Short Change Hero

Chapter 20: In My Time of Dying

Chapter Twenty  

Headstrong

“Circling your head,
Contemplating everything you ever said,
Now I see the truth I got a doubt,
A different motive in your eyes,
And now I'm out, see you later,

I see your fantasy,
You want to make it a reality paved in gold,
See inside, inside of our heads, yeah,
Well, now that's over,

I see your motives inside,
Decisions to hide…”

Headstrong by Trapt

Friday October 18th, 1996

One in the afternoon- Inside the Hospital Wing

Wincing from the how sore she felt while tugging on a black over coat overtop her dress robes, Pansy sighed softly to herself while she looked out the windowpane in the direction of the ashen sky. It was the first day this week that it wasn’t raining, which meant tomorrow was most likely the rescheduled Quidditch match between Gryffindor and Slytherin, and today she was allowed to leave the hospital wing.

“I’d like to know the logic behind, ‘If you go missing for less than a day then you must spend just short of a week in bed afterwards’… It’s completely mental.” Pansy muttered sharply while she gathered the rest of her things off the side table and turned around to see Draco standing there at the foot of the bed. 

“Going missing while on school grounds warranted you some extra time for you to rest while the school took additional measures to ensure the school was still safe,” he spoke with confidence, the kind one could only pull off when being said by a Malfoy. “Whatever that means, and as for it being a week, I recall how you were found unconscious and not to mention injured, incidentally with no recollection of the past month or so…”

Scoffing loudly, she started towards him slowly, unsure about how much she should let on about what she knew. She sighed as she gave him a small shrug while she pursed her lips together in annoyance and stopped in front of him to reach up and straighten the neckline of his suit. It wasn’t that she wanted to keep secretes from her friends, but after what happened, in the moment, she decided faking memory loss was her best course of action. Well, until she had the right plan to move forward which needed to be thought out with care so that nothing could go wrong.

“No recollection, right, there’s that I guess.” She huffed handing him a small bag of her things to help her back to the Slytherin dormitories while he took it she noticed that his facial expression remained the same.

Wanting to avoid that subject, she started walking quickly out of the Wing and into the hallway knowing just behind her was a newly suspicious Malfoy. It wasn’t as if she wanted to keep him in the dark, she just had to keep her story sound, believable in every way, thus there needed to be no room for error.

“What are you on about Parkinson?” he inquired causing her to glance over her shoulder as he stopped walking. Keeping Draco as well as the rest of the school in the dark about her lack of missing memories was priority, even if meant lying to him about it.

“Nothing really, it just seems a bit excessive to me is all,” she said while she started walking once more down a set of stairs. “And didn’t that mudblood Granger lose a bit of her memory as well? She didn’t have to stay in bed for a week… just saying.”

“Are you comparing yourself to Granger over there Parkinson?” Draco asked with a hint of amusement in his voice while he followed closely behind her.