Love Story

['Let us not speak, for the love we bear one another--

Let us hold hands and look.'

One, such a very ordinary little woman,

The other, such a thumping crook;

But both, for a moment, little lower than the angels

In the teashop's ingle-nook.]

Pansy Parkinson has always been aware that she is slightly strange. For a start, her hair isn't like anyone else's. It's long, and black, and very heavy. No one else's is that black, except for perhaps Harry Potter's, and his isn't long, anyway. Pansy's hair is slippery and smooth, and hairbands fall out of it, so she has to wear it loose all the time. It coils like black snakes around her shoulders. Still, at least she doesn't have to wear a scarf in winter. As Draco has so cunningly pointed out, she can just wrap her hair around her neck. She doesn't, though, because it might look slightly odd.

Draco is another example of her eccentricities. She doesn't suppose that many people have been engaged since they were six months old and another baby with bright blond feathery hair and dark grey eyes was born just down the road. She remembers seeing him at a party at her Daddy's work when she was about five, a pretty, debonair little boy with a small black bowtie who bowed solemnly and asked her to dance. She stepped on his toes because he was perfect and she was not, but he didn't seem to mind. Her heart swelled up, almost painfully, at the thought of marrying this lovely, handsome boy who looked at her so disconcertingly with his huge eyes.

Now, of course, she isn't so sure. Draco doesn't really seem to have any purpose or any real aim. He just floats around using Daddy's money and taunting Harry Potter and smiling faintly at Pansy's jokes and making it clear to Crabbe and Goyle that they are stupid and he decidedly is not. For some reason, Pansy feels empty whenever she thinks of him. He is a vacuous shell, capable of real emotion only when faced with his nemesis, who of course has much bigger and better enemies than him, such as the Dark Lord. Draco is just as pretty as he ever was, with pale translucent skin and an angular, wistful-looking face, but somehow he's disappeared somewhere, and Pansy isn't sure that she can ever really go after him.

Another peculiarity of hers is her parents. Her Daddy works at Gringotts, in a very high position, and her Mummy works at an exclusive robe shop. They aren't Death Eaters, which, considering her housemates, is a rare feat. Draco and Greg and Vince and Millicent were all placed in Slytherin because they begged the Sorting Hat to put them there, whereas Pansy sat on the stool and thought "I bet I'm different and I don't really care, put me wherever the bloody hell you want," and the Hat chortled and said "This one's got some fire in her, SLYTHERIN it is, then!" and then to her delight she danced over to the table where that lovely blond-haired boy was sitting.

The biggest of her oddities is the one that concerns her the most. It's about That Hermione Granger. They sit next to each other in Potions after Professor Snape changed the seating around and muttered something about "that old buffoon" and "proximal learning". And for some reason, when Hermione tilts back her head, Pansy wants to lean forwards and, gently and softly, lick a long trail from the base of Hermione's chin to the white hollow of her neck.

This thought begins to plague Pansy immensely. She doesn't know why or how it began, but it only intensifies when Hermione begins to suck on her pen lid while staring at the wall during one of Snape's many rantings, with full red lips and a pink tongue that flickers out when she's bent over her work and copying out a list of ingredients attentively. For some reason, Pansy is suddenly desperate to bend towards Hermione and run a finger oh-so-painfully-gently across those pretty, pretty lips.

Things only worsen when Hermione sighs and begins to cross and uncross her legs restlessly every five minutes. To her dismay, Pansy's horrible, irresponsible mind begins to imagine a scenario during which she gets up and stands over Hermione, and then licks the trail from chin to hollow of neck, kissing those beautiful lips and then, not so gently, leaning forwards and placing a warm hand between Hermione's thighs.

[Of course, they are now no longer in Potions class but in the deserted Slytherin common room, and Hermione is perched demurely on a green leather couch, legs open, lips no longer so perfect after small white teeth bit into them as she suppressed a cry when Pansy's irresponsible, downright dirty hand snaked its way up the soft white skin of her inner thigh and to a place that she had never touched, had never even dreamt of touching, but now Pansy's there, and working swift fingers. Hermione's bottom lip splits as she bites hard into it again, gasping, trying not to make a sound, and bright crimson blood dribbles down her chin.]

And Pansy is terrible for even beginning to imagine this, and she feels herself blushing bright red when Hermione sits down next to her in Potions the next day.