters (JKR does). But if I did, something like this would happen to them...
It was a surprisingly hot day. The lake was a restless plate of ripples, and the dirt and sand that surrounded it was baked dry. At one end, under the shade of the beech trees, there were clusters of students, spread out on their discarded robes, lying between their encampments of textbooks and other study materials, though not much studying was being done. Instead, most of them were taking advantage of the ideal weather and running into the shallow water, kicking up arcs of spray and splashing each other mercilessly.
Dean and Pansy had immediately avoided the flurry of activity and were lucky enough to get the largest beech tree near the water's edge. The view of the lake and their peers rolled out in front of them, as if it had been set up by a director who wasn't afraid of using all the clichés to convey the perfection of a sunny day.
It had been a week since Pansy had approached Dean in the Great Hall, and in that time, she had discovered two things. Firstly, she got much more of a thrill being a part of the latest gossip than spreading it, and secondly, she actually enjoyed spending time with Dean Thomas. Yet, she always had the feeling that he was thinking about Ginny Weasley.
Weasley. Skewering them with her eyes. Jealous and dismissive at the same time. Blaise was right in his assumptions; she would probably crack any day now. The thought of it was not inviting. Pansy felt a connection to Dean and wanted to hold onto it.
Like most of her housemates, Pansy was a Slytherin first and a friend second, so she wouldn't even think twice of disrupting Blaise's plan. Plus, if things worked in her favour and Dean chose to stay with her instead of going back to Weasley, the pact would still be reinstated.
Slytherins always got their way, and this time would be no exception for Pansy. But as time went by, she found herself not only caring about her own interests, but about Dean's as well.
Dean was sitting on his robe that was spread out on the grass beneath them, his ankles crossed and his right fingers circling his left wrist. He was looking out to the lake, apparently watching Crabbe and Goyle wrestling in the water. But Pansy knew he was concentrating on Weasley, who had unobtrusively drawn closer to their spot.
Pansy moved her now bare feet in the grass, an impatient flurry of movement which made Dean turn his head and look at her.
"Would you really take her back if she asked you?" she asked, speaking her thoughts without preamble. Dean seemed surprised, not at the abruptness of her statement, but because it seemed as if they had all along been thinking in parallel.
"No, I wouldn't. Not anymore. I don't want to take a step back." He unlinked his hands, reached out to the coarse grass around them and punched a blade between his thumb and forefinger. "Besides, I think we were wrong. She'll never do it."
"I still think she will."
"She won't. I wasn't enough for her, that's why she went looking for something more." He twirled the stem of grass in his fingers. "There's a lack in me of whatever it is she needs, colour or strength or comedy, or maybe just sex, or most probably a mix of all those things and a few dozen others."
"That sounds like the answer of a weaker person than I think you are." She would not say it aloud, but she acknowledged that Dean was passive by comparison; a done-to guy rather than a doer. She saw nothing wrong with that, as long as nothing happened to take him away from her. "You have colour and comedy and all those other things, and you're certainly not weak. You're like a tree or a river."
She laughed a little now at her last comment, a low noise that made Dean look sideways at her tucked-in face. "I've been talking about her too much. I'm sorry," he said.
"Don't be. You have reason to. She left you in a big way." An ant had crawled onto Dean's robe. She immediately lunged at it, pinching it in between her silver fingernails. "It can't be easy for you."
"No, it isn't easy," he agreed. "This whole arrangement."
"I'm sorry. You don't deserve it."
Dean wondered why she should use those words. "I don't deserve you?"
"That's not what I meant," she said, a sudden breathlessness making her inarticulate. "In fact, I feel kind of guilty."
"Guilty?" Dean joked, lightening the mood. "Are Slytherins able to feel that?"
"Yes, we are," she replied, hitting him playfully on the arm before becoming serious again. "I'm glad she cheated on you. If she hadn't, you and I wouldn't be here together right now."
He considered her statement. The acknowledgement that their meeting was significant to her was important to him. It was something he needed to hear. "Don't feel guilty. Ginny is the guilty one."
Pansy had the impression there were unspoken negotiations taking place within this bland exchange. The realisation made heat prickle beneath her hairline, a sensation she knew had nothing to do with the warmth of the sun.
She wasn't a rebound, not as she had first imagined she would be. Almost without their acknowledgement, the issue between them had become bigger than that.
"If you were mine, I would have never let you go." She looked back to the lake; it seemed that Goyle had won the wrestling-match, standing triumphantly with his hands above his head, Crabbe spluttering and spitting water next to him. She looked back to Dean and saw that he was suddenly smiling.
He touched her wrist in order to get her to look at him, tipped his head forward and tilted it sideways a little, so that his mouth connected with hers. The kiss shivered though them. Pansy gave herself up to him and took the offering with pleasure. They had kissed many times in the past week, but this time it was different.
Pansy was slightly surprised. She hadn't needed the usual Slytherin trickery. Her honesty had been enough to get what she wanted.
It was a long time before they moved apart again, and even then he kept hold of her, both of them comfortable with the lake and the sky, and one another's company. They had come to a good place and nothing could happen to discolour it.
Seamus watched Harry carefully. The flames from the fireplace fanned upwards, washing his face with lurid light. His Firebolt was on his lap and his Broomstick Servicing Kit lay open on the couch next to him. He was clipping the tail-twigs of his broom so feverishly that Seamus was surprised there were any left. But while Harry looked as if he might be losing control, it was actually quite the opposite.
Harry had allowed himself one day of moping over Malfoy, but ever since, he had been spending all his free time on the Quidditch pitch, calling extra training sessions with the Gryffindor team and working them harder than ever.
The rest of the team had been so exhausted by the recent overwork that they had taken to going to bed without showers every evening after practice, some not even making it to their beds but collapsing on the common room couches and immediately falling asleep.
They were all aware of the reason why Harry had become more obsessive with the game and knew better than to complain about the extra practices to his face.
Seeing as Malfoy was the cause for their sudden exhaustion, they were all more eager than ever to thrash Slytherin in tomorrow's match.
Seamus was just about to open his mouth to tell Harry that he'd better put the clippers down otherwise he wouldn't have anything to fly on for the Gryffindor versus Slytherin match tomorrow, when a loud yell from upstairs startled them all.
"Don't try and justify it to me! Don't ask me to share responsibility for what you did!"
Everyone in the common room, except for Harry, looked up from what they were doing. Ron, who had been one of the players to fall asleep on the couch, awoke with a start and fell off the couch with a shocked grunt. Seamus became stuck on the edge of his seat, having himself almost fallen onto the floor. He began gnawing at the corner of his thumbnail, his face sharp-pointed and tight with anxiety. He knew that the shout had come from Dean.
"We were getting really serious. I got scared, I lost my sense of direction and did things that I shouldn't have done!"
"When they get scared, most people hide under their covers, not between someone else's legs!"
"I know I've made mistakes! A ton! But I never make them twice! We can start again! It's not too late!"
"Yes it is! It was too late the moment you decided to sleep with someone else!"
"Dean, please! Just give me another chance!"
"How can I possibly take you back after what you did to me? How am I supposed to trust you anymore? I can't have a relationship with someone I don't trust!"
"I know that you're probably worried that I would cheat on you again, but it's different now! There's no more Michael Corner! He's gone! I miss you! I lie in bed at night and I think about us, about you holding me!"
"Don't do that!"
"Do what?"
"Touch me! Not after I know where else your hands have been!"
"Dean, listen to me! It was wrong, everything I did! I accept the blame! I feel more guilt than you could possibly imagine! I know that you're upset with me now, but time will heal it! We can make it work again!"
"No! I deserve better!"
"You don't mean Pansy Parkinson, surely! How can you trust her, a Slytherin, but not trust me?"
"What are you saying? That you have to be in Slytherin to be untrustworthy? Going by that logic, you should have been sorted into that house ages ago!"
"Don't say that! I'm not Draco Malfoy!"
At the mention of Malfoy, Harry stopped abruptly in his clipping before hastily snatching up his jar of Fleetwood's High-Finish Handle Polish and applying so much of it to his broom that Seamus could clearly see his reflection in the handle. Harry was scrubbing so furiously that Seamus expected the broom to catch fire at any moment.
"You're right! You are much worse than Draco Malfoy!"
"He dumped Harry without explanation! Who's to know he wasn't sleeping with someone else? At least I came clean! At least I'm here trying to set things right again!"
At that, Harry threw his broomstick away so forcefully that it almost landed in the fireplace. A large purple vein was forming on his temple that could easily match Uncle Vernon's.
"What an incredible lie! You didn't come clean, I caught you! And if I hadn't, you would probably still be sneaking around with Corner! I can't take this any longer! What you did was unforgivable, and what makes it worse is that now you're trying to make yourself look better by comparing our relationship to Harry and Malfoy's! Don't stand there blocking my way!"
"Don't go! We need to talk this thing out!"
"You cheated on me! You betrayed my trust! I have nothing more to say to you, Ginny! I made it perfectly clear in the Astronomy Tower! We're done!"
The moment Dean burst from the room, Harry was on his feet, storming towards the portrait hole.
Ginny immediately came running after Dean, her face a brilliant shade of red; whether it was from yelling at Dean or enduring the gruelling four-hour Quidditch practice, it wasn't certain. It was clear, however, that, unlike Harry, Quidditch wasn't enough to distract her from her misery. As she caught up to Dean and grabbed his arm, Harry abruptly stopped at the portrait hole.
"Don't do that! I don't want you touching me anymore!"
"No! Not until you hear me out!"
Everyone in the room, except for Harry, was glancing fearfully from one to the other, as Dean tried to rip his arm away and Ginny strengthened her grip. Harry remained stuck in the doorway, glancing from the exit back to the room, only subconsciously aware of the battle taking place in front of him.
Ginny and Dean struggled and fought, and as they did so, anger, compounded of the melancholy screaming, fiery eyes and fingers digging into flesh flooded through Harry's body, like a sensation returning to a numbed limb.
"Let go of me!"
"I'm sorry! I screwed up! Give me another chance! Please!"
The room seemed to rock and shake, in time with another similar battle that was raging in Harry's head, while Ginny tugged at Dean, tightening her grasp as the shouting grew louder.
"I said, let go of me!"
"We can go back to the way we were!"
"I won't let you do this to me! I won't let you get away with what you've done!"
It was Harry's voice, not Dean's or Ginny's that shouted the final reply. His voice was uncontrollably loud and everyone could hear the raw vibration of anger in it.
Strength fuelled by exasperation made Dean finally break free of Ginny and the shouting cease. Needles of control darted into Harry's brain and a crown clamped around his throbbing temples, controlling the cage of anger which had become the size of another individual shrieking inside him.
Dean rubbed the arm that Ginny had assaulted and looked at her as if to say 'Yeah, what he said', while everyone else in the room stared incredulously at Harry.
Wanting to break the uncomfortable silence, Seamus picked up Harry's Firebolt from the foot of the fireplace and walked over to the portrait hole.
"Are you okay?" he asked gently, handing Harry his broomstick.
"Peachy," Harry snapped, taking his broom.
"I know that Malfoy has done some really horrible stuff in his time, but cheating on you isn't one of them." Seamus spoke softly so that no one else could hear.
He hadn't had the chance to console Harry properly over the past week. The name 'Malfoy' had become taboo in Gryffindor Tower, no one daring to pronounce it, not even to bad-mouth its owner. Even though this unspoken rule had been momentarily broken by Ginny, Harry still ignored Seamus's attempt.
"You don't know that," he replied simply, swinging his Firebolt over his shoulder.
"There's another explanation, something that isn't as sinister. You don't know what it is, that's all."
"Whatever," Harry said bitterly. "Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to bed. And I suggest you all do the same." He looked pointedly at the rest of the Gryffindor team. "We have a Quidditch match to win tomorrow."
Everyone in the room was surprised at Harry's composure as they watched him climb the stairs and disappear into his dormitory.
Seamus remained standing in Harry's previous place at the portrait hole, scrutinising the exit in the same way Harry had done, weighing up his options. He looked back into the room to where Ginny was bawling in Hermione's arms as she led her upstairs to the girls' dormitories; Neville was murmuring something to Dean, patting him comfortingly on the back. Ron had climbed back onto his couch and fallen asleep, filling the room with his loud, familiar snores.
It only took one more glance at the portrait hole for Seamus to make up his mind.
Blaise was bored. He had finished all of his homework and now, without Seamus's usual company, had nothing to do.
After a whole hour of sitting in the Slytherin common room, irritably drumming his fingers on the arm of his chair, he couldn't take it any longer.
He ended up going to the kitchens and, grabbing as many cupcakes as he could carry, returned to the common room and dumped them all in front of Crabbe and Goyle, promising to give five Galleons to the one who could fit the largest amount into their mouth.
He was cringing in amused disgust as Goyle managed to squeeze in cupcake number nine, when Seamus came charging into the room.
"It failed!" Seamus yelled so loudly that it caused Goyle to jump and spit out all the contents of his mouth onto the floor.
Some of the crumbs and icing landed on Blaise but he ignored it.
"What?" he whispered, pulling Seamus into a corner of the room so that nobody else could hear them.
"Your plan failed," Seamus replied, adopting a quieter tone. "Ginny almost pulled Dean's arm off in her begging, but he still refuses to take her back."
"It's okay. We can work around this." Blaise stroked Seamus's cheek with his fingers, misreading his concern. "We'll just get Pansy to stay with him."
"No." Seamus slapped Blaise's hand away. "That would be a lie."
"Well, yes," Blaise admitted, slightly taken aback.
"I don't want to lie to my friend," Seamus said sternly. "And I certainly don't want him going out with someone under false pretences."
"But I'm doing this for Potter and Draco. And for us, so that we can be together." Blaise reached out, took Seamus's hand and held it tightly so that he couldn't get pushed away again.
"I know you are and I appreciate that, but it's selfish and wrong of us," Seamus said, allowing Blaise to keep hold of his hand. "These are my friends we're messing with, and my friends are important to me. I could never forgive myself if we did something that would end up hurting them, no matter how good our intentions were."
"I don't want to hurt them either," Blaise assured.
"Then we've bitten off more than we can chew." Seamus sighed. "If we continue on with the plan, someone is bound to get hurt. We were stupid to think that we could handle other people's lives for them. It was a bad idea from the start. I want to put an end to it."
"Me too."
Pansy's voice surprised them both. She was standing next to them. She had heard Seamus's initial shout from her dormitory and came out to investigate the potentially gossip-worthy commotion.
"Pansy?" Blaise threw her a warning look as if to say, 'Forget about your fingernails, say goodbye to your hands!'
"I don't want Dean to go back to Ginny when she asks. She had her chance with him and she blew it."
"Well, we don't have to worry about that," Seamus told her. "She already tried and he said no."
"Really?!" Pansy's squeal was almost deafening. It was Crabbe's turn to jump and cough out all his cupcakes onto the floor next to Goyle's.
"Pansy…" Blaise gave her another look of warning.
"I want to go out with him for real," Pansy explained before Blaise could take out his wand and act on his unspoken threat.
Both Seamus and Blaise gaped at her.
"I thought that you were only doing this as a favour for Blaise," Seamus said suspiciously. "Did he put you up to this?"
"No," Pansy responded quickly, fearing Blaise's wrath if she answered with the whole truth.
Before Seamus could question her any further, she gave another loud, girlish squeal and ran past Crabbe and Goyle, who had started filling their mouths with cupcakes again, and exited from the room.
After she had disappeared, Seamus clicked his tongue crossly. "She'd better be telling the truth."
"She is," Blaise replied firmly, though he was a little shocked. "Who can blame them? Gryffindor/Slytherin romances have become quite popular lately. Pansy and Thomas make number three."
"Two," Seamus corrected, and for a frightening moment Blaise thought that he was eliminating theirs. "We can hardly count Harry and Malfoy at the moment, can we?"
"I guess we can't," Blaise agreed. "Not for now at least."
"Harry and Malfoy are very stubborn. We shouldn't get our hopes up."
"I know that they both want to be with each other."
"Oh yes, that's why they've been avoiding each other all week!" Seamus sarcastically retorted. "Not to mention they will most probably start yelling at each other the moment they get on their brooms tomorrow!"
"You're yelling at me, but I still want to be with you," Blaise said in a small voice, making an appealing face that caused Seamus to stop and sigh.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to snap but I just can't stand the way things are at the moment." Seamus placed his hands on Blaise's waist and pulled him close, in a hug that had become very rare in the past week. "That's no excuse for yelling at you. It's not like Harry and Malfoy's break-up was your fault."
Blaise felt a tiny pang of guilt at this, but he decided to ignore it, figuring that it didn't matter anymore because he was going to set it right again.
"You know…" He wrapped his arms around Seamus's neck and whispered in his ear, "…Draco just left for Quidditch practice. You can come upstairs."
Seamus pulled away from him slightly and gave him a disappointed look. "Not tonight."
Blaise nodded in understanding. "Damage control?"
"Something like that." Seamus suddenly smiled, before giving Blaise the longest kiss he had had all week.
"Sorry," Blaise mumbled when the kiss unfortunately ended.
"It's alright. I know that everything will turn out okay in the end. I trust you." Seamus smiled again and kissed Blaise briefly on the lips one more time before turning and heading back to Gryffindor Tower.
Blaise stared longingly after him, but his trance was broken when Goyle clapped him on the back, gesturing wildly to his mouth.
Blaise dropped five gold coins into Goyle's outstretched podgy hand, not even bothering to count the number of cupcakes that he had wedged into his over-packed mouth, and retreated to his dormitory, alone.
Author's Notes: Please review!