The Shadow She Casts

Padma turns around, too slowly, and sees Pansy with her back against the door, arms crossed over her chest, a very self-satisfied grin on her face. Her stomach slowly sinks.

"You locked the door, didn't you," she says wearily.

"Yes," Pansy admits easily. "I did." And her grin widens, almost to the point of making her look completely demented, with bloodless, saliva-slickened lips and sharp teeth looking ready to bite.

"Why?"

The tremor in Padma's voice isn't lost on Pansy. So she's afraid of me, she thinks. Good. "I didn't want us to be interrupted."

"Interrupted?..." Padma scrutinizes Pansy's beautiful, impassive face. The look in those murky eyes is frightening. Her instincts scream at her that she's in a trap and needs to get out now. "What exactly do you mean?"

"Well," says Pansy slowly, "anyone could come in and... ah, disturb our conversation." She smiles, in what would be a reassuring way if only her eyes weren't alight with malice.

"Where's the key?" Pansy doesn't answer, so she says it again, voice tremulous and high-pitched with fear. "Where's the key?"

Pansy raises her arm. Padma has a split-second's glimpse of something small and silver glinting in her hand, before Pansy moves and the glinting thing drops down the front of her robes. It does not fall down to the floor.

Pansy chuckles, deep in her throat.

Padma's heart contracts painfully. She stares at her captor, looking just like a small cornered animal whose hunter's hand is slowly reaching for it - and then, so abruptly that her muscles cry out in protest, she bolts toward the door, grabs the doorknob and pulls on it wildly, with the vigour of someone ringing in the New Year. It jangles loudly, but the door stays inexorably locked.

"Let me out!" She pounds on the door with her fists. Splinters drive into her skin, but she doesn't stop. She mustn't want the Slytherins to hear me. Maybe if I make enough noise...

Her fingers start bleeding where the splinters pierced them.

"Let me out!"

Pansy moves toward her, places her hands around her waist - gently at first, then digging into the skin with her fingers. "Padma," she says warningly, and the girl stops. Pansy's touch and voice combine to make a more effective leash than any rope or chain she could have brought out.

Padma turns around slowly to face her, leaning against the door wearily. "Why?" she asks.

Pansy brings her face closer to Padma's, fits her lips just underneath the curve of Padma's jaw, near her ear, so that when she speaks, her words slip down Padma's neck. "Don't pretend you don't want this," she says. "Don't pretend you didn't come here willingly."

Padma trembles.

"In fact, as I seem to remember it, you were very eager. You aren't anymore?" Pansy's hand slides down Padma's waist, slips underneath her skirt and up her thighs, and her fingers rub slowly against the cotton of Padma's knickers. "Oh, but you are." She laughs. "You're as wet as the ocean, Patil. You can't exactly say you don't want me."

Padma whimpers, first with fear, then disappointment when Pansy's hand returns to her waist. "I do want you," she says simply.

The other girl cocks her head. There's a mean, expectant smile playing about her lips. "Then kiss me."

Every line in Pansy's body is taut with desire, and it doesn't even occur to Padma to deny her what she wants. She tilts her neck and brushes her lips across Pansy's mouth, getting halfway across before Pansy, with a frustrated noise, shoves her against the door and parts her lips with much more roughness than Padma would ever dream of using.

She can feel Pansy's fingers bruising her shoulders, and the doorknob is digging into her back in a very unpleasant way, but she doesn't care. The only things she's truly aware of are Pansy's body pressing into hers, and Pansy's mouth, which is doing things that are making her legs turn to water.

When Pansy wraps an arm around her neck to pull her even closer, Padma thinks this must be completion, and immediately chides herself for it. This is perhaps as far from completion as she's ever been; this is losing herself, perhaps irretrievably, into a girl who was only supposed to be an experiment. What's left of her subtle, calculating Ravenclaw mind is screaming at her that she should be frightened, but it's easy to ignore.

Pansy pulls away. She looks softer, somehow, than she did before the kiss.

"Hey," Padma murmurs. "Come back here - " and she tries to pull Pansy back to her.

Pansy dodges and pulls Padma away from the door; then pushes her down on the bed and climbs on top of her, grabbing both her wrists in one hand.

"Hey," says Padma again, blushing, but she can't move; she's pinned.

Pansy leans down until their noses are touching, grins her wolf-grin, and says, "I think I'll enjoy playing with you very much, Patil."