Those Wrong, Yet it's Right, Things

Chapter 14

Once the game is over, the king and the pawn go back in the same box.

~Anonymous

Pansy pulled back less then a second into the kiss. Reaching out, she slapped Harry across the face for good measure before gathering up her things--a little dazed--and scrambling out the door.

Harry watched her go, done trying to make her stay. Besides, he was still dumbfounded by what he had done. Had he really just kissed Pansy Parkinson?

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The next Order meeting was held the next night, Monday night, after dinner. Pansy sat as far away from Harry as she could, refusing to meet his eyes. She'd been up all last night and distracted all today before she had reached a decision: this whole thing with Harry Potter had to stop now.

Dumbledore inquired her opinion on several topics, and Pansy was glad to see her input was readily accepted. It was clear that they had needed new thinking in the group; Pansy had become their breath of fresh air.

Afterwards, Pansy found herself in a conversation with the devilish Charlie Weasley. Sometime in the middle of polite chatter, Charlie decided to wander onto heavier topics with the girl.

"What's with you and Harry?" He had said the phrase so casually and followed it by a small sip of water from the glass he was holding, that it took a moment for the words' true meaning to sink in.

"What do you mean?" Pansy asked, suspicious that Potter might have said something. Bringing her sharp blue gaze the good foot to meet Charlie's laughing eyes, she immediately jumped into Slytherin mode, her eyes narrowing and her toe tapping itself impatiently on the floor.

Charlie just shrugged carelessly. "Everyone else is oblivious, don't worry."

Glaring at the tall, gangly redhead, Pansy secretly vowed that she would never to talk to a Weasley again. "Nothing's going on, so I have nothing to be worried about," she answered briskly.

"I know you and Harry are two completely different people, and frankly I can't figure out why whatever you two have going on doesn't bother me." Charlie took another sip of his water before placing it on the edge of Dumbledore's cluttered desk and running his hand down his shirt in an attempt to smooth out some busy wrinkles. When he looked back up at the shapely blonde he nearly laughed when he saw her glaring daggers at him. Surely she wouldn't be so upset over nothing?

"I have to tell you Pansy, even heroes are lonely."

She let out a frustrated huff and crossed her arms across her chest (being careful not to squish the already small merchandise that lie there) and retorted, "Nothing is going on with us. We've had a few very disturbing run-ins, that's all." It was an unarguable fact--she made that very clear.

Charlie nodded like he understood, but brought his hand up to his mouth in a slight cough to hide his smile. Pansy glared at him again and strode, seething, out of the room, thanking Dumbledore for the wonderful meeting on the way.

Shortly after starting own the dark, damp, stone hallway she heard clumsy footsteps behind her and the glow on the wall beside her flickered. Pansy knew he would follow her. Now who's predictable?

"What do you want, Potter?" she snapped bitterly, not bothering to turn around, but did unconsciously lead them down an often abandoned hallway.

"To apologize for yesterday." Pansy spun, stopping him in his tracks, and scrutinized him.

Finally, she nodded. "Apology accepted for acting like a complete idiot."

Harry lazily crossed his arms to imitate her and smirked at her response. "I'm not apologizing for anything I said, only what I did."

"Let's make this less painful for the two of us, Harry. We aren't allowed to have feelings for each other, and despite both of our obvious moments of weakness,"--here she spat out weakness like it was the most vile thing on Earth (which for Slytherins is probably true)--"we don't have any. Let's just try to keep our future conversations on nothing more then a sociable, polite level and avoid all other contact to risk complicating things." Her stomach was doing those somersaults again.

"You never stop do you?"

"You nearly sound intelligent, Potter, yet you make no sense." Frustrated, she uncrossed her arms and clenched her fists unnoticeably at her side in the folds of her dark black robe. The light from a nearby burning torch reflected off her prefect badge, sitting comfortably near her Slytherin patch, tauntingly reminding Harry.

"Why are you always pretending? Don't you ever get sick of it?"

Pansy caught his gaze and bore into his eyes. "Don't you?"

His brow furrowed and he tilted his head up slightly. In a confused voice he asked "what?"

"Playing everybody's hero all the time. Being the perfect little Gryffindor." Smirking, she took a step closer. "I know there's a part inside you that calls to the Dark Side. I know the powers Vol--Voldemort left you with and I know you can feel the surge of greatness sometimes. There are days where you get fed up with your bickering friends and your fairy-tale life at Hogwarts. Why do you pretend, Potter? Why do you hide the darkness within you?

"I know why. You're afraid if you show any sign of your inner Slytherin, any interest in using the Dark Arts instead of just defending them, you won't be their perfect hero anymore. You'll be a monster, just like one of us. We've all got a little evil inside, Harry; that feeling in our gut, that longing to do something dangerous, something wrong just once.

"I may be helping your precious Order, but that doesn't change who I am. I'm still a Slytherin, still a prejudice pureblood, still a stuck-up snob. But at least I know who I am. Do you?"

"Stop." It was the most menacing word that would ever leave Harry Potter, the harshest command he would ever give. "You don't know anything about me."

Daring another step towards him, she stood on her tiptoes so she was eye-level with him. Daringly, she responded with confidence, "you wouldn't be this upset if it wasn't true."

Not satisfying her with an answer, Harry changed the topic. "That's not all you are."

It was Pansy's turned to be confused. "What?"

"A pureblood, stuck-up, snob. I'll admit you are"--she glared a little at this and Harry shrugged--"but that's not all you are. You're smart, though you hide it, you sometimes care, though you try hard not to. You hate your life, though you go around making everyone else think yours is the life to have. And mostly, Pansy, you hate who you are, but to hide that fact from yourself, you go around making others feel worse, putting them down, and telling them who they are isn't good enough."

Pansy retreated a step and avoided Harry's eye contact. However, Harry wanted to make his final point very clear, and he reached out and grabbed her chin, forcing her to look at him. "Now who's pretending?"

Regaining her composure, she pulled her head stubbornly from his grasp and stepped just outside of his reach. "You're just jealous of me," she said matter-of-factly.

Harry laughed, sending the flames in the torch next to him kicking madly. "Please, enlighten me, Pansy, why would I be jealous of you?"

Gulping, her cunning mind quickly changed tactics and she smirked her trademark smirk. "Maybe it's not so much me you're jealous of, but another Slytherin...say Draco?"

The laughter quickly faded from Harry's eyes and he said blankly, "Why would I be jealous of Malfoy?"

"Because for a second, just one second, he had me,"--she reached out and ran her pointer finger down Harry's chest before pushing him lightly backwards, licking her lips as she did--"and that's a second longer than you."

Harry effectively hid any reaction and shrugged. "Fine." He turned and started off down the hallway, for once leaving her in his wake.

Her mouth dropped slightly at the fact that he'd just walked away from her, but she quickly closed it, pursing her lips.

"Oy!" she called out to him a moment later. He stopped and turned. "Did you find one of my papers last night? I left it in the tower."

"Yeah, I found it. I tossed it, but I remember what it said."

She clicked the toe of her hundred galleon, leather shoes on the stone floor, waiting for him to finish. When he didn't, she asked impatiently, "well, what'd it say then?"

Harry backtracked until he was only a few feet in front of her. "February 28^th, don't be afraid of life-changing events. Take a chance. They'll lead you in unimagined directions. Something or another to do with the alignment of Pluto and the Sun."

"Thank you." The words were forced, habitual politeness.

He turned and stalked off down the hallway again. Pansy slumped against the wall. Life-changing events? Haven't I had enough of those? Wait a tick...today is Febrary 28^th!

After staring at the retreating figure for nearly a minute, Pansy made up her mind right as he turned the corner. She'd be damned if she let the stupid voice of her parents, her voice of reason her entire life, stand in her way again.

Pansy knew from whisperings in the hallway that war was at their doorstep. Even heroes are lonely. Charlie's words wouldn't leave her over-worked mind.

She tore off down the hallway. Tonight there would be no division. No good and evil, no black and white, no Slytherin and Gryffindor; tonight, they were the same. Pansy Parkinson was everything Harry Potter wasn't supposed to want, yet tonight, she was the only thing he needed.

Even heroes are lonely.

She finally caught up with him in an abandoned hallway, wondering why he wasn't heading back to the Gryffindor Tower. Standing in the shadows, his chin resting between his thumb and forefinger like he was lost, the tips of his hair white in the torchlight.

"Harry, wait!" Harry spun around, surprised to hear her voice.

"What do you want?" he demanded, fed up with her little games. His voice was gruff, instead of its calm, usual demeanor. Sighing, she shut out all the voices in her head and focused on the one that for the first time in her life rose above them all: the voice of her (right now wildly beating) heart. (Didn't know she had one of those, did you?)

Pansy hesitated a moment, but only a moment. "I want to stop pretending."