The Shadow She Casts

It is only a physical attraction.

Pansy reminds herself of this every morning when, upon waking, the first thing she sees is Padma's face in her head, and every night when, after closing her eyes, she sees the girl's naked form. Only physical. She is not in love - the very idea is ludicrous. Love is a weakness, a disease, a trap, and Pansy is far too smart to fall into it.

She is not in love with Padma Patil; she lusts after her, and this is normal, this can be blamed on hormones and chemical substances, and so Pansy doesn't mind. It's perfectly understandable; at least a dozen others at Hogwarts start to drool when Padma passes them by, because she is beautiful.

This irritates Pansy to no end. It seems greatly unjust that there should be so much beauty, so much charm, so much radiance poured into a single person, making her stand out like a golden butterfly among drab moths. Pansy hates Padma's perfect body, her voice, the perfect jet curls of her hair, the way she always looks elegant and unruffled no matter what, and especially the way Padma ges under her skin like this. She dreams of destroying the girl irrevocably, burning her to the ground and scattering the ashes so that no one will remember this girl with a body like a Greek marble statue ever lived.

Pansy would like to smash her fist into Padma's lovely face. Dent her, scratch her, bruise her, make her bleed, draw red whorls on her golden skin with a sharp blade. Pull out her hair, break her fragile bones, bring tears to her big, black eyes. Or, alternatively, she would lay Padma down softly before her, caress the skin she dreams of ripping, slip her fingers through the silken hair, distort Padma's features with ecstasy instead of pain. Possess her. Then Padma would be hers, and so would her beauty, and Pansy would have nothing to be jealous of any longer. But it would be a tricky, complicated thing to bring about, if not flat-out impossible. Padma is not only beautiful, she is also intelligent; certainly too intelligent to let herself be possessed by Pansy Parkinson.

In fact, in her six years at Hogwarts, Padma has had no love interest that anyone knew about. She was not a social butterfly like her sisters; she often had been heard saying, "I'm here to study and learn, ye gods, not to date every single student in the school and hope I don't fail my OWLs. Honestly!"

So the potential rewards are more than worth it : to own Padma's body, and envied and admired by the whole student body, and to be forever known as the only one ever to make Padma fall off her perfect-Ravenclaw-student perch.

When she thinks of this, Pansy is hard put not to rub her hands together and cackle with evil glee.

She plans to gather all the information she can about Padma and then formulate a plot to make the girl hers. It should be simple enough; Pansy is not a Slytherin for nothing. She follows Padma around, outside of class hours, stalking her with the expertise of a Slytherin and the grace of a ghost, invisible, inaudible. She is so subtle that no one ever notices. She is very good at finding strategic positions that give her a good view of Padma whilst simultaneously putting her outside the girl's field of vision. She becomes an expert at tracking Padma, and her eyes and ears automatically zoom in on Padma's form and voice when they're both in the same room.

This has been going on for over a month, and Pansy is no closer to her goal than she was on the first day, but she doesn't mind.

This project is worth taking her time for.

* * *

Padma has had Pansy Parkinson on the brain for a while now. She finds the girl intriguing. Pansy spends an unnatural amount of time spouting the pro-Pureblood, anti-Mudblood propaganda she has been learning by rote ever since her childhood, but she seems, to Padma at least, far too intelligent to actually believe any of that, and Padma's seen the looks she used to give Hermione Granger in fifth year. Has she been brainwashed to the point of believing what she says? Does she say those things out of habit, or to feel that she truly belongs with the Slytherins?...

Very intriguing.

Padma wants to know how Pansy thinks.

Padma loves taking things apart, slowly, piece by piece, to see how they work, what makes them tick; she would very much like to analyse Pansy in the same way. She would like to look inside her head, see the electricity sparking in her brain, and finally know how this complex girl named Pansy Parkinson functions.

But Pansy, as Padma already knows, is smart - far too smart to let herself be analysed like that, to give up her secrets and let anyone know where her buttons are and how to push them. Pansy is the type that never lets anyone see what lies underneath her varnished mask. She'll likely take her secrets with her to the grave.

Padma vows not to allow this to happen. It becomes an obsession, a need, a desperate hunger to know Pansy completely - sometimes she even stops understanding herself, but it doesn't matter, all that matters is Pansy's beautifully complex mind, deeper than a well that Padma vows to get to the bottom of, someday.

It's slow, hard word, because Pansy is elusive and has obviously had a lot of practice at hiding her thoughts and feelings. She is always in perfect control of herself and lets almost nothing show through - except, sometimes, a glimmer of passion in her cold eyes, during a conversation, or a twitch at the corner of her mouth when she's trying not to laugh. All in all Padma finds her fascinating, like a particularly bright animal she likes to study - except that Pansy is wild, and dangerous.

Padma would like to walk around with a roll of parchment and a quill, to take notes on Pansy, but that would be too obvious.

Bit by bit she starts looking past Pansy's mind to the body that it inhabits. Pansy is not particularly tall or wide, but she's imposing all the same. The shadow she casts is the longest Padma's ever seen. She is not ugly or even remotely pug-like, as people say she is to hurt her, to get her to stop hurting them. Her pale skin and long black hair make her look a bit like Snow White, except she doesn't have the blood-red mouth; she never wears any makeup and the natural colour of her lips is a pale pink-purple. Her nose is just slightly hooked, and her eyes are a dark olive-green. Padma secretly thinks she's beautiful.

Padma wants to know how Pansy thinks. And also, veryvery deep down, in the corners of her mind she hides even from herself, she wants to know how Pansy kisses.

* * *