Slytherins Are Sexy

"God Millicent, you're so fat - why don't you just stop eating?"

Pansy is so perfect, so slender with bright, wide eyes and long, thick hair. Pansy is a bitch.

You obstinately place another slice of toast on your plate and slather it with marmalade before turning to face her and biting, hard, into your gooey breakfast. Pansy frowns and hands you a napkin. You wipe the sticky smear of orange from your cheek.

"Slytherins are supposed to be sexy, not sloppy. You look like a cow, a fat cow."

Pansy always wears the stylish robes, the ones people have to special order and custom fit to drape perfectly across a slender shoulder, down a trim waist. You order from the "women's" section of Madame Malkin's schooldays catalogue, robes that are large enough to cover whatever odd bulges an only-growing-outward girl might have. You take another bite of breakfast and try to hide the fact the Pansy's words hurt - that just looking at Pansy hurts.

"You know, you might actually be pretty if you tried a bit."

Pansy has never been very good at comfort, but she can see that you're upset and even if she is a bitch, she's also your best friend. In a sits-by-you-at -meals, takes-your-quills-without-asking, makes-you-do-stuff-for-her sort of way. You think that really, she's only trying to help.

"If you lose all that weight you just might get a husband who doesn't look like Gregory Goyle. Honestly Millie, think of the children."

Pansy, of course, dates the pretty boys. She always has an admirer or two. Or four. She sits at breakfast with Draco's arm draped absently over her shoulder like a fashion accessory.

"Your mother was so pretty, just look at the pictures."

Pansy has a beautiful mother too, but a beautiful mother who isn't dead, leaving her only daughter to be raised by a bull of a father more interested in his strapping young lads than his, unfortunately, equally strapping young lass.

"I'm just saying is all. You might not want to eat quite so much this summer. I'm just saying."

Pansy never 'just says' anything, because Pansy knows that she has the power to make or break you. You listen when Pansy speaks, even if she is a bitch.

"I'll see you next year. Remember what we talked about."

Pansy leaves the train station with her parents - her tall, strong father and her beautiful, slender mother. You sit and wait until an owl finally comes with a note saying, 'couldn't you please just take the Knight Bus, something has come up at work.'

"Why don't you just stop eating?"

Pansy's words ring endlessly, mockingly in your head as you hold on tight to the lurching bus, praying not to lose your lunch, praying to lose your lunch. You run to the toilet and are sick till your vision is blurry and your head woozy from the smell.

"I'm just saying."

Pansy smiles a little, that secret Pansy smile and you find yourself smiling it too as you take a towel and wipe your face.

"You might not want to eat quite so much this summer."

Pansy never eats much either, though you know she makes it look like she does, moving food around her plate - a slight of the hand trick. You practice it on your father at dinner who is too stupid to notice anyway if his only daughter has only picked at her favorite foods - twenty four slices in your tomato eat one leaves twenty three. You smile the little secret Pansy smile.

"You might actually be pretty..."

Pansy is vacationing in France while you stare at yourself in the mirror as if you can watch your body eat itself and your skirts start feeling looser. You tell yourself you're not going to eat another bite of food - what are Slytherins if not ambitious? You retch until you nearly pass out the first time you lose control and binge. You cry, trembling sobs that turn your face blotchy as you stick your finger down your throat and swear you'll never do that again.

"...if you tried a bit."

Pansy always tries - spends an hour every morning to always look her best. And she does. You find the name of her hairdresser and make an appointment, letting her snip, snip, snip away a decade of hair as you starve, starve, starve away a decade of pounds. After a while the euphoria you feel - the power, the control - becomes more important than the hunger, becomes more important than anything.

"Remember what we talked about."

Pansy's words are all you can remember as you binge and purge and starve with a secret little Pansy smile because now you can see your high, elegant cheekbones - just like your mother's. You may never be Pansy, but as you lay sleepless in bed you let your fingers dance over skin, entranced by the bones they find, tracing over and over the finally concave pattern of your hips.

"Slytherins are sexy."

Pansy smiles widely when she sees you step onto the train with your special-order bob in your special-order robes. She laughs a bit as you spin and then send her a little secret Pansy smile. And maybe the others are looking at you with new respect, or maybe it's pity, or maybe it's fear, but you don't care as Pansy leans forward and her breath tickles your ear.

"Isn't this perfect?"

Pansy disappears one day and everyone knows why. The professors just say she's at a Hospital in Surrey, that's she's very ill, but you can hear the students whisper. Oh yes, everyone knows why and you're afraid that they'll take you away too, afraid that they won't. Sometimes when you can't sleep you count your ribs and are just afraid.

"...just stop eating."

Pansy misses graduation and it's hard for you to breathe, but you're used to that - used to the way just pushing yourself out of bed exhausts you now. It's summer again, a slow summer, endlessly dragging like your legs on the floor, your hair on the pillow. Your chest feels tight and you toss weakly, restlessly in bed. You reach up with hands that tremble slightly from the effort and press down on your ribs, trying to relieve the pressure. You end up aimlessly tracing your fingers over the starkly jutting bones, counting the dips and hollows you find so beautiful.

"Slytherins are sexy,"

you whisper to yourself.

"Slytherins are sexy."

And dying doesn't hurt nearly as much as you thought it would - it hurts much, much more.

Pansy is busy in Surrey, explaining to Dr. Lawson about the way of the world.

"There are always certain expectations,"

Pansy says. He nods and scribbles something into a notebook.

"Slytherins are supposed to be sexy."