Chocolate Wands & Pumpkin Juice

Chapter Five

(A/N: Before anyone freaks out, I just want you to know that (from what I understand) it is completely canon what you are about to learn about a certain character. I'm not making it up to give you another reason to hate them or something, because honestly, theres not a big reason to hate them. I respect this character in a way a lot of people don't get. They are very scared and just trying to do what they've been taught is best for everyone. If you don't like the way this turned out, send me a message and I'll give you a nice little revised version of the summary for this chapter so you don't have to read it, if you don't want to. I'll respect your opinion, and I won't argue with you about it.)

(Draco) Chapter Five

“Why does she have to act like she owns us? We’re not her pets, we don’t have to listen!” Draco says. He’s arguing with Pansy about Umbridge. “We’re Slytherins. Doesn’t everyone say we’re the bad guys? So why aren’t we acting like it?”

Pansy rolls her eyes and drops her fork on her plate. “Draco, sometimes to get on the good side of a teacher, you have to do what they say. That way, when you bend the rules, all those good deeds can be used to your advantage.”

“I don’t want any advantages,” Draco groans. He’s so tired of listening to people who don’t deserve the authority they’ve been given, or have taken.  “She’s nothing but a fat old nasty woman covered in pink anyway.”

Pansy looks up at him and sighs, “Since when do you care? What’s gotten in to you, Draco? You’re such a coward.” She picks her fork back up and eats a few bites of a chicken-y salad concoction of some sort. “Is finding the location of a room that difficult?”

“No,” Draco says and he finishes off his drink and stands up. He waits for her to stand like she normally does, but she doesn’t at first. Pansy slowly wipes her hands with a napkin and stands up, rolling her sleeves down. “Coming,” Her voice snaps.

Annoyingly, she wraps her arm around Draco’s and leans her head against his shoulder as they walk. “You’ve stopped talking to Blaise and I as much,” She says. “Are you tired of us?”

“Tired of you, yes,” Draco mumbles, and she smacks him on the arm. “Ow. I mean, it’s not like you actually think I like people thinking we’re together, do you?”

Pansy shrugs and sighs slowly. “I suppose I just don’t mind it as much as you do, Draco. I personally don’t see the problem. We are good friends, are we not?” She doesn’t wait for him to answer. “What’s the matter with us dating? It could be a good thing. It’s only what people expect. Let’s just go along. It won’t be so terrible.”

Draco shakes his head and tries to pry her death-locked fingers from his arm but she mistakes this as him trying to hold her hand. “I don’t like to just sit around and do what people expect, Pansy. Plus, I like being alone and not tied down to some girl I feel nothing but hatred for.”

“You hatred masks your love,” Pansy jokes and she laughs at herself but it fades with each step they take. Maybe someday she’ll tell him…, “Draco…”

And suddenly there’s a head of bouncing blonde waves headed their way. Luna’s eyes are gleaming like they always do, that innocence and childlike wonder as her eyes dart about, smiling at people she calls friends, and her arms are wrapped around her books. Suddenly, as she passes Draco by, she smiles up at him, and continues to walk on to her next class. Draco softly smiles back, just long enough for both Luna and Pansy to see.

“Draco and the Lunatic, who would have thought?” Pansy mocks, and Draco manages to pull her in to a side corridor with less people. He pulls out his wand and holds it up to her cheek. “I swear, Pansy, I will hex you in to the next millennium.”

She raises her hands up in surrender and lets a sly grin spread across her face, snake like, which fits. “I knew you were hiding something!” She pushes Draco’s wand away from her face and he steps back. This is so typical that he’d wait to tell her until now and then threaten her life. What a boy. “Draco, she’s pathetic. I mean, of all the girls in this school, why her?”

“It’s not like that,” Draco says. “I just like talking to her. She’s nice and she doesn’t try forcing herself on me to cover up the fact that she likes girls.” He yells it, and he doesn’t mean to. It just happened. Pansy doesn’t respond, she just pushes him away and walks off. Everyone in that hall way heard, everyone.

“Hey, Pansy, wait, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to say that,” He can’t believe he’s actually apologizing to her, but he knows he needs to. He’s taken it to far this time.

“What’d you do now?” Blaise says as he walks up behind Draco.

Draco turns slowly and shakes his head. “It’s nothing,” He whispers. “I actually shouldn’t have said anything this time.” He’s always known about Pansy, that’s part of the reason her antics annoyed him so much. She wasn’t just doing it to hide the truth from everyone else. She was trying to hide it from herself to. Maybe her parents would hate her or she just didn’t understand; either way Draco could tell how she really felt. He always thought she knew that he knew, and that was the reason she stuck around, because she knew he’d be the one friend who doesn’t really give a shit.

But then he threw it in her face to get her to leave. It worked, but hell, he’d pay for it later.

“We have divination in a few minutes,” Blaise says. “We should probably go.”

They walk down the hall in silence, Draco with his hands in his pockets and his hair a little messed up, and when they get to Trelawney’s room there are only a few students already there. Pansy sits in the back corner by herself, her eyes a little red, but she has no time to cry. Her eyes land on Draco, but not in the hateful way he was expecting. She seems almost as calm as she can be towards someone who just outed her publically. Harry, Ron and Hermione are sitting at their table all blabbing on about Voldemort and how no one believes him, and Draco knows Harry’s right. He knows better than Harry does.

Luna’s sitting up top and she smiles at Draco, but he doesn’t acknowledge her. He’s too busy wishing he was Harry Potter, but also very thankful he isn’t.

When you have very few friends who stick with you even though you’re a total prat and don’t deserve them, you don’t realize how big a part they played in your life. Dinner was horrid, with watching Pansy sit with another group of people, people whose names he’d never cared to learn. The common room was worse because Draco actually had to study because no one was bothering him in the way they usually do.

The next day, though, Draco managed to catch Pansy in between classes. He pulled her over to the side of the hallway and said, “I’m sorry.” The words still burn in the back of his throat every time he says them. He doesn’t know how to say them without sounding like a complete arse. Pansy tries to look away from him, but he can see the forgiving smile she’s about to give him, just barely showing in the corner of her mouth. “I’ll forgive you, if you tell everyone we’re dating.”

No, not a forgiving smile. The smile of a scheming little witch who secretly planned this all along.

“No, not fair. How…why? Why?”

Pansy shrugs and flips her hair over her shoulder. “Because you owe me, so you have to help me stop the rumors.”

“Pansy, you can’t hide this from everybody forever,” Draco says. But he knows how she’ll respond right after he closes his mouth and regrets everything.

“Draco,” She whispers, “You don’t understand. My mother will disown me if she finds out this is true. I will have no place to stay and my family will hate me. I need to give them time to understand and the decency of me being the one to tell them, not someone else’s parent who heard from the son or daughter about a stupid rumor.”

Draco bites his lip and looks down at the floor. “Fine, but people are going to think you’re covering it up.”

“So ask me out, at lunch. Publically.”

I really wish I was Harry Potter and not Draco. Anybody but Draco.