Breath Mints / Battle Scars

Chapter 30: XXX

January 9th, 1999

"So, what then? Do you fucking live here now?"

Hermione looks up from her Potions essay. Pansy is spreading out on her usual chaise lounge, the fire behind the hearth casting bright orange flickers over her pinched expression, her pursed lips. She's in another fancy, lace-trimmed nightgown, hair tied up in a tight bun.

"Hello, Pansy." She glances back down. Tries to remember how the rest of the sentence she's writing is supposed to go.

"I asked you a question."

Hermione bobs one shoulder. It's all she can really manage. "Most of you don't seem to mind."

She's been doing her studying and spending most of her free time in Slytherin over the past week, only returning to Gryffindor to sleep. She can't focus with all the eyes on her - all the whispers. Can't think straight having Ron and Harry in the same room, while feeling they're so very far away.

Nott and Zabini seem to find it almost funny every time they answer her telltale knock. When one of them lets her in, she'll usually sit with them in the common room - study, read, practice charms.

When Draco answers, things are more complicated.

She hasn't really spoken to him since that morning - since that look at breakfast. Isn't sure how to feel around him.

But he'll let her in, and they'll sit together in the common room, too. Exchange complicated glances every now and again, when one of them catches the other staring.

Her grand gesture - a gesture which has proven to be more horrific than grand - has had a...convoluted affect on their relationship. She's proven what he needed her to prove. Proven she isn't ashamed. And she wears the pendant every day.

But they aren't an item. Aren't a couple.

Aren't even what she'd consider to be lovers.

In fact, it seems her grand gesture has done more to sway Slytherin House as a whole than Draco himself. Nott and Zabini seem less wary of her. Even people she rarely sees like Pucey and Bulstrode are growing more comfortable with her presence. Have stopped giving her dirty looks. As though they recognize what she's given up. What she's done to herself.

But with Draco...with Draco, it feels like he's testing her.

Waiting for her to go running back to Gryffindor crying. Waiting for her to pretend she didn't mean it.

Perhaps he doesn't understand the permanence of it. The permanence of that moment when his lips touched hers, immortalized in black and white print.

"I mind," snaps Pansy, and Hermione is pulled from her thoughts. Looks up at her again and studies her carefully.

"Why?"

And she's truly, truly curious.

Pansy Parkinson is an enigma. Weeks and weeks ago, Hermione had thought she had her all figured out. Thought she was little more than a bitter mixture of blood prejudice, House rivalry and general envy, all hidden beneath an almost synthetically pretty mask. Thought she'd clung to Draco's arm all those years for the status and the potential inheritance, like Draco had said.

Now, though, she isn't so sure. She certainly didn't get a real answer out of her the last time she asked.

Because Pansy Parkinson seems to hate her so much, she almost acts as though she's afraid of her.

Like now, in the way she fidgets as she splutters out, "What do you mean, why?" In the way her face goes bright red and her nostrils flare.

"Like I said," Hermione answers, working to keep her tone even. Calm. "You and I, specifically, have never had an altercation. And my blood?" She sets her essay aside. Sits forward a bit to stare Pansy down, her dark eyes seemingly bottomless. "I don't think that really matters to you."