All That We Fall For

All That We Fall For

"He's dead."

There was an eerie calm that had settled down on both their shoulders as Pansy breathed hard when she spoke those immortal words to Draco Malfoy, whose upper lip was cut and one eye was blackened tenderly. He squinted painfully up at her and twitched slightly.

The body of Lucius Malfoy was laid before them, his fine blond hair - long and entwined with blood stains and crushed gravel. Before Draco could gather more gory details about his deceased father, Pansy blocked his view with her insistent glare.

"Let's go, Draco. He's dead," she repeated.

He looked at her coldly and clenched his wand tightly, ready to hex his own girlfriend if she released out those two words another time.

"Potter," Draco spat, clamping his ungloved hands close to the cold dirt ground below them, the fine grains of stone and sand stabbing his cuts. "And Weasley... and the fucking Mudblood. They did this to him. He was so close... the Dark Lord was calling him and----"

Draco was wheezing viciously for breath. "Those Gryffindors are going to pay---"

"Draco." Pansy knelt down close to him. "It's okay. Fuck them all, okay? You're still alive, that's what matters."

He looked at her with livid eyes and his speech grew smooth - like flowing toxic potion. "I'm going to fucking murder Potter - I'm going to Avada Kedavra him until he's being sent straight to the depths of Hell. And when I'm through with him, I'm going to choke Granger until I see her dirty Mudblood eyes roll back into that ugly know-it-all skull, and then I'll finish off Weasley by making him eat money----"

Pansy bit her tongue and took his cold stiff hand in hers.

***

The aftermath of the war was bright and cheery. It was near the end of summer and evening fell upon both Draco and Pansy as they walked through the streets of Diagon Alley. The air was warmly baked into the cobblestone from the sun's intense glow during the day while the heat made everything look hazy and surreal. Somewhere in the background was another third class party rumbling, celebrating the fall of the Dark Lord.

Draco kept his sneer intact the whole time Pansy had remained at his house after she arrived. Narcissa, adorned in all black silk robes and her hair held back with a velvet ribbon, had pulled Pansy off to the side and begged her to give Draco some fresh air - he had not left the house for days.

So now, here they were. He held onto her hand tightly and in his usual guarded, authoritative Malfoy fashion. But he didn't speak.

"Are you sure you're okay?" Pansy asked as she walked idly. Her bitterness over the loss during the war had to be put aside - she knew Draco would feed into it and spiral himself even more downward.

He didn't speak to her at Lucius' funeral just two weeks ago either. And when she had convinced her mother to let her fly over to the Malfoy Manor, he regarded her coldly and claimed he was tired.

Pansy looked into his eyes - they were bloodshot and his hair was matted closely to his forehead, he'd not slept for days, weeks, maybe.

"Draco, we need to talk about what happened."

He looked at her and spoke coarsely. "I need a drink, let's go. I'll pay."

"You have no money," she said tensely. The Malfoy fortune had been invested all into the support of Lord Voldemort, and the moment that he had been destroyed was the split second when the Malfoy social standing would crumble to the depths of the underground with him.

He looked at her oddly. "Father will take care of it, don't worry."

"Draco," she insisted again, as he yanked her arm. "Stop..." Her voice was slowly tipping over to the old screech she had developed when she was a young Slytherin.

He grabbed her and pulled her close to him, angling her against the sun baked wall of the side of the pub. "Are you going to leave me too, Pansy?" he whispered, the sour stench of alcohol escaped his thin lips and wafted across her nose. She had to keep from cringing. "Are you? You know I haven't seen my father for weeks, and I'm fine. So if you're going to leave for awhile too---"

"No," she said breathlessly, holding back her tears. "I'm not leaving you, Draco."

***

"See the Golden Trio yet?" Draco greeted her in his normal tone of voice at the train station when the term had started. She studied him cautiously - they had not spoken for the rest of summer, as Narcissa had owled the Parkinsons and said that her son had "fallen ill." And Pansy was forbidden access to see him.

She could not breathe for those last two weeks.

"Yeah, Potter's still got no fucking girlfriend -- or a comb," she replied coolly.

He laughed as he swung his arm around her. "Excellent. I have a special welcome back greeting for them."

"Draco... I've really missed you. I think we really need to talk, you know.. about---"

"Lunch," he promised. "We'll celebrate after you feast on the surprise meal I've cooked up for Potter and his two bitches."

"Okay," she said uneasily.

He grinned back at her brightly.

Draco Malfoy had never, ever showed so many teeth in a smile his entire life. It nearly blind sighted Pansy and fed hungrily into the sour boiling emotions that stirred in her stomach.

The large banner with Harry's gleaming photo loomed dangerously close to her head as she entered the Great Hall later. She wrinkled her nose and sneered at her disgustedly, turning her flat nose upward to leer at it. He was smiling shyly in that sickening way he always did to get the ugly Gryffindor girls' attention and she felt nauseous. The back of the banner was charmed to glow with the names of those they had lost in the war.

She scanned carefully. There was no Lucius Malfoy.

"Shame," Draco said loudly behind her and Pansy jumped, along with her heart, as he placed an arm lazily over her shoulder. He walked her over to the end of the Slytherin table to their usual spot. "Looks like they left out Goyle's parents. We must go complain to Dumbledore, musn't we?"

"What--" she started to say, and then froze as Draco's arm slid off her shoulder with such a fierce friction that she felt a burn.

The laughter and loud cheery noises that danced around her ears had been blocked off by her vibrantly beating heart. At the very entrance to the Hall were Potter, Weasley and Granger.

Draco let go of Pansy and made his way to the opposite end of the Hall so that he faced the three. The fierce glare he wore on his face meshed into one whisper that seemed to travel in one swift wave around the hall, and suddenly the mass of Hogwarts seemed to stop chewing their food, sipping their drinks and indulging in petty school gossip.

Suddenly, everything got really, really quiet.

Weasley immediately pointed his wand menacingly up a few inches from his face, darted at Malfoy while the Mudblood lowered her fists and rested them on her hip. Potter, the leader of the pack, kept his pride intact fully and did not move a muscle. But his green eyes sparked slightly as he shot Malfoy a rather challenging look.

"Well, well," Draco drawled, a maliciously suspicious smile crawling onto his lips as he strode lazily to the Trio. The whispers around the hall continued to battle. "If it isn't The Boy Who Lived After All, Harry Potter."

"Move aside, Malfoy," Harry said, his voice having gotten lower over the summer. "You're in the way of my lunch."

"I think he's already made me lose my lunch," Weasley retorted and Granger smiled at him in the most sickening way imaginable.

Pansy felt like killing them.

Turns out, what Draco had planned wasn't so far from that.

"Gladly," Draco responded. "But not after I congratulate you on your success from the war. Congrats, Potter, you've really done it! Even wiped my father out."

Pansy could feel it coming. The heavy tension in the air, stirred with her anxiety, finally burst through her senses as she lunged toward Draco.

He had only mentioned one thing, but she instinctively knew was he was going to do.

It happened all in slow motion, Draco prepared his nerves to perform an Avada Kedavra as he thrust his hand forward to shake Potter's, and Pansy ran forward and shoved Potter to the ground.

Both Weasley and Granger made quick motions to whip out their wands, but Draco was quicker as he grabbed Potter by the neck and held him in a tight heaock.

"No, Draco! You'll be sent to Azkaban if you do!" Pansy screeched.

He yanked her hand off his arm and looked at her fiercely. "This doesn't concern you, Pansy! Get out of my fucking sight unless you want to be killed!"

"Let go, Malfoy!" Granger yelled frantically. "I'm going to tell Professor McGonagall---"

Draco's eyes flashed as he pointed his wand directly into Harry's squirming face. "Do it, Potter." He demanded angrily. "Apologize for killing my father! Or I'll kill you too."

"Your father---" Potter began.

"Shut the fuck up, Potter," Pansy growled, and Draco looked at her incredulously.

"Don't do this, please," she whispered, blocking the Trio's view of Draco. She took his shaking hands and closed her eyes. "We can fight this together."

He dropped it and violently burned his eyes into hers before he pushed her down onto the floor with one swift hand, she cried out in protest as she landed but looked up at him with a fierce determination.

"Draco!" Pansy yelled. "Your father deserved to die after killing so many innocent people!"

Draco looked at her with a paused, wide-eyed shock and suddenly, the Great Hall's hush skimmed down to a striking silence.

"Please," she croaked weakly, clawing her hands down on the rough fabric of her skirt. "I'm sorry, I----"

"We're through," he whispered, so quietly that the waves of thin sound gently pricked through her skin and directly into her heart.

It had not been a full ten seconds before Draco vehemently stalked out of the Great Hall and Pansy found herself, on the floor and sobbing.

Potter, Weasley and Granger looked down at her with a batch of utter confusion and mixed gratitude.

It was Potter who made the first move. He hesitantly looked down at her crying figure and lent a hand to help her up.

She'd be damned if she took that hand before she spat into it.

"That self righteous act wore out in the Third Year, Potter," she said, her voice raspy.

"I just wanted to say... that you did the right thing," he said hesitantly, behind him, Granger nodded politely and looked half a beat away from sympathetic. Weasley scoffed but didn't say anything.

She got up slowly and looked directly into his emerald eyes as he waited patiently for her to speak.

"Lucius Malfoy was evil," she said quietly. "But that gives you no right, no fucking right at all, to assume that the War was won with the right side."

She distinctly saw Granger whisper something into Weasley's ear and narrowed her eyes.

"Say it to my face, Granger."

Hermione looked up and paused before she spoke again. "I was just telling Ron that hate is stronger than the grave, and that you're beginning to understand that now," she said stiffly.

"Fuck you!" Pansy screeched. "You don't even know Draco, you don't know anything past those bloody books of yours and you especially don't know me! So you can take those words and choke on them."

Potter began to speak but she would give him no damn right. Granger went back to looking furious.

"Just because your side didn't suffer in the end doesn't mean that the innocent didn't suffer," she spat out. "Some fell apart because of the war that you won," she whispered rashly as she stumbled her way out of the Great Hall.

***

Pansy uttered the password in shaking tones, her whole body feeling frail and nervous and scared beyond the life of her, as she stepped into the Slytherin dungeon. Before she could make another move, cold hands grabbed her by her neck and pressed her up against the heavy curtains that lined one side of the wall.

"How dare you," he snarled. "In front of Potter, and that piece of trash Weasley - and in front of the fucking Mudblood bitch! How dare you---"

She cried out in protest, feeling her throat tighten up against his gloved fingers that pressed her along the wall. And with one swift motion, she promptly kicked him in the shin and then pushed him down onto the floor. He fell on his bottom and cried out, his grey eyes burning up at her, messy blond hair falling furiously into his face.

"Fuck you, Parkinson.." he growled, getting up and clenching his fists into tight angry balls.

"Shut up, Draco! Shut the fuck up!" she yelled. "Fucking hell, you are so bloody stupid! Do you know what you just did out there?!"

"I was doing what I had to do!" he roared. "You fucking bitch, you have no idea what I've been through these past few weeks! You have no idea what it's like to be humiliated like this! They deserved to die, Pansy! And you know it!"

"I know!" she yelled back, her voice shrill. "I know all of that! And don't you dare fucking tell me that I have no idea what it's like to be humiliated! God, I fell in love with you of all people! I damn well have a good clear idea of what humiliation is, Malfoy!"

He stood there panting slowly, his lungs choking his insides and fire breathing from his mouth. But he didn't say anything.

She exhaled in a long throaty breath and tucked her dark hair behind her ears then cautiously reached down to take his hand. He moved away as if her hands were toxic poison. "Please, just stop. Look at what's happening to you. I know it would have been a brilliant moment for you, but it wouldn't have lasted. Dumbledore would have been on your case like no other, Snape is no longer on the Dark Side, and your father isn't here to pay the way out of the situation. You would have been sent to Azkaban," she croaked. "You would have spent the rest of your life there."

He reeled back as if the thought never occurred to him. Draco still didn't speak.

"I would have lost you," she whispered, dark slivers of her pixie haircut gliding away from the back of her ear as she leaned forward to fall into his unexpected embrace. Her hot, sweaty forehead was matted against the rough embroidery of his Slytherin patch and she could feel his heart beating.

"I want to kill them," he said, exhaling finally. "I hate them so much, Pansy."

"I know," she said. "But they don't matter right now, okay? I don't care about them and you shouldn't either. I care about you and you need to take care of yourself."

He studied her carefully. She looked into his worn eyes and felt her heart giving away at what she saw. This wasn't the prat she met on her first day of school. This wasn't the whiney little spoiled blond boy who screamed like a girl. This was the boy who told her the first day he met her, that she was important. The first boy who made her summers exciting and filled them with Exploding Snap and more Chocolate Frogs than she could handle.

Merlin, why was she doing this? Why did she always feel like she had to be there for him?

"I'm really fucked up right now, Pans," he finally said, his voice husky and ragged as he gasped for air from the back of his throat, struggling to speak properly.

Because he had always been there for her, whether it was intentional or not.

"I know," she said. She sighed softly as he clamped his closed eyelids against her shoulder and wondered what he would have done if the roles were reversed.

"But, Draco, don't worry okay? I can deal," she smirked.

He smiled shakily at her, a kind of smile a Slytherin kept behind closed doors. A kind of smile that Pansy loved because she knew she would see no smile more beautiful.

"We've got Potions in a few minutes," he responded. "I don't want to be late."

"Okay," she nodded as he took her hand and squeezed it, before pulling her back out of the common room.

Lunch in the Great Hall had just ended and everyone was spilling out into the halls, rushing their way to class. Pansy watched from the side of her eyes as Potter, Weasley and Granger rushed past them. Granger turned her nosy head around and shot Pansy a look that was neither spiteful nor cautious.

Draco saw this and met Granger's eyes for a split second before he caressed Pansy's hand and joined Crabbe, Goyle, Nott and Zabini in the halls. Pansy noted that Zabini's cuts had not healed completely. Draco met his eyes and when Zabini clasped his shoulders fraternally, Pansy saw Draco nod stiffly at him and his eyes water.

Her heart shattered and she felt like crying, but she didn't.