Breeding

-breeding-

Pansy likes sugar.

She knows exactly the way she wants it, and she takes it exactly that way every single time. She makes her own tea every morning, and it's not that she doesn't trust the house elves to do their job, but it's clear to her that when you want a job done right, you need to do it yourself. Pansy knows exactly what she wants, and she knows exactly how she's going to get it.

Two cubes, sometimes a third when she's feeling particularly in the mood, and let stand for three and a half minutes in a sunny spot, stirred a few times with her own handmade silver spoon, given to her by her mum when she was just a baby.

"This is your spoon now, Pansy-love, just like it was mine and my mother's before that," her mum had told her, and little Pansy had smiled and cooed.

Pansy knows what's hers.

No one else understands. They whisper behind her back; jealous bitches. They look at her like they can steal the red carpet underneath her feet, grab the silver spoon from her gently-brewed tea. They have no breeding, pure blood or not.

Her mother had something to say about that, too. She told her all about breeding. If you have to be a bitch, you better make sure you mean it, she'd said, not in so many words. Even so, Pansy had understood. She was eight years old, and she was ready to take on the world with whatever means found necessary. Know what you have, and don't be afraid to use it, Rose Parkinson had told her daughter while braiding her yellow hair. You have your hair and your wits about you, and that's all you need, she'd said. Don't forget that, she'd said, and Pansy didn't.

"Bitch!" the other girls screamed, and Pansy laughed. It wasn't so much a case of the pot calling the kettle black as it was jealousy, pure and simple. She could get away with it, and she always knew it.

She'd always seen her mother's pretty face smiling at her whenever their ugly faces swam into view. "You know how to do this," her mother would tell her voicelessly. "You know you have the power, and they only wish they did. Make them yours, Pansy," her mother would whisper in her ear, and Pansy had always listened to her mother. She wants to be like her one day, except better. She's going to be the best.

Pansy sneers, even though the sun is in her eyes. She feels tall and strong and they are small and insignificant, ripe for the plucking. They might be Slytherin or Ravenclaw or even Gryffindor, it doesn't matter. What matters, what had always mattered, is that they're -hers-, like the spoon in her mouth, like her mother's fingers sliding through her hair.

"Remember, they were born that way," her mum had whispered when they'd taken their yearly vacation in Bath. Muggle-watching was a sport, and more fun than taunting seagulls. They would both laugh and get a tan at the same time. This was no different.

"So are you bitches -in- or are you -out-?" Pansy would call, hands on her hips, tossing her hair to the side. "I haven't got all day, so quit your yapping and let's go!"

It was an unspoken truth that there are Hufflepuffs to hex and Gryffindors to torture, and somewhere in between Pansy has to fix her hair and make the others do her homework for her. It's a full schedule. And then there's time with Draco, rationed out and spread evenly throughout the day. She doesn't want him to get tired of her, but she has her needs too. It's not like they had an -arrangement-, it's just that she doesn't want to go a whole six hours without a meaningful glance. That's really the highlight of her day. He'd look at her and his lip would curl in a way it wouldn't for anyone else, and Pansy's expression wouldn't change, but she'd feel warm inside, like she'd eaten a nice thick loaf of just-baked bread with cranberries and walnuts in it. Just the way she liked it.

Draco had always watched her and smiled, and Pansy had always felt it on the back of her neck like a warm hand, squeezing her reassuringly. That's just the way things -were-, between them, and the way things would remain. Draco had always understood.

He never tells her it would be forever.

He doesn't need to.

He just smirks in that carefree superior way he'd had even when they were six, and she thinks, "yes". Not "maybe". Not "someday". Just... yes. They were sharing their own private joke, and it wasn't really funny, except in that ticklish way that made everything all right with the world as long as the secret was theirs to keep. As long as Draco Malfoy was hers to keep.

She'd even come out and asked him the year before, on Christmas Eve when they were both left alone on the huge sofa by the tree. The snow had been falling outside the Manor window, and Pansy felt safe and soft-edged, like her nails were had been filed and buffed and her cuticles trimmed, hands soaked in warm rose-water and left to dry on a fuzzy towel. Draco looked as sleepy as Pansy felt, and she thought it was a good time to ask, so she did.

"So will you be mine to keep this year, darling?" she'd said softly, with a little smile like she wasn't really serious.

Draco had snorted and raised an eyebrow sleepily, like he thought Pansy was just a little bit daft, but it was an indulgent look. He was well-fed and they had no reason to quarrel, and there was also the fact that Pansy's knees were dimpling right over his own, thrown artfully across his legs as they sat. Pansy has to take care of these details so that Draco wouldn't have to. She thinks of it as good practice.

"Are you mine, too? Can I have your titties first thing then?" he'd said, and she'd pulled her legs off him with a highly scandalized look that made them both laugh.

"Of course I'm not, silly. You have to work for it."

"Nah," he'd murmured. "Too tired. Maybe later. Ask me again next year," he'd mumbled, right before he'd fallen asleep entirely, arm thrown negligently over her breasts.

But he'd said enough.

She knows she has him because he'd held her elbow just like he should, too, even though his mother had to remind him, and he growled at her about how heavy her arm was and how it was making him ache, and not in a good way. It was always there, in the details, like two little rings among her large collection in the old ebony box.

Pansy knows that they think it's just about the politics, or just about the image, or just about the tradition of it all. She knows they all expect her to be up the duff in a matter of months, now that they've been seen touching each other in public. He must look at her and see a great big dripping womb, that's what they think; what else is there? The Parkinsons and the Malfoys go way back; it's expected. But no one really expected this Malfoy and this Parkinson: they're something else.

She thinks that it's all right. Just as it should be.

Some girls have all the looks and some have all the wit, and she has Draco Malfoy, which is something else, isn't it? She sneers and wears her scarlet-woman lipstick to inter-Slytherin parties, and the other girls look at her like she's frightening, like she's something else. She may look like a slut sometimes, but everyone knows it's hands off except for Malfoy. Doesn't mean -she- can't look, and of course she does, even though Draco has no competition and he knows it, try as Pansy might to suggest otherwise. They know each other too well.

The year he gets "serious" after the incident with his father, which was really a shame, she just ignores it. It's just one of those phases, and what she really needs to do is lose some weight to fit into that fairy costume for Halloween. Didn't he say he wanted to see her in purple?

All purple-- lips and nails and toenails and blush. Pansy likes to blush; it becomes her. A purple fairy, and she'd lost the twenty pounds all right, but the bits on her tits and arse had stayed; he'd like that. Boys like a nice piece of arse, she knows that, and Pansy isn't a stingy girl. She already has what she wants, and she's not giving it away, either.

She could sit on his lap and air-kiss his cheek the way he hates, and he'd tolerate it, and it would be enough. He could stop thinking about all the ways he would get his revenge and start thinking about how tight her dress was across her bosom, and maybe he'd stick a finger in her cleavage and she'd gasp with indignation and slap him. He'd let her slap him, that has to mean something.

And if the arsehole had another little hissy fit the way he did sometimes, and refused to act the way he knows he should, she could always stick that second year's head down the toilet and laugh and laugh. It would be fun, and there would be more stories told about her. Pansy likes her fame; it suits her, though it doesn't really matter. Everything she wants, suits her-- that's just the way it is. She's realistic about her skills, and she has this one talent, but it's an important one. She learned it when she was young: it's all in the attitude. Her mother didn't have to tell her that, either.

Her mother would say that pink would really be best for her complexion, but Pansy chooses purple, because she's royalty. And if Draco-bloody-Malfoy doesn't see it, she'll make him see it, whatever it takes. If she has to break his face, she could do that, but she'd rather sit on his lap and purr.

It's his choice, and while she sits and waits like a lady, she won't wait forever. Half the Slytherin boys would die to go with her. Die.

Pansy Parkinson never cries, not then and not ever, especially not in her purple eye-shadow and charmed mascara. Draco is taking a while, but there's no way he would've forgotten. He's probably taking longer than she had, fixing his hair just right and choosing which fancy robe to wear out of his extremely generous collection. He'd probably come down looking like a peacock gone to Sunday faire, but Pansy would only snort and hold out her purple-painted hand for him to kiss. He'd better kiss it, too. She'd never laugh. Ever.

Draco Malfoy would never laugh at her.

He laughs at everyone else, anyone in the world but her, because he -is- hers, even if he doesn't know it. Everyone else that matters knows it. All the Slytherin girls know it; they wouldn't dare touch him, or even look at him the wrong way. It's in the way they -look- at her, like she's larger than life, and the way they turn their eyes away when they're together, as if they're all so jealous it hurt. She knows that, and it doesn't matter if Draco had ever noticed or cared, she knows it.

She decides to make an entrance, rather than coming to get him in his room. He might be in a delicate state, and if she really wanted him to strip, she knows she could just -ask-.

So she puts on her purple dress and her pointed purple shoes and her diamond-and-amethyst heirloom earrings that he'd given her last Christmas break, and she prepares to knock them dead. She's just walking down the stairs and sitting on the leather couch right next to Draco's usual spot; it's nothing special. She's had to spread her out dress carefully, so that now it drapes right over her knees. Draco thinks she had girly, dimply knees, and he'd never gotten tired of telling her, ever since they were children. Never a thing about her huge bosoms or her well-rounded bottom or those pouty lips, no, Draco likes her knees, so she has to hide them. He has to work for them.

She can't exactly make it -too- easy. He would lose all interest if she were to forget herself and just tear her bra off and shout, "So here it is! Here is my heart! Take it! Take it! Come on, hurry!" She'd barely survived his protracted "ewww, girls are filthy" period, and she isn't going to mess anything up this time. She's going to take it slow, just like she knows he should. He's going to want her so bad he'll feel like he's going to -burst-, and then she'll torture him some more and he'll want her some more. He'll start looking at her like he could just devour her with his eyes, from the tips of her toes to the little blonde hairs above her upper lip. Pansy may not have the best packaging, but she knows all about incentive. Love isn't enough, Pansy knows that. She knows what she has to do, and she's willing to work too.

It all comes back to the breeding.

There's a way to cross your legs that her mother taught her. You sit sort of straight but lean back a little and wiggle some, so that your thighs are layered well, and you look like you're lounging as if in invitation, but you're really not.

She really tries to go for the ultimate effect, but it doesn't work so well, having to cover up her knees. Plus, the purple lace rather itches, so she's doubly glad when Draco comes down, scowling like he'd like to kill a large rat right then and there. He should know Pansy would like that.

She smiles brightly, licking some of the purple lipstick off her teeth and purring a little, and she thinks it definitely came off like an invitation. The girls must all be drooling.

Draco Malfoy is a sex god, and it's not really looks at all, though he's pale and sharp the way a silver dagger would be. Sometimes Pansy looks at him and she forgets that she -has- him, and she can almost imagine getting papercuts if she were stupid enough to touch him. The thought makes her feel better, because she's not afraid of papercuts and she's not afraid of Draco Malfoy. Everyone else should be. Everyone else doesn't matter after all, though they're useful at times. It's just her and Draco, and they make up the real world.

It's all more to do with breeding. It's the way he walks, like he owns the place. It's the way he doesn't look around and only sees the things he -wants- to, because they are the only things that exist. Here, in their territory, everything works the way Draco Malfoy and Pansy Parkinson say it does.

Pansy knows it, -they- know it. Probably only the Gryffindors would dispute it, but everyone knows what the Gryffindors are like. Not really worth mentioning.

She thinks she looks prim yet sexy. It's the right look.

He sneers a little, but it's more like a smirk. Draco had never really been smooth anyway, unless she was with him. She gives that to him. She makes him a prince because she's a real princess.

"You're something else, Parkinson," he says, and she takes that the way she wants it.

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