Serpens

The poetry of the earth is never dead:
When all the birds are faint with the hot sun,
And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run
From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead;
That is the Grasshopper's -- he takes the lead
In summer luxury -- he has never done
With his delights; for when tired out with fun
He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed.

The poetry of earth is ceasing never:
On a lone winter evening, when the frost
Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills
The Cricket's song, in warmth increasing ever,
And seems to one in drowsiness half lost,
The Grasshopper's among some grassy hills.

On the Grasshopper and the Cricket -- John Keats

---

They had sat next to one another on the Hogwarts Express.

Pansy had been reading The Magic Grasshopper when she heard a soft clicking sound; looking at the stringy boy next to her, she realised he was the source of the muted sounds. He'd made several noises in the back of his throat, and when her eyes swept up his face she saw the wet shine of his cheeks. She didn't say a word, but slipped her father's handkerchief into Theodore's pocket.

"All right?" she whispered, still clutching The Magic Grasshopper in her dimpled, youthful hand.

He turned away from her, pressing his forehead against the chilled glass window of the speeding train; she could smell boy -- the bucolically mixed scent of the outdoors, the air, the earth, and baths on alternating nights rather than daily.

Later, she whispered to him again. "You don't need to be scared."

"It's not that," he whispered back fiercely, stuffing his hand into his pocket; through the woollen fabric of his robes, she could make out his fingers curling around the soft bulge of the handkerchief she'd just given him.

"Don't be such a baby," Draco sneered, regarding his peer disdainfully, Vince and Gregory smirking next to him. "It's not like you're the only one who's ever lost a parent, you know."

The boy shifted his head and fixed an unusual gaze on his detractor. "I am the only one," he said, and for a fleeting moment she thought she actually understood what he meant: he was alone.

They'd all read about his mother's death in the Daily Prophet, of course, and Pansy herself had met his mother enumerous times, in fact. She had been a quiet, mousey French woman, who'd seemed aloof and sad, her only child always hovering nearby, watchful and silent. All their families ran in the same circles; she wondered who the boy would hover over from now on -- his father was older than sin, and, unlike the other wizarding families, they hadn't a gaggle of relatives or any kind of extended family that she knew of. Pansy's mother had once commented to Narcissa Malfoy how she didn't understand how the boy's mother could stand such an aged husband. After all, she had said, he might up and die any day now, he's so old! Narcissa had laughed. That, Eugenie, can be lucrative in its own right.

Geneviève Nott had never learnt English, thus was routinely ignored at social events -- not purposefully, but really rather out of default. So it hadn't come as a surprise to everyone, just three weeks before, when she smashed a family portrait to the ground, and drug jagged glass up her forearm, ripping her veins open; crimson bubbling forth, she had bled herself out in a hot, enigmatic flow of protest, across the silent white marble flooring of the Notts' foyer, whilst son and father were enjoyed an afternoon at a Wasps/Cannons match.

Died suddenly after a brief illness, the Daily Prophet had discretely printed in Geneviève's obituary; however, everyone knew.

Draco leaned forward, just the faintest hint of a predatory smirk playing at his lips. "What'd you do to make your Mum kill herself with a family portrait anyway?" he asked shamelessly. "Didn't clean your room? Or what?"

The other boy didn't respond; Pansy noticed he wasn't crying any longer. Dried white trails of salt streaked his cheeks.

"Or maybe your father decided to find himself a proper English woman? Not some French bint who can't be arsed to communicate properly . . . ." Draco and his friends laughed.

Pansy watched the arcane hatred blossom and set in the boy's dark eyes, and she had to strain to hear his response. It was barely audible.

"She communicated just fine."

"I'm just having you on," Draco said finally, feigning offhandedness; his eyes glittered triumphantly.

The boy looked at Draco, surprised. Pansy watched the awkward scene unfold, not knowing what to do -- should she stand up for the boy with her handkerchief, or ought she maintain the comfortable state of not being targeted herself? Three against two. She did the math quickly, and remained unabashedly silent, glancing warily amongst her future classmates, one haughty and self-assured, the other . . . well, she wasn't quite sure exactly what he was. She was far too young to put the proper name to it, for she was not implausibly clever at age eleven; had she been older and more learned, she would have immediately recognised his innate stoicism, his ruthless independence, his exceptional tenacity. As it was, being just a first-year, she merely thought him odd.

"Hey, guess who's on the train?" Draco changed the topic of conversation abruptly. It was something he did quite often -- flaying people open, leaving them raw and exposed, and then abandoning his blitzing torment just as quickly as the impulse had come. "Harry Potter," he whispered conspiratorially.

"Really?"

Gregory's brow furrowed as he recalled the legend of Harry Potter.

"Really?"

Vince had several vines of red licorice hanging from his mouth; he'd stuck them to his canines in a fruitless attempt at sabre-teeth, and they flopped inanely as he spoke.

"Really?" Pansy couldn't help herself; her interest was piqued.

He nodded smugly, folding his arms across his chest. "Flint told me. We should go find him. Get up!" He stood, Crabbe and Goyle rising as well. He glanced over at the boy wedged mutely up against the train's frozen window. "Well? Aren't you coming too?"

"No."

Draco rolled his eyes. "Come with us. Look, you're not still hacked off about what I said, are you? I was just joking, yeah?"

He shook his head; Draco turned with an indifferent shrug, and she watched the three boys go, both wanting to join them, but also not wanting to intrude. Draco hadn't asked her to come along to meet the famous Harry Potter. She shifted unconsciously, the toe of her shoe scraping against the lush red carpet. "Go, if you want," the boy said to her, turning again to look out the window.

Pansy readjusted, straightening upright. "Don't tell me what to do," she said haughtily, bringing The Magic Grasshopper back into her lap, finding her place. Several minutes later she glanced sideways and found him watching the page from where he sat, his curiosity betraying him from under hooded lids. Humpf, she snorted to herself, he should have brought his own book. She continued reading silently, a vision of her mother lovingly packing her books in her steamer, chatting to her about famous wizarding authors and trusting her with tomes that were family heirlooms. First editions, hand-scribed editions, autographed editions, rare editions, only editions. She had never once destroyed or damaged a single volume. As an infant she had never torn paper or books, or fancied getting her hands dirty or mussed; she couldn't remember a time where her mother hadn't shared books, and words, and thoughts with her.

She glanced over. He hadn't moved, but she could see his eyes straining to see the text. Sighing, she shifted in his direction, crossing one leg over the other; with a subtly purposeful move she tipped the pages sideways toward him.

After several minutes, she spoke again. "All right?"

"All right."

She turned the page, and they read on like that, swaying silently with the motion of the train.

---

Although Pansy had been sick on the boats, she figured it had been due to Hagrid's horrid stench rather than nerves. She wasn't even a bit flustered when she hopped up onto the stool, and she breathed in deeply as McGonagall placed the Sorting Hat over her head; as the darkness fell over her eyes, she smelt history, and magic, and for a moment she was sure the generations of a thousand years were right there inside her head, and she smiled. She'd been dying to chat to the hat since she could remember.

Ooo, she gushed in her mind, I've been waiting for yonks to talk to--

"SLYTHERIN!" the Hat called out, and then it was ripped from her head, and disappointment filled her as she blinked into the light of a thousand floating candles; glancing downward as she slowly got down from the stool, she watched as the generic Hogwarts patch on her new robes shimmered slightly before silver and green began winding its way upward, replacing the Hogwarts crest with the noble serpent of Slytherin.

She sat next to Draco, as she always knew she would, and he grinned at her smugly. "The hat barely touched my head before it shouted," he said in a low voice, popping a chocolate he'd smuggled into the Great Hall tucked away in his pockets into his mouth. "But you -- McGonagall had to put the hat all the way onto your head before it decided." He chewed the chocolate, looking over her appraisingly. "I must be more Slytherin than you," he finished, smirking cheekily.

She found herself wanting to impress him, wanting to prove him wrong. "No, that's not so!" she said, hoisting her chin. "It's just I've better manners and etiquette than you -- I at least said Hello to the hat, now, didn't I?" She tilted her head, her brow furrowing. "I'll bet you didn't even bother with a greeting, did you?"

He snorted lightly, treating himself to another sweet. "You've a funny nose, you know."

"And you're pointy and pale."

"I don't like dark eyes. They're too common."

"Dark eyes are better for hiding."

"You're short."

"So are you!" she noted, shaking her head in disbelief.

"I," Draco said, drawing his slight body up, "am certainly not short." But she wasn't listening anymore; the boy from the train was on the stool, the Sorting Hat bunched over his brow. He sat perfectly still as the hat muttered away.

"Hmm, interesting," the Hat said aloud, curling into itself in thought. The Great Hall fell silent as all eyes eventually turned to watch, everyone wondering what was taking so long.

---

Where to put you? the Hat was asking. He really didn't care. He knew where he ought to go, but the events of late had left him emotionally stripped and apathetic, and angry -- seethingly angry. He wanted to lash out at the world; he didn't want to belong anywhere. He hated everyone and wished they would all die, just like his mother had. He wished them to die in painful, embarrassing, compromising ways, and for them to be found by their unsuspecting loved-ones in the most inelegant and stark circumstances: crimson spreading silently across the white marble; black and bulging tongues, and dangling eyes, hanging from a rafter, trouser fronts wet with piss; slack, open mouths filled with the cold remnants of vomit and potions, spilling across the duvet; eyes dulled and opaque from death, left forearms exposed, skulls and serpents exised from the flesh there with exacting precision.

The Hat was silent.

Theodore didn't budge.

Several minutes passed, and he still he sat, defiantly peaceful, unwilling to give the Hat any assistance, and he poked the brim sharply with his forefinger, lifting it up so that he might see. Whispering began to snake through the hall, and his eyes roved with disinterest over the crowd: far too many ginger-tops at the red and gold table; silly games at the yellow and black table; students reading surreptitiously at the blue and silver table . . . .

His eyes stopped on the green and silver table. The Slytherins sat rather formally, unpleasant expressions casing their faces in varying degrees -- rage, superiourity, conceit, ambiguity, self-centeredness. However, he noted, there was a keeness there, a tangible air of attention and consciousness, and he paused. It was the house he was meant to go to, per family tradition, but he'd felt himself balking at the prospect since his mother had killed herself. Surely what had happened was somehow his father's fault -- for wasn't it his job to have honoured and cherished her? He should have seen it coming -- and really, what would displease his father more than going to, say, Hufflepuff? Sod tradition, he thought to the Hat, continuing to watch carefully. There were the other boys from the train, from his life outside Hogwarts, boys whom he already loathed. There was the girl from the train, who had shared her book. Inside the pocket of his robes, his hand tightened around the handkerchief she had given him and he gave in to his legacy. The option of having at least one thing which was familiar, that was possibly genuine, albeit newly so, was irresistible to him, although he was far too young to understand this need on a conscious level. Theodore craved what he rejected; only the seguest, most subtle interjections would do.

"SLYTHERIN!" And don't be such a bloody difficult little shite once you get there, the Hat admonished as the boy hopped down from the stool.

"I'll do what I want," he whispered, his lip curling, giving McGonagall cause to raise an eyebrow as he unceremoniously stuffed the Sorting Hat back into her hands.

He walked toward his new housemates, who were applauding politely, eager for another follower, and as he approached the Slytherin table he promised himself I will do what I want. I will do what I like. I am not like -anyone- I am an alien unto myself . . . .

Draco smirked as Theodore took his place at the Slytherin table, and gestured at Pansy with a tilt of his head. "Well, that took a bloody hour now, didn't it? I guess you're even less Slytherin than she is."

Theodore's eyes shone malevolently. "And I guess you'll eventually need to be shown what it truly means to be Slytherin," he said, showing Draco that he alone wasn't the only one capable of predation. "My family's older than yours, Malfoy. As you know." He held his housemate's gaze fully, filled with a sense of offensive exhiliration, and when Draco's smirk faltered he smiled slightly.

---

The next day he walked a step behind Draco, Pansy, Crabbe, and Goyle.

"Double potions with Gryffindor," the Boy With Goons was saying. "Of course, Snape's potions master, so it'll be brilliant for us. My father says Snape favours us Slytherins, so I guess we'll see if it's true . . . ." They filed into their dungeon classroom, sniggering at their classmates who shivered from the cool air; they were already used to the temperature discrepancy. In fact, during Charms, up in the tower, the new Slytherins had been hot and uncomfortable, and had fanned at themselves with Professor Flitwick's feathers.

Draco moved ahead and selected a seat halfway up the row and slid in, Vince and Gregory boxing him in against the wall; Pansy took the seat next to Gregory; however, she left two spaces in between them. Theodore stopped, assessing the situation. He slid into an empty third row, directly behind Pansy, hulking Millicent Bulstrode with the strange jaw closing him in as she took the seat next to him. When Snape called the class dunderheads, he was hardly fazed.

"Potter," Snape said suddenly, at the front of the room. "What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"

Theodore didn't bother with what Potter had to say in response. Draught of Living Death, he thought, scrawling on his parchment absentmindedly.

"Draught of Living Death . . . " Pansy muttered under her breath as she wrote quickly, her unsophisticated, loopy cursive filling the page.

"What is the difference, Potter," Snape continued, "between Monkshood and Wolfsbane?"

Theodore leaned forward surreptitiously and tapped Pansy's slight shoulder. "They're the same plant," he whispered knowingly. "They're the same as aconite too."

She didn't even glance up. "I know that, git!" she murmured, not necessarily unkindly, as she continued her notetaking.

"Do you now?" he enquired, noticing she had a stray hair at the back of her head which was longer than the rest of her blunt cut. Quietly he drew his wand and trimmed it neatly.

"Bugger off!" she said, slapping at the back of her neck. "I'm trying to write!"

---

"None of you is to move while I take this boy to the hospital wing!" Madam Hooch commanded, clutching Neville Longbottom protectively. "You leave those brooms where they are you'll be out of Hogwarts before you can say 'Quidditch.' Come on, dear."

Pansy dropped her broom to the ground, happy to be rid of it. She had never enjoyed flying, and while the stupid, fat Gryffindor had been an amusing diversion, she was actually anxious for the hour to be over.

"Did you see his face, the great lump?" Draco said, and she trained an interested gaze on him, a sly grin crossing her lips. He had no shame; he said whatever he wanted. She stepped closer to him, giggling.

"Shut up, Malfoy!" snapped Parvati Patil.

Pansy stepped forward, speaking before she'd even thought it through. "Ooh, sticking up for Longbottom?" she sneered. "Never thought you'd like fat little crybabies, Parvati." And Draco looked back at her then, giving her an appraising once-over, and then he smiled at her before a glint in the grass caught his eye. A warm feeling spread through her.

"Look! It's that stupid thing Longbottom's gran sent him."

"Give that here, Malfoy."

Pansy watched Draco and Potter as they flew upward, fully breaking Madam Hooch's orders, and she thought Draco looked brilliant against the blue sky; she couldn't hear what the two boys were saying to one another, but it was clear they were arguing.

"I've known him all my life; he's a right arse." Theodore stepped up quietly behind her; she could hear his robes snapping smartly in the mild wind and feel the muggy warmth of his boyish breath at her ear. Her eyes remained glued to the sky.

"He flies fantastically," she said adoringly.

"He took two dressers for himself. The other two have to share a dresser, and their clothes are all tonnes bigger than his."

"It's not Draco's fault he has more things."

"He told us he thinks your nose is funny."

"It is funny." She wrinkled it unconsciously.

Theodore hesitated, feeling inexplicably helpless as he thought of The Magic Grasshopper. "You're not like him."

"Look, I've known him all my life too," she hissed, turning her head slightly, "just like I've known you. I'll do what I want. You should know that about me by now!"

He snorted. "You'll do what he wants."

This time she turned her face fully to him, her face hard and set. "Maybe what he and I want are the same thing."

He protested this to himself with a resigned sigh and rested his chin on her bony shoulder; she let him, and silently they both watched Draco Malfoy shine in the sky.

---

The night before Halloween, Draco, Vince, and Gregory crept from their dormitory dressed all in black, and in their stocking feet so as not to make any noise when they slipped stealthily through Hogwarts' corridors.

"-- can't wait to see the look on his face once he realises he's expelled!" Draco was saying.

"Bloody ponce . . . ."

"I'd like to wipe the pitch with his face . . . . "

Pansy had overheard their plan at dinner that night -- they were so unsubtle -- and so she'd planted herself in the hallway outside the boys' dormitory, clutching a stone pillar, hiding in its shadow. As the three boys passed by, whispering amongst themselves, she slipped from her hiding spot and padded after them, her bare feet making tiny slapping sounds on the stone floor as she hurried to catch up.

They stopped short. "What're you doing?" Draco asked, befuddled, pushing his transluscent fringe out of his eyes.

"I'm coming with you!" she answered, mustering her bravado. "I know where you're going."

"Go away, Parkinson," he said blithely. She hated it when he called her by her last name, which he always did when he was irritated with her, and he knew she loathed it. "It's just us three who's going!" They turned and took up their march again. Pansy scurried after them.

"I can help you! I know --" She grasped desperately at any available straws, finally settling for a bald-faced lie. "I know -- I know where Filch goes between half eleven and twelve!" she fibbed, reaching for Draco's sleeve. "I can take you there."

"You're lying," Vince said with a snort. "How would you know that?"

She crossed her arms over her chest defiantly. "I do so know!"

"Get lost, would you?" Draco said, distracted. "This is between me and Potter." And then they were gone, and she was left in the corridor alone, the swirling hem of her thin cotton nightdress fluttering around her ankles the only evidence convincing her she was not in fact dreaming. Her shoulders slumped a touch, and she was inexplicably filled with jealousy. Why couldn't she go too? Draco was friendly enough to her; she thought they were friends. Yet, he preferred the company of Crabbe and Goyle to her's?

"Hmmph!" she snorted, her eyes stinging slightly. She turned, making to go back to her own dormitory, when a vibrating, metallic sound whooshed through the air, and a flash of steel crossed her periphery, and she felt a tremendous poke just below her shoulder. "HEY!" she cried out, taken aback. Instantly terrified she clasped her hands over her mouth, knowing she herself would be in as much trouble as the others, were she to be caught out of bed at this time of night.

The point of a foil pressed into her skin through her nightdress; she didn't move. "What are you doing?" she asked, agog.

Theodore lowered the blade and dropped its tip onto the stone floor and leaned over it casually, bearing his weight onto the handle. "Playing pirate," he said, watching her. "What are you doing?"

"Nothing," she said petulantly. It was hardly his business!

"They didn't want you to come along, did they?" he asked, grinning slightly.

"I didn't want to go, you nosy sod," she sneered, feeling embarrassed and hot around the neck.

His dark eyes flicked past her, looking down the darkened passage; the faint golden light from the torchiers bounced silently against the walls of the dungeon. She shivered, wrapping her arms around herself, her breath hanging faintly in the air between them.

"Let me guess," he said, eyes glittering in a way that made her cringe inwardly. "You wanted to help . . . . " Distaste dripped from his words. Pansy said nothing, staring defiantly at him; he didn't flinch or look away. She cursed to herself when, despite her best efforts, she let her gaze shift, breaking their eye contact. Crap, she castigated herself. Crap, crap, -crap-!

"What do you care?" she spat finally, turning, intending fully to recuse herself to the privacy of her own dormitory. She felt cold steel brush against the back of her calf, and the feeling of the hem of her nightdress being lifted up. Whirling, she stalked back to him, fists clenched at her side. "LEAVE. ME. ALONE!" she growled, drawing her arm back.

"Or what?" he asked. "You'll hex me? You're terrible at Charms."

She struck without warning, her fist jabbing forward in a blurred arc, and the sickening crunch of his nose flattening as her fist connected with it echoed around them.

"Shite!" He slapped his free hand across his mouth, pinching his nostrils shut in the crux of his thumb and forefinger, and squeezed. A sense of triumph filled her when she saw the rivulet of blood leak from between his fingers, and she smiled bitterly. His eyes were flat as he raised the foil to her again, holding it at her chest, the tip barely grazing against her skin at the rise and fall of her breath.

"What're you going to do," she taunted finally, secure in the afterglow of her surprise attack. "Cut me in half? Yeah, sure." She pressed forward, leaning into the tip, daring him. Without speaking he jerked the foil upward, dragging it in a swift, sure, four inch motion. "Oh please," Pansy scoffed, rolling her eyes at him dismissively, and she turned on her heel and marched primly to her dormitory, leaving Theodore standing silently in the darkened corridor. She picked her way through her room with only Lumos to guide her, and climbed into her cosy four-poster. As she moved to put her wand on her night table, she glanced down at herself and saw the wet, dark stain seeping across her front; her breath caught in her throat and she pointed her wand at the wound, illuminating the area under its cool, blueish light. Prodding with the tip, the fabric of her night dress fell open, perfectly excised in a tight, sloping crescent-shaped wedge, the corresponding slice in her flesh curving around her chest and directly across the seashell-pink coin of her nipple.

---

The next morning the Great Hall was barraged with owls. Pansy winced as she reached forward to untie her packages from her owl's leg, just barely managing to drag her hand into her pocket for an owl treat.

She'd not told anyone what he'd done, and she certainly wasn't going to seek Madam Pomfrey's attention in the matter. No one, she had thought primly, completely mortified, is looking at me there. She'd snuck to the girls' bathroom after she discovered the wound, and had held an undershirt to it until the bleeding had stemmed. Peeling the cotton away from her chest, she inspected the cut closely. It was a clean cut, almost razor-like; she had washed it thoroughly, gritting her teeth against the sting of the soap, and pressed a clean section of the now ruint shirt against her chest, managing to tape it in place with the help of a simple winding charm.

Draco leaned in, bumping unknowingly against her sore side. "I've got an entire box of dungbombs," he whispered conspiratorially, watching keenly as a school owl dropped a long, plain package in front of Harry Potter; his brow furrowed suspiciously. "That's a broom," he hissed, distracted from his thoughts of petty trickery for the moment. "What's Potter get a broom for? First-years aren't allowed brooms!" He was thoroughly aggrieved.

"What about the dungbombs?" Pansy asked, touching the top of his hand with her fingers. "Do have plans for tonight?" From the corner of her eye she saw Theodore approaching the table; a cold feeling surged in her gut.

Draco was watching Potter dive into his package; sure enough, a brand-new, gleaming broom emerged from the plain wrapping. "Hmm?" His face set sulkily, he ignored Theodore completely as he climbed over the bench across from him and Pansy. "Oh, yeah, we're going to set them off under the seventh years' beds . . . " He paused, and Pansy was sure if he hadn't been so distracted he wouldn't have offered anything beyond this. "Want to help?"

She sucked in her breath. "All right," she said mildly, her heart hammering wildly in her chest. Success! Lifting her eyes triumphantly she held Theodore's gaze, their dark eyes locking in a lightless battle of wills. He summoned his breakfast without looking away; finally he smirked, and she shifted her gaze to Draco. "When?"

"We're planting them after dinner," he said, rising from his seat. He beckoned to Crabbe and Goyle. "We're going over," he said, jerking his head toward the Gryffindor table. "This is just wrong. Potter's a first-year! He can't have a broom!" He paused in mid-step and threw a parting comment over his shoulder. "Just come up to my room after dinner."

"Okay," she said, beaming.

Theodore rolled his eyes mildly. "You're such a dumb bint."

"Piss off," she said, grinning ear to ear.

---

Pansy had just helped herself to a baked potato that night at dinner, when Professor Quirrell came sprinting, terrified, into the Great Hall. "TROLL!" he cried out frantically, arms flapping uselessly. "Troll -- in the dungeons -- thought you ought to know . . . . " He collapsed in a dead faint. Startled, she looked around, wide-eyed and scared, and pushed her plate away; the potato rolled dumbly across the table. Screaming, Pansy scrambled to free herself from the bench, but everyone was pushing and yelling, and she found herself unable to move. Reflexively, she ducked under the table and clung desperately to its heavy oak leg, whimpering as the sea of feet swirled past her.

"What are you doing?" Theodore was peering under the table at her in disbelief. She stared at him dumbly. She knew she was acting foolishly, but she vividly remembered the accidental encounter with a Mountain Troll she'd had when she was six, and had been exploring in the Malfoys' dungeons. The troll had viciously broken her arm, and even today when she thought about it hard enough, she could remember the troll's distinct, mouldering scent, and it's vile, wet grunting.

He held a hand out to her. "Come on," he said urgently. "Everyone's almost gone! We're supposed to follow the prefects." His voice took on an echoing edge in the near-empty hall.

"No!"

He slid under the table and tugged at her arm. "Don't be so dumb!"

She cried out as the tug on her arm pulled at her wounded chest, and he dropped her hand as if he'd been burned and sat back. He stared at her, unspeaking, for several moments, realising from the look on her face that she distrusted him fully. "Pansy," he said slowly. "We can't stay here." Tentatively he reached out again, remembering the sharp pain of her fist at the bridge of his nose; however, she let him squeeze her hand before he turned to crawl out from under the table, and she followed him, her heart in her throat with fear, and together they tip-toed from the cavernous hall.

---

"Bugger!" Pansy hissed, moving her hands mime-like over the entrance to the stairwell of the dungeons. "They've sealed it." Her eyes darted madly, her fear rising once again.

Theodore slid his palm across the invisible barrier denying them access to the Slytherin dungeons. "I know a different way," he said, and bolted across the entrance hall. Hesitating, Pansy lit after him, frightened and unwilling to find her way alone.

He ducked into a corridor, and flattened himself against the wall; Pansy followed suit. Together they inched down the hall.

"My mother always decorated for Christmas the day after Hallowe'en," Theodore whispered to Pansy, as they crept along. "She'd charm the tree to never need water -- it was fifty feet high!"

"Our tree is always sixty feet," she whispered back.

"Oh who cares?" he retorted, looking around for any sign of a Mountain Troll. "Your tree's always dry and prickly. You can't even get near it without losing an arsecheek."

"It's still bigger," she sniffed, defending her family Christmas tree's honour. "Plus Mother puts candles, fire-crabs, and real faeries on our tree. All your mother put on your tree was strings of nasty Chirzpurfle!"

"Chirzpurfle are highly regarded in France," Theodore noted, peering around a corner; he held out a hand, stopping her. "Shh!" They flattened themselves against the wall once again, and she could hear footsteps drawing near. "Quick, in here," he said, pulling her into a crevice; they wedged themselves, face to face, underneath an empty bust stand, a cloud of dust puffing into the tiny area as he dropped the covering tapestry back into place. They said nothing as the footsteps came closer; there were at least two people, Pansy could tell, as their hushed whispers filled the corridor.

"He's heading for the third floor . . . . "

"Can you smell something?"

Theodore leaned sideways and reached out, just barely lifting the tapestry an inch from the wall.

"Who's there?" she whispered.

He sat back, squirming uncomfortably. "Potter and Weasley."

Pansy shook her head, rolling her eyes. "God, figures," she whispered snottily. Her nose tickled just then, and she turned her head, wiggling her nose; her arms were wedged firmly between their bodies, and she couldn't draw them up to cover her mouth. "I'm going to sneeze," she whispered desperately, wrinkling her nose in an attempt to push the urge away.

"Don't!"

"It's the dust!"

A low, grunting sound was steadily approaching their hiding place, and the shuffling footsteps of the troll drew nearer. The urge to sneeze overwhelmed her; simultaneously her fear intensified, and for a moment Pansy genuinely thought she might die. She leaned forward and buried her face in Theodore's shoulder and sneezed with a muffled bark into his robes, dampening her face. The troll paused and she couldn't help herself: she whimpered.

Theodore squirmed mightily, managing to extricate his hand; he looped his arm around her head, securing it against his shoulder, and dipped his head down burying his face against her. "Don't make a sound." His voice was so low Pansy wondered if she had merely imagined it; she breathed into the wool of his robes, his arm tight around her head, suddenly calm. She took a deep, shuddering breath, and just then their space exploded with light as the troll swept up the tapestry away from the wall with the end of its club. Theodore's arm tightened even further, and she was keenly aware of his nose pressed against the side of her face and his breath at her jaw. Don't make a sound. Don't make a sound. Don't make a sound. A scream died in her throat and she fought her innate urge to bolt in terror, and to leave him behind for the troll to devour as she saved herself. She prayed two small, dark-haired children, shrouded in inky black robes, might have a chance at going unspotted by a troll, a creature whose eyesight was notoriously dim.

It seemed an eon, but then the darkness slowly closed over them again, and the troll's shuffling footsteps resumed as it moved away. Fitfully, Pansy wiggled her arm free and clung to Theodore's head, just as he was doing to her, tears leaking from her eyes. Still terrified, she turned her head and a sob escaped; she felt his chin dig into her temple as he began whispering.

"Shh, shh . . . " he said, frantic to soothe her. "Chirzpurfle . . . chirzpurfle are parasites, true, but did you know that if you blow on a string of Chirzpurfle they light up?" Pansy shook her head, crying silently. "They glow golden. Mother charmed them so they wouldn't go off when other people were in the house. Know why?" She shook her head again. "Because gold is a Gryffindor colour." He smiled against her. "She'd hoped to have figured out how to have the Chizpurfle glow silver by this Christmas . . . " She couldn't see his grin falter in the dark; he sighed, and she was sure her hair must be damp now from perspiration and his breath against her; her robes felt uncomfortably hot. She nodded one more time.

"You open your presents on Christmas morning, right?" he asked.

"Yes . . . "

"Well, we always open them at Midnight. And then it's Le Réveillon."

Pansy swallowed. "Le . . . " She trailed off.

"Le Réveillon," he whispered back, nodding against her; the shuffling noises were fading. "It means we eat a lot."

"A feast?"

"Yeah, something like that. My mother held it for as long as I can remember."

It hadn't occurred to her that Theodore's mother had been anything other than Not British. In her Anglo-centric mindset, Pansy had never been interested in any cultures or traditions outside her own. However, she liked the way Le Réveillon sounded as it rolled off Theodore's tongue, and a thought struck her. "You speak French, don't you?" she asked, suddenly enlightened.

He moved his head and she tilted hers upward, their cheeks brushing damply together; she could see the outline of his profile by the sliver of light leaking between the tapestry and the wall of the crevice, and she could smell his hair. "Yeah, I speak French," he said, simply.

They stayed there until they heard people again, and it was clear the troll had been disposed of. Theodore wiggled awkwardly from their wedge of space and helped Pansy out. They sprinted to Slytherin, Pansy beating him to the dungeons.

"Sea slug!" he gasped, as they slid against the entrance to Slytherin in a crumpled heap; the wall shimmered and gave way, and they toppled into the common room.

"There you are!" Draco said loftily, sitting atop a gaming table. "What about the dungbombs?"

Pansy looked at Theodore, puzzled. "Dungbombs?" She'd almost died, and Draco was still fixated on dungbombs?

"You said you wanted to help," Draco said. "So, do you?"

She looked at him. "Were you-- have you been . . . waiting?" She hesitated, turning to look behind herself, ensuring Draco wasn't speaking to some other housemate who had snuck up undetected. There was no one behind her, and she turned back, unconsciously bringing her fingers to her chest, gesturing. "For me?"

Draco considered her rather plainly, and for a moment she thought him confused. "I thought you wanted to come along?" he asked; Crabbe and Goyle lounged mutely on either side of him, sprawling heavily against tiny parlour chairs far too small for them.

"Um . . . " Pansy glanced at Theodore, unsure of the protocol.

He watched her, his face unreadable. "Go on, then," he said. "Dungbombs."

"Theodore . . . " She didn't know what to do. Stepping forward she stretched her fingers toward him, but didn't touch him. He still smelt of dust.

Draco sighed dramatically, shifting on the table. "Are you coming or not? We've not got all night!"

"Just go with him, Pansy. It's okay." Theodore looked over her head, his eyes neutrally blank. "Did you like hearing about the Le Réveillon, though?"

Pansy nodded, tilting her head questioningly.

"I've a massive book on French Christmas traditions," Theodore said, fixing his midnight eyes on her once again.

"Really?"

"Yeah."

She fidgeted, twisting the sleeve of her jumper around her finger. "Show me?"

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"All right." He stuffed his hands into his pockets and lifted his chin, looking down at her. "When you've finished dungbombing?"

"All right."

"Okay."

"Okay."

"The pictures are brilliant."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

From that moment they were friends. There are some things, Pansy thought to herself, fingering the dusty cuff of Theodore's sleeve before she turned toward Draco, Crabbe, and Goyle, you can't share without liking each other, and surviving a twelve-foot Mountain Troll is one of them.

---

Le Réveillon came to pass that Christmas.

Theodore's father hosted the biggest Christmas party Pansy could remember in her short lifetime, and even her mother commented on the event as they stepped up to the library Floo. "Narcissa says," Eugenie Parkinson confided to her husband as he helped her on with fur cloak, "Thaddeus has spent an absolute fortune on tonight." She smiled up at him, turning with a flourish. "So how do I look, Edward?"

"Smashingly gorgeous," Pansy's father declared, extending his hand. Pansy hung back, watching her parents take a turn around the rug, her mother twirling festively. "You'll be the lovliest lady there! I'd best watch out for you -- never know when strange fellows will find themselves unable to resist a beautiful woman."

Her mother smiled and patted his cheek. "I've only eyes for you." Pansy rolled her eyes, and made gagging sounds, clutching at her throat. Her mother looked over, raising an eyebrow. "Oh, pish, Pansy!" she said. "Be grateful your parents love each other so!"

The Notts' manor was brilliant that night. Thousands of candles floated gracefully throughout the house and ballroom, even outside. Fresh snow had fallen, illuminating the impeccable grounds, which Pansy found most Christmasey. Her mother had dressed her in scarlet, which complimented her dark hair and eyes, and she felt pretty and light. She stuffed herself with cheddar and tomato-jam canapes and spun daintily around the enormous Christmas tree.

"I can see your knickers!" a voice called out.

"No you can't," she called back over her shoulder, pirouetting coquettishly. "I've stockings on." They were black stockings too, that shimmered perfectly in the candlelight.

"Well, you shouldn't be showing yourself off like that anyway," Draco said, catching her wrist. "Come on, let's dance. Mother's forced me to practise all week. She'll never leave me alone if I don't put it to use."

She let Draco lead, and he awkwardly scooped up her hand and fixed her other one at his waist. "I know how, thank you very much," she said, her cheeks reddening as she fixed an impertinent gaze on him. A tiny spot of colour appeared above each of his cheeks, but he tossed his head, flipping his hair away from his eyes, and pulled her in. Their stomachs bumped together and Pansy reflexively stepped backward, the back of her neck feeling hot and prickly.

"Come on," Draco prompted her, serious. They dropped their heads, both unexpectantly defaulting to watching the ground as they concentrated intently on getting the steps right; their foreheads knocked together and Pansy saw spots.

"Ow!" He squeezed her hand too tightly, and Pansy could have sworn he was looking at her cross-eyed. "Right, then," she said, mortified, birds and stars still circling her head. Carefully they manoeuvred their way onto the dancefloor.

"Oh, how fetching!" Pansy heard a voice coo from the sidelines. "Look at Pansy and Draco!"

"Ooo, Eugenie! Narcissa! Look, aren't they adorable. . . . "

Pansy stumbled slightly and Draco crushed her toes. "Oops, sorry," he said, not sorry at all, fixing a wholly unapologetic gaze on her. "Your feet are huge!"

She snorted, shifting, and kicked him soundly in the shin with her tiny foot. He blanched, squeezing tight again until her fingers were turning white in his grasp. "Bloody hell, Draco, you're hurting my hand!"

"Sorry," he muttered, and he dropped his head again, unable to keep from watching the floor. He loosened his grip, and she relaxed slightly. Leaning forward she rested her head against the crown of his own, the whirling parquetry and their shiny black party shoes filling her vision as they waltzed awkwardly around the floor.

"There's this toilet in the boys' loo," Draco said finally, narrowly avoiding her foot and preventing another crushing stomp. "If you flush all the toilets at the same time? This one particular toilet spews up to the ceiling! It's brilliant!"

Pansy had no idea how to respond. "Er . . . "

"Oh, you should smell it!" he said, but his enthusiasm disappeared at look on her face. Did girls not find spewing toilets fascinating? Draco thought it might help if he clarified the toilet was spewing miniature sea monsters, but he had the foresight to ultimately conclude that sea monsters wouldn't make much of a more favourable impression. "Right then." He looked downward again, the spots of colour on his cheeks even more pronounced, and Pansy could see his lips moving slightly as he began counting their steps again.

"Daphne Greengrass wears a camisole already, and she's only eleven, and Tracey says that if a girl wears a camisole before thirteen, then she's just asking for trouble," Pansy blurted out, feeling compelled to converse.

He stared at her as if she had suddenly sprouted a second head. "A camisole?" he asked, squashing her foot. "What's that?"

"It's a . . . you know!"

"Father says if all my marks are 'O's this term and next, he'll buy Slytherin's quidditch team new brooms," Draco said finally, his eyes fixed on the floor. "Under a sponsorship of sorts."

"Like Nathaniel's father did with the uniforms?"

"That's right." He was concentrating, and she could see his lips move silently as he counted the steps. Slowly his grip relaxed and they inched closer to one another, surprisingly not missing a beat.

"I--" Pansy felt shy suddenly.

"What?"

"It'll be good to see you on the team next year," she said, daring to lift her eyes from the ground. The tree was across the room now; beautiful, fresh garland draped the ballroom walls, and for the first time she noticed the faeries. "Ooo, faeries! Theodore must have told his father what I said about faeries!"

"Faeries?" Draco asked, perplexed. "Faeries are for girls!"

"I am a girl!"

"I know you're a girl!"

"What's wrong with faeries?"

"Nothing's wrong with faeries!" Draco said, coming to a halt. "It's just that I'm a boy, and faeries are for girls."

"Faeries are for anybody who likes looking at them!" She pushed at his hand with the flat of her palm, and he turned his hand under hers until their fingers fit together for the briefest of moments.

"Well, I don't like faeries," he said haughtily, pushing back at her hand.

"What do you like for Christmas decor, then?" she asked, feeling hot around the collar again.

"I don't know . . . Can't we just dance?"

"Do you like dancing, Draco?"

"No!" he said quickly, his ears glowing. Pansy was suddenly aware of a rising titter coming from the crowd around them; glancing around, she saw people pointing, delighted smiles lighting their faces. Her gaze shifted upward, following.

Above her and Draco floated one of the Christmas cherubs, and it was holding a small bushel of Misteltoe, a neat bow holding its stems together. Draco tilted his face and smiled at the cherub. "Come closer, little guy," he cajoled, and Pansy's heart leapt into her throat. She stood, frozen, Draco's hand still at her waist, as he beckoned for the cherub to fly down to them. "Get ready, Pansy," he whispered conspiratorially, lifting his fingers toward the fluttering creature. "Got it!" Draco caught the cherub around the neck and pushed it into Pansy's face.

"AHHHHH!" Pansy screamed, pushing Draco away; the cherub writhed helplessly, beating at her face with its papery wings, its panicked, beady eyes staring into her own surprised ones. Draco doubled over with laughter, the cherub still struggling in his grasp, and a disappointed Awww went through the crowd. Pansy fled back to the Christmas tree, crushing the misteltoe under her patent-leather heel, darting to the back of the tree. Seething, she plopped herself down on a large box, wrapped in shining green foil, and watched the faeries twinkle.

"Someday he'll want to stand under the misteltoe with you."

"Right," she sulked, feeling foolish.

"He will," Theodore said simply, sitting next to her. She leaned back, resting against his shoulder.

"Shut up!"

"Watch." He leaned forward and blew gently into the massive branches of the evergreen; its scent filled Pansy's nostrils. "Did you see?"

"No," she said petulantly, crossing her arms over her chest. He blew again, and a tiny golden flicker teased at her periphery. "Hey . . . " She narrowed her eyes. "Do it again?" He did. "Oh," she said breathlessly, immediately intrigued. "Chirzpurfle?"

Theodore nodded, a lopsided grin playing at his lips.

"Thanks," she said, after a moment.

"Mmhmm."

---

Later that night, they all slept on Theodore's bed, waiting for the party to be over with; the adults were still going strong. Draco lay parallel to Theodore's footboard, Crabbe and Goyle perpendicular to his feet, back to back. Pansy lay next to Crabbe, the top of her head fitting nicely against Draco's side, and Theodore lay facing Pansy, Daphne Greengrass's back to his, and Millicent just beyond Daphne.

Theodore woke, as he usually did, slightly before midnight, and he blinked owlishly against the dim light coming from the small Christmas tree the house elves had set up in the corner of his room, a lone fire-crab glowing bejewelledly from under its branches. Draco sighed in his sleep and shifted, and his hand fell across Pansy's back, over her shoulder, and it was then that Theodore realised that Pansy's hand was resting on his own. He pushed up on his elbow, surveying the scene. Goyle was facing the bedroom door, but his arm was flung backwards over Crabbe's hulking form; Crabbe in turn clutched a handful of Pansy's dressrobes, and Theodore was suddenly aware of Daphne's fingers curled tightly through his beltloop, and he wagered if he could turn around and see properly, he would surely find Millicent somehow attached to Daphne.

He lay back, the slight pressure of Pansy's hand on his own not unpleasant. He flicked his eyes over Draco's hand, motionless and unthreatening against her shoulder, and thought morosely of the day that Draco might want to stand with Pansy under the misteltoe. And just then the giant clock in the library struck midnight, its chimes filtering through to his room over the distant party noises, and Theodore Nott quietly turned thirteen years old, missing his mother desperately, and doing the best he could to ignore the cold, wet stain which spread slowly under his cheek. And he realised with bitter resignation, that the only camaraderie he and his housemates could ever demonstrate to one another would flourish only under the blackened veil of night, their unconscious need for simple human companionship spilling forth only under the guise of involuntary restlessness.

---

Out of the shadows a hooded figure came crawling across the ground like some stalking beast. Potter, Draco, and Fang stood transfixed. The cloaked figure reached the unicorn, lowered its head over the wound in the animal's side, and began to drink its blood.

"AAAAAAAAAAARGH!" Draco bolted, Fang at his heels. He pounded through the forest blindly, branches whipping at his face, hoping to whatever was holy in this world that Potter would be enough of a diversion for the creature he fled. Eat Potter, he thought, in full panic mode, kill Potter, not me . . . his toe caught in an exposed tree root and he went sprawling, his face shoved into the damp leaves and dirt as Fang galloped over the flat of his back, bawling like a whipped fox hound. "Ooof!" Draco wheezed. His latern sputtered, then died, as it clattered across the trampled ground. Desperately, he pawed at the ground, searching for its handle, when a low, rumbling growl surrounded him, as if the darkest, foulest creature of night had just opened its mouth to say Ahhh, and it took a moment for Draco to realise the warm sensation he felt was him pissing his trousers. Before he could react, the ground began to shake with the distant, hollow beat of hooves.

Draco buried his face in the crook of his arms and screamed; the thundering roar drew nearer, and he knew he was about to be trampled to death. The hooves closed in and Draco bravely prepared to die, but rather was met with a moment of silence and rushing air; then as fast as it had ended, the clattering picked up again, and Draco tilted his head upward a touch and impressions of horses and men, and school robes waving madly teased at his periphery. It took him a moment. Centaurs, he realised, saying it outloud. Somehow they had sensed him there, and had jumped over him with soaring precision, and he had not, in fact, been trampled into a gelatinous, quivering pile of ickle Slytherin. He peeled himself up from the ground, feeling around for his lantern; his hand curled around the wooden handle and he rose from the ground. He pulled his wand. "Incendio." He lit the lantern's wick and closed its gate.

Draco picked his way across the forest floor, leaves crunching and sticks snapping under his feet, and he wondered if he would finish dying of abject humiliation before he reached the castle again. In another moment of insight, he understood the flapping school robes he had seen was likely Potter, and that the centaurs had rescued the Gryffindor from whatever that creature back there was, but had left him, Draco, alone and lost in the forest.

Hagrid's words from earlier in the evening echoed in his mind: Harry, you go with Fang and this idiot. I'm sorry . . . His mouth twisted bitterly and he fully acknowledged How Things Were. He paused, letting his arm with the lantern down carefully, and then sat on a log. Hot, seething tears slipped down his face as he sat in the dark. The forest now felt calm and unforeboding, or rather maybe it was that he simply didn't give a shite anymore.

---

It was just ten minutes to curfew when Draco slipped into the Slytherin common room, pulling his robes around the his trousers carefully; he was cold and shaken. Glancing about, he spotted Crabbe and Goyle dead asleep on one of the couches, heads lolled back on the cushions in identical fashion. He stepped toward the stairs leading to the dormitories until something else caught his eyes; he halted yet again.

Pansy was curled up in a rather puffy wingback, her head resting on one arm, her legs dangling over the other. She clutched a folded piece of parchment in her hand, and Draco could clearly make out his name penned carefully across its front. Unwittingly he let go of his robes and reached for the note.

Dear Draco, (she had carefully drawn a lopsided Snitch next to his name)

My mother's written to tell me that she'll be having a garden party over the Easter hols, to celebrate the new Spring, and I'm to invite anyone I like. Won't you please come? There'll be lots to do -- a treasure hunt, flamingo and hedgehog lawn croquet, a snowball fight (with the use of a special weather charm my father knows), Gobstones for real money, and tonnes more. I know you like Ice Mice, so I asked Mummy to make sure she ordered plenty. Maybe you could show me some flying tricks.

Draco paused. Pansy -hates- flying, he thought, puzzled.

I'm sorry you had detention tonight; I'd rather you had been able to stay here in Slytherin, with us. Anyhow, will you let me know about that party?
Your Friend,
Pansy

He traced his fingertip over her looping signature, considering the prospect of flamingo and hedgehog croquet.

"All right, Malfoy?"

Draco looked up. "Nott." He acknowledged Theodore with a curt nod. "What're you doing still up?"

Theodore came around the chair where Pansy slept and stood next to Draco. "Pansy asked me to wake her up at half eleven if she was still here." He shrugged. "So I am."

Draco shoved Pansy's note a Theodore. "What's this about?"

Theodore took the note and scanned it, and looked up at Draco. "It seems it's a party invitation," he said lightly, stating the obvious.

Draco gave him a withering look. "I know it's a party invitation," he drawled loftily, "but it's the first I've heard of it. Usually my mother tells me all about the big parties planned."

Theodore was looking at Draco's crotch. "What happened to your trousers?" He lifted his eyes suspiciously, his lip curling subtly.

Draco whipped his robes shut, fixing what he hoped was his most intimidating glare on the other boy. "Nothing," he said waspishly, stepping behind Pansy's chair. "Detention, if you must know."

"You had to piss yourself for detention?"

Draco rolled his eyes. "Oh sod off, Nott," he said, lying glibly. "Of course not!" He adopted a conspiratorial tone. "I've never pissed myself! It was that wretched hound of Hagrid's! Hagrid made us muck about in the forest for our detention, and I'll bet he's trained the beast to whizz on demand, because the creature pissed all over me when I fell backwards over it."

Theodore nodded slightly. "Uh huh."

Draco wanted nothing more than to get up to the bathrooms and take a hot shower. "So," he said, holding up Pansy's note again. "Are you going?"

"If I'm invited, sure."

Draco snorted. "I thought you two were best mates."

Theodore shrugged.

"She didn't give you an invitation?"

"She told me about it." Theodore leaned over the chair where Pansy slept; Draco couldn't make out what he said to her as he shook her awake.

"Well, maybe I'll see you there," he said, moving the invitation to between his fore and middle fingers. "Or . . . maybe not."

Theodore shrugged again. He had Pansy standing; she was wobbling slightly on her feet, disoriented and sleepy, and she tilted her head up to squint into his face. " . . . got your invitation . . . " Draco heard Theodore mumble, and Pansy turned toward him, blinking rapidly.

"Draco?" she asked, focusing. "Will you come, then?"

Draco shuffled his feet. "Er . . . " He hadn't expected she'd interrogate him straight away. "I guess."

She wobbled again, her eyes casting downward. "What happened to your trousers?"

"Nothing!" He rolled his eyes again, gesturing at Theodore with his chin. "Tell her, would you?"

"If you want." And with that he turned and headed toward the girls' dormitory entrance, Pansy following behind him like a good little duck. Draco watched as the two paused by the door and chatted presumably; only once did their gaze shift back to him. He curled the note into his palm, rocking back and forth on his heels.

"Goodnight, Draco!" Pansy's voice lilted from the direction of the staircase.

"Night."

She squeezed Theodore's forearm, and then she was gone. He made his way over to the staircase to the boys' dormitories, and was up three before he turned back to Draco. "You coming?"

Draco ran the tip of his tongue across the bottom of his top teeth, stopping at the pointy canine. "Shouldn't it be the other way around?"

"Huh?"

"Shouldn't I be asked you if you're coming along?"

Theodore stared at him for a moment. "Uh, no."

"I'll be up later."

Theodore shrugged. "See you."

---

The Easter hols came quickly enough, and while the Hogwarts Express didn't come for just a long weekend, they were still young enough to enjoy the Floo, and being spit out into their home covered in soot. Pansy busied herself with Easter eggs while Theodore sat at his father's bedside, willing him to get up.

"Leave me be," he said harshly to Theodore, his voice rough and gravelly from disuse. "The elves will look after you."

"Father--"

"I SAID LEAVE ME BE!"

"Maman wouldn't like this at all," Theodore said plainly. "Besides, you smell." Thaddeus Nott said nothing; Theodore watched his father's back quietly rise and fall beneath the filthy cotton nightshirt he was wearing -- it looked like he hadn't changed it for months. Perhaps he hadn't. Theodore hadn't been back to the manor since Christmas hols, and his father hadn't come out from his bedroom the entire three weeks he'd been there, except for the night of the Christmas party; he'd thought about putting in a firechat to Pansy, but ultimately he'd decided against it. Although he craved stimulation, attention, the pall of the house somehow indicated to seek such would somehow be in insult to his mother's memory. The house itself was mourning; he could feel it, heavy and silent, oozing from the walls, the floor, every little nook and cranny. Theodore tugged at his father's sleeve. "Father, please?" And then his father was shaking; great rasping sobs tore from his throat, and his eyes emptied themselves into the feather pillow until the smell of wet down filled the room. Theodore watched patiently, not put off by his father's display, and he waited for his cue -- finally it came.

Thaddeus Nott rolled onto his side, his white hair disheveled and grease-filled, his face red and swollen with ongoing anguish, and Theodore pulled at his sleeve again, and then clutched his elbow.

"Come on, Pop," he said quietly, defaulting to the nickname for his father he'd used as long as he could remember -- it was his first word, his mother always had enjoyed telling him. He'd had a hard time finishing Papa as an infant, so Pop it had become. He helped his father ease his stiff legs over the side of the bed; he stepped back. "Can we have a bath?"

Thaddeus let out his breath slowly; he stood there. "I suppose."

Theodore tested out his bath-filling magic (naturally they had anti-Ministry wards through every seam of their home and land; underage magic was of no consequence here), filling the tub with steaming hot water and brown and black bubbles; he and his father had shared baths as long as he could remember, and as a very little boy he'd complained Bubbles are for girls! "Nonsense," Thaddeus Nott had barked gruffly, and with three quick flicks of his wand the pink bubbles had turned black, mud-brown, and a hideous olive green. "Have a go, then," he'd said, looking at the display he'd created with a raised eyebrow. Theodore had taken a running leap into the tub, spraying the bathroom walls with the ooky sludge bubbles, and it had been their tradition ever since.

His father let him wash his hair; Theodore worked the shampoo into the scalp mercilessly, and began fashioning pointed soap spikes all over his father's head. He worked diligently for several moments, the only sound the faint speckling of popping bubbles. He scooped up a small handful of the bubbles and gently balanced it on the tip of one of the spikes of hair.

After a moment Thaddeus cleared his throat stiffly. "How are your classes going?"

"All right."

"Have a favourite subject?"

"Charms."

"Not potions?"

"Definitely not." Theodore was painstakingly balancing fluffy handful of bubbles on his father; Thaddeus was beginning to look like he had a headful of camouflage-coloured poodle tails all over his head.

"How is . . . Snape?" Thaddeus asked slowly. "As Slytherin's head of house, that is."

"All right, I guess."

"And your classmates?"

"All right."

"Lucius's son?"

Theodore turned the soap around and around in his hands. "What about him?"

"Are you friends with him?"

"I guess."

"And Edmund's girl?"

"I guess so."

"Is there anything you know, son, rather than having to guess at?" One of the spikes of hair fell forward; the ball of bubbles drifted downward, glancing off Thaddeus's nose as it bounced into the water.

Theodore stared at his father. I know Maman's dead; do you? I know I hate this house right now. I know Maman's house elf starved herself to death under her desk in the library and that no one has taken the elf away yet. I know what kind of magazines you keep in your night table. I know how many button-up jumpers you own, and I know I'll grow as tall as you someday. And I know-- "Every night Daphne Greengrass spits half her dinner into her napkin and then brings it back to Slytherin with her. She doesn't think anyone knows. But I know."

"Really, now?"

"I know Draco Malfoy pissed himself once, even though he thinks I think Hagrid's dog took a pee on him."

"Do go on."

Theodore took the time to lather up his own hair before answering.

"I know that I'm going to marry Pansy Parkinson someday." He wondered if his father would be angry that he was mentioning marriage.

"Oh?"

He nodded seriously. "It's not because I want to, mind," he clarified. "Girls are gross." He sighed precociously. "I suppose it's just inevitable."

Thaddeus's gaze pierced through him. "What do you know of inevitability, Theodore?"

"I dunno," he said. "I just figure it's real."

"Why?"

"Just cause." Because it's the only way I can cope -- if I believe things happen because there's no other choice, no other hope. Like Maman. There's nothing I could have done . . . it was inevitable. Right?

"Who's spoken to you of such nonsense?" Thaddeus asked, searching under the water for Theodore's feet. He brought one up and began lathering up his son's toes.

"Nobody, Pop. I just figured it out on my own."

"Goddamn that Mrs Heath," Thaddeus groused, remembering Theodore's former governess with ire. "Her and her bloody vocabulary lists." His voice was gruff when he continued. "No eleven-year-old needs to be contemplating the meaning of 'inevitable'."

"Actually, Maman taught me 'inevitable'," Theodore pointed out.

"Why must you do this to me, son?" Thaddeus asked, his motions slowing. "If you've something you want to say about your mother, just say it. No need to beat around the bush."

"I don't have anything to say about her."

"Then why are you bringing her up?"

"Why aren't you bringing her up?" Theodore asked boldly. "It's like you wish she had never existed!"

Thaddeus jerked Theodore by the leg, sliding him down the length of the tub until his legs crashed against his father's, and then his father's fingers were curling tightly around his upper arm. "Maybe I do, boy!" he hissed, his mask slipping for a moment; Theodore could see the raw, unfettered grief there for just a split second before it was replaced by an angry, cool visage. "Maybe I do, because then I wouldn't feel like this!"

"It's not my fault she went and offed herself!" Theodore shot back, anger rising in his gut. "Why'd she do that? What'd you do to her?!" The accusation poured forth without him being able to stop it.

"NOTHING!" Thaddeus roared, his face red and anguished. "I DID NOTHING!"

Theodore immediately felt recalcitrant. "I'm sorry," he said, and leaned forward to cling to his father's neck, and Thaddeus dipped his head into Theodore's wet hair and cried.

They never shared another bath, but that was okay. There would be other things to share.

---

"Take that back!" Theodore tried to shield himself, but he was just a smidgen too late. Pansy's pink, flailing flamingo mallet came crashing down over his head. "Ow!" he protested, grabbing the mallet around the flamingo's feathery neck; it gave a distressed squawk.

Pansy glared at him, her hair mussed, cheeks red from exertion. A giant, pink sateen bow was working its way free from her hair, and it tickled at her face omniously as she swung her head about. "Take it back!" Behind him he could hear Draco and Vince laughing.

"Getting licked by a girl, Nott?" Draco called out, smirking.

This party sucks, Theodore thought, gritting his teeth. "No!" he said curtly, and turned to Pansy. "I won't take it back! It's true!"

"How could you say such a thing?" she demanded, shaking the flamingo's stalky legs; Theodore tightened his grip around its neck.

"'Cause it's bloody well, true! I saw you with my own eyes."

"Saw what?" Daphne asked, coming up to them. She was eating a cupcake, a wadded, lumpy napkin held tight in her left hand.

Theodore wrenched the flamingo free from Pansy's grip and pointed it at her accusatorily. "Her!"

"Her, doing what?"

"Cheating in potions!"

"I don't need to cheat in potions," Pansy huffed, shooting a death glare his way. "Unlike you."

"I do not!" He clubbed her over the head with the mallet and she burst into tears.

"MUMMY!" she cried, great, fat crocodile tears rolling down her cheeks and highlighting her funny nose. "THEODORE HIT ME!"

"What's going on?" Eugenie Parkinson hurried over from where the adults were clumped around the table of food and cocktails. She squashed Pansy to her chest protectively. "Theodore?"

He held the flamingo guiltily. "Well!"

"Oh, for shame, Theodore!" Mrs Parkinson barked, patting Pansy's head; the bow slipped free from her head and fell to the grass. "You ought never strike another person, especially a female. Hasn't Thaddeus taught you any manners at all?"

Theodore felt his face warm, but said nothing. Pansy peeked at him from the crook of her mother's arm, her eyes glittering triumphantly. "Theodore said I cheat at potions!" she burst out, feigning distress.

"But you do cheat at potions--" Draco tried to point this out, but Pansy wailed even more loudly, drowning him out.

"Doesn't everyone cheat at potions?" Gregory asked, his round, chubby face screwing up questioningly.

Tracey Davis nodded sagely. "I do--"

Eugenie cut her off. "Nonsense!" she said firmly, squeezing Pansy even more tightly; Theodore hoped she would choke to death at that moment. "None of you need to cheat at potions. Really, how absurd! A finer group of minds Hogwarts will never see. Now play nicely, or I'll dole out chore assignments." She released her daughter; Pansy stooped to pick up her hair bow, blinking away her brimming tears. Eugenie beckoned to Theodore, "Come along, then. You and I are going to have a little chat."

Grudgingly he followed Pansy's mother across the lawn; she parked him in a wicker garden chair. "I've a few things to attend to, but I'll be back. Honestly, Theodore, I thought more of you."

He pulled at the skin of his lip with his teeth, watching her carefully. Pansy looked like her mum, that was for sure -- same dark hair and eyes, same flittering mannerisms, same busy demeanour. Eugenie Parkinson missed nothing -- except, apparently, Theodore noted, when it came to her daughter. He slouched in his chair, watching her go about her business of filling glass with champagne, and attending to the group of men sitting around a large outdoor table.

He waited until she was out of range and then slid from the chair into the grass. Elbow to knee, he commando-crawled across the lawn to where his father was sitting with his friends.

They never saw him coming.

Quietly he wormed his way through the legs of Millicent Bulstrode's father's chair, and made his way to underneath the centre of the table. He leaned against the centre support, settling in.

"It's in Hogwarts, I'm telling you!" a muffled voice was saying in hushed tones. Theodore could barely hear the men above him speaking. "--felt it?"

"--getting stronger--"

"--Defence instructor?"

"No." Theodore clearly heard his head of house's voice drawling from above. "Lucius, you overestimate Quironious's intelligence--"

"Who's Quironious?" A voice whispered into his ear; he glanced sideways and found her gargantuous hairbow occluding his vision.

"I have no idea," he said huffily, yanking the bow out of her hair with a vicious tug. "But whoever he is, I'm sure he cheats at potions!"

"You're not angry with me, are you?" She pulled a vaguely apologetic face and rubbed at the side of her head. "Come on, Theodore. It's just that you shouldn't speak of some things openly!"

"Why do you cheat anyway?" he asked. "You really don't have to!"

"Oh, I don't know," she said breezily. "Maybe it's the challenge of it -- not getting caught, that is."

"But you're so bloody obvious about it!" Theodore objected, scooting over slightly; she turned around and sat next to him. "I mean, that bit with the singing owl telegram?"

Her face split in a wide grin. "Brilliant of me, wasn't it?" she said. "Funny, though. The Gryffindors still managed to lose points for that."

He snorted. "At least that."

"Are you having a good time at my party?" she asked, linking her arm through his and looking up at him expectantly.

"No," he said, still miffed. "What, are you mental? I'm sitting under a table hiding from your mother. This is hardly my idea of fun, Pansy."

Her face fell. "Oh," she said, her brows knitting. "What would you like to do, then?"

"I don't know." He shrugged helplessly. "Nothing, really."

"How's your hols been otherwise?"

He just stared at her warily, not up to discussing his father's protracted grief over Geneviève's death.

"I have something for you," she said, beguiling him. "Come on!" She tugged at his hand and he followed her lead.

"Go out through Millicent's father's chair," he whispered.

"I know," she said witheringly. "How do you think I got in here?"

They emerged quickly, the sound of the whispering grass drowned out by the mens' conversation.

"This way," she mouthed at him, beckoning.

"Wait," he said softly. "I want to ask my father something." He came up behind Thaddeus's chair and gripped the wrought iron leg; he reached for his father's arm, but then hesitated, his ears pricking.

"You've felt it," his father was saying; Theodore strained upward from his kneeling position to see. Thaddeus seemed to be speaking to Lucius Malfoy. "I've felt the burn," he hissed, thrusting his left arm forward onto the tabletop. "I'm willing to wager you've all felt it. Felt him. Am I right?"

"Undoubtedly," Lucius Malfoy acknowledged dryly, with a small incline of his head. "Not only that, but through other means as well. Tell me, Nott. Are you recently afraid to sleep at night? Afraid of what dreams may come, hmm?"

"Malfoy, don't be dense," Thaddeus growled. "I've never been afraid to sleep. What will come, will come. So it has always been."

"I receieved an owl," another man said; all eyes turned to him. Theodore could see it was Millicent's father. "It was from Rodolphus."

"Really?" Malfoy's eyebrow piqued. "After all these years?"

A discreet cough came forth then and Theodore looked around the table to find Snape gazing at him. "Thaddeus," Snape said. "Your son needs you, it appears."

All eyes turned to Theodore, making him feel scrutinsed. He spoke as quietly as he could. "I was just wondering when we were going home?"

Thaddeus looked down at his side. "Soon, son. Soon. Say 'hello' to the gentlemen."

"Hello," Theodore said obligingly. He felt triumphant when he held their collective gaze and didn't glance away, and then Pansy saved him even further by bolting up to her own father.

"Daddy!" She pulled at him, excited. "Come and play croquet with me! You promised you would, and the party's almost over! Draco brained one of the flamingoes by accident -- it's all horribly gory!"

"I did promise, didn't I?" Edmund Parkinson knicked Pansy's chin affectionately with his knuckle. "We shall have to teach Draco how to properly handle a flamingo mallet, won't we?" He glanced around the table, and Theodore caught the determined look in his eyes, as if he were relaying an unspoken message to the group at large. "Enough talk of the past, yes?" The men stood collectively; Theodore took this as his opportunity to escape their scrutiny and slipped over toward Pansy.

"I thought you had something for me?" he said, falling into step with her and her father.

"Later," she said brightly, clutching Edmund's hand tightly and gazing up at him with something approaching reverence. "After croquet, all right?"

---

"Theodore," Pansy asked, two days later; it was their last day of the Easter holiday. "Do you think I'm ugly?" She was wearing one of his mother's sets of frilly French dressrobes, and an ornate hat with a shocking fuscia plume rising from its brim to quiver in the air above her. Around her neck she wore strand after strand of pearls and beads.

"Yes," he said, through his mouthful of pecan biscuits; he passed the tin sideways. "Biscuit?"

Draco helped himself; both boys were leaning against the ornately-carved headboard, a pile of pillows surrounding them. Theodore was reading a Martin Miggs serial, while Draco flipped through a Quidditch supplies catalogue. "Thanks," Draco said absently, as if he had momentarily forgotten he ought never deign to thank anyone, ever.

Pansy wrinkled her nose at Theodore. "Draco," she cajoled. "Do you think I'm ugly?"

"Are you wearing Quidditch gear?"

"Obviously not," she said, rolling her eyes.

"Then you're ugly," Draco said matter-of-factly.

"Ooo!" She stamped her foot, put out, wobbling dangerously in the too-large heels she'd donned. "What do you two know anyway?" She clip-clopped haughtily across the polished marble floor of Geneviève Nott's bedroom into the bath and slammed the door dramatically, with a great woofing sound. "Bugger!" She'd slammed the hems of her robes into the door. Huffily she re-opened the door and yanked the robes free, and then closed it again with as much umbrage as she could manage. "Stupid boys."

She sat at Geneviève's dressing table; with a flick of her wand the mirror lit up, casting a glow over the contents lining the table's surface. Everything was thick with dust -- it had been almost a year since Theodore's mother had killed herself. Carefully, Pansy opened the top drawer. A silver hairbrush appeared, with several strands of long, dark hair still twined in its bristles; she lifted it out and placed it on the table.

There were scraps of parchment carefully folded, with indecipherable French words leaping off their surfaces at her. Next, a set of three carved ivory elephants; the smallest one's trunk was missing, broken off halfway down. A small spritzer of parfum -- Pansy gave it a tentative squirt into the air, and she knew enough from her own mother's fashion musings that the perfume Geneviève used was both French and very classic. Pansy reached far back into the drawer and felt around, her fingers finally brushing against something cool and metallic -- it was a picture of Geneviève herself, nursing an infant Theodore. She was completely nude -- at least as much of her body as the picture showed was -- and her dark hair fell down over her shoulders; she could see Theodore's chubby baby fingers working at a strand of his mother's hair as he stared into her eyes, utterly content.

"Ew!" she grimmaced, shoving the photograph back into the middle drawer and pushing it closed. "Gross." She would never allow her children to suck on her like some kind of rooting animal. How old-fashioned and common!

She opened a side drawer; this one was full of pictures, most of them of Theodore. The idea that Theodore was precious enough to warrant drawers full of pictures seemed foreign to her, a major revelation. She didn't mean it as unkindly as the thought sounded, but rather she had just never thought of Theodore in those terms: son, infant, loved. She picked up one of the pictures; two pieces of parchment were saved behind the glass, representative of Geneviève's many random notes to herself: Voici mon secret. Il est très simple : on ne voit bien qu'avec le coeur. L'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux was written on one piece, and then a single, small piece in the upper right-hand corner of the frame simply read Theo.

"What are you doing?"

She hadn't heard him come in. "Nothing," she said automatically, and thrust the picture at him. "What's this say?"

Theodore took the framed picture from her hands, his eyes sweeping over it. "I'll tell you my secret--"

She cut him off. "No need to be so dramatic--"

He interrupted her in turn. "I'm reading it to you, bint! Shut up and listen." He pushed his hair out of his eyes. "I'll tell you my secret. It's very simple: it is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye." He looked up at her.

"What's that supposed to mean?" she asked, so quickly that Theodore knew she hadn't likely even registered the words yet.

"Dunno," he said, laying the picture back down on his mother's dressing table. "Bugger off, would you? I have to pee."

"You go by Theo?" she asked.

"My mother called me Theo."

"Just your mother?"

He didn't know what to say; he didn't want to say either yes or no. He stared at her silently until she shrugged and averted her gaze. "I'm serious," he said finally. "Get out. I have to go!"

---

After the Easter hols the rest of the term flew by. The firsties gathered in the Slytherin common room, all huddled together in last-minute revising groups.

"I can't get the ruddy pineapple to dance!" Crabbe grumbled, his brow furrowed worriedly. "All those dumb lessons Mother's forced on me -- good for nothing!"

"Don't be dense, Vince," Tracey said. "How very silly! Transfiguration has nothing to do with one's own dancing abilities."

"You do it then!"

Tracey waved her wand smugly and the pineapple rose from the table; the sound of tap dancing filled the room.

"Ruddy show off."

"Pansy," Draco said, from across the way, "drill me on History of Magic. I can't stand another go through my notes."

"Right, then," Pansy said. "Hand them over."

Draco rummaged around. "Bloody hell," he muttered, sweeping his hands around where he was sitting, and then moving off the couch to paw underneath the cushions. "I think I left them in class today," he groaned, sitting back down with a huff.

"Go get them," Theodore said from the small table behind the couch.

"Just lend me yours," Draco said.

Theodore gave a snort. "I don't think so."

"Come on," Draco whinged, put out. "They're not even as good as mine!"

"I wouldn't want to be responsible for your undoing. Forget it, Malfoy."

"Ponce." Draco stood, dusting off his trousers. He held Theodore's gaze for a moment, and the turned. "Pansy," he said slyly, in a more cordial tone than usual, "would you come with me to fetch my notes?"

Pansy looked up, vaguely suspicious. "Why?"

"No particular reason."

"They're probably not even there anymore," she said. "Gryffindor and Hufflepuff had their History of Magic exam today. Binns'll be cleaning up by now -- our exam tomorrow's the last one of the year."

"No worries," Draco said, smirking. "I've charmed them to give anyone other than myself a nasty shock if they try and nick my notes!"

"This isn't some kind of trick to hex me, is it?" she asked. "Because I'm telling you, if this is some kind of a trap--"

"Don't be stupid," Draco scoffed, flicking an eyebrow at Theodore; Theodore rolled his eyes and went back to his parchments laid out across the table. "If you don't want to come, then don't!"

"I didn't say I didn't want to come!"

"Well, are you coming?"

"You're sure this isn't some kind of--"

"Forget it, Pansy," Draco drawled; he sauntered off toward the entrance to the dungeons.

Theodore viewed this with a pragmatic sense of dettatchment. Malfoy, he had quickly realised, knew how to play his cards with people in general; nothing made a girl more pliable than feigned indifference. Too bad it wasn't his style; Theodore really couldn't imagine seriously behaving that way, but it worked for Draco, and he knew Draco had latched onto that style fiercely at his first taste of success.

He watched Pansy scamper after Draco, and then went back to his revising.

---

"What do you suppose is in there?" Draco asked. He'd paused in the middle of the third floor corridor; curiously, he looked off into the right wing.

"Ooo, no, Draco," Pansy gasped. "That's forbidden! Dumbledore said so at the beginning of the year." She quoted the headmaster, eyes wide. "Anyone who doesn't wish to die a painful death, remember?" She tugged light at his sleeve. "Come on, let's go get your notes."

"What, scared?" Draco said challengingly. "Father says everything Dumbledore says is a lie. I'll bet there's nothing there at all!"

Pansy considered him silently, feeling torn. "I'm not scared!" she said boldly, lying through her teeth.

Draco pushed her toward the heavy oak door closing off the right wing of the corridor. "Go on, then. Open it! I dare you."

She shied away. "No!" Shaking her head, she drew up her chin. "Open it yourself if you're so curious!"

"I never said I was curious."

"Yes you did!" Pansy shoved Draco in the arm. "You asked in the first place!"

"That," Draco said coolly, "was only to--"

"Oh do shut up," Pansy huffed, and grabbed up his hand and wrapped it around the iron loop hanging from the handle, covering his hand with her own. "Go on, then," she whispered, her eyes glittering challengingly, "if you're not scared."

Draco's gaze shifted sideways and she felt his hand tighten under her, grasping the iron tightly; suddenly the handle began to rattle beneath their grasp. Draco's eyes widened and a deep, sinister rumbling sound rolled over them -- a wave of cold, raw fear and evil.

"Draco . . . ?" A paralysing fear washed through her. "What is that?"

He pulled his hand free and automatically tugged her along as he stepped away from the door; she flung her arms around his neck, petrified, as a massive cloud of black mist burst right through the seams of the wooden door and reared up ominiously, taking the shape of a neverending shroud, its aura infinitely bleak and angry.

"Oh god," Pansy whimpered, bursting into tears. "I think it's a Lethifold!" Through her swimming vision she watched as the form thickened, and two red, serpentine eyes burned themselves forward from inside the form's occluding folds.

Draco made a small clicking noise in the back of his throat as the entity hovered over them, filling the corridor for as far as they could see, its inky form waving at them silently, and then with a blood-curdling roar it screamed its rage down the echoing hall and rose again, and then crashed down over Draco and Pansy.

Knocked to the ground, Pansy clutched at her throat, all the air sucked from her lungs; for several moments she could not move. She stared blankly into the black void of the being, Oh God, Oh God, Oh God running roughshod through her mind as the entity's folds wrapped themselves around her, and then she felt it go down her throat, filling her.

I'm going to die, Pansy thought; a tear leaked from the corner of her eye due to the suffocation. She turned her head finally and found Draco staring at her, his eyes wide with surprise, and then there was a rush of air and an unspooling sensation overtook her as the entity unwrapped itself and drew free from her body. With a gasp, she inhaled sharply, and blessed air filled her burning lungs; she sat up reflexively, clutching at her throat, taking in deep gulps of air as the black, sentient mist gathered itself against the ceiling of the corridor. Draco was frantic next to her, but his words escaped her as she looked upward. The being's red, reptilian eyes glowed evilly, and then, just like that, it flew down the corridor, a great, black shadow against the castle walls and disappeared around a distant corner. "Pansy?" Draco was looking at her still, confused and obviously frightened. She crawled over to him and threw her arms around his neck, her heart pounding fiercely in her chest, and wept into the crook of his neck as he sat stunned, his hands slack in his lap.

It came as no suprise to either Draco or Pansy the next day when they both barely passed their History of Magic exam.

---

Four days later all the Slytherins gathered in the common room to celebrate their seventh consecutive win of the House Cup, and Professor Snape gave out individual awards to all the years. Pansy received the award for the highest Potions mark of the Slytherin first years, while Theodore collected the Charms award.

"Cheater!" Draco said impishly to Pansy as she retook her seat at the tiny table off to the side of the common room; the comfortable couches had of course been claimed by the sixth and seventh years. She beamed a brilliant smile at him and squeezed his hand affectionately.

"Like I said before, it's not because I have to!" She perched herself on Theodore's knee and looked back at him. "Good show."

Pansy sat between Theodore and Draco that night in the Great Hall; the Slytherin table was abuzz with anticipation, and finally Dumbledore stood to deal with the matter of the House Cup.

"Now as I understand it," Dumbledore said, his voice rising in a way that quieted the din in the hall, "the house cup here needs awarding, and the points stand as thus: in fourth place Gryffindor, with three hundred and twelve points--"

Draco leaned into Pansy. "Good," he said viciously. "Bunch of ruddy do-gooders!"

"--in third place, Hufflepuff, with three hundred and fifty-two; Ravenclaw has four hundred and twenty-six and Slytherin four hundred and seventy-two."

The Slytherins erupted in cheers, and banged their goblets on the table.

Dumbledore continued. "Yes, yes, well done, Slytherin. However," he said, and Pansy could have sworn the headmaster looked . . . smug. "However, recent events must be taken into consideration."

The rest was a blur. Smiles faded, and then were replaced with burning rage, rage which ignited at the headmaster's first However, and licked around their insides until combusting into white-hot hatred for the Gryffindors. Here Dumbledore was, rewarding Gryffindor with points for a chess game? One by one they looked to Snape in disbelief, but Snape merely stared ahead, a far and solitary figure at the high table, and they all then came to understand how things would be from then on out, due only to the fact they were unlucky enough to have been born within the same year as the famous Harry Potter.

They sat still, their goblets silent and empty, and said nothing as the flags and decoration changed from silver and green to crimson and gold with one clap of their headmaster's hands.

---

As they sat on the Hogwarts Express for the ride back to Kings Cross, Theodore held The Magic Grasshopper as Pansy whispered of her and Draco's brush with the demon a fortnight earlier.

"If I have a summer garden party, will you come?" Pansy asked, resting her head against his upper arm, snuggling down.

"No," he said, turning a page. "Your spring party was awful."

She tsked. "You shouldn't say that, Theo. Besides, I saw you playing croquet by yourself when you thought everyone had gone."

Theodore smiled faintly as Pansy rested against him, and he remembered their first ride together on this train, just nine months before. She was a difficult little thing, but so was he; they hated and loved with equal passion, and they were survivors in their own right.