Seven Reasons Not to Love

Part Five - New Order of Seven

Blaise walked into the room behind the black door and stopped. Everyone was already there. Everyone but for Draco. She smiled slightly, but a slight pang of guilt tugged at her as she went to the head of the table. She quashed it. There was not time to think about that now.

"Morning," she said clearly. "I see we are missing Draco. He does not know we are meeting?"

"No, none of us told him," Pansy said.

"Good. Now, I'm sure you all know the reason for this meeting?" There was silence as Blaise looked around the room, and each head seemed to be hiding under their hood, staring at the long wooden table. Blaise remained silent, determined to force them to make the decision. Eventually Malcolm Baddock looked up.

"It's about Draco Malfoy, and his...replacement," he said quietly. Blaise nodded curtly.

"Yes, it is. I assume that we still have the Weasley under our control?" she asked as an aside. There was a murmur of agreement and she pressed on. "Right. We'll be needing him soon, even though it is clear that the enemy does in fact know he is missing...what?" she paused. They were all looking slightly uncomfortable.

"Well, it's just...Draco has the ring," Graham Pritchard said quietly.

"Yes, he does, doesn't he? I'd forgotten. No matter. Just keep Weasley in our hands. Before we need to use the ring again we need to get him down here. Then we can lock him in a room somewhere. Now, as for Malfoy, I suggest we recruit Theodore Nott as our seventh member. Does anyone disagree?" Blaise looked across the table as the other members had a brief discussion, and then shook their heads. "Excellent. Now then, we must now get onto the trickier business of..."

"I don't think we should do anything," Pansy said suddenly. Everyone, Blaise included, turned to look at her. "I mean, he got our note didn't he? We should probably let Mr. Malfoy deal with him."

"Pansy, he let our secret leak! He has to be punished!"

"That's not true..."

"Shut up you silly cow. I'll talk to you after. Now, what shall we do about him?" Blaise said quickly. She kept her face blank, but inside her heart was hammering against her chest. Pansy was getting tired of this. But she couldn't let her tell them the truth, not now they'd agreed to get rid of Draco. She blinked, looking at Malcolm, who had stood up.

"I think poison. It'll be easiest." Malcolm sat again and Blaise waited. There was no mutter of disagreement. Nothing. Blaise wondered if that was because everyone was too scared to say so, or because they actually wanted Malfoy dead. She felt a second pang of guilt, but steeled herself against it. She leant hard on the table.

"Okay. We'll re-convene soon to discuss his punishment. As for the meantime, will it be seen to that he gets a warning. This time more threatening. Pritchard, talk to Nott for me. You can all go now." Blaise moved around the table as everyone stood up and clutched Pansy's arm, making her wait while everyone else left.

Once the last person had left and closed the door Blaise pulled Pansy to the front of the room and they stared blankly at each other for a moment. Pansy's brown eyes were boring into her, and Blaise wanted to look away.

"They're going to kill Draco, Blaise," Pansy said flatly. "Kill him because of a lie."

"There's nothing we can do about it now. If you tell them the truth then they will not trust us anymore!" She looked over Pansy's shoulder towards the closed door, then back again.

"And why should they? We have betrayed them!"

"SHH! Someone might be listening. Look, we made a mistake. Mistakes are not tolerated. If you want to survive you have to find ways to. Draco Malfoy always assumed loyalty, and always follows whatever Mr. Malfoy says. We can blame him and not have to deal with it. If you own up now, both of us will likely be killed!"

"We could say we were wrongly informed, and that it was a mistake on all our parts."

"No, that'd reflect badly on everyone. Pansy, are you loyal to the Dark Lord or not?" Blaise said bluntly, folding her arms across her chest. Pansy looked affronted.

"Of course I am!"

"Then this is what we have to do. We know you like Draco but..."

"Don't you bring that into it when the reason Draco's in such trouble is because of you and...and that Weasley." Pansy narrowed her eyes and looked at Blaise with disgust. Blaise felt herself blush.

"Shut your face," she snapped, uncrossing her arms quickly. "Fine then, if you want to tell then what happened go ahead. It'll be on your head more than mine anyway because you let Ron Weasley see in the first place, through your carelessness!" Blaise stared resolutely at Pansy whose expression shifted from angry, to afraid, then to angry again.

"Fine," she said, stalking off towards the door. "Fine. We have potions today. I'll drop some hemlock into his freezing draught." With that she left, slamming the door behind her. Blaise gazed after her for a few seconds, then collapsed into the chair. She leant her head on her hand on the table and sighed. Her mind was racing through all the possibilities, but there simply were none more feasible than this. None that would spare herself and Pansy from taking the fate that now awaited Draco. Not even blaming it on someone else in the Seven. She sighed deeply. If she wanted to survive, this was it. This was the way.

Eventually, she stood up, her staunch look back in place.

"I'm sorry, Draco," she whispered, shaking her head as she wrenched the door open and stepped into the dark corridor. "There is just no other way."