Game of Emotion

It was all just a huge game of seduction.

Pansy knew very well that the first one out of her and Harry (Potter!) to give in and truly feel it (or at least admit something to that effect) would lose. Who knew what was in store for the loser?

Whatever it was, Pansy was determined that it would not be her.

Besides, sometimes Potter seemed just a teensy bit... vulnerable when she wrapped herself around him like a cat... or a snake. She personally liked to think that she reminded him of a python, closing in and not letting go anytime soon.

The rumour mill was working overtime in relation to her and Potter.

Why, yesterday she had heard multiple accounts of the few kisses he had stolen in the gardens the week before. To hear the younger children tell it they had apparently been having hot raunchy sex in front of (or possibly in) the Lake during which Professor Snape had walked in on them as he bathed by the light of the moon.

As if.

Well okay, she was certain that she had not had hot raunchy sex, as that was not exactly something that you forgot (or at least, you didn't if you were Pansy Parkinson. She really could not account for her roommate Blaise Zabini), but she couldn't confirm or deny the Snape bathing by the moon thing. No matter how disturbing it sounded.

Regardless of what all those small minded members of the grapevine thought, Pansy was not going to be an easy mark for Harry. Just another notch on the proverbial bedpost.

Oh no, if she was going down, she was going to pull him straight down with her...

After she won, of course.

Interestingly enough there was another rumour running rampant at the moment. One that did not involve Harry or Pansy.

It did however, involve some of their friends.

Hermione and Draco (according to an extremely jealous ex-friend and enemy respectively) were having some sort of torrid love affair and flagrantly disobeying house loyalty rules. To hear Ron tell it, it had been that and not the fact that he had made wild accusations with no basis whatsoever, that had broken up his friendship with Hermione.

Of course, Pansy did not give much credence to that particular rumour. Weasley was so jealous he couldn't see straight.

It was sad really, that he begrudged his supposed best friend the right to play strange seduction games at all hours with other teenagers.

And his other best friend the right to have any other friends, period.

Gryffindors. If she lived to be a thousand, she would still never understand them.

Back to Potter. She should really try to set a date to put her plan into action.

What would be a suitably flashy event? Something that would just shine in everyone's memories for a long, long time?

Maybe... the ball?

Yes, perfect.

Potter would never know what hit him. Pansy allowed herself a secretive smile, never noticing the odd shadow in the corner move of its own accord.

*

By Merlin! What was she smiling like that for? Harry felt a slight moment of worry. She had not heard him, had she? Then common sense reasserted itself.

If she had, surely she would have stormed over and pulled him out of his cloak, surely!

Pansy was not the kind of girl to just stand around looking pretty or scared. She was far more proactive and independent, and had she heard him she would have stopped at nothing to make him known.

It was probably a good time to leave now, who knew what else would happen if he hung around.

Little did he know that in his dorm room Ron used the Marauders Map.

Ron had changed, gone was the carefree, sarcastic red head, here was the gossiping snitch.

Honestly, he was worse than Lavender and Parvati.

Or even Blaise.

"Gone to see your girlfriend, Potter?" He asked the Harry dot mockingly, even though he knew he could not hear him. "I'll make you pay for leaving my friendship in the dust for a Slytherin." Of course, Ron being Ron he conveniently forgot that he had been the one to make the friendship end.

That, and of course Pansy and Harry weren't really dating, but how was Ron to know that? He had been spying on them in typical stalker fashion for a few weeks. And unfortunately, the Map did not allow sound.

He thought neither of them had noticed either.

In this he was wrong, not only had both Harry and Pansy observed this rather disturbing trend, Hermione and Draco had noticed in their own observations of their respective bets.

Observing Ron stalking them all was a particularly creepy past time which all four of them were rather enthusiastic about giving up. After all, it's not like they could go to Professor Dumbledore and admit they were playing strange games in order to take out a restraining order against Ron.

Anyway, did they even have restraining orders in the Wizarding World? Harry thought that he had better ask Hermione, for of course she would know such things. Hermione lived her life in the pursuit of knowledge. Preferably knowledge no one else knew, so that she could present it ambiguously in times of peril.

Sometimes it really paid off being the brains of the group.

Harry privately thought that Hermione was rather obsessed with knowing things. When she found out you knew something she didn't, she usually hounded you for information about it until she knew more about the subject than you. The only thing that she did not want information on was Quidditch.

But you got used to it.

Harry silently and invisibly exited the Slytherin Common Room, and went off to find something interesting to eat.

Harry on the other hand, always seemed to be hungry. That, or thinking about food.

But you got used to that too.

*

Hermione's head hurt, and the supply of chocolate had run out.

Draco, it turned out had changed her into her pyjamas before, and now was talking about it at every opportunity.

Oh, he wasn't being obvious or anything, he'd just make little comments, here and there.

How good the colour blue looked on her, how she might want to cut down on lace on her clothing as she did not need it.

And other times he just gave her this look. You know, that look, and it almost, almost turned her to jelly before she remembered what she really thought of him, and the dizziness that really had nothing to do with being sick, disappeared of its own accord.

What made it the worst though, was not that he had seen her in her night things, not that he had seen her vulnerable.

Not even that Ron was spreading laviscious rumours about them both.

She was losing.

And her 'Noble Gryffindor Spirit' refused to let her cheat. In effect, it was her own mind that sabotaged anything she tried to set to her advantage.

Another pain was that she could not talk to anyone about it, because it would cause unwanted problems if Harry or Pansy found out that their respective housemates had placed a bet upon their own bet.

Damn.

When did life get so complicated?

Hermione could tell them, it was when Draco Augustus Malfoy had gotten a whole lot more attractive.

Finally she understood properly why Parvati was still going on about her week long fling with Malfoy, two years after the event.

That was the clincher.

She was sooo doomed.

Her head fell forward onto her desk with an audible thump.

*

Hermione was so doomed.

There was no way that she could beat his extremely magnificent planning, no matter what she said.

And no, that thought had not been the least bit conceited, thanks all the same.

Pansy, it appeared, was planning to seduce Potter on the night of the ball.

Never mind how he knew that. He was Draco Malfoy, he could know anything his heart desired.

One of those perks of being a Malfoy.

Anyway, he had 'arranged' funds to be placed in her personal Gringotts account. Although the goblins generally refused to let anyone take any money out of an account without a key, it was beyond them to refuse to let anyone add to someone else's fortune, even though they did not understand why anyone not of blood relation would wish to.

Humans. Who understood them anyway?

So Pansy could arrange things to her heart's desire (and she dearly loved arranging things), and when she won her little competition with Potter, and Hermione had lost to him...

Well, let's just say that it would get a little more... interesting between the Head Boy and Girl.

Interesting indeed.

He had some pretty fun plans for Miss Hermione Granger, and of course he would carry them out.

After all, Malfoys always kept their word.

Well, that is, unless it was detrimental.

No point in harming himself.

All this sorted, Draco indulged himself in a bit of mental evil laughter.

Back in her study, Hermione shivered for apparently no reason.

Now, Pansy herself was having a brilliant time.

She had informed Harry (Potter, damn it!) that he was going to escort her to the ball, and he had taken it well. Too well.

Silly boy that he was, thought he would be able to get the jump on her at the ball. Of course he did not realise that girls like her were entirely in their element at large, loud parties, which was in essence what a ball was.

She loved balls.

Well, she had to get her dress, make sure that he coordinated with hers... at least he would not pick his own clothing. She was positive that Granger would probably do it for him, and even if she persisted in wearing dark colours most of the time, the Yule Ball in fourth year had proven she had at least some fashion sense.

Personally, Pansy cringed at what Harry would wear, had Hermione never been a part of his life.

Of course, chances were she would have never gotten to play this game with Potter had they never been friends.

It had after all been a type of jealously that led her to this place in her life.

To that wall to watch him leave.

To let her finally be observed by the boy she had watched from afar for so long...

If this thought kept up, she'd sound like a romance sodden twit Gryffindor!

Back to... jealousy!

Stupid jealousy.

But oh, how much duller her life would be without it.

There was only one tiny problem with her schemes. On the emptying the dorm thing.

Millicent.

Every planner had a problem, and Millicent was hers.

Blaise would be easy to get to leave. She could just tell her straight out that she needed the dorm to herself, and Blaise would go spend the night with her flavour of the week.

Not that she probably wouldn't have done that anyway, but it was nice to know one's dorm mate will do as you ask.

Her other dorm mate would be a bit more annoying, as she had followed Pansy around constantly over the previous weeks.

Did she really deserve two stalkers?!

First Weasley, and now Millie.

Maybe she should set them up together... they could discuss stalkerish tactics. Then again, maybe not. If they joined forces no one's secrets would be save from the scourge of the Grape Vine.

Amused at the road her thoughts had taken before shaking them off, Pansy finally came to her conclusion.

She wouldn't be able to use her dorm, and obviously not his.

So where could they go?

She'd have to ask Blaise.

Honestly, that girl knew all the good places to go for privacy.

Even with all the things going on in her mind, Pansy spared one last thought.

"What on Earth is up with Draco and that Granger??!"

Thankfully though, neither of her stalkers were within earshot.

Thank the Gods for small mercies.

*

She must have been bewitched.

That was the only thought running through Ron's obsessed mind.

Never mind the fact that he had consistently treated her badly for six years until Hermione finally retaliated properly in seventh. Six years of mental anguish, and he was surprised when she kicked him out of her life?

Ginny meanwhile, was beginning to worry, really worry about the mental state of her youngest elder brother. He was well and truly stuck in a mental loop revolving around his two former best friends.

Even if it had been his own fault, his actions were beginning to border on obsessive!

No, scratch that.

His actions were awfully obsessive.

Idly, Ginny wondered if she could put up 'missing personality' signs all over the school, kind of like missing person signs? After all, Ron was acting like he had had a complete personality revamp.

Ginny knew that men went through a mid-life crisis at some point it their lives, but this was just a bit too early.

By, oh, about forty years.

She let out a sigh, and wondered if she could discretely owl her mother to see if Fred and George had developed any mood enhancers recently, and sent them to Ron. It would certainly explain his... odd behaviours.

Okay, so she could use a considerably stronger word to describe it, but he was sick, and she would not make fun of him.

She wouldn't.

She couldn't!

He was her brother, for goodness sakes!

Oh Merlin, this was going to be hard.

*

Severus Snape was vaguely disturbed. Of course, he was always vaguely disturbed, given the fact that he had first agreed to be a Death Eater, and later agreed to spy on them.

No, now he was disturbed because he's heard one of his Slytherins was hanging around with Potter of all people.

That, and the fact that there was a rumour circulating that involved him and moonlight.

Of course he took points off the Hufflepuffs who had unwittingly mentioned it whilst he was lurking (no, he did not lurk, Filch lurked. Um... standing artfully?) around the corner in the hopes of finding students disobeying the rules.

There was always someone. And hopefully it was Potter.

He was bored, so sue him.

Still, what was with all these bloody stupid rumours floating around at the moment?

If he got his hands on the people who were spreading them, then would he would kill them until they were sorry.

Hang on... damn. Firstly, that did not technically make sense. That, and teachers were not technically supposed to kill people.

Albus did not like it when the faculty killed students, and he was incredibly irritating when angry.

He'd just have to see what happened, and keep the death toll down.

Well, unless it was Gryffindors.

Stupid Gryffindors.

*

Although Hermione was terribly depressed at her apparent revelation, she suddenly stopped in her tracks of misery.

What exactly was she doing?

Giving in?! To Draco Malfoy no less?

This was just not acceptable!

She refused to be a weak female who fell at Malfoy's charms!

What she needed was a plan, a good plan.

And she knew how to get it.

Was it not a wonderful day for a reconnaissance stroll under Harry's invisibility cloak?