slither - dm

Pitch Black.

Laurel

"Lo, wait." Pansy's voice echoed in the distance. I chose to ignore her, and pursue my venture through the empty corridors until I found a safe space to cry.

I wanted to turn around and tell him everything, and make him feel like a complete fool for sleeping with her, but what good would it do?

Perhaps this was something that was bound to happen eventually. This is Astoria we're talking about, the girl sleeps with anyone and everyone. I mean, the girl slept with her sister's long-term boyfriend on more than one occasion.

I'm such an idiot.

I finally escaped the dungeons and slipped into the nearest bathroom. If I'm lucky, Pansy will give up, and just find me later because I'm not in the mood to talk about it right now.

I ran towards the sink basin, and flipped on the faucet, and splashed some water on my face.

Maybe this is all a dream. It has to be. There is no way Voldemort selected me for a task like this. I bet I'm still knocked out from the last time Tommy hit me.

Yeah, that's it. I'm still unconscious somewhere in the Rosewood Manor. That's the only logical explanation. Draco would never willingly hook up with Astoria.

Once I had convinced myself that this was nothing more than a nightmare, the door opened and made me realize that it is in fact reality. My poor, unfortunate reality.

"Pans, go away. I'm not in the mood to talk about it." I sighed. I knew she meant well, she was a good friend. A great friend. I'm the one who's been horrible. I never even told her about Tommy.

Fuck, I never even told her that I broke up with Draco, and began dating Harry. She found out through the grapevine.

I'm such a horrible friend.

"I'm not Pansy," a voice responded. I raised an eyebrow as the voice sounded vaguely familiar, but I couldn't put a face to it.

They snickered and stepped around the wall into my view.

"What do you want, Cynthia?" I groaned.

I was never Cynthia's biggest fan. The entire time Tommy and I dated, she acted as though she were above me.

She always found ways to insult me when Tommy was or wasn't around. He either didn't care, or the remarks went directly over his head.

I suppose I expected him to make some effort and defend me against his twin while we were together, but once the abuse began, it made sense why he didn't. He didn't care about me at all.

She approached the basin next to me and looked me up and down and made a sour, disgusted face. "I'll just never understand." She twisted her thin, painted lips into a smirk. "What did my brother ever see in you? You're not...pretty."

"Tommy seemed to think that I was attractive enough to attack me."

"Stop spreading lies about my brother." She snapped. "I'm getting quite tired of hearing the story that he supposedly hit you, and assaulted you. It never happened, Nott." She whipped her wand out and pointed it between my eyes.

I closed my eyes and gulped nervously. "Let's just take a second to breathe, and calm down."

"NO!" She shouted. "Because you are the reason bad things keep happening. You start school here, you-know-who comes back. You break up with Tommy, then Theo breaks up with me."

It suddenly made sense.

I flipped my fearful frown into a grin. This wasn't about Tommy. This was about Theo.