A/N: Late. Late. Late. I'm sorry. I actually struggled a lot with this chapter. For a few weeks I worked on a buffer chapter, between this one and my last. After weeks of writing, rewriting and editing, I couldn't really justify it. It gave away too much of the duel, and didn't advance the story much. So I spent another bunch of weeks struggling to write Pansy and Draco's fight. Enjoy.

Special thanks to Ariely and Hey It's That Guy for reviewing my last chapter.

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or any associated characters.

- x

They walked through a rocky footpath. The half-breed Hagrid had carved a trail wide enough for a bus with his quidditch goal-sized feet. Twenty minutes later, the path widened into a crater. An even coat of snow made it resemble an enormous ivory bowl in the middle of the forest.

"Before we begin," Draco spoke. "I must confer with my dueling partner. A matter of strategy, you understand."

"Of course."

"Zabini. Should I be unable to continue the duel…" Pansy walked to the center of the arena. Whatever Malfoy was saying got a reaction from Blaise. He crossed his hands and swiveled his head side to side. Draco didn't so much as shiver in the cold, but kept pelting Blaise with words. She looked back at Tracey, who took two steps toward her, but Pansy just smiled and turned back to Zabini and Malfoy. Tracey could relax. Pansy would beat Draco alone and show everyone what a flaccid wizard he was.

Something Malfoy said bent Blaise like a reprimanded child. Blaise extended a cautious hand to Malfoy. They shook hands and separated. Draco looked gallant. Blaise looked ashen. Her feet crunched the snow seeking her friend, but Nott coughed for the two adversaries. "Blaise." She called, but his head was low against the wind. He wasn't even watching the duel begin.

"Last chance to back out," Malfoy said as they shook hands. As always someone would have to beat the smugness out of him. This time it was her privilege.

"I'm not the one making funeral arrangements with Blaise." Pansy said. She held her wand before her face, then arched it down to her side. He mirrored her movements. They bowed, turned and took exaggerated steps away from the center like windup soldiers. Just as mechanically, they faced each other again. Theo Nott stood in the center. With the drop of his hand, he would start the duel.

Wayward snowflakes pushed off the treetops, and twirled into the clearing. Sight and sound and sensation were all focused on the circular crater that Draco and she occupied. The condensed strength of a coiled spring was concentrated in her feet and wand.

Nott's hand pendulumed down.

"Expelliar – "

"Flippendo." She reacted first.

"-muuhhhs." Draco jumped out of the way; his disarming spell kicking up snow.

"Flippendo." She tried again. Draco spun around her spell. "Flippendo. Flippendo. Flippendo." A flock of spells left Malfoy nowhere to run and flipped him in the air. He crashed into a snow bank. Pansy circled around, wand ready.

"Ascendio." Malfoy flew into the air, propelled by a giant trampoline.

Airborne, he couldn't change direction. Pansy's wand traced Malfoy's descent, "Petrificus To-"

"Serpentsoria." Three snakes rained down from the sky. The serpents pounded into the ground, bouncing Pansy an inch off the earth. A hood the size of a bronze shield, some quill-length fangs, and a tree trunk-sized body; the largest cobra, viper and constrictor Pansy had ever seen. Emissaries of death in black shimmering scales. Pansy backed away slowly. One venomous bite would force a forfeit and hasty trip to the infirmary.

"Expelliarmus." She shifted her weight and jumped left. Draco's spell found empty air. The movement flicked an 'on' switch in the snakes' reptilian brains. The viper stretched into a spear, and flew at Pansy.

"Ascendare." She sent the snake hurtling backwards. Hissssss. The cobra came in from the left. Pansy ducked and the snake pumped venom into a pine tree.

"Stupefy." Pansy dove and ate snow. Draco's spell tumbled through the canopy above, peppering her with twigs. The boa. She rolled. A half-ton living whip flayed the snow where she'd been. The boa coiled behind her, but she pushed off the ground, and leapt over its body. The other serpents slithered toward her.

"Stupefy."

She ducked. "Expelliarmus." Constrictors were slow, but this one gave her enough time to fire back a disarming spell. Behind it, the cobra and viper moved like they were slithering against molasses not snow. Their forked tongues hiding behind their snouts.

"Petrificus Totalus."

"Ascendio." Pansy leapt over Draco's attack this time. The serpents would shiver, if they could. The cold had licked away their venomous ferocity. She landed behind them. An Expelliarmus – luckily – hit her foot. Another cleared her entirely. "Glacius." She side swept her wand like a fire hose at the snakes' backs. They turned to ice sculptures.

"Bombarda." The earth boomed next to Pansy, throwing snow into the air. As her head turned away, Malfoy cast the spell three more times. The frozen serpents exploded. She crouched and covered her eyes. Ice needles pecked her face.

Pansy lifted her arms. A snowy, glittering fog ghosted over the arena. Every direction looked the same. Her hand touched a wet, gooey stump; a pillar made of frozen constrictor. Yuck. She crouched against it, in case he saw her first. A cold breeze shook her bones, and cleared the air. The trees became black spots, then silhouettes, then green and distinct. Malfoy was gone.

"Coward!" She called. "Yield, if you're so afraid to fight." He must be planning something; some dirty trick. Snowflakes feathered her nose. She batted them away.

"Watch out!" Tracey yelled.

A Draco-sized yeti sprouted from the ground behind her. "Stupefy." Bloody Hell. She dove onto her belly, but a glancing blow propelled her into a tree. Pansy landed in a heap of robes like a caved-in tent.

"Pansy!" Daphne called, but her friend didn't move. Pansy tucked her wand under her chest, and tried breathing evenly.

"So much for that." Draco's foot dug into her ribs. Pansy willed herself limp. If he wasn't above hiding in a mound of snow, then she wasn't above playing possum.

Draco's leg swung again, but at the lowest point got stuck to the other one. The momentum knocked him over. His eyes found snow where the sky had been, and saw the glowing tip of Pansy's wand emerge from her robes. "Expelliarmus." His wand rolled in the snow.

Her foot scooped Draco onto his back. Panic oozed out of every pore on his face. His eyes stretched wide by invisible hooks. Pansy stabbed his right hand with a stinging hex making him scrunch his eyes.

A pity the Unforgivables were…unforgivable. He was hers, though. She could make him squeal, snivel, beg for mercy, piss himself…No. She was going to make him sing. Then he could spill what he knew in front of everyone. The tip of her wand glowed. "Canti—URRGH."

A snowball with a core of ice cracked against her forehead. Her brain rattled against her skull. Snow dusted her eyes and warm, rust-colored liquid trickled down her forehead. Draco's legs brush her robes. He was rolling toward his wand.

She had to move. Pansy ran for a tree, feeling the trunk with an elbow while her hands still tried to flush her eyes. Malfoy undid the leg-binding hex. She flicked away moisture from her eyes, and rubbed a purple lump the size of snowball on her forehead.

"You must think that you nearly won just now." Draco called into the forest. Pansy peered around the bough giving her shelter. He leaned against the severed trunks of the snakes. "I've been humoring you Parkinson." His laugh wasn't very persuasive. "School yard hexes won't win a duel. I'm going to show you some real magic."

Her 'school yard' spells served her well so far. "Avis." Pansy conjured two-dozen ravens. A snowball had saved him, but not for long. "Oppugno."

Her ravens flocked into a V shape. A cawing missile made of bird-sized torpedoes locked onto Malfoy. Draco turned sideways and aimed his wand. With his attention taken, Pansy came out of the forest on his right flank.

"Magna Tronitus." A wire thin bolt of lightning cut through the flock. Ruffled feathers, and twitching birds fell to the floor like paper litter.

"Expelliar – " she stood bolted, not finishing her spell, as if the lightning struck her instead. Magna Tronitus was NEWT level.

"Protego." A sphere blossomed from Draco's wand and covered him in its bubble. The shield charm. It wasn't on the curriculum 'till end of next term. He wasn't full of tosh after all.

"Expelliarmus." His Protego would be difficult to break through. "Flippendo. Bombarda." None of the spells made so much as a ripple.

"See, Parkinson? I could've cast Protego at any moment."

"Bombarda. Bombarda. BombarDA. BomBARDA. BOMBARDA." Pansy shrieked the last incantation. He – was – right. She bent low. Her lungs burned. She wasn't going to pierce the Protego like this.

"Magna Tronitus." The rumbling air told her to crouch, ignoring her protesting chest. The lightning bolt she wouldn't have seen coming surged past her head; promising instant death. Why is he – KRRRKKKKK. Another one. She transfigured a stone in front of her into a lightning rod. Part of the bolt had already sailed past, but was reined back by the metal rod, and pumped into the ground. It got close enough to make Pansy's hair stand on end, and singe her robes.

Did Protego have a finite duration? Could elemental spells get through it? Think. Think. Charms was her best subject and she couldn't remember. She had to break that shield. "Organi Expellere."

The organ-expelling curse. Her pupils retreated. A direct hit and everything down to her intestines would vomit out of her; gruesome and fatal. She ducked, and rolled. "We aren't fighting to the death!" Pansy propped herself up.

"This is a duel, isn't it?"

While Malfoy went through his mental Rolodex of spells, Pansy pitched a slug-vomiting hex, Langlock, and Incendio at him. Each fizzled out in sky blue light. He wasn't bluffing. He did know stronger spells than her. But she still had an ace up her sleeve. She'd only blown up bottle caps with it before, but it was strong enough.

She steadied her wand. There weren't any complicated movements. The spell just required proper visualization and complete conviction. Pansy pointed her wand at the shield pretending there wasn't a person behind it. She mustn't hold anything back. "Reducto!"

Draco's jaw went slack. His hand batted the air furiously, casting a spell. Pansy's wand pushed back and bent her elbow. A massive force jetted out. White Reducto collided with blue Protego, like the moon impacting the earth. They shielded their eyes, and the roar of impossible forces swallowed the incantation Draco spoke.

There was a crater within a crater where the shield had been. Her eyes sifted through the smoking ruin, afraid of what they might see. Malfoy could be badly injured – or worse.

A rough pull brought Pansy to her knees. Shoots had erupted out of the snow and coiled around her legs. They cabled her arms and torso, dragging her the rest of the way down. The ropes took away every inch that her lungs conceded. A separate strand appeared along her throat; burning and squeezing, and racing the rope around her chest to strangle her first. He'd cast an Incarcerous.

Her wrist twirled, but got pressed flat against her chest. A cutting hex died in a firefly glow on her wand. She couldn't do more than rotate her wand in place. "Pansy!" Either Daphne or Tracey said it. Her mouth opened and closed like a landed fish. Her head arched back. She was turning blue-white as the snow. "In…cen…dio," each syllable punched her throat. The tip of her wand glowed red, smoldering the ropes around her chest. Her wrist could turn again, and directed the wand to her bound arms, then sunk it toward the rope at her throat. Her skin howled and exhaled the burnt-toast stink of seared flesh.

She sat up. Warrington and Montague had wands at Daphne and Tracey's backs. A painful breath crashed into her lungs. Her legs were still bound. Foreign blood flecked her head as she burned the last of the rope. She looked up and met a white flash. "Langlock." Her tongue fused to the roof of her mouth like her saliva had become glue. Draco limped before her, right arm bent backward in an obtuse angle; broken, bleeding.

Shite. One syllable didn't cover it. Shite. Shite. Shite. She couldn't cast non-verbal spells. The ten-inch unicorn hair and elm in her hand was as useful as a common stick. He'd recovered faster and driven the final nail. With his torn shirt and dripping right hand, Draco stood. He was practically posing for the victory photo.

"Had to find out the hard way, did we?" Malfoy said.

"Ooo Uuuu." She'd let them down. Mum and dad. The Malfoys betrayed them, pilfered through their things, and spread lies about them. She was done. The more sensible Slytherins were leaving for breakfast.

No. She must not fail. "EhhEhhhLiiiAmussh!" Her bungled disarming spell hurt her more than the trip jinx that dropped her back in the snow.

"Guess some of us can't talk the talk or walk the walk."

They laughed. Ignore them. Malfoy's arm was broken. She could wrench it behind him and pummel him senseless. Pansy lunged forward.

"Ascendare." She was floating, limbs loose like a marionette. "Tsk. Muggle brawling is grounds for disqualification." He selected a tree near the watching Slytherins. Fresh ropes hugged her against the trunk. "But I'm feeling generous today. So I won't press the rule." Her feet kicked at the air, finding nothing solid. She twisted and turned against the ropes, but couldn't move in any direction.

"Afflictio." Draco aimed at her. Her stomach caved in. Her coughing shook the tree she was tied to. "Afflictio." One of her ribs cracked like a pretzel snapped in half.

"Stop it!" Tracey demanded. "It's over. You've won." Tracey and Daphne still had wands against their throats. Blaise had his head down.

"She hasn't yielded yet, or been disarmed." Draco smirked. With her tongue bound, Pansy could only speak in uuurrhhhgg's. "Rules are rules." Her wand slid to her last two fingers. She could drop it. He'd won anyway. But surrendering would make his victory total. What does it matter? You've already failed them.

Tracey sunk her elbow into Warrington, and twisted the wand out of his hand. "Sod the effing rules. Libero." The ropes around Pansy slinked away and she hit the ground on her side. She stood against the tree and lifted her wand, nodding at Tracey.

"Blaise." Draco flicked a lazy finger toward Tracey like he was dispatching a luggage bearer. Another Afflictio shook Pansy's arm. It was twisted like a dishrag before snapping. Pinpricks of stars danced in her eyes. "UUuuurrhgggg." Her body acted on its own. It trembled, shed tears, and gushed mucus down her nose.

Blaise made Tracey's wand arm fall limp. "What ARE you doing?" Tracey shrieked. Pansy stared at her feet. She was a failure. Even her friends were paying the price now.

"Calm down Tracey." Blaise huffed. "Don't resist." Her arms flopped behind her like windsocks as she charged into Blaise. Tracey's head dipped, following the trajectory of a battering ram. Blaise grabbed her shoulder with one hand. Once he'd absorbed her momentum, his wand slid into his pocket instead of petrifying her.

"Stop Tracey. I need to do this." Tracey's foot sailed through the space where his knees had just been. She tried again, but his feet kept dancing away.

"Why are you helping that sod?"

"Pansy asked me to do this. Remember?"

"She didn't say anything about letting Malfoy TORTURE her!"

"I'll put a stop to this, if you just calm down." He bent down and whispered in her ear. Tracey stopped struggling.

"Well, well… picked…..fight ….wrong wizard…?" Malfoy knocked the words out of her brain with Afflictio spells. She still held fast to her wand, but couldn't remember why. When did she trade her body for a symphony of aches and jolts? When did she trade victory for defeat?

"How many times are you going to use the same spell, Draco?" Nott studied the clouds. "You've beaten her, just end it already."

"Fine. Fine." Draco lowered his wand. There was one more thing he wanted them to witness before breakfast started to sound more appealing than Parkinson's humiliation. He swiped his wand downward, and the tree caressed Pansy's back with jagged bark all the way down to a thudded landing.

He reached into the breast pocket of his shirt and pulled out a rumpled letter. "Esteemed Mr. Howell, I am writing to request all case files pertaining to my father's clients…" Her letter to Parkinson and Rowle. He had it. Recognition jump-started her senses.

"The moment my father was contacted to sign the release of certain documents," Malfoy laughed, "he made employment offers to everyone at Parkinson and Rowle: defense attorneys, managers, even custodial staff." Goyle handed him an old copy of the Daily Prophet. "In case you missed it, my father's new practice, Malfoy and Howell,opened its doors last week." He held the paper up to her face. Isidore Howell and Lucius Malfoy each held one handle on a large pair of scissors and shook hands. "They shredded everything before leaving. Your father's practice is a husk." He threw the paper at her feet and kicked her again. "Better luck next time, Parkinson."

Pansy avoided his eyes, but his voice grew louder. "Due to injury I can no longer continue." Draco pointed at his broken arm. "I call on my second to conclude the duel." He bowed to Blaise, who walked toward Pansy.

His face was a smoothed sheet. But his arm seemed ten times heavier as he raised it. "Expelliarmus." Blaise caught her wand. He tested the wood, and dropped Pansy's wand in two pieces at her feet; a pair of jagged chopsticks.

A/N: I know. I know. Pansy and Draco will meet again, though.

I'm dealing with a lot of stuff right now, so next chapter might be about a month from now. I'd like to go back to weekly updates, or at least bi-monthly, but that probably won't happen until June.