Pigtails

She was pigtails; big banana blonde curls on each side of her small, delicate face. Her big brown eyes would twinkle, a suppressed mischief longing to emerge. She was beauty and light and the perfect child. I was coarse black hair never reaching past my chin. I was small black eyes, shrewd even at my young age and they would glimmer with the torturous intent I never understood.

Our mothers were high society pure bloods who would leave us to our own devices while they sipped their tea and talked of adult things. We would search the manor, whosever it was that particular afternoon, delighting in a pretend only a five year old could devise. On one such afternoon we stumbled across a small wooden chest in her mother's wardrobe. She was reluctant to open it, warned numerous times against intruding on her mothers possessions. I rolled my jaded eyes and popped open the top, revealing the most delectable assortment of chocolate.

We had that feminine urge towards our uncovered treasure, desiring the bittersweet chunks to melt slowly over our tongues and engulf us in its velvety richness. We dined that afternoon on caramel filled milk chocolate, chocolate covered coconuts, rich blocks of the most addictive dark. I found myself attracted to the lighter, sweeter taste of the milk while she indulged deeply in the bittersweet dark; and we laughed at how opposite our urges were from ourselves.

We were found out when we ate more than our light stomachs could handle and her mother found the open and half empty trunk. Neither of us found much interest in chocolate after.

We stopped our companionship when I took my rightful place as Slytherin queen and she wore the red and gold I always new she would. She would giggle and preen and talk of silly things while I grew deeper into the darkness that had always been a part of me. We scorned each other as inhabitants of our houses tended to do. A curl of the lip, a narrowing of the eye, a downward tilt of the brow. A whispered falsity, imagined proof, crippling gossip.

I became a prefect, and she gladly shied away from it authoritive glean. Maybe that subject she cleaves to gave her some rare glimpse into its future, becoming privy to the knowledge I would not understand until I was too deeply gone.

I found her one night, patrolling the corridors near the kitchen; her head was thrown back, the long banana curls damp with sweat as they cascaded down her back. Her skirt was hiked up to her waist and a boy, that half blood Finnegan, was indulging in her. In her suppressed mischief and twinkling brown eyes that were currently closed; obstructing any hint to whether she was really enjoying herself or no. I narrowed my eyes, angry at her for letting someone so unworthy have her so completely.

"50 points from Gryffindor. I knew you lot were brave, but I didn't think you were stupid enough to shag in a corridor in plain view. What have you become Brown? A common tart, letting any half blood take you?"

She had never backed down, and I was not disappointed when she carefully smothered her skirt and combed her long blonde hair with her delicate fingers. The Finnegan boy was hastily buttoning his pants, a red blush crossing his face fiercely, though whether it was anger or embarrassment I had no idea. He turned to leave, grabbing her hand for her to follow. She shook her head softly. "Go Seamus, Parkinson and I need to have a talk." He eyes me warily, and I narrowed my brows at him threateningly. She rolled her own and gave a dismissing motion with her pale hand. "Don't be silly Seamus; I can take care of myself. Parkinson and I go way back, don't we?" She inclined a delicate blonde eyebrow in my direction and I was forced to sneer, admiring her nerve while hating her all the same. "Ages. I thought she told you to get lost half blood? Now leave us." The boy nodded, still unsure, and watched us closely until he made his way down the hall. She turned to me, the mischief suppressed in her twinkling brown eyes. "I'm famished. I swear pretending to enjoy it takes more energy than it being done properly. Care to join me in the kitchen?"

She had grown up, though I never realized it. Her crumpled robes clung to curves she never possessed at five, and the only time I had heard her voice that breathy was after racing furiously across field and over glen. So I nodded my agreement and turned to follow her into the kitchen.

The house elves were all sleeping in this dead of night, and she hunted around before coming upon a bowl of chocolate mousse. She could not seem to discover any utensils, but shrugged and put the bowl down anyways; dipping a graceful finger into the fluffy chocolate and lapping it clean with a pale pink tongue, her eyes closing happily.

"Do you remember, Pansy? When we found that box of chocolate in my mother's room? We ate and ate till our stomachs could scarcely hold the weight of our binge." She continued dipping and lapping, lazily swirling and eagerly sucking, as if the entire world were contained on the mousse covered finger. I nodded wordlessly, unaware of when she became so obviously aware. Her brown eyes darkened and she held out a chocolate covered finger towards me. "Here, try it. It's quite delicious."

And it is delicious, but it isn't the fluffy chocolate which entrances me, it is the smoothness of the skin beneath it, the acidic taste of her freshly painted nails. When I finish sucking the mousse from her finger, she traces it softly against my lips, saliva colored sticky sweet. She is full of romance and caresses, while I have always been brick walls and one night stands. I tangle my own unpainted finger tips into her tangled blonde curls, roughly dragging her face towards mine. Her pale pink tongue is eager and her mouth so velvety with the chocolate remains. She moans into me and I feel her delicate bones become putty in my hand. She is mine to mold and create, and she will follow me over hill and dale and into hell if I so breathed the words. We are five and she is pigtails and frilly robes and I am dark as I have always been.