Chapter 14

Pansy sat with her head in her hands at the Slytherin table in the Great Hall, a strong black Tea steeping in front of her along with a plate of untouched toast.

"I'd say you look like crap", Farah dropped down opposite her.

"You look just as bad as me then", Pansy croaked flatly, Farah gave a small nod that told her she knew this all too well. "Where's…".

"Tracey? Having kittens in the Common Room looking for you", looking around Farah inclined her head to the door while she poured some Coffee, "speaking of".

The missing three came gingerly walking into the Hall and made an uneven B line for them both on spotting the girls. Pansy almost failed to notice that one of the three did not seem to walk as unsteady as the others.

As they approached Pansy gave Tracey an obvious signal to sit next to her on her right. But their first priority seemed to be firing questions at her. She hissed at them all, shaking her fingers at them like annoying flies telling them to hush.

"No no", Pansy hissed at Harrier as she made to sit by Farah, "here, sit here!", she waved to her other side, a hand clutching her own head for support.

Harrier gave her a look that could even put the fear into Pansy's former self, whether as their leader or just being ordered in general, she looked like she was about to correct the girl when she wavered and took to the seat in lou of her legs giving out.

"Where the hell…", Tracey began.

"I've been here…obviously", Pansy, still clutching her eyes lifting her cup to her lips, abandoned it, dropping it back in the saucer. "You kicking the Pure Blood out of me, Greenarse snoring to wake the Gods or the Universes' mission to effect a projectile vomiting from me today, take your pick but there was no way I was staying in that bed for you to wake up".

Tracey made a face, opened her mouth to argue, grunted, then snatched up the coffee pot in front of her. Pouring herself a cup she placed it in a saucer neatly then dropped her head to the table, hiding under her arms.

Harrier, Tracey, Farah and Pansy all sat with dead eyes until a certain amount of scraping and clattering of dishes and cutlery made them look up to where Liza was filling her plate with eggs on toast.

"How on earth are you even looking at food right now", Pansy said with repulsion.

Harrier's head was back to the table, pillowed by her arms. "That's right", she grunted unflatteringly, "She don't know". Harrier, not having the energy to engage properly, jabbed her finger into Pansy's shoulder then pointed it at Liza, "she'za Banshee Hag…or summ'et".

Liza rolled her eyes from Harrier and looked at Pansy, "not quite, I'm part Bansherra. Means one of my great grandmothers was one. Their a Banshee that retains their will and mind and doesn't turn feral. Some mated with Muggle and Wizardkind and…"She waved her hands over herself, "Voilà!"

Pansy knew somewhere inside she was fascinated and impressed by this revelation, but in her current state she continued to stare at Liza with gaunt, dead eyes. "And…?"

Liza chuckled knowing they were all in bits, "well other than the fabulous green skin that works if you know how to use it, the fact that I can knock a songbird out of the air with a well-aimed scream and nails as hard as iron, I can also metabolise much quicker and stronger than you". She smiled pleasantly, "means I look like this and you lot feel like sh…Crap!" she corrected.

"Congratulations", Pansy heaved, prompting a forced laugh from the others.

"Liz…", Harrier groaned, her face hidden.

"Yes love?"

"Pleezz shut up nd do the thing", Harriers words, as with the others, beginning to devolve into cave women like grunts.

"For the love of Merlin", Liza moaned as she eyed the state of them all, "light weights".

She pulled a small vial from her bag and placed four glasses side by side. A wave of her wand and they transfigured into shot glasses with the vile dancing over them, tipping above and adding two simple drops of its content to each. Another wave and the orange juice topped up the glasses the rest of the way. They began to fizz violently, changing from orange in colour to a deep red.

Pansy's hands flew to her mouth, "Gods not again", she moaned.

Harrier gave her another hard shove in her shoulder, "idiot girl!". She, Tracey and Farah scrambled to grab one each and emptied its contents down the hatch as quick as possible. Still taking too long for her liking, Harrier grabbed the last one and slammed it in front of her, "Drink", she ordered.

Seeing how quick the others were so trusting to drink she picked up the small glass and threw it back. From the moment the liquid touched her tongue she felt as though she'd been kicked by a Thestral. Instantly waking her up with the power of a Pepper Up Potion she found the dizzying movement behind her eyes was still there but at least eighty percent less noticeable. As the liquid hit her stomach, she started to feel a wave of relief from the nausea that was threatening her.

"Wow that stuffs insane", Pansy instantly found her voice, "what is it".

"Its been made by someone who can metabolise alcohol in ways you can't, with an understanding of physiology. At this point just be thankful it works and less about what's in it. Especially if you want to carry on not being nauseous.

Pansy pulled a face, not knowing if she should be revolted or not.

"Don't worry, she won't tell us either", Harrier spoke with much more of a smile now. Pansy noticed they all seemed to look better, the difference was night and day.

"So what exactly happened last night", Farah spoke from behind her coffee, finally being able to drink.

"What happened last night….yeah…", Tracey said sticking her tongue out, beaming with glee as she put a hand past Pansy towards Harrier. Pansy saw as Harrier begrudgingly slapped a silver Sickle into Tracey's palm. Tracey winked at Pansy, "Farah bingo, she's too predictable".

"Piss off the pair of you", Farah said not rising to them, "you've used that joke before".

"Well, what did happen last night?" Pansy said interested to know with her memory shot.

Tracey swore, the hand came back across Pansy's face as she put the Sickle back in Harrier's hand. "Told you she would", Harrier returned the hand gesture Tracey was now giving her.

Much like Farah she wasn't rising to their game, whatever their verbal bingo was exactly.

"So, are you going to tell me what happened last night?" Hermione shot them a threatening look.

"What happened last night?"

"Last night?"

Both boys chorused each other, this had been the third time Hermione had asked and they couldn't ignore her much longer. She was already in a prissy mood coming down to breakfast alone after finding both boys had left without her.

"Neither of you are clever enough to play the fool with me", she did her best impression of Ron's mother.

Ron wasn't buying it however, "no body out-fools you Hermione, your number one in that regard". Now the narrowing of her eyes made him second think and he put a hand up in surrender. "Harry, last night?"

Harry shrugged his shoulders from where he was eating, "Quidditch Practice", he mumbled, mouth full of food, "did say".

"See, Quidditch practice Hermione".

She crossed her arms glaring at them both, "so your busted lip", she pointed at Ron, "and your black eye", she pointed at Harry, "they're just, unrelated?"

They both innocently nodded.

"Just some casual training", she said nodding in time with them now, "despite the fact in five years you've never looked like this after training".

"Well we didn't say it was casual", Ron smiled at her.

"Yeah, besides, Ron's very competitive", Harry added evenly.

"Yeah and Harry's only ever trained Seeker under Wood", Ron added, "and were training two different positions at once, it's a bit more hectic".

"Oh I see", Hermione said shortly, "and was it just your face you were using to intercept the ball with or was it Harry's too".

Before he was able to answer Ginny walked past them and stopped, taking in the sight of them both. She eyed them up and down, "you two look like Troll's piss, practice?"

"Practice", they both chimed in unison.

"Yep, that'll do it", Ginny said as she walked off from them towards her friends. As she got behind Hermione she smiled and gave Ron a wink.

"I'm not buying whatever the two of you are selling, but if that's how it is then you keep your secrets". She pointed at Harry and whispered only for them to hear, "and you, don't come crying to me for sympathy when you break something". She lowered her voice further and dead eyed Ron, "I thought you were the one who wanted to try make this work".

Ron laughed, and shouldered into Harry, "bloody hell mate, take her off for a snog will you, behind the one-eyed witch". Hermione instantly sat bolt upright with a jolt of surprise from him. Whether by the shock of how flippantly he spoke about them or the way his face showed no signs that he was bothered by the idea of them both.

After eyeing Ron as he went back to his porridge, she spoke again after a few minutes. "So…", they both looked up from there food, "you really are battered from practice?"

"The penny drops", Harry sighed.

"The what?"

"Never mind", Harry ignored him, "we promise we'll try to be less…full on, next time. But I've got to fight for my position, he's got to show off that he's the best choice for his". Ron nodded at her encouragingly, Harry felt he was pushing it a bit.

"Boys!" she whined as she poured herself Tea, "if you will play your daft games".

Ron looked like he was going to argue that point with her but caught Harry's subtle headshake. Harry was right though; they'd successfully pulled the wool over her eyes and that was enough.

But Ron didn't have Hermione on his mind, despite his repulsion to her negative thoughts on his beloved game of Champions. He was continuing his devotion to not being obvious and turning round to look at the girl who'd been at the forefront of his mind all night. He even had Harry sit with him, so their back was to the Slytherin's in an effort to make it easier to ignore. Hermione's griping had actually been a worthy distraction, but now it seemed that was over, and he continued to try and stop his wondering eyes.

The Gal's went over the evening before, where quite unplanned, there had been an excess of strong potions downed. What had been an apparent intention to Toast their newest sister with a half glass, the searing adrenaline and euphoric high they found themselves on after being caught was enough to make them forget themselves. Pansy for one had been around such exploits with her old group but had always been somewhat of a prude when it came to that sort of thing.

Not feeling pressured and the entire circumstances being a, "oh go on, one more", sort of thing, Pansy apparently showed no signs of shying away. While not something done often, it had occurred a number of times enough for Liza to share her talents for, peppering them up.

There were a few cackles of laughter as they continued remembering what was said the night before, helped on by Liza whose memory was annoyingly astute. Keeping their voices tactically quiet, not wanting to be overheard with what went on in one of the Slytherin study rooms.

"So, I guess we'll never know who our admirers were then", Tracey brought them back to the question that had kicked it all off when they snuck back into the Common Room.

Pansy stilled, not daring to look around from where she was. She remembered that she had known the second the great Oaf had opened his mouth and locked eyes, "posturing fool", she thought, affectionately. She had been sat on the information all night, it had been the driving force in throwing back whatever she was offered to get the embarrassment out of her head. Now however, she purposely had her back to him, even had Harrier and Tracey either side in a hope they'd put her off the idea of peeking at him. Harrier was a smart choice she'd thought, she'd chaperoned her well the other night. Tracey, she really only wanted to sit with her best friend and that was a mistake, she was a soft romantic.

"Speaking of something tall dark and thirst quenching", Farah said slyly, "I see a tall redhead with another tee-shirt too small for his biceps".

Pansy found her eyes snapped to Farah with a cold glare and a thought that said, "argh yes, there you are universe, back again to take the piss".

"Oh yeah", "Liza smiled darkly, her eyes finding Pansy along with everyone else.

"I hate you all".

"You were not quiet with what you'd do to him given half a chance", Liza scoffed into her mug to the delight of the others.

Harrier's hand found her shoulder, "Oh how could I forget", she smiled at her, "you've a real dark streak in you". To Pansy's horror Harrier started to push her into turning, quite the opposite of what she was hoping from her. "Lets see if he'll give you a wave aye?".

There was a chorus of cackling as Harrier tried to lift Pansy's arm to wave at him. Pansy wrenched her hand back and span back round.

"Idiot!", she hissed with venom, "It's him….it was Weasley…and Potter".

"What's him?", Harrier eyed her cautiously.

"Of course it's him, slow on the uptake girl, unless you've another one you wanted to devour", Tracey sneered having a look over her shoulder at the boy.

"It was Weasley and Potter caught us last night", Pansy hissed. This time the universe paid her back with the look on their faces. It was almost worth being seen.

Being nonplussed was an inapt description as they all went from reading Pansy's face to taking in each others.

"Oh, my God's".

"She's joking, right? Pansy tell us your taking the piss".

Harrier had been giving her a hard stare before she deflated, "Oh crap she's serious".

Farah started spluttering, "But…but you said".

"Well I lied, now I don't have half a bottle of mead in my stomach it seems the perfect moment to spill", Pansy said sarcastically.

"That means he's seen my….", Farah's eyes widened.

"Yes well, that makes the both of us, and Potter got a good look too", Pansy snapped.

"Pha!", Tracey caught them all. She had a hand over her mouth as they all eyed her. "HA!" again she honked as her hand it seemed was not able to forcibly contain her merriment. She apparently found the situation much more hilarious than they did.

Tracey still had her hand over her mouth as her eyebrows danced from serious to cracking and back again as she tried to get a hold of herself. Eventually she regressed into a fit of laughter. "P…PPP….Potter….Potter's seen your arse!", she howled as quietly as she could. Harrier and Liza began to fall in step with Tracey, chuckling until they struggled to contain themselves.

Tracey started pointing at Pansy, "and you said last night you wanted Weasley to rip your underwear off", Pansy looked dumbstruck, "well…he's already seen what colour they are!". Pansy couldn't help but blurt out a laugh as she began to get caught in the contagious laughter.

Farah still had a look of horror on her face, now made worse by seeing Pansy giggling along with them. "And you…", she pointed at Farah, "you flashed them both your lacey thong!".

"Her what?", Harrier and Pansy chimed.

"Some new Muggle underwear their all wearing, she showed me the other day". "Now you flashed them to the Gryffindor's", they began pitiful attempts to stifle their growing cackles. Farah now had her head in her arms on the table. She appeared to be crying at first, but they could all see the telltale signs of laughter as her shoulders began to shake and the sounds of her muffled cries of embarrassment were drowned by her contributing pained cackles.