Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or anything thus affiliated and am making no money from this work.
A/N: Much thanks to Sam for the beta work. I most definitely needed it.
Nearly all of the seventh-year students had departed from Platform 9 ¾ after returning to London on their final journey as students from Hogwarts. Many of them were unmet by family, further proof of the ravages of war on the families of those involved, whether by choice or unwittingly. One such student was hidden in the shadows of a pillar, having been looking for a white-blond head to appear in the thinning crowd. When she finally found it, she could not help the frown that marred her features at seeing a mass of frizzy dark hair just beneath it.
Pansy Parkinson was a good friend to those who had ever bothered to make it past her exterior to find out, and she had been one to Draco since before she could really remember. She knew him like no other; she had been enamored of him as a budding teenager: coddling him when he was hurt by that beast Hagrid's malicious Hippogriff, excited beyond belief to be his date to the Yule Ball her fourth year, joining the Inquisitorial Squad with him her fifth, shocked and in awe of him her sixth for being worthy of a task set by the Dark Lord himself…her devotion to Draco Malfoy was steadfast. It was a result of having known him so well that she was the only one to notice the changes that took place in him over their last school year. No one else noticed his gravitation toward that awful Hermione Granger until it was too late. By the time it was obvious the two were together when everyone returned to Hogwarts from the winter break, they were inseparable.
People who were close to both of them tried to break them apart. It was almost sad, really, that the war had changed so little in most people's eyes as to still not allow the mixing of blood, but Pansy stayed out of it. She watched as that moron Longbottom tried to persuade Hermione that Draco was wrong for her; she said nothing when Gregory Goyle accused Draco of tarnishing Vincent Crabbe's memory by shagging the girl who cost him his life (and that had been news to Pansy, but no one seemed to dispute the claim); she even got to witness the train wreck that was the two other parts of the "Golden Trio" coming to talk sense into the brains of their operation. The ensuing fight had been explosive, and it was really a good thing that it had taken place in Hogsmeade, where little had been damaged due to the fight moving toward the Shrieking Shack before hexes started flying. As far as she knew, the three were still estranged. Granger was waiting for an apology, apparently, and hadn't received one that was adequate yet.
Through all of the fighting, Pansy kept quiet because she wanted to keep Draco in any way she could. She had only been able to see him a handful of times after he and the Mudblood were official without seeing Granger practically attached to his hip. He was very protective of her, always with an arm around her middle or a hand placed at the base of her spine. It made it seem as though he was the one in charge of their relationship, but Pansy knew better. She watched them when no one else did and was the only person on well enough speaking terms with Draco to notice that he wore a kind of leather collar underneath his high-necked robes. Sometimes, she managed to catch a glimpse of a sort of ring on the back of it. Pansy did not want to think about what they used it for.
Neither Draco nor Hermione Granger were the same students they had been before the war really broke out. She had no way of knowing what happened to them and wasn't sure she would have tried to find out even if she could have. Before that cursed break over Yule and the new year, she had noticed Granger's odd behavior and had even tried to warn Draco to stay away from the unsettling girl. Granger would talk to herself and stare at Draco for hours. When Draco began to do the same some time in November, it had worried Pansy extremely. In the end, all her worrying and attempts to speak sense into her fellow Slytherin had made no difference. He was beyond her reach.
And so, Pansy kept her silent watch on an almost empty train platform in London, seeing Granger's hands thread into her best friend's hair and pull him down so she could speak into his ear. She saw something tug Draco's head back so that his neck was bared and Apparated away before she could see more than Granger licking it.
It was less than two months later that the engagement of "Draco Malfoy, Death Eater" and "Hermione Granger, War Heroine" was announced on the front page of the Daily Prophet. When Pansy received her invitation the next day, she promptly sent it back with an affirmative. If she couldn't do anything to get her friend out of the situation he was in, she would still be there for him, even if it meant watching him pledge his life to the twisted woman who had twisted him around herself.