Pariah

Pariah, Chapter Seven

Halloween

When I was little I, like, worshipped Halloween. And truthfully, part of me still does. 'Cause it's your one chance all year to be someone else. - Angela, "My So-Called Life"

From ghoulies to ghosties to long-legetty beasties

and things that go bump in the night,

good Lord deliver us!

It was amazing, really. At least Pansy thought so. She was utterly astounded by the realization that now that she wasn't with Draco, she hadn't been touched. It was such a simple thing, really, human contact. It used to be that her hand was held everyday, her lips were kissed, her cheek stroked, her body hugged to his body. The sensation of touch tethered her to Draco, to their relationship, even to their love (yes, she said it), and now that it was over, and she was alone, she was drifting. It was an aching sort of drift. He had left her, had left her and her skin unoccupied, keening for contact like a plant's leaves reach for sunlight, and it was so simple and basic that she wondered how she hadn't understood it sooner, hadn't even thought of it at all (sure she missed him--some parts of him more than others, admittedly) until Ron Weasley.

And so Pansy watched Ron's hands. Watched them graze his forehead, just above his eyebrow, as he brushed away a stray red lock. Watched them rest on his knee, palm domed and fingers sometimes tapping out some rhythm to some song Pansy imagined he had in his head. Watched them touch his chin, touch his neck, touch his lips, slide along the arms of the chair in Dumbledore's office. She imagined those hands back on her spine, curling around the curve of her waist, fingertips on hip bones and thumbs making slow circles on the small of her back. She imagined those hands doing many things that just ought not be imagined, which led to thoughts of her hands doing things that just ought not be imagined, which led to more unimaginable thoughts which left her quite flushed and ready to return to the Slytherin common room and slip into her nice baggy, flannel pajama pants and have a good long rest.

Yes, Pansy Parkinson was definitely not feeling much like herself by the time Snape stepped through the door of Dumbledore's office to announce that he had caught the black-cloaked figure, that it had, indeed, been Michael Corner of Ravenclaw, and that he had been escorted back to Ravenclaw tower with the understanding that Snape would be speaking to Professor Flitwick about this first thing in the morning--well, after Flitwick had his coffee, as he was quite incoherent before then. Dumbledore excused them--despite Snape's protest--without punishment, and Pansy watched Ron's jaw twitch high up along the side of his cheek, and she watched Ron rise out of his chair. Following him from the room, she ducked under his arm as he held the door open for her, and she watched him withdraw a crudely wrapped package from the waistband of his jeans. And she watched his lips move as he asked her why she had been in the Owlery anyway.

"I had a parcel to send," Pansy said as if it was perfectly natural thing to twitch at the way the tip of Ron's tongue hit the back of his teeth when he said "the".

"Are you still going to send it?" Ron asked. The stairs were winding down, closer to the landing. Ron was turning the package, which was wrapped in what appeared to be that morning's Daily Prophet, over and over in his hands. Hands.

Pansy shifted her weight from foot to foot and blinked hard.

"Because I could take it for you. I've got the cloak, it wouldn't be a problem." The words came quickly out of his mouth, as if they'd spoil if he took too long to say them.

"Okay," Pansy said, half-turning from him and withdrawing the chocolates from under her jumper. She handed them to Ron, keeping her eyes on the bow, which was quite smashed now.

"Who're these for?" Ron asked curiously.

Pansy had a brief internal debate: on the one hand, to tell anyone would be an admission, on the other, he needed to know to send the damn things. She pondered this for a minute before deciding that there was probably no one that he could or would tell that would give a flying fuck one way or the other. "Teeny Nott," she said finally.

"Teeny Nott?" Ron said disbelievingly.

Pansy nodded. "It's... a long story."

"And how does it involve chocolates?" Ron was tugging at the ribbon, looking at the lid of the box.

"Let's just say it's a little thank you present for taking Draco off my hands," Pansy said with a smirk, and then she leaned in and whispered, "I wouldn't want to eat those if I were you, Weasley."

"Oh," Ron said, lowering the box from his face, and then, "OH! Right. Gotcha."

They were at the second floor now, and Ron stepped into the hall, putting the box of chocolates and the crudely wrapped package in one hand, running the other through his hair and looking both ways down the corridor. "Reckon you'll be all right going back to the dungeons?"

There was something so sincerely Gryffindor about that, it made Pansy laugh. "Yes. There aren't monsters down there, you know."

"Have you seen Crabbe and Goyle?" Ron asked, his face twisted with incredulity.

"Fair point. But honestly, I'll be fine." Pansy turned down the hall and began to walk in the opposite direction to the dungeons.

"It's late, though," Ron reminded.

"Yes," Pansy said over her shoulder.

"And dark!"

Pansy turned around to face him, but kept walking backwards. "Weasley?"

"Yeah?" His face brightened a bit, something hopeful and expectant.

"Shove off. I'm a big girl."

His face fell, and then she grinned at him, and he grinned back. "See you tomorrow then, Pansy," he said, turning in the direction of the Owlery.

Pansy paused. "What did you say?"

"Er, see you tomorrow?" he said. He was fumbling with the Invisibility Cloak that was wadded under his jumper, and it struck Pansy that while most people were naked under their clothes, Ron Weasley was invisible. And for some reason, that seemed horribly unfair.

"See you in class Ron," she said with a smile, feeling light enough to float off to dreams, until she shut her eyes briefly and the image of Ron's hands rose from the blackness, and well, time and tide may wait for no man, but sleep and dreams could wait for her that night.

* * *

Once he was safe in the Owlery, Ron pushed the hood of the cloak back off his face and withdrew the box of chocolates and shook them, gently at first, and then harder. He heard their little paper cups crinkle as they slammed into one another, and Ron was then pretty confident that it wasn't anything too terrible, and he could probably trust Pig to take it. Pig, however, wasn't being very cooperative. He was flapping around like an idiot, and so Ron had to coax one of the school owls down. They were especially displeased about late-night missives, but oh well.

"Don't look at me like that," Ron told a tawny one as he used the package's ribbon to wrap it around the bird's leg, "this is your job." When he was finished, the owl ruffled its feathers and went back to sleep on the roost. He easily got another one to take Hermione's overdue birthday present--a Truth Quill, which they had seen in Diagon Alley and which she had been very excited about. Apparently, it allowed the writer to put down in ink only the truth and nothing but the truth, and Hermione had thought it would be great fun to study with. In retrospect, that should have been a red flag. Anyone whose idea of fun included studying simply wasn't cut out for life with Ron Weasley. Of course, hindsight was 20/20 and could see in the dark, so Ron didn't think it was entirely his fault, after all. Still, he had bought it for Hermione, and so Hermione should have it.

Having secured the second package, Ron threw the Invisibility Cloak back over his face and walked slowly to Gryffindor tower, hands in pockets. It had been a weird night. Between the DA meeting, the Harry and Ginny thing, Michael Corner acting like a freak (he'd have to remember to tell Harry about that), and that thing with Pansy on the stairs, he was ready to call it a night. Of course, he had a little unfinished business to attend to first.

* * *

The next morning at breakfast, Pansy sat on the far end of the Slytherin table with her Charms book propped open in front of her. The thing that she hated most about the DA--other than the obvious fact that it was populated almost entirely with Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs, of course--was that it for some reason caused her to forget things. Things like informal practical Charms examinations, the first of which Flitwick had scheduled for that afternoon.

She wasn't too worried about it, however, seeing as she was tops in Charms and, had it not been for the workload that accompanied being a prefect, she would have been president of the Charms Club that year. So, she wasn't so engrossed in Locator Charms that she didn't notice the flapping of wings and the general stirrings in the Great Hall that announced the arrival of the owl post.

Pansy watched without meaning to seem like she was watching as the owls carrying packages and letters destined for the members of Slytherin House broke off from the group and made their run over the table. She looked for the package of chocolates, but didn't see it. What was dropped in front of Teeny Nott instead was very obviously not a box of chocolates. Indeed, it looked very similar to the newspaper-wrapped parcel Ron Weasley had shoved down the front of his trousers not seven hours previous.

"Oh dear Auntie Enid," Pansy said under her breath as the parcel was delivered and Teeny and her minions spasmed with curiosity. Pansy dropped her quill, sending it flying five feet past the end of the table, and took the opportunity in retrieving it to sneak a look at the Gryffindor table. Sure enough, a tawny owl had landed in front of Hermione Granger with a red box of chocolates tied to its leg. Pansy stared long enough--in shock, confusion, and a mild panic--to catch Ron's equally astonished look. Their eyes locked, then Ron looked at Teeny, and then back to Pansy, and looked to be on the verge of standing up to slap the box out of Hermione's hands when Pansy shook her head and put a finger to her lips briefly, covering the action by running her hand through her hair. Ron got the message and sat back down. Pansy, too, sat back down at the end of the table.

For a brief moment--a very brief moment--she considered snatching the package from Teeny. It seemed so very wrong that Teeny should have whatever it was that was shoved down Ron's pants. On balance, however, there was some ironic justice that instead of whatever that was, Hermione was instead now opening a box of laxative-laced chocolates.

So Pansy pursed her lips and went back to her breakfast, one ear tuned into Teeny bragging over the gift, and saying oh how great Draco was to her, always giving her little things and surprising her at every turn and blah blah blah in her falsetto fairy-bell voice until Pansy was quite sure she was going to vomit. She pushed her plate away, still heaped with scrambled eggs covered in black pepper, gathered her books, and exited the Hall in a very calm manner, catching a glimpse of the flashy black quill Teeny spun in her fingers.

* * *

Ron, meanwhile, thought he was going to die.

"Oh, I'm just so surprised!" Hermione exclaimed as she lifted the lid off the box.

Ron squeezed his eyes shut, but nothing exploded, so he opened them one at a time, first the left, and then the right. He almost sighed in relief as Hermione, smiling like she'd just found out she'd be taking exams twice, put the lid softly back on the box.

"Probably a good idea," Ron said seriously, "you don't know who could have sent them or what could have been done to them." His eyes followed Pansy Parkinson out of the Great Hall. She tossed her bag onto her shoulder as she pushed open the doors, and Ron was a little disappointed that she didn't give him one of her habitual over-the-shoulder smirks as she left. Ron elbowed Harry, who was helping Neville with a Locator Charm. "Don't you agree Harry?"

"What?" Harry said, head snapping up. He looked at Ron, who pointed to the box of chocolates discreetly from behind his orange juice and then gestured in such a way as to communicate that said chocolates were not to be consumed. "Oh, yeah. Dangerous. Chocolates, you know. Lots of people have been getting sick from them lately." Harry nodded quickly and elbowed Ron again.

"Exactly," Ron said, crossing his arms and nodding once more in agreement.

"Like who? Who's been getting sick off chocolates?" Hermione asked suspiciously. "I haven't heard anything of the sort."

"Well..." Ron began, nudging Harry with his knee under the table.

"Susan Bones for starts," Harry said quickly, as Susan Bones got up from the Hufflepuff table with Hannah Abbott.

"Oh, really?" Hermione said, unconvinced.

"Yeah," Ron said, swallowing. "Susan Bones, and, er, some third year she shared them with, and, Dean! Dean was sick just last week. Had the whole dorm up half the night," Ron finished triumphantly. He thought that last bit was quite clever.

Hermione, however, responded by slipping the lid off the chocolates. Then she picked one out, the biggest one of the lot, it looked like, and held it between two fingers and looked at it for a second before her eyes shifted to Ron. "Why don't you want me to eat these chocolates, Ron?"

"I, er... that is to say..." Ron stuttered. He didn't want to say that they were actually not for her and that they were actually the key ingredient to some (no-doubt sinister) scheme of Pansy Parkinson's, but then how would he explain his involvement, and furthermore, Hermione would probably get Pansy into trouble over the whole thing, and Ron really didn't want to get the heat for that. But, he really didn't want Hermione to be the victim of whatever vile thing Pansy had done to those truffles. While Hermione and Harry both surveyed him with raised eyebrows, awaiting anxiously his answer, Ron took a deep breath. "They probably aren't even for you, Hermione. They could be poisoned, cursed, or, at the very least, stale. I wouldn't eat them if I were you. That's all I'm saying."

For a second, it seemed to work. Hermione's hand lowered fractionally, before Neville piped in on the other side of Harry and said, "Nah. You're just jealous."

"Jealous?" Harry said. "Jealous of what?"

"It's not like I'm pining for admirers," Ron said reprovingly.

"No, not jealous of Hermione," Neville said with a sigh. "You get it, don't you?" he added, turning to Hermione.

It took a second for Hermione's eyes to cloud over darkly, and then she fixed Ron with a challenging look. "Is that true, Ron? Are you jealous of whoever is sending me chocolates?"

Ron put his face into the palm of his hand. "No," he muffled into it. What a nightmare, he thought. He didn't look up to see Hermione take the chocolate out of its paper cup, but he heard the distinct crinkle, and he watched between his fingers as Hermione bit into the truffle.

"Mmm," she moaned. "These are delicious." She popped the rest of it into her mouth and chewed luxuriously, finally swallowing it. Then, without a word, she left the table, making a production of fitting the snug lid back onto the box and carrying the chocolates like a waiter at a fancy restaurant would carry a plate of hors d'oevres.

Ron and Harry exchanged a look, and Ron reached around his best friend to sock Neville in the shoulder. "Next time, just stay out of it, Neville."

"Doesn't mean I wasn't right," Neville returned indignantly. "And besides, you shouldn't hit me in my potion stirring arm when there are such things as shall remain unspoken of underway."

Harry snickered, and even Ron had to laugh at Neville's Snape impression. "All right, but I'm holding you accountable."

"Whatever," Neville said with a shrug just as his wand began to vibrate wildly against his glass of orange juice so much that it knocked over. "You don't suppose I'll really need to use that Locator Charm in Auror training, do you?"

"Let's hope not," Harry answered as he vanished the mess.

* * *

She was thinking about freckles while she watched Hannah Abbott, her new table partner in DADA, draw whimsical little hearts inscribed with the initials RW in the margins of her notes on Will Power. She was thinking about freckles and how they were like stars spelled into minute constellations on the side of Ron's face, the side that she could see when he pushed his hair off his face or turned across the aisle to say something to Neville Longbottom. She and Hannah were both stealing glances at him: she with the sharp end of her quill poking into the soft dent of flesh in the middle of her bottom lip, Hannah with her chin perched in the cup of her palm. Pansy, at least, was finding it particularly difficult to concentrate.

Finally, the class ended, and Pansy began to slowly put her books away. She realized she hadn't even turned the page all period since she had opened it to the beginning of the chapter. She was doubled over, slipping her quill back into its pouch, when she heard Hannah say, "Hello, Ron."

Pansy sat up quickly, the blood rushing to her head and her hair all over the place, to find Ron standing next to their table, hands shoved into his pockets. "Hey, Hannah," he said. "I was just wondering if you'd already talked to Susan about Hogsmeade."

"Yes, actually, we were just talking about it this morning," Hannah said, tilting her head to the side so that her blonde ponytail swung a bit. Pansy had the remarkable urge to cut it off, but thought that was perhaps overreacting. "Why do you ask?"

"No reason, really," he looked down at the table where his hand was resting. Pansy's eyes followed his and then flicked up. Their eyes locked for a moment, and then he turned back to Hannah, clearing his throat. "Where are you off to next?"

"Charms. You?" Hannah smiled sweetly. Pansy considered ripping her head off.

"Transfiguration." Ron bit his lip. "Do you want to...?"

"I'd love to," Hannah replied, pulling her bag onto her shoulder. They walked out of the room together, and Hannah ducked under Ron's arm as he held the door open for her.

"Miss Parkinson, class is over," Professor Tonks said from behind the newspaper at her desk.

Pansy snapped out of the trance she was seemingly in. "Right," she said, jamming her DADA text into her bag and yanking it up by the strap. "Right."

* * *

They had spent one hour and forty-one minutes traversing the halls of the castle, and still, Pansy hadn't contributed more than an occasional "hmmm" or "ah" to the conversation. And honestly, Ron couldn't figure out what was up. She hadn't wanted to talk about her defeat of Ginny the previous night at the DA meeting. She hadn't wanted to talk about their DADA homework. She hadn't wanted to talk about the Michael Corner thing. She hadn't seemed to even want to talk about the fact that Hermione, at that very moment, was in the hospital wing with Madam Pomfrey with what could be assumed to be the worst abdominal cramps in the history of the world. He had thought that would have cheered her up for sure.

"So," Ron said, trying yet another topic, "Hannah said the Charms exam wasn't really as hard as she thought it was going to be, which I'm kind of glad for, since I have it tomorrow."

"Mmm," Pansy said, taking an extra long minute to peer down a dark hallway. She had seemed a bit jumpier tonight, maybe on account of the Michael Corner thing.

"You're not worried about Michael Corner are you? Hannah said--"

"No, I'm not worried about Michael Corner. Honestly!" Pansy snapped, glaring briefly at Ron with flames in her eyes, sounding and looking awfully familiar just then.

"All right," Ron announced, stopping. "That's weird."

"What? That I'm not thinking about Michael Corner? Honestly Ron, not every girl thinks about boys all the time," she snapped again, brandishing her wand to light an empty Charms classroom.

"There it is again," Ron said, his voice touching on horrified. It was utterly impossible. Maybe he just brought out the bitch in every girl, or maybe Pansy and Hermione were more alike than he thought. Or maybe he just had that effect on women.

"You better start making sense, Weasley," Pansy said warningly, still not looking at him.

"You sound, just like Hermione," Ron said, raising his voice.

Pansy stopped dead in her tracks, the knob to a Charms classroom half-turned in her left hand as her right hand, holding her lit wand, slowly lowered. Her face was dangerous. "Excuse me?"

Leave it to Pansy fucking Parkinson, Ron thought to himself. "You're acting defensive and treating me like I'm stupid or something," Ron said, screwing his face up into a disgusted sneer, even though every atom of his being was on edge. Standing up to Hermione was one thing; she was a known quantity. Pansy, though, was something else entirely. "And you're otherwise being a bit of a bitch, you know. Showing your true Slytherin colors, are we?"

She held her gaze on him for an uncomfortable amount of time, and he returned it, just as defiantly. Finally, she said, "Don't ever talk to me again, Weasley." Then she turned on her heel, strode down the hallway, and took the steps to the next floor two at a time.

"Smooth," a suit of armor said.

"Shut up," Ron replied.

"Are you going to go after her then?" the suit of armor on the other side of the hallway asked.

"What do you think I am, crazy?" Ron huffed. He swore that if suits of armor could shrug, they both would have done so right now. "And besides, you're just hunks of metal. What do you know about girls?" He set off down the hallway to check the rest of the doors, but not before he heard one of the suits of armor muffle, "More than you, apparently."

* * *

The rest of the week passed rather uneventfully for Pansy. The next evening, true to her request, Ron said nothing at all to her besides a curt "hello" when they met at six and a quick "later" when they went their separate ways at nine. It was all for the best, really. Pansy was sure if she heard one more word about Hannah Abbott, she was seriously going to start pulling her hair out. And then, someone would have to pay.

What was so special about Hannah Abbott anyway? She was pretty enough, sure, but not beautiful. She had nice hair, Pansy gave her that much credit, but it was far too bouncy and it swung unnaturally when it was fashioned into a ponytail. Hannah wasn't really tall or really thin. She certainly wasn't a supermodel. And she was, by all indications, a bit of a twit and obnoxiously perky. Pansy bet that, late at night in the Hufflepuff common room, she must sacrifice goats, because, seriously, whoever was that happy that much of the time had to have a deal on with Satan. There really was just no other way around it.

After a minor amount of investigation (read: stealing Hannah Abbott's notebook from her bag the next DADA class), Pansy had deduced that Hannah was awfully excited about going to Hogsmeade with Ron. Apparently, it was to be a double-date, as Susan was supposed to be going with Harry, and Hannah had written about how lovely it would all be and how they were going to go to the Three Broomsticks and drink Butterbeer, because she knew how much Ron and Harry would enjoy that, and then she was going to write a letter home to her little sister, who was apparently a Muggle, and tell her all about it. "Oh, gag me with a broomstick," Pansy muttered aloud when she read that particular passage as she feasted on a bag of Cockroach Clusters in the insulated environs of her four-poster late Thursday evening.

It had been a horrible evening, actually, and Pansy was reading Hannah's notebook in the hope of picking up her spirits a bit. After dinner, she had followed her classmates down into the dungeons, since she was a prefect and had to be present at the meeting the house was holding to discuss the Annual Post-Halloween Feast Feast.

"This year, I thought we'd do something a little bit different," Draco announced once everyone had quieted down in the common room. He was standing on the ebony coffee table before the mantel, outlined by the orange glow of the fire behind him. His white-blonde hair gleamed almost like a halo, and he had shifted his weight so that he stood with one hip slightly cocked. This was what Pansy called his "Hot Shit" Pose, and he was very prone to doing it in front of crowds. He even walked like that, in that same pose, with the line of his hips exaggerated in his patient, lazy stride that perfectly complimented his bored, lazy drawl. Yes, Draco Malfoy thought he was the Sex God of the Western Hemisphere, and Pansy would have been inclined to agree if the urge to push him backwards into the flames wasn't at that moment so particularly strong. "I find it rather tedious to have the same event year after year, and so should you, I imagine." Draco paused, drawing out the suspense and glancing around his huddled classmates as if daring any one of them to fill the lull in his speech with a response in the negative. He was every bit as dramatic as his father, Pansy knew, after meeting the elder Malfoy Sex God in Diagon Alley the week before the start of fourth year.

"And?" Pansy prompted from her position right in front of him on the creaky black leather sofa.

Draco glanced down at her briefly. "And, I thought this year instead of another boring old Annual Post-Halloween Feast Feast, we should have a Masquerade Banquet instead."

There were gasps, giggles, and awes from nearly everyone in the common room, except Crabbe and Goyle, who looked at each other momentarily confused, and Pansy, who kept her arms crossed over her chest and said, "So the same thing, only with costumes?"

"No, it's not the same thing," Draco said petulantly, crossing his own arms across his chest and staring down at Pansy. "It's a banquet."

"Which is different from a feast how, specifically?"

"Well," Draco said, shifting his weight in such a way that his school robes, which were unbuttoned, fell back around his hips, exposing that wondrous plane where his slim, strong thighs met his slim, strong middle, "for starters, a banquet is more formal--"

"Hence the costumes," Pansy said with a nod, "which just screams 'formal' to me."

Draco rolled his eyes. "Well, there will be banquet tables."

"With sweets dishes, I presume, and maybe we can have a tank to dive for apples?" Pansy suggested helpfully.

"I'd thank you kindly to quit interrupting the Head Boy so that we can all hear what he has to say," Teeny said suddenly from one of the black armchairs flanking the couch.

"I'd thank you kindly if you'd reserve your screechy little voice for speaking to your screechy little friends," Pansy countered.

A low "ooooh" muffled through the crowded common room, and Pansy locked death glares with Teeny. She hated the way she looked so confident. What she wouldn't give to slap that look right off her face. Nothing so clean as magic could adequately express in physical terms the intense loathing Pansy had for that skinny little twat.

"There will be a dessert buffet and a variety of refreshments, including Professor Snape's Secret Sarsaparilla and a make-your-own truffle station," Draco said finally.

"And you've cleared this all with Professor Snape?" Pansy said, letting her glare shift to Draco.

"Teeny and I spoke with him about it last week."

That stung. "You went to Professor Snape without me? When?" Pansy said incredulously. "Have I no authority?"

"The Monday night before last, and you couldn't be found," Draco said, a hint of something dangerous in his voice. At that moment, Pansy knew he knew. Draco always had a way of knowing. She was stupid to underestimate them, to take their lack of displayed interest for ignorance. "And Professor Snape is wholly confident resting the coordination of the event into mine and Teeny's hands."

Pansy couldn't think of an adequate response. Somehow, "I hate you and I hope your privates get gnawed into oblivion by rabid goldfish" just didn't cut it.

"But not to worry," Teeny piped in. "We've got you down to supervise the truffle station, since we know how much you love chocolates."

Pansy looked at her stonily. She had lost this battle. Better to conserve her energy for the next bout.

"Even though we know it is short notice, we've only just got approval from the Headmaster. The event will begin promptly at nine o'clock. Costumes should be a top-secret affair in order to preserve the mystery and excitement of the event. We suggest that any requests for materials to be sent from home be made tonight so that you will have plenty of time tomorrow after classes to organize your attire. And as always, attendance is mandatory. Are there any questions?" Draco's face was alit with the fervor of a general directing his troops, or a Minister handing out directives. Pansy thought the whole thing was utterly cliché and boring, not to mention ridiculous, childish, and perfectly stupid. And she was going to be stuck at the goddamn truffle table all night making sure nobody spiked anything. What did Teeny want her to do, gain three hundred kilos?

Oh, yeah. Probably. The little bitch.

* * *

It was Halloween, and for the seventh year Gryffindor boys, it meant one thing: Whacky Technicolour Freakout! Potion. As such, the top of Gryffindor Tower awoke that morning with the same sort of expectant cheerfulness as if it were Christmas. Except for Ron.

When Ron finally pulled himself from his dreams, the light was streaming in through the tower windows, casting a large rainbow prism on the far wall as it passed through the fumes rising from Dean's trunk, which was currently housing their little side-project. It reminded him very strongly of pictures of his parents he had seen from before Bill was even born. He put his pillow over his head and turned over.

"Ron!" Harry shook his shoulder. "Wake up! We need your help with this last part!"

Very slowly, Ron turned his head and looked at Harry through one very bleary blue eye. "What?"

"We have to add the final ingredient!" Seamus whined.

Ron rolled over the rest of the way. Well, that seemed important enough. The final ingredient was an imprint of a memory from each of them: something guaranteed to put them in a good mood. Supposedly, if they used a memory from everyone and mixed it together it was supposed to help with the overall magical Vibe of the event. Pushing with his elbows, Ron managed to get into a semi-erect position. Neville was kneeling at the foot of Dean's bed, stirring the potion. Every now and again, he'd raise the ladle to his nose and smell it.

"Mmmm," Neville said. "Smells like socks."

Four heads swiveled to stare at Neville, and then at each other.

"It's not going to actually taste like socks, though, is it mate?" Seamus asked, bending over Neville and turning his nose up at the potion.

"That's a touch disgusting," Dean agreed, pulling on his shoes without socks. (He said it was some kind of new fashion statement, or something. Who knew with Dean, anyway?)

Neville only grinned. "Like you've never smelled your own dirty feet before."

Seamus laughed. "I have to smell your feet everyday, Neville, and there's nothing about that I'd especially call appetizing."

"Muscular yet classy. Breathtaking aromas of black licorice, violets, berry and cherry, with light hints of spices and minerals. It's all there in the nose. Full-bodied, with an ultra fine structure and a finish that goes on for minutes. Layers and layers." Neville wafted some of the fumes to his face.

"Really, Neville, it's not Chateau Margaux," Dean admonished.

Four heads swiveled to look at Dean this time.

"What did you just say about my mother?" Seamus asked.

"Was that French?" Harry asked, tilting his head slightly to the side.

"I don't know who she is, but if she smells like your feet, I think I'll take my chances with Neville's potion," Ron said, swinging his legs out of bed.

"It's a wine," Dean said stuffily, pulling the cuffs of his trousers over the tops of his loafers.

"Oh," Seamus said shortly, shrugging.

Ron and Harry exchanged a look.

"Right. So, memories in the WTF," Harry said, expertly changing the subject. Between the lack of socks, the increase in portraitures, and the clove cigarettes he smoked on occasion (while leaning halfway out the dormitory window), over the past few weeks, they were all starting to wonder a bit about Dean.

"Memories in the WTF," Ron repeated, the last syllable breaking off in a yawn as he stretched. They had taken to abbreviating it because they really didn't want Hermione to find out. She was bad enough as it was without having this to lord over their heads. And besides, they all rather doubted she would see the fun in it at all.

"How's this done, anyway?" Seamus asked softly as they all huddled around Dean's open trunk. There was an apprehensive air to the way they all glanced at each other over the swirling fumes, which didn't, actually, smell all that bad.

"I reckon it's not much different from using a Pensieve," Harry muttered.

"Problem being that you are the only one of us who has ever used one," Dean said.

Neville quit stirring the potion and sat back on his knees. "Happy thoughts," he muttered. Then, closing his eyes, he brought his wand up to his temple, and, faced screwed in concentration, rested the tip of the wand into the short brown wisps of hair above his cheekbone.

Ron held his breath and watched as Neville pulled a white stringy, fluidy thing out from his head. It dangled from his wand like a string of snot, and he quickly dropped it into the cauldron, where the color immediately changed to a dingy shade of yellow.

They all looked up from the cauldron, then to Neville, who was grinning. "Behold, the power of positive visualization!"

Next, Seamus put the tip of his wand to his temple, mimicking Neville's actions. He closed his eyes shut tight, but then grinned goofily before pulling away a memory to add to the potion. When Seamus made his contribution, the potion swirled bright, shamrock green before returning, after a moment, to its normal brown-green hue.

Then Dean went, taking all of thirty seconds to find his memory. When he added it, the potion turned a deep shade of violet and he nodded as if to say, "Thought so."

Harry waited for the potion to turn back to brown-green, and then, gave Ron a wistful smile. He kept his green eyes locked on Ron's while he selected and withdrew his memory, carefully dropping it off the end of his wand into the cauldron. The moment Harry's memory touched the surface of the potion, it started glowing, and as it vanished into the mixture, it turned a familiar shade of bright orange: Cannons orange, even.

Ron smiled wide, he couldn't help it. He had his memory picked out before Neville even put his wand to his head. He was thinking about winning the Quidditch Cup his fifth year, about being lifted onto everyone's shoulders, about the crowd singing "Weasley is Our King" (the good version), about the handshakes and the slaps on the back. But then he looked at Harry, and he thought about train rides and Quidditch at the Burrow, about that damn Ford Anglia and every single time they had shared a joke without ever saying it aloud. He thought about Harry in his Weasley jumper and about how he had never wanted another brother until he met Harry, and then, even still, Harry was better than a brother, something new entirely. Without Harry, the Quidditch Cup probably wouldn't have mattered. Well, it would have, but not in the same way. Without Harry, being made a prefect was just another something that his brother's had done before him. No, before Harry, he never had anything new. Harry was his best friend, his best everything.

Quickly, Ron ran through a list of memories of everything he had ever done with Harry. Lots of them were really dark, really spooky, scary, even. But there were some bright ones, some which stood out, some that really just captured the strength of their friendship. He landed on one, finally, a really stupid little one of playing chess in the common room the spring of their fourth year, after the second task. The thing he'd miss the most. He put his wand tip to his temple, looking down at the small hole in Harry's left sock right on the tip of his big toe, withdrew the memory, and let it drop slowly into the cauldron. It swirled Gryffindor red, the color of blood from a deep cut, the color of their Quidditch robes, then changed back to that dull brown-green.

"Now what?" Ron said, clearing his throat and looking away from Harry.

"Now we wait," Neville said, "for nine o'clock."

"What's nine o'clock?" Seamus asked, turning back to his bed and pulling a jumper over his head.

"Miss Prefect has her rounds," Ron said with a grin. "We'll have the run of the place for three hours." He gave Harry a gleeful look. "I can't believe we're actually doing this."

Harry grinned and went about putting on his trainers. "I can hardly wait."

* * *

Something was pulling at the back of Pansy's mind all day. Something very strange was afoot, her intuition was telling her. She kept her eyes peeled all day on the lookout for anything strange, but nothing seemed out of sort. Well, nothing much.

In the flurry of owls arriving at the Slytherin table, laden, no doubt, with costumes for Draco's Fucking Masquerade Buffet, one arrived in front of Pansy, who sat, as always these days, separated from her housemates by several seats. Curious, she unwrapped the package to find two novelty masks made out of heavy paper: one of a pig, and one of a dog. Accompanying the masks was a small note that read, "Had trouble trying to decide which better matched your personality. Am content to let you decide." She glanced down the table, and the only person watching her was Draco, who smirked as he raised his orange juice glass to his lips, his eyes flicking almost instantly back to Daphne, who was sitting across from him, Blaise's arm draped across her shoulders. She was praising Draco on how wonderful the party was going to be that night. Then Draco's attention drifted to Teeny, who had leaned in to point at the entrance to the Great Hall, where at that moment, the Gryffindor Quidditch team had come in, wearing red and gold arm bands over their school robes.

In the lead was Ron as Captain, and on his left side, his star Chaser, Ginny, and on his right, as always, was Harry. Directly behind them were the other Chasers, and bringing up the rear were the Creevey brothers, who were swinging their wands like bats and doing little kicks and turns every few steps. They really were idiots. Ron kept his eyes forward, commandingly leading his team to breakfast, but Harry's eyes briefly searched out his Slytherin opponent, fixing a glare when he found him.

Draco's eyes darkened, and he paused, hand still on his orange juice glass, as the Gryffindor team sat down at their table. Slowly, he stood, letting the tension in the Great Hall become oppressive as everyone quieted, waiting, no doubt, for his reaction. Pansy waited, as did everyone else, but Draco didn't do anything but simply, after a moment, push back from the table, pick up his bag, and walk out of the Hall. The buzz of breakfasters picked up again, slowly, and under the cover of clinking forks and whispered conversation, the rest of the Slytherin team picked up their things and followed. Pansy took this opportunity to slip both the masks into her bag.

At lunch, Pansy hid behind her Arithmancy book, peeking over the top of it every now and again to check on the status of things. Still, nothing too out of the ordinary. Draco had responded to the Gryffindor armbands by passing out thick black leather bracelets, which were really more like wrist cuffs, to everyone in the house. (Of course, Draco himself didn't actually pass them out. Rather, he had it done.) "Slytherin for the Cup," scrolled around the band in alternating green and silver letters. Pansy wore hers with pride. After all, just because she happened to hate everyone in her house did not mean that she wouldn't like to see the Cup returned to Slytherin before her time at Hogwarts was over.

Pansy walked quickly to the Arithmancy corridor after lunch. She had an anxious empty feeling in her stomach like she was being followed, which was quite inevitable at Hogwarts. She was just being silly and paranoid after Draco's pronouncement that Pansy was nowhere to be found last Monday night. As she turned into the Arithmancy corridor, she looked over her shoulder long enough to catch Blaise slink by on his way to wherever he was going, Hermione and Terry Boot right behind him, following Pansy to Professor Vector's class. Trying to push the thought from her mind, she allowed Hermione and Terry to pass her in the doorway, but Pansy stayed behind for another look into the hallway, even though she didn't know what she was looking for. With a furrowed brow, she took her seat in the classroom as the rest of the students filed in. Pansy was still deep in thought, chewing the inside of her cheek, when Draco sat down next to her, bumping her elbow lightly to announce his presence.

Pansy looked up at him, shocked. He didn't say anything, though, just pulled out his books as if it was perfectly natural. Of course, up until this year, they had always shared a table in Arithmancy, beginning in third year. They were the only Slytherins in this class and so it was only natural. In fact, it was in this class that her crush on Draco had blossomed. Pansy looked around at everyone else, more to give herself something other than Draco to look at, but also because she was at a loss as to why Draco would be sitting next to her. All this term, he had been sitting beside Michael Corner.

"What are you doing?" she whispered, but at that moment, Professor Vector cleared her throat, and Draco shushed her. Pansy turned her attention to the front of the class, where Professor Vector was displaying the proof they were to be working on that day. Pansy copied down the problem, ever conscious of the scratch of Draco's black quill as he did the same in the seat next to her.

Halfway through class, while Pansy was working the proof backwards, Draco slid a small scrap of parchment under the corner of her open book. Pansy didn't look up at him, instead, looking from her parchment to her book, slid her hand over the note just as Professor Vector passed their table. Keeping her palm flat, she slid her hand off the edge of the table, cupping the note and bringing it to her lap. She unfolded it slowly, apprehensive of what would be written there.

Inside, there were only two words. I know.

Pansy smirked with the side of her face Draco couldn't see. Glancing to make sure Vector wasn't looking, Pansy hurriedly scribbled, Know what? beneath Draco's words, and, keeping her eyes on Vector, who was crouched down to answer a question from Ernie Macmillan, slowly slid her hand across the table so that it bumped his. His fingers unfurled and she pressed the note into his hand.

After a moment, Draco returned the note. About you and the Weasel.

Pansy bit her bottom lip and replied, Nothing to know.

Draco huffed a little when he read that. Why do you have to be so difficult?

Pansy repressed a chuckle. You always said you liked that about me.

After he read that, he caught her eye briefly before he scribbled, Let's not start that now.

He glanced up to see her reaction, and she playfully stuck out her bottom lip a bit. I can keep a secret if you can. Yes, she was flirting with her ex-boyfriend. Of all the things for which she was sure to go to hell, this one was perhaps the most unnecessary.

"Are you both understanding the prorational effects?" Professor Vector said suddenly behind them.

"Oh yes," Pansy said, dropping the note from her palm into her sleeve.

"You are awfully quiet for discussing the proof," Vector intoned.

"Draco doesn't like to talk too much about his problems," Pansy said cheekily. "At least until he has them all worked out for himself."

Draco looked at Pansy ruefully. "And Pansy never gets them right the first time," he said.

Vector looked from one to the other. "Maybe you two should talk it out. Two minds are better than one." She patted them both lightly on the top of their heads before she made her way to the next table.

Pansy looked at Draco and Draco looked at Pansy. "So..." she said.

"Yes?" he replied, twirling his quill in his hand. Little splatters of ink were falling onto his parchment.

"I never get them right the first time? What does that mean?" Pansy said quietly.

"Well, you don't. You always have to work them backwards before you're convinced you've gotten the wrong answer." Draco touched the end of his quill to his lips, poking his tongue out just enough to wet the very end of the feather. It was one of his little quirks, and it always weakened Pansy just a little. "And I don't like to talk about my problems? Let's try to be more transparent, Miss Parkinson." His lips spread into a veiled grin at the use of the formal address. The first time he had ever really kissed her--up against the Quidditch Shed sixth year--she had called him Mr. Malfoy, and he had called her Miss Parkinson. She had almost forgotten about that.

"What are you on about, Draco?" she whispered, leaning slightly closer to him, feigning like she was looking at his parchment. She breathed in the scent of him, and it was like hearing an old song on the WWN. Like she knew all the words, even though she couldn't remember ever learning them.

He touched the wet end of his quill to her lips. "Why are things with you so impossible?" he whispered. It was a very honest question uttered in a very tender voice.

Pansy let him stroke the quill lightly across her bottom lip twice before she pulled away. "You can't have everything," she said affectionately. "You tend to complicate things like that."

"Do you know me so well?" he asked.

Pansy nodded. "I thought I did."

Draco looked momentarily hurt, and then he turned back to his Arithmancy book. "Where you've got 52, it should be 17. You tripled it somehow. That's why your end product is off."

Pansy looked down at her proof, skimming her work. "I hate it when you're right," she muttered, pulling out a clean sheet of parchment to re-write the proof.

"I know you do." He kept his gray eyes on his book, reading over the explanation of prorational effects, and Pansy watched him for a moment.

She had always known that everything that could go wrong on Halloween generally did, but she wondered what it was with her and Draco that caused the other 364 days a year to foul up as well. Whatever it was, it really was a shame. It took a lot of work to hate and love and know someone so completely all at the same time. She let the note drop out of her sleeve onto the table and left the class before she knew whether or not Draco picked it up.

* * *

At half past eight, the common room was still twittering from the after effects of the Halloween Feast. Everyone had stuffed themselves to bursting, as usual, and Ron, Harry, Neville, Seamus, Dean, and Ginny all sat curled up around the window seat, as usual. Seamus was sitting against the wall, his head back and mouth hanging open as he slept. Neville was either really asleep or doing a good job acting that way. Ginny had her head on Harry's shoulder, obscured from the rest of the common room by the curtain they had half-drawn closed around them. Ron was sitting across from Harry, next to Dean, who was reading a novel entitled The Adventures of Oola Charming, Hit Witch, which he swore up and down wasn't a girl book. But that's certainly what it looked like from what Ron had seen of the front cover, on which a woman stood with her robes slit all the way up her thigh, her wand tucked into her stockings as she held a martini glass in one hand and a smoking cigarette in the other. If it wasn't a girl novel, it was definitely pornographic, so either way, Dean had some explaining to do.

"You mean it's about a witch who goes about killing people?" Ron asked, watching Oola as she leaned back against the brick wall of what appeared to be a dark bar, shifting her legs so that her robes fell further open. "And there's no sex in it?"

"Oh, there's some sex," Dean said calmly, trying to read, "but it's not pornographic, Ron. People can have sex in literature without it being smutty. And she's not killing people. She's an independent agent of the government."

Ron raised an eyebrow. "Who goes about killing people and screwing blokes?"

"Not all blokes," Dean said simply, turning the page. "It really has a lot to do with power and deceit, what people's limitations are. Quite interesting, actually."

"You mean, like, two girls?" Ron asked. He was beginning to get uncomfortable. "They can't publish stuff like that."

"Really, Ron," Ginny said, keeping her eyes shut, "you really need to broaden your mind."

Ron spluttered indignantly. "I don't need my baby sister telling me I need to broaden my anything, thanks very much."

"She's right, mate," Dean said seriously, still engrossed in his book. "I'll let you borrow this when I'm done."

"I doubt I'd like it," Ron said moodily, watching Hermione as she sat up from the table in the corner, stretching before she began to put away her books.

"I bet you would," Dean said, smirking at Ron over the top of the novel.

Hermione picked up her book bag and made her way slowly up the stairs to the girls' dormitory. Ron nudged Harry with his foot and motioned at Ginny.

"Hey, Ginny," Harry said, "we've got to, erm, do some... boy things... for a while..."

"What he means is maybe you could shove off for a bit?" Ron helped.

"Ron, you are so rude. Anyway, Seamus invited me. I know all about your whatever-it-is," Ginny said, pushing herself off Harry and watching as Hermione made her way back down the stairs and across the common room. When she opened the portrait hole, Ron saw Terry outside waiting for her. She stepped through it and into his arms without even a backwards glance.

The minute the portrait hole was shut, Seamus and Neville were instantly on their feet, half-running up the stairs to the dormitory. Dean slid out of the window seat, followed by Ron, who had an idea.

"We can't just let her into the dorm with everyone watching," Ron said.

"I'm your sister. No one's going to care," Ginny said.

Ron looked at Harry for help. "Maybe he's right, Ginny. Run up and get the cloak, Ron."

"Wasn't exactly what I had in mind," Ron muttered as he trekked up the stairs. He'd rather Ginny didn't come at all. Invisible or not, he didn't think she should be a part of this. This was grown-up Gryffindor boy stuff not meant for the likes of little sisters. However, it appeared he was vetoed yet again; so, dutifully, he retrieved the cloak from Harry's trunk, stuffing it under his jumper, and went back down stairs to give it to Ginny. When no one was watching, she disappeared under it, and Ron and Harry led her into their dorm.

Dean had somehow procured six long-stemmed champagne flutes, and Neville was now pouring the WTF potion into them with slow, careful tips of the cauldron. Ron and Harry sat down on the end of Harry's bed, and Ginny unveiled herself. It occurred to Ron that since no one else seemed surprised, they all must have been in on it together, behind his back. He would have been more upset by it, but Seamus had broken out into song and was swinging Ginny around the small space in the center of the room to the tune of, "Whacky Technicolour Freakout! Potion, yo-ho! Yo-ho! We're going to get majorly fucked up, yo-ho! Yo-ho!" which made everyone laugh, of course. Leave it to Seamus to ruin Ron's perfectly good excuse to feel putout.

Neville and Dean passed out the flutes, and Seamus and Ginny collapsed onto the floor in a heap of giggles. Ron and Harry slid off the end of his bed and Neville and Dean followed suit so that they were all sitting in a circle on the floor, everyone holding their glasses out in front of them. The vapors that rose from the glasses mingled in the air before them in a shimmering spectrum of color, and it felt like several moments passed during which they all contemplated the thing they were about to do before Harry boldly stuck his glass into the center of the circle.

"To friends," he said.

"To best friends," Ron added, grinning at Harry.

Seamus beamed, reaching out with his glass to clink Harry's and Ron's in a toast. "To mates!"

"To confidants!" Dean smiled.

"To pals!" Neville joined.

"To Gryffindor!" Ginny half-roared.

Six glasses clinked five glasses each, and six hands brought six glasses to six pairs of lips, and six Gryffindors in the seventh boys dorm swallowed one ration each of Whacky Technicolour Freakout! Potion. Then six hands brought six empty glasses down to sound six soft thuds on the floor of the dormitory. Only one of them choked, and all of them laughed. And then six of them looked at each other and waited.

After a moment, Harry turned to Ron and said, "I feel like marshmallow crème."

Ron laughed and said, "I love you."

"I love you, too," Harry said, curling up into a giggling ball on the floor. The rest of them joined Harry in a chorus of laughter and professions of love, and Ron thought he'd never felt so free in all his life. From there on out, things got pretty blurry. When the haze finally began to wear off, Ron realized that somehow someone had managed to turn on the WWN and they were listening to the standards on The Celestina Warbeck Hour.

He was lying on Harry's bed with Harry, their bodies touching from shoulder to hip to thigh to knee to ankle. Slowly, Ron looked up. Harry was awake, his arm bent under his head, staring wide-eyed at the ceiling. Ginny was sitting in the window seat with the window open, and a cold breeze blew in, bringing with it the smell of snow and premature December. It took a moment to realize that Ginny was shivering, her knees pulled up to her chin. Neville was sitting on the floor next to the window seat, singing along to the radio, and from behind Dean's bed curtains came giggles and occasional noises of the headboard hitting the wall. Ron turned his attention back to Harry. "What happened?" he whispered.

"Well, there was some storytelling, and then some singing. You passed out. Seamus and Dean disappeared. Neville got the radio to work, and Ginny wanted to watch the forest. She was going off about trees, you know, how they look black at night, like everything living does, and then you just woke up. I've been sitting here watching the ceiling, thinking about Voldemort, and why he hasn't come for me yet, and I don't know why I keep having dreams about Tonks' mum, but I think it has something to do with Sirius. Everyone dies, Ron."

Ron nodded, knowing somehow, inexplicably, exactly what Harry meant. "Yeah, I know."

"It's weird. I can go from living to dead in a blink of an eye. It just comes sometimes, like that. Sometimes there isn't even a sunset. I always imagined a sunset, Ron, with shadows of trees, and then I'd maybe see my parents and Sirius again. Ginny says that night is death to things that are alive, but I don't know. Night is more alive than death is, don't you think?"

Ron sat up a bit and looked down into Harry's eyes. He looked perfectly calm and peaceful, like he was talking about what he had for lunch that day, instead of what would happen to him when he died. And Ron knew. He nodded, slowly. "In the middle of the day sometimes down by the lake the sun shines up off the water and it hits my eyes just right so that everything goes white just then, and that's scarier than ever night is."

"The dark doesn't scare me, only sometimes when it does," Harry said, shifting his focus from the ceiling to Ron's face. "I hope you're there, even if there isn't a sunset."

"I bet so," Ron said, lying back down next to Harry, "I want to be there. You know?"

"In my last second of life, even if Voldemort doesn't kill me, I wonder what I'll think about," Harry said, inclining his head so that his soft black hair tickled Ron's ear.

"You'll probably think, 'Oh, shit.' At least, I bet that's what I would think."

Harry laughed then, a slow rise of his chest in a single chuckle. "It could be worse, I suppose."

Ron smiled. "Yeah, it could be, 'I knew I should've listened to Hermione.'"

Harry laughed again. "Or, 'Why'd it have to be you, Malfoy?'"

Ron snickered. "Or, or, 'Hey? Where'd my broomstick go?'"

Harry giggled. "Or, 'Dobby! Put that pudding down!'"

Ron laughed heartily at that. "Dobby wouldn't kill you with a pudding. He'd smother you to death with kisses, though."

"Eeew, Ron!" Harry said, reaching under him to withdraw a pillow and smack Ron in the face with it. "That's disgusting!"

"Oy!" Ron said, snatching the pillow away from Harry and walloping him in the chest with it. "But really, who can resist those big green eyes?"

"Ron, that's gross!" Harry said, stealing the pillow back yet again from Ron. "I never knew you fancied green eyes, though. Thought you'd prefer gray, like Malfoy's." Harry thumped Ron hard in the gut.

"Oh, no, green for me," Ron said, scrambling off Harry's bed and grabbing the pillow off his own. "I see now we are matched in our weaponry, young Potter. Make your move."

Harry stood on top of his bed, legs apart as if ready to pounce. "Why don't you come and get it, Weasel."

"Oh, it's on!" Ron yelled as he made a running leap on to Harry's bed. With one hand, he grabbed the wrist of Harry's pillow-fighting arm, and with the other, he swung his pillow by the corner of the case around so that it knocked Harry in the back of his knees, sending him toppling forward. In exercising this particular tactic, however, Ron had failed to consider that when Harry fell, he would fall right on top of him.

With a strangled yell, the boys fell hard, together, onto Harry's bed, which gave a tremendous squeak, followed by an equally tremendous groan that went on long enough for Harry and Ron to look at each other in surprise and say together, "Oh, shit," just before the bed gave way and they fell to the floor. The force of the fall brought Harry's head forward, knocking his teeth into Ron's teeth, mashing their mouths together painfully. It took a moment in the swirling dust of the fallen bed for them to detangle, letting the scarlet curtains float down around them as if in afterthought.

After they slowly climbed out of the ruins, they stood in the middle of the room at the foot of the bed and looked at each other, and then looked at the bed, and then looked at Ginny and Neville, who had turned around at the sound of the crash, and at Dean and Seamus, who appeared wearing make-up when they stuck their heads through a space in Dean's curtains. And then they laughed. They laughed so hard, they had to lean on each other for support. They laughed so hard, Ron fell to his knees, and Harry fell on top of him, and then they just laughed. They laughed so hard, they didn't notice that their mouths were bleeding until Ron licked his lips and tasted metal there and Harry looked at the blood on his shirt and wondered aloud where it came from.

Amidst all the laughing, no one noticed the knocking on the door until the door flew open, and there Hermione stood, wand drawn, Professor McGonagall behind her "What exactly is going on in here?" McGonagall asked, looking at Ron and Harry, who were by that point quite covered in blood, and at the smashed bed, and then at Ginny. "Miss Weasley? Shouldn't you be in bed?"

"Eeep!" Ginny said, scurrying out of the window seat so fast that she didn't even bother to take off Neville's jumper. She quickly passed Hermione in the doorway, and Ron heard the sound of her feet as she ran down the boys' stairs and back up the girls' on the other side.

"Come out of there, you two," McGonagall said to Dean's bed, stepping around Hermione and into the room proper. Slowly, the two of them crawled out of the curtain, made up like Oola Charming herself.

"Whose blood is that?" she asked Harry and Ron.

"His," they both said, pointing at each other.

"Mr. Longbottom?" McGonagall asked, addressing the lump on the floor next to the window seat. "You could not have possibly slept through all of that commotion."

Neville uncurled himself and stood, looking at Ron and Harry, then looking quickly at the foot of his bed, where rested the six glasses, only two of them still standing. Nonchalantly, Ron took a step backwards and nudged the glasses under Neville's bed with his foot while Neville came up behind him and started to do the same.

"You can start explaining yourselves this instant." McGonagall's tone was a cold fury. Ron's eyes wandered to his bedside clock, which read 11:30. By all accounts, Hermione should still be on rounds. Curious.

"Pre-game celebration," Neville said quickly. Ron pushed the last glass under the corner of the bed.

"We just got a little carried away," Harry said, looking down at his broken bed.

"I should say so," McGonagall said, surveying the bed and then Dean and Seamus. Her eyebrows arched into her hairline, and from behind her, Hermione made a disapproving noise. "You should be saving your energy for the Quidditch match tomorrow," McGonagall chided, looking directly at Ron, "not wasting it by having a singularly destructive soiree in the dormitories. That goes for all of you."

"Yes, Professor," the five boys said in unison with their most apologetic voices.

"I cannot stand for this sort of rambunctious behavior from my seventh years. You should be role models for the rest of the house."

"Yes, Professor."

"And getting young Miss Weasley involved is certainly not setting a good example! I should expect more, especially from you, Mr. Weasley!"

"Yes, Professor," Ron said gloomily.

"Now, I'd ask that you please go to bed," McGonagall said, the "or else" implied in her tone.

"Professor?" Harry asked. "My bed..."

"You'll just have to share tonight, Mr. Potter. We will look into it tomorrow. Good night." She turned from the room with haste, leaving the five Gryffindor boys looking murderously at Hermione.

"I thought something was seriously wrong! I was passing and I heard a crash and I--"

"Good night, Hermione," Seamus said, shutting the door in her face. "I swear," he said, running his hand over his eyes tiredly, "she'll be the death of me. Shit, I smeared my mascara."

Harry looked at Ron, and Ron shrugged. "I guess you're sleeping with me tonight."

Dean giggled.

"Oh, shut it, you," Ron said, throwing what was once part of Harry's bed at him. "And I wouldn't sleep in that make-up. You'll get spots."

"Are you serious?" Seamus said, looking at himself in the mirror. He stuck his red lips out in a pout.

"You guys are freaking weird, you know that?" Ron said, turning down his bedding before putting on his pajamas.

"We're not the ones sharing beds, are we?" Dean answered. He steadied Seamus' face as he prepared to perform a cleaning charm.

"You can leave the lips, right?" Seamus implored, pulling his fringe off his forehead.

"Of course," Dean said. He said the charm, and Seamus was back to his normal self plus bright red lips.

"Whatever," Harry said, tying the knot on his pajama bottoms and slipping between the sheets on Ron's bed. "I reckon this is her way of punishing us, anyway."

"Better than detention," Ron said, sliding down into the covers next to him. "Gah! Your feet are freezing, Harry!"

"Sorry," Harry said, although he made no effort to move them, instead only twining them more around Ron's feet at the end of the bed and snuggling further into the covers so that he was on his side facing Ron.

"'S all right," Ron said, turning so that he was on his side facing Harry.

Someone put out the lights, and Ron allowed his eyes a moment to adjust to the moonlight. He heard the creaking of the beds as Neville, Dean, and Seamus got comfortable. Harry had his head turned down so that he was half-curled into himself, and Ron could hear his breath hitting the pillow. His hair was over his face, having gotten too long over the past summer. Gently, Ron lifted his hand from where it was tucked under his chin to brush a few strands off Harry's forehead. Harry's eyes fluttered open, and he smiled. Ron smiled back, and Harry burrowed himself deeper into the blankets. After a moment, Ron shut his eyes, too, letting his breathing become regular, in unison with Harry's, as he drifted off to sleep.

* * *

By half past nine, Pansy knew Draco's Fucking Masquerade Buffet was a total debacle. Everyone had on the craziest sorts of jumbled, thrown-together outfits. Most everyone had their bed sheets wrapped around him or her like togas, and the whole thing was a joke. By ten thirty, Snape had come round to make sure everyone below fifth year was resting snug in their beds. By ten forty-five, someone had spiked Snape's sarsaparilla, which wasn't her department, anyway. By half past eleven, the truffle mix was no longer even making it into the dipping line, instead, being escorted from bowl to mouth via fingers, usually not those of the imbiber. All in all, it had turned into one chocolate-drenched, bed-sheet clad disaster, and Pansy sat, well concealed in her black hood with bat ears attached, in the corner of the room on a high-backed chair, clasping the self-filling silver flask she had smuggled from her parent's house and having herself one hell of a good time.

Teeny Nott, unconvincingly disguised as a pink sugar fairy, with her crew of fifth year girls dressed to match in various pastel shades, were passed out in a pile of tulle one the rug in front of the fire, Teeny's skirt not more than six inches from the flames. In one of her charitable moods, Pansy may have gone over and moved the pink fluff away from the flames. As things stood, however, Pansy was much more inclined to drink and think of how just it was that the skinnier one was, the less able to hold liquor she tended to be.

Daphne and Blaise had long since disappeared into the seventh year girls' dormitory, dressed, as they said, like Zeus and Hera. Pansy felt it was perhaps not her place to remind them that Zeus and Hera, in addition to being man and wife, were also brother and sister, and let them get off to their snogging in peace.

Millicent and Gregory, dressed quite amusingly like dead Gryffindor Quidditch players, had disappeared not ten minutes previous into the opposite direction to the seventh year boys' dormitories, which Crabbe had gone thirty minutes previous with a plate full of spice cake. She wondered how all of that was working out.

Meanwhile, Morag and Teddy, she dressed like Snape, complete with wig, and he like Trelawney, wig since discarded, were at present dry humping on the sofa.

And most everyone else was passed out. She was a bit disturbed that she had not seen Draco yet. She wondered if he had even shown up, although, knowing him, he only would have missed this to save his life, or, alternatively, to humiliate Potter. At least it could be said that the boy had his priorities straight. And so she had kept particular watch over Teeny, waiting for him to show up and whisk her away, no doubt. He had yet to do so, however, and Pansy was getting quite sick of herself waiting for him. She was giving Daphne ten more minutes, and then she was going to bed.

Pansy uncrossed her legs, clad in black fishnets, and re-crossed them in the other direction, shifting her weight in the chair. Her arse was falling asleep sitting there for so long. She reckoned perhaps it was time to take a stroll around the common room. She stood up slowly, adjusting her black eye mask so that it was covering her nose and framing her eyes the right way. The flask she slid into the top of her boot, which was a damn fine place for it, her skirt she pulled down (it was her shortest skirt, even though she was still sans knickers), her black velvet cape she smoothed out so that it hit at her knees, her hood she pulled down over her forehead, and her wings, which she had charmed to flap at irregular intervals (however clever this may sound, it was a bit of a pain when sitting down), she straightened. Now, if only the room would stop spinning, she would be set.

The room gave a particularly violent lurch, and she leaned backwards, stretching her hand to balance herself on the back of the chair, but it landed on something else entirely. Turning, she gasped as a strong hand closed over her wrist as another fit itself expertly into the small of her back and pulled her to the black-cloaked figure behind her. His mouth found hers roughly, tasting like brandy and chocolate, and then there were lips moving and tongues rolling, and Pansy slid her hand under his cloak, finding the plane of hip where thigh met stomach. He moaned into her mouth, grinding into her. She pulled back then, her eyes finding his in the shadow of his hood.

"I can keep a secret if you can," he said, pulling her after him as he left the common room. He stopped to kiss her again, slamming her into the cold, stone wall of the corridor, before he pulled her around one corner after another, until finally they were in a dark, low-ceilinged room. He whispered the spell that lit the torches along the walls. They were so out of use that they smoked, and there was his mouth again on hers, and she opened to him hungrily.

He lifted her onto the long table that filled most of the room, bringing her skirt over her waist as he did so, fingers brushing skin in the diamonds between the threads of her stockings. She moaned and pulled his shirt from his waistband, and he grinded into her again, pulling her halfway off the edge of the table as he did so. His lips were on her neck and her lips whispered meaningless things into his soft hair, and then his fingers were at her throat, unclasping her cloak, and her hand dipped below the waistband of his trousers. He growled, then, said, "Fuck, Miss Parkinson," and pushed her down, climbing on top of her, turning their bodies parallel to the length of the table.

With one arm propped so that the majority of his weight was on his forearm, his hand under her hood and pulling her hair, he pressed himself against her, the other hand snaking down between their bodies to find Pansy. He rubbed at her through her stockings, and she bucked against him, making quick work of his trouser fastenings, finally freeing him into her hand. She stroked him and he stroked her, and their eyes met and held in the smoky torchlight.

They were both drunk, and it was enough an excuse for her fingers to rip open her stockings. It was enough of an excuse for him to be tender when he pushed into her, her legs wrapped around his hips. It was enough of an excuse for her to say his name, over and over, a half-whispered mantra of Draco that dissolved into the smoke above them. It was enough of an excuse for him to kiss her lips over and over, whispering, "I love you, I love you, forever," and it was enough of an excuse for them to come together, his fingers against her, her fingers splayed across his shoulders, clinging fast and hard. It was enough of an excuse for neither of them to say, as they lay there, catching their breath, kissing and kissing like kisses were air and they had spent a long time underwater, that they were sorry.