The Shadow She Casts

Ten days after her decision to dog Padma's footsteps in order to find a way into her bed, Pansy is faced with a bit of a conundrum.

Should she simply take Padma's maidenhead and leave her, bruised and soiled, the morning after? Or would it be better to take her many times and reveal to her in the end that she'd been played a fool from the very beginning?

It is all a matter of how it will look to the others. Does she want them to think that she's bedded the local goddess and found even her to be beneath her sharp Slytherin standards; or that Padma had given herself, willingly, again and again, to a girl who rejected her and broke her heart?

No matter which of the two she chooses, Pansy will reach her goal; but there is one better than the other, and she has to know which. She will have to consider this seriously.

Choices, Pansy thinks to herself, and grins her wolf-grin. Always choices...

* * *

Ten days have gone by. Ten days during which Padma has barely gotten closer to her goal at all. Pansy is such a wary, skittish girl; Padma doesn't dare approach her for fear Pansy will run from her and never come back. Padma will, eventually, come up with a foolproof plan for talking to her directly; for the time being all she has done is write down all she knows about Pansy from their previous school years. There aren't many. The Padma of years past, never suspecting she would one day be obsessed with Pansy Parkinson, made no effort to remember things about her.

Padma stares at her pathetically short list with tired eyes and wonders what the things written there say about Pansy.

From the outside, has typical Slyth. Attitude. (goal=prove/disprove this). Went to Yule Ball with D.M in fourth year and fifth. Favors Snape above all other Professors. Has never taken Divination. Excels in Arithmancy.

She picks up her quill, dips it in ink and writes : Seems to be a very logical person. She waits for the ink to dry, then puts everything away and crawls wearily into bed. She's bone-tired : it's midnight, and she's been on her feet since six in the morning.

Before she lets herself drift into well-deserved sleep, however, she conjures up the image of Pansy's strangely pretty face. She does this every night. In her little daydream, Pansy's mysterious eyes are suddenly easy to read, and the girl willingly spills all her secrets to Padma, her memories, her random thoughts, her deepest wishes.

This daydream, however, is spinning horribly (wonderfully) out of Padma's control. Pansy's face appears, yes, but her eyes are not clear; they're murkier than ever, in fact they're glazed over; her lips aren't spilling secrets, they're mumbling Padmapadmapadmaohgodyes over and over again - and now Pansy's hands are coming in focus, and the fingers are undoing the buttons on her blouse, and now the blouse is off and Pansy's got nothing on underneath and she's still saying Padmapadmapadma -

Padma twitches and her eyes snap open. She realizes that she's shaking, and tries to stop. "Ohh," she mutters. "I need more sleep. I'm overworked, and my mind is playing tricks on me."

She blows out her candle and closes her eyes resolutely, but it's a long time before she falls asleep; and even sleep her mind betrays her through dreams too vivid to ignore.

* * *

The next morning, Pansy walks past Padma at breakfast, and she instantly notices that the Ravenclaw girl looks pale and exhausted, and haunted somehow; and when she sees Pansy just a few feet away from her, Padma gets a wild, terrified look in her eyes, turns around quickly and fairly runs out of the Great Hall.

Now what was that about? Pansy wonders as she settles down next to Draco at the Slytherin table.