(no subject)
Pansy thinks her head must surely explode if she doesn’t stop thinking these thoughts - these precious, pretty, terrible thoughts about the girl most likely. The girl most likely to be head, the girl most likely to stare scornfully down her nose at Millicent’s solid curves, knowing how much it would affect Pansy; the girl most likely to slip a sly little foot out from under the desk and trip a passing Slytherin - for, oh yes, Pansy knows quite well that Hermione Granger isn’t so much sugar as spice, even if those useless Gryffindors can’t even see what’s staring right at them through eyes that should, Pansy thinks, be tucked safely behind spectacles - after all, Granger is practically a walking cliché, with her tangled, thorny hair and weedy frame, her arms perpetually full of books. The perfect outcast girl, and yet somehow she manages to sit comfortably quite high in the Gryffindor respect ladder. It does, Pansy admits, bewilder her, how Granger has managed to evade the full force of teenage cruelty for so long. It bewilders and intrigues her.
Pansy wonders if Millicent has guessed, during one of those too-rare moments they can lie together, entangled and sleepy in Millicent’s pine-scented bed; one of those moments that used once to be all theirs, and no one else’s. Now it seems to Pansy as if Granger’s presence is almost tangible at times like that, when she can’t seem to stop picturing the girl’s bony legs and coffee-coloured hair, even when she is surrounded by everything Millicent. Sometimes she lifts Millicent’s surprisingly delicate wrist, holds her girl’s hand up to dangle in the air, and pretends through blurry eyes that it is Granger’s. Stupid, she hisses to herself, turning her face into the pillow and letting Millicent’s hand drop carelessly to the blankets. For that is what it is, really - stupid.
Pansy can’t work out what it is about Hermione that pulls her so. She isn’t an attractive girl. There is nothing, apart from her bookishness, that is exceptional. Nor is it as if Pansy is lonely, or lacking love - she is certain that this thing with Millicent - well, she isn’t certain of anything, really, except that that hurting, yet comforting feeling behind the words ‘in love’ is never far from Pansy’s insides when she watches Millicent across the common room at night, watches as the amber glow of the fire picks up the copper tints in her lover’s hair. She knows it’s just a crush with Granger. She knows this, but it’s not as if knowing something can make it vanish.
One day Pansy realises, suddenly and with a rush of heat, that Millicent knows. Pansy can tell by the slight quirk of Millicent’s lips as Granger passes them in the third floor corridor; by the warning, featherlight hand that trickles down Pansy’s bare arm later that day in Potions, as Snape snaps at Granger for something or other. And so she turns to Millicent and uncharacteristically takes the girl’s soft hand in her own, and murmurs - ‘Do you mind, terribly?’ In her heart she wants to throw Granger against a wall, for doing this to her, for making her risk everything that exists between her and Millicent. It hurts when she realises that she doesn’t want to just throw Granger against a wall, she wants to - she wants to fuck her against a wall, too - roughly and with bites rather than kisses.
‘Of course I mind,’ Millicent says, her low voice bringing a faint, almost invisible blush to Pansy’s cheeks. She wonders if Millicent sees it, and then if she has guessed at its cause.
Pansy turns towards her chopping board again, and tries to concentrate on the dandelion root she is meant to be slicing. She sets her face, blank and cool and impersonal, and waits for Millicent’s scathing comment - the words that will, perhaps, as Pansy’s heart dreads - break them apart.
A silence widens between her and Millicent. And then Millicent speaks, soft and sure: ‘You may have her, I suppose. If you want.’ Pansy sees the almost too studied toss of Millicent’s head, from the corner of her eye, and she realises that her girl - her real girl, Millicent, the only girl who has always been there and always will be - cares much more than her words would suggest.
‘She has a certain common charm, I will admit,’ Millicent continues. Her voice shakes slightly, and she starts pounding some poppy seeds with her pestle and mortar.
Pansy’s hand mirrors Millicent’s voice, shaking and uncertain and yet trying to appear unconcerned - and so she places the knife as carefully as she can on the chopping board, lest she slice herself rather than the dandelion.
‘It’s just a crush, Millicent.’ Pansy tries a careless sort of laugh, to show she is exactly that - careless about Granger, couldn’t care less either way, except she does and the laugh doesn’t work at all.
‘Then why do you feel the need to let it do this to you?’ Millicent says, this time in a cold, steady voice. She reaches out and grabs Pansy’s elbow in her strong hand, and twists her until they are face to face. ‘She’s a mudblood, Pansy. Doesn’t that bother you?’
Pansy pulls herself out of Millicent’s grasp, even though half of her wants to stay there, just to be touching her. ‘Of course it does,’ she mutters. And it’s the truth. ‘I think perhaps that’s why I - why it won’t go away.’ Pansy pauses, draws a breath in. ‘I hate the way she makes me feel,’ she says, almost spitting the words onto the bench. Her lip shakes slightly and for a moment she is afraid she will cry. Cry! Pansy Parkinson, cry over lust for a mudblood! The surreal quality to this whole episode confuses her. She isn’t a girl who is often confused. She loves Millicent, and yet - and yet - there is this thing that Granger makes her feel, is making her feel even now! Even now, just knowing that they are in the same room! It’s not as if she likes her, or even cares much either way what happens to her. Simply - she just is. And Pansy just wants her. Wants to tangle her fingers in that irrepressible hair, and pull and pull at it until Granger’s eyes become pink and fill with tears. Wants to run a finger down the girl’s pale stomach and just as she begins to squirm, change the caress into a hard, cruel scratch. The images flood into her mind, until she can think of almost nothing else. She closes her eyes, and holds herself steady for a moment, willing her mind to clear. Pansy thinks of Millicent, and of the clean, crisp scent of pine needles that always seems to waft from within her. She takes a slow, composed breath, and turns towards Millicent, her eyes open and expectant, waiting to be told what to do. Pansy has always trusted Millicent, ever since they were children together, pushing each other on the wooden swing in Millicent’s garden, trusting their lives to the other’s hands. And now there is nothing else she can do, save wait for Millicent, and trust her.
And finally Millicent’s voice comes, cool and yet also sad, helpless - a reflection of the expression in her eyes - and says slowly: ‘Then have her, Pansy. Have her.’