Pariah

Pariah 15

The Ex Factor

But something about just being with you
Slapped me right in the face, nearly broke me in two
It's a mark I've taken heart
And I know I will carry it with me for a long, long time

- Liz Phair, Shatter

Monday morning at breakfast, Pansy poked at her eggs and half-heartedly listened to Teeny Nott bitch about the weekend. It had been very poor for her, apparently. Saturday, of course, was the Quidditch match, where some bumbling first year Hufflepuff had spilled an entire mug of hot cocoa down the front of her favorite robes. Saturday night, Dumbledore had scolded them--Teeny and Draco in particular--for their actions at the match, and Professor Snape had punished Teeny and Draco by making them grade firstie papers all afternoon Sunday. Pansy's heart warmed just at the thought of all that indecipherable writing and poor spelling.

"... and by the time we were finished, it was almost time for supper, so we headed straight up the stairs, and can you believe a Hufflepuff actually bumped into me? On purpose!" Teeny looked as scandalized as possible as she daintily dabbed at the corner of her mouth with a napkin.

"The nerve," Daphne said in a bored monotone, rolling her eyes and nudging Pansy under the table with her foot.

"I personally find it hard to believe that a Hufflepuff would do anything on purpose, let alone tarnish your sterling ego by-- gasp! shock! horror!-- bumping into you!" Morag said sarcastically. The day before, she had claimed to have concocted the perfect break-up strategy, the likes of which Hogwarts had never seen. She had confessed to having grown tired of Theodore, who never wanted to do much else than play Muggles & Mayhem with the Ravenclaws and feel her up. If phase one of the strategy was insulting the intended ex-boyfriend's little sister, Pansy was not opposed.

Millicent covered her mouth with her napkin to conceal her smile. Pansy just let her grin show.

"I just don't understand how you do it, Pansy," Teeny said at last.

The entire table quieted. There had been a building tension ever since Pansy had reclaimed her position at the center of the table. A delicate truce had been in place, reliant on minimal eye contact and a de facto ban on direct address.

"Do what, Miss Nott?" Pansy inquired. She tried to keep the irritation out of her voice, but to no avail. To be honest, she wasn't trying that hard.

Teeny sighed in frustration. She was growing a little pink in the face. This was going to be good. "You're in, you're out. You've managed to offend everyone, yet here you still are. Even Snape! You and Blaise Apparated out of bounds, and he didn't even give you detention!"

"He said there was a lack of evidence," Blaise chimed in.

"Half of Gryffindor saw you!" Teeny was growing more agitated, her voice rising in pitch until all of the table was listening--including Draco, who had been roused from a intent conversation on the Appleby Arrows.

"A dimwitted druggie and an overzealous Head Girl are hardly half," Pansy pointed out calmly.

"Not to mention, Granger's had it out for you since first year," Millicent reminded.

Pansy nodded. "Not to mention that."

Teeny made a very unattractive sound deep in her throat that sounded very much like an angry cat. "I give up. I just give up."

"You ought to let someone else try, then," Morag said helpfully.

"Draco, we're leaving," Teeny announced as she stood.

"You're leaving. I'm finishing breakfast," Draco said, and lifted his coffee cup to his lips.

Teeny stomped her foot and turned to Pansy. "This is all your fault."

"So I've been told," Pansy said, smirking and giving Morag a look.

"You've forced me to drastic measures," Teeny said, pointing at Pansy, trying, no doubt, to look a menace.

"Okay," Pansy said. "Is this the part where you storm angrily from the Hall?"

Teeny growled again and did exactly that. Draco watched with one eyebrow quirked as Morag, Millicent, and Daphne burst into laughter. Morag was laughing so hard, pumpkin juice shot out her nose and Teddy dodged it just in time.

"Nice. Real nice." Draco said, turning his eyes momentarily to Pansy before returning to his Quidditch conversation.

"Maybe she'll throw herself from the Astronomy Tower," Morag thoughtfully suggested, wiping her face with a napkin.

"Come now," Daphne chided. "We all know Pansy's not that lucky."

They all laughed again, even Blaise, but something in the pit of Pansy's stomach felt unsettled, alarmed, almost sympathetic. She quickly quashed the thought and turned them to the much more agreeable subject of Weasley baiting.

* * *

Ron just couldn't believe it. He sat with his chin propped in his hand, fingers bent loosely along the side of his face, fingertips idly toying with his ginger fringe as he watched her at the front of the class, shuffling the parchments their Defense Against the Dark Arts class had just turned in. That Professor Tonks had actually been Tonks this entire time... well, it was enough to blow a bloke's mind. Now he started to pick up on little details--the '#1 Mum' mug she always used was meant to throw them, no doubt, and of course, the boots. He didn't know how he could have missed those. Really, it was quite obvious. He wondered just where his brain had been these past few months. Well, he supposed he knew that, but he didn't want to think of her ever again.

Harry, of course, had been particularly struck by everything. He had walked through the day as though he were a thousand miles away. Ron had noted when he woke how crumpled Harry's bed was, which was a good sign, meaning he had at least slept last night, if only for a few hours. Between the Tonks thing, the last Quidditch match, and the debacle with Hermione, Harry had sure had a rough go of things lately. And then there was the Ginny thing, which, on balance, was probably the thing to blame for the thousand-mile stare. Right then, for instance, Harry was staring off through the windows at the brilliant spring morning, completely ignoring Seamus's pleas for attention.

"Psst! Harry!" Seamus stage-whispered from behind them. "Ha-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-arrrrry!"

"What is it Finnegan?" Ron finally asked, turning.

Seamus was on the very edge of his seat, leaning forward, a manic gleam in his eye. "No, get Harry."

Ron glanced at Harry, and Harry's eyes flicked at Ron for a fraction of a second--long enough for Ron to see the warning in his look.

"Harry's, erm, indisposed. Can I take a message, or is there something I can help you with?"

Seamus sighed loudly in frustration and leaned back, setting his chair to right. "No. Nothing. Forget it. It's only funny if I say it to Harry."

Ron shrugged. "Whatever, mate." Ron turned back around. One little blue fish, two little blue fish, three little blue--

"Okay, fine," Seamus said in a very abused and frustrated tone. "Tell Harry--"

"Mr. Finnegan, Mr. Weasley, if you are quite finished?" Professor Tonks's voice still cut Ron to the bone, even if he knew in his head that somewhere beneath that stern exterior was the heart of a girl who preferred pink hair to brown, torn jeans and tee-shirts to robes, and making funny faces to making students cry. Or, at least Ron hoped.

"Sorry, Professor," Ron and Seamus said in unison.

Tonks nodded, then turned her attention to the class as a whole. "Now, as odd as it may sound, I am actually rather impressed with the work you have done on this last assignment. The majority of you took the task seriously and far surpassed my expectations for this project. As I understand it, Professor McGonagall has assigned a rather involved research project for those of you in Transfiguration?"

The class murmured, miserably, in the affirmative.

"I can only hope that you do as well for her as you have done for me." Here she paused. "So I am going to dismiss you for the rest of the period so that you may spend the extra time on that project."

The students sat in stunned silence. After a moment, Anthony Goldstein raised his hand.

"Yes, Mr. Goldstein?"

"Excuse me Professor, but--are you joking?"

Professor Tonks smiled. "No, Mr. Goldstein. You will find that I am quite serious. You can all go, provided you spend your free time constructively and do not get me into trouble with the Headmaster."

Ron looked around the room, and at Harry, who was no longer looking out the window, but busily packing his things away in his bag. Ron grinned and began to do the same. Everyone was in a positive rush to get out of there before she changed her mind. Ron was almost at the door, in fact, when she called out, "Mr. Weasley, Mr. Potter, and Ms. Granger, if I could borrow you for just a moment longer."

Pansy, who was queued several people ahead of Ron, looked at him over her shoulder and smirked ruthlessly, giving him a little finger wave before practically skipping down the hallway with Blaise Sodding Zabini.

Ron swore, shoulders sagging, and sat back down at his table, Harry beside him, looking as dejected as Ron felt. Hermione, on the other hand, was positively beaming as she took a seat at the table next to them.

After everyone had left, Professor Tonks slowly shut the door and locked it before leaning against it and turning her hair pink. "I don't know how McGonagall does it. Most days, murder seems like a reasonable alternative to marking parchments. I'm joking, Hermione. Now, about this map business. I was thinking Sunday. How does Sunday work for everyone?"

"But Sunday's my birthday," Ron objected.

"Did you have more pressing plans than the welfare of this school and that of your friends?" Hermione asked.

"Well..." To be honest, he didn't, but he really wished he had, if only for the sake of being contrary to Hermione, "no. Not when you put it like that."

"Harry?" Hermione asked.

Harry shrugged. "Sunday's fine."

"Excellent!" Tonks said, clapping her hands together. "Hermione has the spells worked out, we've got all the ingredients, now all we need is the location of the passage Ginny's been trying to find."

Ron, Harry, and Hermione exchanged a worried look.

"Well, we have until Sunday," Tonks said, changing her hair back to brown and moving toward the door.

"And if we can't find the passage?" Harry asked.

"We'll just have to improvise," Tonks said cheerily. "Now, I'm going to pour myself a glass of wine, put on some Barbary Heathcote, and rue the day Seamus learned how to talk." She swung the door open wide and said, loudly, "And I am very disappointed in the lot of you!"

Several heads in the corridor swiveled to look at them, and then quickly turned back.

"Improvise?" Ron whispered into Harry's ear. "I don't think I like the way that sounds."

* * *

"Impetuosity means speed beyond one's capacity, but to have greater speed is to have greater capacity..."

"I thought impetuosity was the enemy of politicians?"

"Well, you aren't politicians, are you? You're Beaters, right? And you need to be faster or they'll be wiping the pitch with our arses, won't they? Hecate, Merlin, and Morgana, who let the philosophers on the team?"

It was true. Pansy always got some sort of sick pleasure watching the Ravenclaws practice. Their team wasn't really that bad, per se, but their practices were always disastrous. They only spent about ten percent of their time in the air, and the rest was spent debating, snogging, or discussing assignments. So perhaps it was a good thing that they only practiced once a week. She didn't think Michael Corner could handle it more than that.

"In the name of all things holy!" Michael cried, crumpling to a heap in the middle of the field. "What's the point? Practice is over!"

Slowly, the Ravenclaw team left their captain where he lay in the middle of the pitch, spread-eagled, staring up at the darkening sky. Pansy stood, smoothed her robes, and walked down to him.

"Bad day?" she asked when she reached him.

Michael registered her presence by inclining his head slightly toward her. "Davies never had this sort of problem."

"Everyone was in love with Davies."

"It's true." Michael sighed.

"What is?" Pansy asked, following Michael's gaze up into the sky at a particularly menacing cloud in the shape of a bunny rabbit.

"I suck at Quidditch."

Pansy shrugged. "It was bound to happen sooner or later that you would find something that you aren't the best at."

"Yes, but did it have to be Quidditch?"

"Consider it a warm-up for life," Pansy said darkly. She nudged him in the ribs with the toe of her boot. "We need to have a chat, Corner."

Michael sighed again, more petulantly this time, and slowly sat up. "All right, but let's duck under the stands so that I can have a quick ciggie."

They walked in silence until they were in the near dark under the stands, stripes of dying sunlight filtering in through the cracks in the wooden steps above them. Pansy leaned against one of the thick beams and crossed her arms over her chest, watching Michael light his cigarette with his wand and exhale a thin gray wisp of smoke.

"So?" Michael said after a minute. He was flicking spots of mud and clumps of dead grass from his Quidditch garb. "What do you want now?"

"Have you seen Zacharias lately?" she asked, waving smoke away from her face.

"Not since yesterday. Should see him at the meeting tonight, though. Are you going?" Michael asked, ashing his cigarette and not quite looking at her.

"Of course I'm not going," Pansy scoffed. "Going would mean seeing Weasley, and I'd sooner die, thanks."

"You know he really didn't sleep with Hermione. That was only a rumor," Michael said, trying, no doubt, to be sympathetic.

"Yes, well," Pansy said, straightening her rooms unnecessarily and dodging that last remark like something particularly nasty one might find on the lawn, "has Zacharias said anything about some little girl detectives in his house? Go by Madley, Branstone, and Dobbs?"

Michael looked at her finally, a hard expression. "What do you want to know about them?"

"I need to know what cases they're working on."

Michael seemed to think on that a moment, his eyes trained on Pansy's face. He took a long drag from his cigarette before putting it out under his boot and banishing the butt. "I can't help you with that," he said finally.

"Can't help me?" Pansy said, somewhat shocked. "What do you mean, can't help me?"

"Look," Michael said with the tone of a person about to offer life-saving advice, "the entirety of Hufflepuff knows about Madley, Branstone, and Dobbs. Most of Ravenclaw, too. They've helped a lot of us with a lot of things. Girl trouble, missing items, you name it. Nobody in Hufflepuff is going to be pleased you're poking around in what they consider to be their business. If I was you, I'd leave well enough alone."

"I'm not afraid of any Hufflepuff," said Pansy, beginning to bristle. Michael Corner tell her what to do? The nerve.

"Have you ever wondered why the symbol of their house is a badger?"

"No," Pansy answered simply. Truth was, she didn't often think on Hufflepuff.

"Have you ever had the misfortune to meet a badger, then?"

"No." Pansy pursed her lips. "But I saw one at the zoo once. Seemed harmless enough."

"They look cuddly all right, until they feel threatened. And then the claws and the teeth come out. They'd kill to protect their own. Just keep that in mind if you decide to take down the girl detectives. They will visit a world of hurt upon you, Parkinson." Michael turned from her, looking across the grounds to the castle. "I've got to get back. Is there anything else?"

"Yeah, there is," Pansy said, a smirk pulling at her mouth, "tell Weasley his brother Percy says hello." She turned on her heel and stomped off toward the lake, thinking she'd take in a quick game of Poke the Squid before she returned to the dungeons.

* * *

That night at dinner, Ron divided his time between glaring at Pansy and shoving his mouth full of food. He was still sore about the Quidditch match. And the scene in Hogsmeade. And the shirt. Oh, yeah, and EVERYTHING. And what was with that little finger wave earlier? And sending Michael bloody Corner to tell him she'd seen Percy. Although, to be fair, it probably wasn't her fault that Corner had picked the very moment he had been chatting up a cute Hufflepuff in the Entrance Hall. But still.

Ron's mum had always been fond of telling him, "I don't care who started it, but you're going to end it!" This was usually followed by an extensive lecture about Being the Better Person and Acting His Age and so on.

Well, Ron didn't want to be the Better Person, and right then, as he stabbed his chicken and sent a scattering of peas rolling across the table, he felt like a very tall five-year-old, and really, he was okay with that.

"Hey, keep your peas to yourself!" Seamus said, flicking the runaway vegetables at Ron's head.

Ron retaliated by bumping the table hard enough for Seamus' pumpkin juice to upset and run into his lap. Seamus, in turn, threw a chicken leg that hit Ron in the ear as he miscalculated the dodge.

"Boys!" Hermione said testily.

Seamus then cheekily threw a piece of chicken skin at Hermione, which landed with a splat against her cheek and hung there for a second before sliding off and leaving a trail of grease down the side of her face.

Hermione looked at Seamus with such hatred and contempt that Ron felt his bits shrivel, and he watched with dread as Hermione picked up her entire plate of food and dumped it over Seamus's head.

That's when the pumpkin juice shot out of Harry's nose onto Lavendar, who screamed and thrashed, sending the top half of a clever tower of ice cream scoops straight at Dean, who in turn chucked them at Neville, who laughed and poured a bowl of creamed corn in Parvati's lap.

At about that time, someone down the table yelled, "Foodfight!" and then a dessert was lobbed at Ron and a bread roll bounced off Harry's shoulder.

Chaos reigned supreme for about thirty seconds, during which time Ron managed to smear the rest of his peas in Seamus' short hair and Dean dumped what was left of the chicken down the back of Ron's trousers.

It was Ginny who took very careful aim with the gravy boat and sent it soaring above the tables at the Slytherins. It wasn't Ron's fault that he was too preoccupied with giving Dean a noogie to stop her. It was Ron's fault, however, that when the chorus of indignant voices rose from the far side of the great hall he decided not to end it, as his mother would have advised, but instead complimented the gravy with a rather large and red trifle that landed, much to Ron's delight, directly on top of Draco Malfoy's stupid fat pale head.

Now, there were a few things that Ron knew about Draco Malfoy: one, he was an insufferably vain prat and should have firecrabs dumped into his bath; two, he was quite possibly evil, or, if not, at least aspired to be; and three, he really did deserve to have his precious stupid hair covered in Gryffindor-red pudding, and that look of shock on his face just then? Priceless.

The moment the hexes started firing, and right before Seamus and Dean turned the table onto its side and began using it as a shield, Ron glanced up at the Head Table and was so shocked to see Dumbledore holding onto the back of McGonagall's robes with one hand and the other firmly on Snape's shoulder that he would have gotten Stunned if Harry hadn't yanked him down just in time.

Meanwhile, the Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws had all dived under their own tables and were yelling all sorts of obscenities.

"We've got to take out their defenses!" Seamus was yelling. He had peas mashed all over his face and two dark smears of chocolate on his cheekbones, which made him look absolutely insane. Of course, all of them were smeared with various foods and Ron had chicken bones poking him in his privates, so maybe it wasn't the best time to be tallying the crazy points.

"I'll distract them!" Ginny yelled. She had a stack of plates and was throwing them, Frisbee-style, across the Great Hall. The Slytherins were shooting them down in mid-air with shouts of "Reducto!"

"On the count of three!" Harry yelled. "One!"

"Hang on! Since when do we have a plan?"

"Two!"

Something splattered against their makeshift defense with enough force to send Dean back several feet.

"I'll get you for that, ZABINI!" Dean screamed. He had assembled a collection of flatware and stood in a half-crouch throwing butter knives.

"The forks would hurt more," Hermione supplied. "Those knives are so dull."

"THR--what?" Harry looked at Hermione in shock.

"Use the forks! And aim for the fleshy bits!" Hermione had her wand in one hand, a drumstick in the other, and chicken parts and vegetables stuck in her hair. She looked mad as hell.

"THREE!" Harry shouted.

They leapt over their table in unison, screaming, holding platters before them, deflecting hexes. They were on top of the Hufflepuff table when Dean went down, and then they got Seamus. Neville was next, falling in a crumple on top of Luna Lovegood, who had chosen that moment to peak out from under her seat to see what was going on. Ron, Harry, and Ginny made it over the Ravenclaws when suddenly, as twin leviathans rising from the deep, Crabbe and Goyle appeared from nothingness and pulled Harry and Ginny back into the abyss.

Ron heard Ginny scream and felt his eyes involuntarily water when she gave Crabbe the old elbow-to-the-crotch. He saw Harry wrestling with Goyle from the corner of his eye, Goyle's wand digging into his throat. But Ron persisted, intent to carry out their mission. Even though he had no idea what that mission was, exactly, he had the general gist. It involved a weird combination of food, pain, and smashed bits.

All limbs and torn robes, Ron dived across the Slytherin table, taking with him several plates, a few goblets, and what was in all likelihood a fork dug into his hip. His momentum carried him across, aided by the gravy, and right into Draco Malfoy.

They landed on the floor in a tangle, cussing, each trying to get the right leverage to aim a wand at the other. The time for gentlemanly dueling was well passed. Ron grabbed Draco's hair, messed with trifle, and pulled until Draco screamed like a little girl and kneed Ron in the crotch. At the same time, he bucked his hips and sent Ron rolling over onto his back, gasping for air.

They grappled. Ron's hands, slick with pudding and gravy and God only knew what, slid across Draco's face as he tried to push him off. Finally, Ron caught hold of one ear, and, doing something he had learned from his mother, twisted it until Draco howled again and leaned enough to one side that Ron got a leg under and sent the prat flying into the table.

Ron's wand being long since gone, he was launching himself at Draco, preparing to bite, kick, and scratch him within an inch of his life, when Pansy, remarkably unmarred except for a spot of gelatinous something on her shoulder, barred his way.

"Move," Ron intoned deathly. He wiped his face with the back of his sleeve, which didn't really do much except move the filth around.

"Stop it," Pansy said. "Whatever sick macho shit this is, just end it." She looked more annoyed than anything else.

"He started it!" Ron declared, pointing around Pansy to Draco, who was on all fours, spitting blood onto the stone floor. "Oh, you aren't hurt that bad you big git!"

Pansy took a step towards Ron and lowered her voice. "Please. Before you hurt him."

Ron looked down at her, baffled. He scoffed. "What do you care?"

"I care," Pansy said between clenched teeth, managing to find the one spot on the front of Ron's robes that wasn't covered in food and grabbing it, pulling him down so she could whisper in his ear, "because despite all of the pain and all of the anger and all of the bullshit he's put me through, he's still a Slytherin. He's mine."

She loosened her grip enough so that she could look him in the eye when she said, "Maybe that doesn't mean that I'd die for him, like you and your little Gryffindors, but it does mean that I'd kill for him. And you're just not worth it, Weasley."

She released him entirely then, turned on her heel, and knelt beside Draco. Ron watched her smooth the hair off of Draco's slimy forehead and had no idea what to do with himself. He had come so far, and now what? Now he was reduced to shuffling his trainers and pushing his gooey hair off his face, wishing Pansy would be reasonable and see that he was really the better man? Well, fuck that notion right in the ear. He was bloody angry, is what he was. He had chicken in his pants and the stuff in his hair was hardening, and he was in no mood to pander to any chivalrous feelings he may have at one point felt towards Miss Pansy Parkinson of Slytherin House.

"What the hell--" Ron began hotly, but Pansy, without turning, raised one hand to stop him.

"Save it," she said coolly.

Something in her tone of voice turned Ron's stomach to ice and he did just stand there and save it. He felt keenly... detached. She really didn't care for him at all.

Crabbe and Goyle let go of Ginny and Harry, and they both looked as dumbfounded as Ron felt. He looked up at the Head Table, but none of the professors said anything. Slowly, the Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs came out from under their tables. The dishes vanished and new food appeared.

Ron opened his mouth several times, but couldn't think of a single thing to say. He glanced back up at the Head Table. Dumbledore had started back in on his dessert.

"Maybe we should go?" Ginny suggested.

"Yeah," Harry agreed slowly. "We should definitely go."

Ron nodded his head and followed them mutely out of the Great Hall. They were on the landing of the fourth corridor before Ginny finally said what they were all thinking. "Well, that was fucking bizarre."

* * *

Pansy had taken Draco to the hospital wing without so much as a backward glance at Teeny, whom she supposed was off pouting and burning her effigy. In the infirmary, Pansy sat on the cot beside Draco while they waited for Madam Pomfrey to return to take the compress off his face. There were lots of students in with colds and Quidditch injuries, and Pomfrey bustled about, blissfully administering Pepper-Up potions and chocolate.

Draco didn't try to hold her hand, for which Pansy had been on the lookout, but he had managed somehow to end up with his thigh touching hers. Pansy had relented, although she was strangely uncomfortable with it. For one thing, he was covered in slop, and for another, she hadn't meant any of her actions in the Great Hall to be misconstrued as more than a twisted sort of sisterly affection gone cold-blooded, and she wasn't keen to let those actions be interpreted as wanting to lead to more.

He spoke in a strained voice, his head thrown back, holding the purple compress across the bridge of his nose to reduce the swelling.

"I can't belieb he broke my nobes!"

"I know. He's a brute," she sympathized. Draco was such a baby sometimes.

"Weeedzzy," he scowled. "Ow."

"Here, let me look at it." She tried to lift the compress to get a look at the bruising, but he slapped her hands away.

"Id hurdz," he whined.

"Of course it hurts. Did you think it would tickle?" She frowned at him, and he glared at her before relenting. They both knew she would win the staring contest.

"Fine," he said finally, and lifted the compress.

His nose was swollen up in the middle and looked practically flat at the bridge. Under his eyes were turning maroon, and he had dried blood caked around his nostrils. The short gash an inch below his brow where he actually hit the corner of the table had thankfully quit bleeding and just looked raw and painful, ringed with what was left of the trifle that had been missed when she Scourgified him. Still. Ew.

Pansy winced and sucked in air through her teeth.

"Whad? How do I look? Is id bad?" His eyes were wide.

"It's pretty bad, and you look terrible," she confessed.

Draco looked like someone had just taken away Christmas. "Fudding hellz."

Pansy smiled playfully and tugged his hair. "It's the food coloring in your hair I'd be worried about."

He slowly reached up, his face mournful.

"It's really not that bad," she said quickly. "Honestly." The last thing she wanted was Draco Malfoy, covered in trifle, crying on her shoulder about his damn hair.

"You hab to help me," he said seriously.

"Why do you think I'm here?" Pansy said. "Put your compress back on."

He leaned back and whined again when he settled the compress on his nose.

"Danks," he said after a moment. He reached for her hand, and Pansy, sighing, let him take it.

"Don't mention it." She gave his hand a squeeze. "And if your mother disowns you for having pink hair, you can have my room at Viola's. I know how well the two of you get on."

He glared at her contemptuously out of the corner of his eye. "You are duch a bitch."

"Yup," Pansy said, stealing a piece of chocolate from a sleeping Ravenclaw in the next bed. "Damn good at it, too."

* * *

Ron walked slowly back from the meeting, scuffing his feet, staring at the heels of Ginny's trainers as she walked in front of him. He didn't know what was bothering him more: that none of the professors had stopped them or that Pansy had stood up for Draco. On balance, he thought maybe they were both bothering him equally, but with different effects. The former just confused him, and the latter just made him feel inexplicably like shit.

"Ron? Ron!"

He practically ran into Ginny, not realizing she had stopped.

"Huh? Oh, what?"

"I've been talking to you for five minutes. You didn't hear a word I said, did you?" She put her hands on her hips.

"Oh, sure," Ron said quickly. "You were talking about... that thing."

Ginny looked at Harry. Harry looked at her. They seemed to be communicating in that secret way that people who are snogging use that no one else can ever figure out.

"What?" Ron asked, annoyed.

"You should tell him," Harry told her.

"Tell me what?"

"Do you think? I mean, he might freak out," Ginny said.

Harry shrugged. "I'd want to know if it was me."

"Yeah, but you're different."

Ron crossed his arms. "I'm standing right here, you know."

"Fine," Ginny said. In one long breath she said, "We think maybe someone was setting up this whole thing, with Pansy finding out about the detectives and everything, just to get you guys to break up."

"We were never together," Ron said quickly.

"Well, whatever," Ginny said. "But we thought you ought to know."

Ron turned to Harry. "Is it true?"

Harry nodded. "Yeah. It was a set-up."

"So what? It's not like I care. Good to be rid of her. Shuck the whole business," Ron said defensively, then added, "Who?"

Harry and Ginny exchanged another look. "That part really isn't important."

He thought of all the terrible events that could be directly traced back to that one incident, including, but not limited to the burning of his favorite Cannons shirt, and he suddenly wanted to maim whoever was guilty of such treason. If that wasn't important, he didn't know what was. "Who?" Ron demanded.

"Let's just say," Ginny said diplomatically, "that it came from both sides."

Ron's brain whirred through a series of possibilities and suddenly keeled over dead from exhaustion. "What does that mean?"

Harry looked pained. "It seems Pansy's friends thought it was a bad idea, too."

"Pansy doesn't have any friends. And my friends wouldn't do something like that." Ron could feel his face getting hot. He put hands on hips and stared down at Harry and Ginny imperiously. "Besides, I never said she was my girlfriend, but I seem to remember you both implying it on more than one occasion. If anything, you were the ones who started this whole thing!"

"Yeah, but we were never serious about it," Harry said. His voice was beginning to rise, as well. "I never actually thought you'd--"

"Fucking hell! I never did!" Ron yelled. They were at the portrait hole now.

"Ron, would you just cut it out already!" Ginny said with a frustrated sigh. "Denial, denial, denial. You may have never officially been girlfriend and boyfriend, but you have to admit actions speak louder than words, and from what I hear, there was quite a bit of action going on."

Ron's mouth dropped open and he stood there gulping air like a fish out of water.

"And besides," Ginny continued, poking him in the chest, "if you weren't so bloody hung up on the Hermione business, maybe you could actually get a decent girl."

"Leave Hermione out of this!" Ron said angrily.

"Leave me out of what?" Hermione asked, appearing from around the corner.

"Oh!" Ginny said quickly. "Hey, Hermione. We thought you had rounds."

"I do. I just came by to drop this off." She pulled the Marauder's Map out of her bag and handed it to Harry. "I thought maybe you all could work on the you-know-what while I'm on rounds."

"Er, thanks," Harry said, handing the map to Ron, who snatched it out of his hands and stuffed it into his back pocket.

"Is something wrong?" Hermione asked, looking at each of them in turn.

"No," Ginny answered with a smile. "We were just talking."

"Yeah, just talking." Harry gave Ginny a look and motioned at the portrait hole. They each subtly stepped towards it.

"Really? About what?" Hermione asked.

"Oh, the usual," Ron said bitterly. "We were just discussing how terrible a person I am because of that whole Parkinson thing."

Hermione's face fell fractionally and she broke eye contact with Ron.

"You wouldn't know anything about why she wants to disembowel me and hang my entrails from the rafters like streamers, would you?" Ron asked. "Hermione?"

Hermione blushed. "I've got to get back to rounds."

She turned to leave, but Ron caught the strap of her bag.

"Don't suppose you've been talking to any fourth year Hufflepuffs lately?" Ron asked. Behind him, he heard Harry whisper the password, followed by the creak of the portait hole swinging open and shut. Probably for the best.

Hermione laughed nervously. "I talk to Hufflepuffs all the time. I'm Head Girl, after all."

"And Malfoy? I suppose as Head Boy, he talks to fourth year Hufflepuff girls a lot, does he?" Ron held fast to Hermione's bag.

"I suppose he does." Hermione had gone pale, and Ron felt the curl of anger unfurl in the pit of his stomach.

"And I suppose he didn't like the idea of his ex-girlfriend hanging out with all of us all the time, did he?" Ron looked steadily at Hermione. His face had run the gamut from pink to purple, from hot to hotter, and now he just felt sort of numb. "I suppose maybe the two of you decided that a good way to get back at us would be to make us hate each other, right?"

"Ron," Hermione implored, cocking her head a bit to the side. "None of us were comfortable around her. Can't you see? There's something off about her. You're better off without her."

"Or maybe," Ron said, "you and Draco are better off with the two of us never speaking. Probably it never occurred to you that I may have actually liked her? And that maybe she actually liked me? That maybe we had fun together?" He let go of Hermione's bag and stepped back from her. "You are so selfish."

"Selfish?" Hermione said, hitching her bag on her shoulder. "I did what I thought was best for everyone! You're the selfish one, scampering about the castle with that absolute cow, doing Lord knows what horrid things to each other while simultaneously putting your best friend in danger!"

"What the hell are you talking about?" Ron said loudly, matching Hermione's tone. "You've gone round the bend! How could it possibly matter to Harry who I'm snogging? It's not like I was getting the freak on with You-Know-Who!"

"You might as well have been!" Hermione yelled back, getting in Ron's face. "You don't know what she's capable of!"

"Well, you don't know her at all!" Ron yelled.

"I know that I don't trust her!"

"Well, I did!"

"And look how well that's served you! Where is she now, if she's so good, huh? Where is she now, Ron?" Hermione stood back on her heels, hands on hips.

Ron blinked. He was pretty sure Hermione had just won the fight. He hated when that happened.

"She's... oh, go play with sodding Terry, why don't you," Ron said, turning red again.

Hermione checked her watch. "Just think about it, Ron. It's for the best," she said as she headed off to her rounds.

Ron stood there for a moment, defeated. He snarled the password and stomped up the stairs to the dormitory. No one tried to stop him, and once he was there, he threw the curtains of his four-poster aside so violently that they ripped. He swore and mended them with his wand, which Luna had rescued from the Great Hall and returned to him at the meeting, and then threw himself down on the bed.

He lay there, moodily tapping his wand against his leg, before he decided that he wasn't much in the mood to sleep. He grabbed his books and tore open his Charms text so vehemently that several pages ripped. He swore some more and stuffed the books back into his bag. He wasn't much in the mood for studying, either.

"Where is she now, Ron?" Hermione's words flew around Ron's head like hornets, buzzing away all other thoughts and stinging him over and over again.

He got out of bed and stalked the length of the room for about five minutes. He could hear the din from the common room and distinctly picked out Seamus' voice replaying the scene from the Great Hall with dramatic flair. He grabbed the Invisibility Cloak from Harry's trunk, stomped to the door, and threw it wide.

He had no destination in mind when he left the dormitory, but by the time he reached the portrait hole, he knew exactly where he was headed.

* * *

The dungeons at night were not nearly as dark as Pansy remembered from when she was a first year. Their second night at Hogwarts, she and Draco had led an expedition of the other first years to find a secret passage that Draco said his father had told him about. Supposedly, the tunnel led out under the lake and would empty them in the cellar of the Three Broomsticks, where Draco insisted they could drink enough Butterbeer to drown all of Hogwarts' house-elves. They had never found it, and Pansy had relegated the passage to myth, another one of Draco's elaborate ruses to scare the other members of their year and give him an air of superiority.

She had never told any of the Gryffindors about the passage, even though she knew all along that it was that famed tunnel they had been looking for all these months. After all, she could keep a secret as well as the rest of them.

Long after she had quitted herself of Ginny's company, she had spent nights slinking around the dungeons looking for it, pressing herself close to the cold stone walls and hiding in shadowy recesses every time she heard a noise, real or imagined. She didn't know what she would do when and if she actually stumbled across it. She just knew she wanted to find it.

Besides, the solitude felt good. So many days and nights spent alone last term had given her a certain taste for independence. That, and she had to get away from Draco, who had been whinging and clinging to her ever since they returned from the hospital wing. At least Pomfrey had given him a tonic to use in his hair to get the pink out. And thank God, too, because if he had taken her up on the offer to live with her Grandmother Viola they'd be married by midsummer, and Pansy would have to fake her own death and move to Australia and give guided tours of the Wizarding outback or some such. While she wasn't necessarily opposed to a change of scene, she thought perhaps she was doomed to pass out due to heatstroke and then be trampled to death by a herd of malicious emus. The Ministry for Wizarding Tourism was forever sending out adverts about how a witch or wizard could best defend themselves against emus. Apparently, they don't especially care for the wizarding type and have a tendency to attack witches or wizards when found. There had even been a chapter in one of Morag's Muggle Studies books that dealt with it in some detail. Had to do with pheromones. Quite an interesting notion, really, pheromones. If Pansy was ever inclined to go into potions, she thought she might study pheromones. Maybe she could develop a boy repellant that would only allow the properly groomed, good-looking, and mannerly ones within fifty feet of the wearer. She'd make millions.

And wasn't it criminal how delicious Ron Weasley looked covered in dessert?

It was very possible that she had gone completely mental. Because she certainly hated Ron Weasley and wouldn't touch him, even with a long-handled sundae spoon, for all the gold in Gringotts. Although, really, she could do worse. Take Draco, for instance. Daddy issues were so unattractive, not to mention destructive.

She had just rounded a corner, head lost in contemplation of her favorite sundae toppings, when she ran smack into Michael Corner. They both screamed, taking several steps back and pulling their wands.

"Corner?" Pansy said after she could breathe. "What the hell are you doing down here?"

"Looking for you, actually." Michael put his wand away and put a hand to his heart. "You scared the holy gay out of me."

Pansy cocked her head. "I'm not entirely sure I follow you on that one. But nevermind." She lowered her wand. "What did you want?"

"I wanted to tell you that I delivered your message to Ron," Michael said, lighting a cigarette.

Pansy waited a moment for Michael to elaborate. "And?" she finally prompted.

"And mostly he seemed confused." Michael blew a series of smoke rings above his head.

Pansy rolled her eyes. "Of course. I figured as much."

Michael stood there smoking for a few seconds, looking anywhere but at Pansy.

"Was there something else?" Pansy asked.

"Well," Michael paused, picking a hair off his sleeve. "Terry came back from rounds tonight really upset."

"And I care because..."

"Upset is a bit outside Terry's usual realm of human emotions. So I asked him what was the matter, you know, like you do, and he said Hermione was practically hysterical because Ron had found out that someone had sabotaged your relationship with him by tipping you off to the whole detectives thing." Michael took a drag off his cigarette and finally looked at Pansy.

Pansy just stood there for a moment. "First off, we never had what any healthy person could call a "relationship." And secondly, could you repeat that?"

"Someone set you up," Michael said.

"That's impossible," Pansy said, mind working fast. "Because I caught them. No one told me. I found out for myself."

"Hang on," Michael raised a hand to unnecessarily stop Pansy. "You said you caught them?"

"Yeah," Pansy bristled. "I heard them following me, so I led them to the staircases and trapped them when the one connecting the Charms corridor to the West tower moved, like it does that time of day. And when I confronted them, they confessed like a couple of firsties cheating at Gobbstones."

"Oh, man!" Michael laughed.

"What's so funny?" Pansy said indignantly. She had counted her capture of the Hufflepuff detectives as quite a success.

"Madley, Branstone, and Dobbs don't get caught unless they want to be caught," Michael said, wiping a tear of mirth from his eye. "Don't you see? They followed you into that trap because they knew it was a trap and they wanted you to discover them. Though I don't know how, unless they are somehow in cahoots with your saboteurs, which raises its own series of interesting questions, doesn't it? La."

Pansy took Michael's cigarette from his hand and took a drag. "They meant to be framed, then."

"Looks like it," Michael said.

They finished the cigarette in silence, Pansy's brain turning over this new information. It didn't really change things, did it, that no matter their reason for being discovered, the girl detectives had still been hired by Ron to work their detective mojo on her, and she honestly didn't know how she felt about it. Hadn't Michael said they usually deal with finding out who likes who and all that boy meets girl stuff? And really, they were Hufflepuffs. Pansy had secretly doubted all this time that they would have been up to anything potentially malicious or harmful. But it was the principle of the matter, wasn't it? She didn't like the idea of being spied on, but it wasn't as if the walls of the castle didn't have enough eyes and ears already. If anyone has a secret at Hogwarts, it is not a secret for long. Probably, this was a forgivable offense.

Pansy sighed in frustration.

"All right?" Michael asked.

"This kind of puts a kink in my plans," Pansy said, rubbing her temples. Damn Weasley, ruining everything by being not such a bastard after all.

"You want my advice?" Michael asked, crushing the butt of the cigarette under the heel of his boot and banishing it.

Pansy opened her mouth to say "no", but Michael cut her off.

"Well, too bad, because Ron's a good guy. A little dense sometimes, admittedly, but what bloke isn't when he's arse over end for a bird? So if I were you, I'd give him a chance to defend himself. A proper chance. It could turn out that he just wanted to know what your favorite color was for your birthday card or something."

"Neither of us were ever arse over anything, and he didn't give me a birthday card," Pansy said, chewing the inside of her lip.

"Whatever. You get the picture," Michael said. "Now, I've got to get my arse to bed. It's freezing bollocks down here, you know it?" He walked passed her, then turned. "And Pansy?"

"Yeah?" Pansy said, distracted.

"Don't think too hard about it. Hard thinking always makes an easy thing into a total disaster. You've got to go with your gut. Trust me." Michael smiled.

Pansy smiled back, a little. "Thanks, I think."

Michael nodded. "See you around."

He took off down the corridor, and Pansy, trying to sort out her feelings from her thoughts, had just rounded the opposite corner when she was hit by a Stunning spell. She had just enough time to register her attacker before her vision blacked.

* * *

Ron sat in the kitchens, eating chocolate cake and watching the map. Filch was pacing the Trophy Room, and Mrs. Norris was in the Charms corridor. Snape was in his office, and Dumbledore in his. He had not found McGonagall, and figured she had retired early to her private chambers. He was about to give up, thinking Pansy had herself gone to bed, when he flipped the page to a section deep in the dungeons and saw her.

Her dot wasn't moving, just idling in a corridor that appeared to run parallel to an outside wall. He was sure he had never been that far into the dungeons before, and couldn't place where she might be or what she might be doing there, and alone, for that matter. He finished his cake and was thinking maybe he'd just go back to bed and forget the whole thing when another dot appeared from nowhere and began moving toward her.

"What the hell?" Ron wondered aloud. He pushed his cake plate away from him and pulled the map close to his eyes, as if looking at it cross-eyed would enlighten him.

But his eyes definitely weren't playing tricks on him, and the first rule of the Marauder's Map was that it never told a lie. Ron made up his mind that evil was surely afoot, and, throwing the Invisibility Cloak around his shoulders, decided to take a closer look. But that didn't mean he was feeling at all chivalrous or anything like that.

He kept the map out as he ran through the maze of dungeon passages. He was still a good ways off when he saw the dot in question moved close to Pansy, and then the dots began moving together. Something in Ron's gut told him that this was not the scene of two girls out for a stroll together. Pansy might confuse the hell out of him ninety-nine percent of the time, but he was pretty sure that Pansy would never be that close to her of her own volition.

The cloak flapped loosely around him, hindering his stride, and so he tore it off. Balling it in one hand, he ran faster, map clenched in his fist with his wand. He rounded another corner, and another, and another, and another. His heart was beating rapidly and his throat was dry and tight.

I'm never going to get there in time, he thought, and a voice inside him asked, In time for what?

He rounded the last corner in time to see Pansy's boots disappear behind a stone wall at the far end of the corridor. He skidded to a stop just as it slid shut with a small expulsion of dust.

"Reducto!" Ron said, pointing his wand at the wall.

Nothing happened, so he tried again.

"Diffindo!"

Nada.

"Alohamora!"

Zip.

"Finite Incantatem!"

Zilch. Ron banged his head against the stone. "Ouch."

"If your bushy-headed friend was here, she'd have gotten it open on the first try."

Ron turned quickly, wand pointed straight at Draco Malfoy's swollen nose. "What the hell are you doing here?" he growled. "Come to dance on Pansy's grave?"

Draco's eyebrows contracted slightly, then he shrugged and eyed Ron's wand. His arms were folded across his chest, and Ron knew that if he really wanted to, and he honestly kind of did, he could kill the rat-faced bastard now and hide his body somewhere no one would ever look.

"You run like a duck," Draco said at last, looking past Ron at the stone door, which had sealed itself. "What are you doing here?"

Ron just glared at him. "None of your damn business."

Draco turned his cold eyes back to Ron, and it brought a little warmth to Ron's heart to see that he'd busted a blood vessel in one of them, so that the gray of his iris floated in red. "How did you find it, then? Because I know you couldn't have found it by yourself. Unless..." Draco walked past Ron and put his hand on the stone. "You followed someone, didn't you?"

What the hell is he talking about? Ron wondered, but decided to just go with it and save some time. He kept his wand trained on Draco's head. He wanted him to get to the point. He wanted to get to Pansy. "What of it?"

Draco glared over his shoulder at Ron with his good eye. "There's only about a half dozen people who know where this passage is, Weasley, and you're surely not stupid enough to have come down here after any one of them."

Ron angled his chin. "Well, maybe I did."

"Then I stand corrected." Draco returned his attention to the wall. He pulled his wand, and Ron took a quick step back. "Now the only question is who?"

"Watch it, Malfoy," he warned.

"Don't get your knickers in a twist," he drawled as he tapped the wall three times with his wand and muttered, "Aperio!"

Ron watched as the stone wall slid open silently, like a cloud moving over the sun, and revealed a dark passage, in the middle of which lay Pansy, sprawled with arms and legs out from her body. A cauldron sat on low flames near her head on the inside of a white circle that had been drawn around Pansy's body in the black dirt.

"Well, I'll be damned," Draco said as Teeny, wearing a blood-red cloak, appeared out of the shadows, brandishing a long, curved blade, her eyes dark and wild, and looking mad as hell.

"Shut the door," she snarled. "You're just in time for the big event."

"What--" Ron started forward, but Draco threw his arm out to stop him.

"I wouldn't want to get inside that circle if I were you," he warned, and then the door glided shut behind them.

* * *

The air inside the passage smelled like death. There was no other word for it. It was the smell of decay and rot, of fetid cellar dust and old bones. Ron raised his arm to his mouth as he moved carefully around the outside of the circle, pressing his back to the stone wall. Draco moved along the opposite wall. They both stared down at Pansy's body. Ron watched her chest rise and fall with a stilted breath, and he knew she was only Stunned and not dead. At least not yet.

"Teeny, dear, whatever are you doing?" Draco asked in a voice similar to what one might use if a small child had just fed the family dog the Christmas pudding. Somewhere between disbelief and irritation.

"Meddling," Teeny said, then smiled at Draco. "Now we can be together."

"But we're already together," Draco said calmly, moving closer to the maniac girl.

"But not forever," Teeny said coldly.

"Ah," Draco said, as if enlightened.

"Exactly what is going on here?" Ron asked quietly. He stared down at Pansy. Teeny had removed Pansy's cloak and unbuttoned her shirt down to her waist, revealing a white lace bra. There was a smear of blood directly over her heart. He knew enough about the Dark Arts to know that this--whatever it was--was probably only legal in the remotest parts of Bulgaria and possibly Texas.

"Her heart can't beat for Draco if it only beats for me." Teeny said it with conviction, which told Ron that not only was Teeny crazy, she was the dangerous sort of crazy. The kind of crazy that a boy shouldn't mess with. His brothers had warned him about girls like this.

"So, you're going to put her under Imperio or something?" Ron asked it, even though there were a lot easier ways to perform an Unforgivable. He didn't like all this cloak and dagger business.

Teeny threw her head back and laughed that faerie-bell laugh of hers. "Oh no, this is a lot better. This is permanent." She drew the knife up and sliced off a lock of her hair. She turned it over in her hands. "Ever since I've known her, I've wanted to be her. Not just be like her, no. I've wanted to have what she has, think how she thinks, behave how she behaves. I've studied her, mimicked her, gotten as much of hers as I can. Yet still, there's something that eludes me." She glanced at Draco. "There's something she has that I could only hope for. And now I am going to take it." She let go of the lock of hair, and it floated down into the cauldron. It hissed, and the white circle began to glow faintly red.

Ron took a step back.

"Right, of course," Ron muttered. He glanced up at Draco. He wasn't watching Teeny. He was watching Pansy's chest rise and fall, counting the time between breaths, the same as Ron.

Teeny raised the knife to Pansy's hair and cut off a lock near her ear. She cradled it carefully, as if it were precious, and let it fall out of her palm, which Ron noticed had a nasty cut on it, and into the cauldron.

The circle glowed a brighter red, and Ron's mind raced. The only thing he could think to do was keep talking. It wasn't one of his fortes, but until he could come up with a plan, it was worth a shot.

"Why not just kill her?" Ron asked hoarsely. "I mean, it would be a lot easier, wouldn't it? To just cut her out of the picture entirely?"

Draco glared at him and shook his head as if to say, "Stupid Weasley."

"It must pain you," Teeny said, "to love someone who loves someone else." She was still crouched on the dirt floor beside Pansy's head. The knife caught the light from the cauldron's flames and it bounced off the stone walls.

"Look, we were never together," Ron said forcefully.

"But you wanted to be," Teeny said simply as she stood.

"That's not--" Ron began, but he caught Draco's face and the queer expression it held caused Ron to pause.

"It is true." Teeny's voice was sad. She rolled up her sleeve, and Ron got a better look at her arm. What he had thought was a cut on her hand was actually the blood from a cut in the middle of her arm. The blood ran down in tiny rivulets. Teeny began walking around the inside of the circle, and where she walked, the little trail of blood she left behind turned the circle a deep purple.

Ron edged his way slowly toward the head of the circle, near the cauldron. All that reading on blood magic that Hermione had made him do in the library had paid off. He knew that if she completed the circle, there was no way he could stop the spell, whatever it was. If she got back to the cauldron, Pansy was as good as dead.

"Is that what this is about?" Ron asked. "Ma--Draco doesn't love you enough? You think Draco still loves Pansy, don't you, and that's why you can't be together?"

Teeny paused near Pansy's left arm, right in front of Draco. Her head raised, and Ron watched Draco's face as he spoke. He looked furious.

"Well, let me tell you a little bit about Draco Malfoy," Ron said. "Draco Malfoy only loves one person in all the world, and that person is Draco Malfoy."

Teeny glared at Ron over her shoulder and started to walk again around the circle. Pansy's breaths were growing shallower and farther apart.

"Think about it--if he loved Pansy as much as you think he did, or still does, whatever, then why would he have let her go?" Ron was talking fast, the words spilling from his mouth. "And if Pansy loved Draco so much, why would she choose me?"

Draco glared at Ron again, but Ron was past the point of caring. Teeny had stopped again near Pansy's feet. She turned slowly and looked at Ron.

"To make him jealous, of course," she said.

"Oh please," Draco spat. "As if I could ever be jealous of Weasley."

"He's right," Ron said, pointing at Draco. "That wouldn't make Draco jealous, it would just make Draco sick."

"Exactly," Draco said, cottoning on, finally. "If Pansy wanted a bottom-feeder like Weasley, whatever would I want with her?"

"But you do want her!" Teeny cried. "When you woke up! And on the train! And just now, in the hospital wing! It's the way you look at her when you think I don't notice. And I know something happened at Halloween."

Draco made a dismissive gesture. "That was just revenge."

"So something did happen!" Teeny moved toward him again. As the blood crossed paths, the circle began to fade a little. "Tell me what happened. I demand to know."

Ron crouched down and leaned close to the circle. "Pansy!" he whispered. "Pansy, wake up!"

"It was nothing," Draco said smoothly. "We were drunk. You were asleep."

"Oh, God," Teeny said. She fell down on her knees in front of Draco. "I knew it! I knew something happened!"

"Pansy!" Ron said more forcefully. Her eyelids flickered and her head rolled a bit to one side.

"Did you sleep with her?" Teeny was crying now, and she was cradling both arms over her stomach and rocking a bit.

Draco took a step back and looked down at her with sheer disdain. "You weren't even of age yet."

Teeny began sobbing and rocking more furiously. Ron watched as she got nearer and nearer the circle. The moment she crossed it, the spell would end, and Ron would get Pansy the fuck out of there.

"Why?" Teeny sobbed. "Why? Why? Why?"

"You're pathetic," Draco said coldly, sneering.

That did it. Teeny collapsed onto the circle and it disappeared. Ron leapt up, knocked the cauldron over with his foot, and knelt beside Pansy.

Teeny's wails filled the passage, echoing and careening, a cacophony of misery. It sounded like a million dying cats.

"Pansy, you have to get up now," Ron said, taking hold of her shoulder and shaking. Her mouth fell open and she sucked in a lungful of air. "Pansy!"

She opened her eyes a bit, smiled, and then threw up all over him.

"Brilliant." He picked her up; one arm under her shoulders and another under her knees. She said something inarticulate and pressed her face against his chest. "You picked a hell of a time to go complacent on me."

Malfoy was already at the entrance, Teeny crawling after him. The stone wall slid open, and Teeny lay curled in the dirt, a bloody, terrible mess. Ron stepped through the opening with Pansy in his arms, and Draco followed, letting the door seal itself with Teeny still inside.

"You sure can pick them," Ron said maliciously. He hitched Pansy up in his arms.

"Take her to Pomfrey," Draco said. He sounded tired and annoyed. "Tell her it was food poisoning or something. The symptoms are a lot alike. And with all the cockroach clusters Pansy eats, no one will think twice about it."

"What the hell just happened in there?" Ron demanded angrily. "And what the bloody fuck was that?"

"Just take her." He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. "My head is killing me."

"What about Teeny?"

"What about her?" Draco asked.

"Are you just going to leave her in there?" Ron asked, stunned.

Draco shrugged. "She knows the way out."

"You are the world's biggest twat, Malfoy."

"So I'm told."

"And I'm not sorry about your nose, either," Ron said. He hitched Pansy up in his arms again and started walking out of the dungeons.

"And I'm not sorry about bonking your girlfriend," Draco retorted.

"I'll make you pay for that one day, Malfoy," Ron said murderously. And he meant it. If Draco ever treated Pansy with as much disregard as he just treated Teeny... well, no one deserved that.

"Whatever," Draco said and disappeared around the corner.

* * *

When Pansy woke up, the first thing she noticed was the headache. The second thing she noticed was that she was back in the hospital wing, and the third thing she noticed was that Ron was asleep in a chair at the foot of her bed with his arms folded on top of her blankets and a spare pillow shoved under his chin.

"He wouldn't leave," Madam Pomfrey said, shoving a glass of water into her hands. "I tried to send him back to his dormitory, but does he listen to me?"

Pansy drank half the glass of water before she even drew breath. Her throat felt like it was on fire. "He doesn't listen to anyone," she finally said.

Madam Pomfrey nodded sympathetically and took the glass when Pansy handed it back.

"Did he tell you what happened?" Pansy asked carefully.

"You should really try to eat a more balanced diet, young lady," Madam Pomfrey said reprovingly. "I thought your mother would have taught you better than that. Eating nothing but cockroach clusters until you're too sick to walk!"

Pansy smiled. "Whoops."

"He carried you all the way from the dungeons, you know. Not a lot of men would do that. You're lucky to have such a caring boyfriend," Madam Pomfrey said.

Pansy laid her head back down on the pillows, not bothering to correct her.

"And he said he wanted to be here when you woke up," Pomfrey said, tucking the blankets in tighter on the side of the bed. "Said he had something important to tell you."

"Thanks," Pansy said. She had something to tell him, too.

Madam Pomfrey smiled down at her, then scurried off to another patient. Pansy looked down the length of the bed at Ron, who was drooling out the side of his mouth like some big red dog. She reached down carefully and ran her fingers through his hair, then pulled the covers around herself and curled into her pillow. She'd worry about almost being killed some other time. Right now, she had to work out a new plan.