Deep Inside

I often wonder to myself just why life turns out the way it does. Perhaps it's because of the paths we walk, the people we meet or possibly because of the places we live. I wonder; if I had been born anything other than what I am, would I still feel inwardly the way I do?

My name is Pansy Parkinson. I am sixteen years old. I attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

It often occurs to me that I'm not whom I seem to the people who observe me. Their tireless efforts to prove me to be a smug, rotten child have always held no leverage. And yet I am hated. Why? Because I bring it upon myself. I am a Slytherin, a pureblooded child born from a family line completely immersed in magic. I have loyalty to my family, to my blood, to my ancestors who all chose to keep themselves pure and devoid of tainted unmagical concepts.

I was raised in a Parkinson Manor, a beautiful large mansion surrounded by acres of land. My older brother and sister have grown up and graduated from the same prestigious school I now attend. Well, perhaps not as prestigious as it sounds. Hogwarts is in fact a dirty place, filled with unclean children from all over Britain. Oh well, at least none of them have been sorted into my house.

I spend my days like any other student. I attend lessons, I study hard and I enjoy my time with my friends. What few friends a Slytherin can make at least. I share my dorm with two girls, Millicent and Blaise. We know each other well, almost as sisters at times. Though we never get personal, not unless you were to count our conversations concerning our families prestige, oh and boys.

Millicent is rather wide girl, very meaty and to be blatant, not the most desirable of our sex. Blaise is a beautiful creature in my opinion. She has black hair, crystal blue eyes and a charming smile. As for myself, I'm blonde. What's more to say? I often hear rather nasty blonde jokes spouting from that mudblood when she thinks I've walked out of earshot. But I don't mind, I do not care. Personally, I don't care at all if anyone were to find me desirable.

It would be a mundane, useless experience.

My parents always taught me that love was but an emotion, one which one uses when something is right, pure and in order. Love was something I could only be granted if I were true to my roots, true to my heritage, true to my mind. But love had nothing to do with looks. My parents, it does not concern me whether they love me. It is but another mundane and useless thing. Sooner or later I shall graduate Hogwarts and enter the real world. They won't be there to hold my hand.

But Draco will. Oh yes, Draco will because his father says so. Because my father says so. Because it is what is required of us both. Love is but an emotion and I am sure that given time, love can exist between myself and Draco. We have known each other since we were children. We used to visit each others estates, our mothers conversed in the parlous while we would roam the castle or grounds looking for anything of excitement to do. Even then he was skilled on a broomstick. I could watch him fly for hours.

His father of course had not taught him, he did not have the time. Back then, all I knew about Lucius Malfoy was that he was an important Ministry official and was constantly busy. Draco disliked this. He often confided such small, perhaps even at the time petty things in me whilst we roamed the abandoned East Wing of Malfoy Manor. We were close as children, never knowing of our fate. Who knows, perhaps if we had never become so well aquatinted then our parents might never have agreed that we were 'destined' for one another.

'Destined.' That was how my mother had put it. I was raised to believe that Draco and I were meant to be together and as my body and mind matured, I learnt that it was a life sentence. Draco knew this of course, both our families slowly brought the idea to us and we accepted it without so much as blinking. Any action we were to do against it would be worthless, even as children we knew the iron fist that our parents bared.

Draco and I do not speak of it. We know of our fate and we let ourselves slowly and slowly edge more closer towards it each day. I do not know if he will ever truly love me, nor if I could ever truly love him back. I do know that he has changed as of late. That he now follows whatever word his father had ever instructed upon him up to the very last letter. Exact, precise, straightforward. The gleam in his eyes is gone and now all that is left is the shadow of the boy I once knew.

It worries me that he has gone that way. I wonder what my future holds if he should stay that way. Would he become the same hard man that I had witnessed his father to be? Would I be doomed to be the next Narcissa? I merely shrug off these thoughts, for dwelling on them only brings more worries for me.

My father is in Azkaban as we speak, as is Draco's. I do now know how life is treating him, how he fair's with those bloody Aurors surrounding him. The dementors have abandoned Azkaban, which means there is obviously less torture there than there would have been. I do not trust Aurors, those stuck up wizards, they're most probably all past Gryffindors who have too much time on their hands.

I do not trust Gryffindors. Ravenclaw's and Hufflepuff's are almost as bad. They're always looking for some way to disrespect my house, to cheer on those stupid Gryffindor's who seem to have lately gotten the last laugh. Gryffindor, the home of the brave. Or so the hat had said. But I know otherwise. I know better. I know that they are all just weak, large headed prats who feed off the attention they're given.

The lowly worms.

I do not care for anyone other than those within my house. I do not care for the people in the world who hate and despise me simply because of my family name. I care only for that which is just, true and pure.

As I sit here in the Slytherin common room, the fireplace in front of me crackling with dark glowing embers, I know who I am. I know my purpose. Many people in the world spend a lifetime trying to figure out why they exist, why they were born, why they will die. But I know it all already. From the moment I could talk, I was ordered to listen and from those words I learnt my future and everything it would ever entail. I am Pansy Parkinson. I am fifteen years old. I attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

I am alone. I am darkness. And I am but a shadow in a sea of many.

Pansy sighed, allowing her quill to sit on her parchment for a moment as she reread the words in front of her. Her eyes glistened softly with unshed tears as each word resounded in her head like a loud echo. And she slowly rolled up the parchment, poured a small but significant amount of wax on the opening and stamped on it her family's custom ring. She stared at the symbol for a moment, her eyes tracing over the long weaving snake, the empty skull and the large 'P' printed in the center.

"Pansy" Draco's voice echoed through the empty common room. It was far too early in the morning for anyone to be awake. Pansy didn't turn around, instead she kept her eyes on the parchment in front of her.

"What are you doing up?" he questioned softly and he strode over to her side, sitting on the chair beside her and glancing back and forth between the parchment she held and her sorrow filled face. She searched his eyes for that same familiar feeling, the same one she had remembered once more when she had written about him just minutes ago. The same hidden, mischievous glint in his eye that signaled that he was still her Draco.

She saw nothing.

Instead she leant forwards towards the fire, holding out to it the piece of parchment and watched as the dark glowing embers consumed it. She let go of it and it fell into the fireplace, no more now that ashes and dust. Pansy looked back over to Draco, his eyes were questioning but she ignored them. Instead she leant over and placed a small, tender kiss on his lips.

"It's nothing of importance"