Saints and Sinners ||Severus Snape

17 : forgive without a cause

Pansy Parkinson rose from the dark shadows in the stairwell where Alicia Malfoy looked through glassy eyes at her once biggest supporter and friend. Pansy held a grimace on her face, but not the judgemental I-Hate-Alicia scowl. She flinched from witnessing Alicia's undoing. For the most part because she'd never seen Alicia travel through the depth of dark emotions. She had never seen Alicia hold so much as a frown on her face.

But as he saw her unravel in front of her eyes, Pansy felt sick to her stomach. Everything she'd eaten that day (two pieces of blueberries and strawberries dipped in melted fudge chocolate) has rapidly began to erupt in her throat. She never intended to actually hurt her. All Pansy wanted to do was prove herself to Alicia and set the record straight that she was not just in Alicia's shadow; she was her own person. Perhaps she took it too far tonight.

Her lips trembled as Alicia looked at her with hesitation. What had happened to their friendship? They've been inseparable practically since they were born. Now being in the same room in such a close vicinity amongst each other brought out nothing but discomfort from both parties. Suddenly, Pansy remembered. Alicia left her. Without so much as a goodbye. She just disappeared and wrote a letter to her six months later about what a blast she'd been having with her new posh, blonde Beauxbaton friends and ended it off saying, "Sorry for the late update! I miss you so much!"

Pansy remembered how she felt receiving that letter and seeing the handwritten sign of her name on the cover of the envelope. It took six months for Alicia to remember that she had a best friend whom she left back home? Six months to say to herself, "Oh, right! I haven't talked to Pansy in a while!" Six months to get around to telling her best friend since birth that she had moved to another country out of the blue. Why was she supposed to make coming back so easy to Alicia when leaving her was so easy for her to do?

"I wrote a bunch of letters to you," Pansy started, her voice crack at every vowel.

Alicia wiped her tears and presented herself. "I never got replies from all the letters I sent you."

"I never sent them," said Pansy. "I couldn't."

Alicia swallowed her lip. "Why couldn't you?"

"Because I was sad." Pansy shrugged and looked at the floor. Then she shook her head and looked at Alicia in disbelief and betrayal. Then the waterworks came about her eyes. "You left, Alicia. And you didn't even say goodbye."

"I'm so sorry," wept Alicia. "I didn't know how to tell you that I got expelled. I didn't know how to say goodbye."

Pansy shook her head at her again. "So you write to me six months later about how much fun you're having with your new friends at Beauxbatons?"

"I wanted to talk to you. I just didn't know how. I'm so sorry."

Pansy stood still without a thought crossing her brain.

"I guess I went too far with getting mad at you these past couple of weeks," she said. "Draco and I kind of hated you."

"I can understand you. But why Draco? What did I ever do to him?" she asked Pansy with such ignorance in her voice.

Pansy scoffed and rolled her eyes. "Because you might've missed it but we're kind of all in your shadow. Before you left nobody even knew Draco's name. They called him 'Alicia's Twin'. Before you left, I was just 'Alicia's best friend Parkinson'. Even Victor Krum was just 'Alicia's date'. We don't have an identity with you. It's Alicia-ville we live in, and everybody knows it but you."

Alicia couldn't believe the things coming out of Pansy's mouth. She wasn't so ignorant as to not know that she glides through things easily and got the things she wanted without so much as a lift of a finger. She wasn't dumb enough to know that she was very popular and quite famous. But she never thought it would cause a drift and resentment amongst her friends and family. She never thought they would take that to heart.

"I never thought you guys would use that against me. I never meant to do anything to hurt you guys," she silently said, pain evident in her voice.

Pansy sighed. "You don't get it, Alicia. Draco and I do not get the same treatment as you. It might be easy for you to get a thousand detentions in a week and get expelled, sign into rehab, run away, come back! But we can't do that! The rules are different for us! We hate you for it because you can't see it! You can't understand, you can't empathize! You're not us!"

"So that's it then?" retorted Alicia smugly. "Hate me for things I can't control? Punish me because you guys are insecure?"

"We're insecure because you make sure to let us know every single time that we mean nothing and you are everything! Blaise is in love with you but he settles with me because he couldn't slum it with you since you kind of ran away! Draco doesn't mean anything to his parents because they're too busy showering you with all their love and affection! And you love it, Alicia! I wanted that apprenticeship! That was my entire dream, my entire future! And you took that from me! Just like you took Blaise, just like you took my mom!"

"Pansy!" Alicia cut her off at the midst of Pansy's rant. There were too many things to unpack and Alicia couldn't comprehend where this was all even coming from. Why had they never told her this before? Why let the resentment sit for so long until it grew into a big wrath of fire?

"No! You left, Alicia!" was all Pansy could end it off with. She kept mumbling the same words over and over again. "You left. You left. You left."

"So where do we go from here?" asked Alicia breaking the uncomfortable silence in the room. She'd hoped that Pansy could just.. get over her competitive jealousy and resentment toward her. She just wanted things to go back to the way it was.

Pansy shook her head and shrugged with wild tears streaming down her face. She stared at Alicia right in the eye, so ignorant and priveleged. "I don't know."

The two girls faced each other, both with tears in their eyes. One was sat down, and the other stood still. In the eyes of outsiders and onlookers, the two girls would have been the cover for two of the most beautiful girls at Hogwarts, and perhaps even beyond the walls of the castle. And yet they argued and fought to be the prettiest with total disregard of the people who couldn't even stand a chance against the two. What a completely ignorant fight.