Can I Love you?

OneShot: Dinner Time in the Great Hall.

"KIARA GRANGER!".

The high pitched shriek was heard all through The Great Hall, students turning to watch as they saw a particularly bushy, bright eyed witch stand up and point her furious finger over to the table of the snakes. She was gesturing wildly as she stomped her way over, her already out of control hair crackling wildly, sparking off at the tips as she shrieked once more.

A low groan resonated throughout the great hall interspaced with sniggers and looks of exasperation and amusement. Many students rolling their eyes, as they were now in their sixth year and this was not an altogether unusual sight to see.

Her target remained seated, biting her cheeks to hide a dimpled smile as she continued to peel her apple with great nonchalance, her green eyes sparking with mirth as she bit back a grin watching the great bush on top of the head connected to the pointing hand growing life of its own, resembling the snakes of Medusa.

She blew the indignant figure a kiss, face softening with amusement as she tried to muffle her quiet giggle by shoving a piece of her apple in her mouth, a fond glare in her eyes, watching and listening as the shrieks climbed the walls of the cavernous space.

The dark oak table was full this evening for dinner, its students watching the pair in front of them. Not for the first time, they would wonder at the animated pair, bitterly disguised glances hiding their judgement and scorn of the two beings who had taken a place in this great institution. Impure filth. Ignoring perhaps the brightest and most beautiful of their house, turning their noses away at the mud running through her veins. "It's a filthy trick, mother always says they're deceitful and vicious!", spat in their quite huddles scattered through the school, trying in vain to explain why her robes were green to match her emerald gaze, why she was the second best student in their house every year. No matter her kindness, her openness. No matter how she laughed like tinkling bells with a wicked gleam in her eye, and would speak to you as if you were all that mattered in her world, with genuine sweetness and affection. Traits all better suited for a fucking pathetic Badger. Not the house of Salazar himself. No, it was a dirty deceitful trick to confound the hat into thinking she should be placed here.

Pansy scoffed, turning away from the scene as the girl pulled her sister down to sit with her, laughing loudly and sharing her dinner plate, the beginnings of a passionate conversation started by the decidedly uncultured screams of the Great Gryffindor Swot. Bitch.

Pansy rolled her eyes at her companions, a slight tremble running through her as she saw from the corner of her eyes, Kiara Granger smiling wildly and gesturing to her twin sister. A memory rose up in her mind, of a dimpled first year kindly helping her with hair charms and writing notes in potions class, of a teary second year looking over at her ruined bedspace in the shared dorm, all her belongings caked in mud, mud that had then painted Pansy's hands. Of the fourth year locking them both in the bathroom before Pansy finally agreed to stop throwing dress after dress at her for the Yule Ball. Of the shockingly beautiful fifth year, the rage in her eyes after she had broken Goyle's wrist, snapping his wand in a fury as she stomped her heels into his crotch as hard as she could, one hand reaching behind her to steady Pansy, to cover her to any eyes that may walk by.

They weren't friends. A Parkinson would never stoop so low as to consort themselves with filth. Father had made that clear.

Pansy shrugged her thoughts off, turning back to her small group, smiling at the quiet conversations being had. Her friends. Together since they had been but a few years old. A decade later, now bound together forevermore by their love and trust in each other. She leant against the dark skinned boy, a thrill jumping through her body as his hands wrapped around her, securing her firmly to his side with a kiss to her head. She turned to the group, giving them her full attention, a silent prayer to anyone who was listening. Keep them all together. Keep them safe. Pansy would do anything.

Her eyes caught on him, the blood in her veins chilling as her heart sank with fear and disappointment. Her very first friend. A brother in every sense of the word. The one she chose to love and protect every day, for she knew he had sworn to do the same for her. Pansy watched, dread pooling in her stomach as her eyes ran over his face, his eyes a sunken purple, the silver within was a molten lava of reinforced steel.

She watched the tension in his broad shoulders, as he lightly tapped his fingers on his crossed leg, running the pads of his fingertips over the material of his trousers, a faint rhythm to his movements. A picture of perfection. The beautiful boy, the one who would own them all in his Palace made of crystal. A new world. His world.

A lie.

Pansy watched, her careful eyes fixed on her brother, the cracks in his eyes, the tremble in his jawline, the sheer exhaustion desperate to break through and consume every inch of space as he watched. Devouring every tinkle of laughter and bright dimpled smile as a starving man would the first few drops of water belonging to a torrential summer rain.

Pansy knew.

He wasn't going to survive her.