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Fall

"Wouldn't it have been funny if Harry Potter would've died today?"

Draco shifted uncomfortably and gritted his teeth. "No, 
Pansy, it wouldn't have."

"Why not? The almighty Harry Potter, brought down not by the near-omnipotent 
Dark Lord but by a bludger to the chest and a high altitude fall. 
That's humor." She was smiling coyly, but it didn't reach her eyes. 
It was obvious that she didn't find it as funny as she attested.

"No, that would be ironic. And I am not a fan of irony." 

They were both soaked through, the rain that had lashed down the 
better part of the day drenching the Gryffindor/Slytherin 
quidditch match. Andrew Wick, and over-exeuberent 5th year chaser for 
Slytherin had managed to get in a brawl with a few (larger) Gryffindor 
boys and snap his brestbone, which meant Pansy would be playing as a substitute. 
It was supposedly a benifit for Gryffindor to have a less experienced chaser 
on the opposing team, but in actuality the only reason Pansy herself wasn't 
on the team is because she tried out during the regeime of Flint, 
who happened to be a sexist bastard. He couldn't ignore her playing 
ability, though, and instead of caving to the weaker sex, he put her on the 
reserve team where she could be neither seen or taken seriously. Today, 
however, she was both. Pansy was nothing if not malicious, both on 
the ground and in the air, and it showed. Indeed, Slytherin was far 
ahead with scoring, and they doubtless would've won had Harry Potter 
not taken a stray bludger directly to the chest and been virtually 
launched off his broom to plummet to the ground below.

And had Draco not jetted after and caught him.

It was quite a sight, seeing the mortal enemys suspended in mid-air 
together, the entirety of both teams literally stopped around them. It seemed 
the whole stadium froze in a collective, shock-induced quiet. The question, 
however, was loud and as clear as day: Why?

Draco did not want to answer. But, he sighed, Pansy would want answers. 
Pansy would demand answers.

"How could you be so stupid?" She asked in a low, silky voice she 
could only have picked up from years of close quarters with Snape. 

"I didn't want him to die for such a stupid reason. When he dies, 
I want it to be at my hands." He tried the excuse he was going to 
give everyone else. He was rewarded with a snort for his efforts. 
Turning around, he was confronted with the sight of a stripping Pansy, 
the water in the bath already drawn. Sniffing the air, he scowled. The 
purple bubbles that smelled like lavender, the ones she favored. 
The were going to smell the same all night. Unfortunately, the 
price of that little stunt made for a horribly uncomfortable locker 
room, so the Prefect's Bath was really the only hexless place at 
the moment. He was snapped out of his musings by Pansy's slow drawl.

"Like what you see?"

He snorted. They both knew that he didn't.

"Anyway, you'll get your chance. If you tell people that, that that's the 
reason you saved Harry Potter's life, your father and the dark lord will 
make sure that you get to do it yourself. Your lies are crystalline, Draco, 
and you'll be punished dearly for them." She slid into the water, sighing 
with bliss as the warmth engulfed her, but her eyes never left Draco.

They were both silent for a moment, simply staring at eachother, when Pansy 
uttered the unthinkable, the question that they both hated, that shattered 
every illusion they could give themselves. 

"What shall we name our children?" She was laying it on thick. Draco spun, 
the rage washing over his face like a tsunami.

"Shut up Shut up SHUT UP!" Draco screamed. "Shut up, just shut up!" He slouched 
against the sink, pressing his forehead against the mirror. "I hate you," He 
wispered brokenly. "God, I hate you so much."

She smiled grimly. "Welcome to the real world, Draco. You see this?" She held up 
her forearm, the black of the Dark Mark nearly glinting against her pale 
skin. "Well, you have one too. And your destiny is sealed, Malfoy, no matter 
how much you love him."

They were both silent. There, it was in the open. What they both knew, but 
they never said. 

"You did yourself in, Malfoy." Any illusion of the coy, smug Pansy was gone. 
Now she was just cold, matter-of-fact. "You should've let him fall."

Draco snorted. "Let him fall, huh? Let him fall." He smashed his fist into 
the wall, the crack of bone resonating around the room. "How could I do 
that? Pansy, you tell me, how do I let the only person I ever..." He trailed off. 
"How do I let him fall?"

"Dumbledore would've caught him. He's done it before, you know. Dumbledore-"

"Dumbledore," Draco inturrupted, "Resents Harry almost as much as Harry resentes 
him. As soon as Harry grew up enough to realize that Dumbledore was as manipulative 
as any Slytherin and was using him, he stopped being a novelty and started being a 
force that was hard to control. Not only that, but Harry resents Dumbledore 
for resenting his resent."

"Peter Piper picked a peck of pickeled peppers."

"Shut up. You know what I mean."

"I'm thinking what you mean is that Dumbledore consideres Harry more 
of a threat than an asset nowdays, and would've 'been too slow' to prevent 
Harry's accident."

"Exactly."

"You're full of shit."

Draco snorted. "Okay, if I didn't save him, who would've? And even if 
someone would've, it was just instinctive."

"My arse. You're a Slytherin, and your telling me that your survival instincts 
didn't scream at you when you chased after him? Look out for number one, 
that's the instinct you should've listened to. You ignored that, and now 
you face serious consequences. You should've let him fall."

"Yeah, yeah, let him fall." He was sick with fear for himself and pain in his hand, 
and he was back to screaming again and aiming to hurt. "The only reason 
you say that, the only reason, is that it wasn't Hermione on that broom!" 

An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. If Pansy wanted to play 
that game, then he could too.

He watched as her face grew distant, far away, her eyes unfocused. She 
always had a vivid imagination, and she was no doubt replaying some dark 
and forbidden memory in her head. He was almost ready to apologise, when she spoke.

"She's not innocent, you know. I don't see why people think that she is. 
Innocence doesn't stick around when you have knowledge and curiousity out 
the arse. When..." She trailed off, her voice cracking before settling into 
it's usual cold, steady tone. "When we first...fucked," She 
laughed bitterly. "Because that's all it can be with us, right? Fucking." 
She shook her head. "She said she was a virgin, but she knew things, 
could do things..." She trailed off again momentairly, for which Draco was 
thankful. "I thought she was lying to me. That is, until she took me 
to the restricted section one night and showed me some of those books she 
had her nose buried in from time to time." She laughed. "Innocence? 
Ye gods, that girl has a mind that can't even qualify." 

"Granger's a hussy. Who would've ever guessed?" Draco snorted with laughter.

"No one, and that's why it was so perfect. So beautiful... Her 
corruption put mine into perspective. She made me real, made everything 
seem like it was alright." She stood up and pulled herself out of the 
bath, she soap and water dripping off her, her arms crossing over her 
chest. She just stood there, naked and vunerable almost, staring 
into Draco's eyes. "I would've let her fall."

Draco was taken aback. "What?" But she continued on, as if in some kind of trance. 

"I would've let her fall. I would've crowded around, like everyone else. I 
would've laughed, just like all the other Slytherins, and I would haul myself 
into a shower and weep, where the tears are the same thing as the spray and 
you can't tell one from the other, and you know what?" She walked up and stood 
uncomfortably close to Draco, chest to chest, eye to eye. "I would be crying 
for myself."

Draco shifted and broke eye contact first. "I don't understand." 

She shrugged delicately. "I didn't think you would." She walked over to one 
of the closets, pulling out a green robe with silver trim and shrugging it 
over her shoulders without bothering to towel off. "Isn't is funny 
how different houses can't even share bathclothes?" She laughed, "How deep 
our rivalries run!"

He was not to be deterred. "What do you mean, Pansy." It was more of a 
demand than a question.

"Oh, Draco, simple little Draco." She purred, before laughing again. "She is 
my life, my sanity, my anchor. And as long as she lives, she will be, always. 
She will also be the death of me. Like Harry will be for you, my darling 
dragon-boy. And any oppourtunity to break away from that, to become a cold, 
callous killer like any good Slytherin," Her voice was dripping with mocking 
amusement. "Would be so welcome."

"You're mad." Was all he could bluster.

"So are you." She smiled at him. "The water's all yours." And then it 
seemd like a haze was being lifted, and Draco realized all at once that he 
was still standing around in raindrenched, sopping wet clothing with a 
throbbing hand, shaking with the cold.

"You're lips are blue, bet your dick is too." Pansy chanted in a sing-song 
voice as she passed by him to leave, and Draco couldn't help but laugh. 
It was amazing how quickly Pansy could go from being insightful to childish. 
Right now, Draco welcomed the change. Thinking a moment, he called out 
to her as she opened the portrait.

"Thomas."

"What?"

"What we should name our firstborn. After our Dark Lord." He explained in 
a monotone.

He expected her to quip about what a horrid name that would be if their 
firstborn was a daughter, but in stead she laughed as though it was the 
funniest thing int the world. "Oh, Draco!"

"What?" He glanced up at her, catching her twisted grin and her 
serious eyes. Pansy Parkinson in a nutshell.

She clicked her tounge against the roof of her mouth, and smiled grimly. 
"After today? You aren't going to live that long."

And then she was gone. And he knew that she was right.

"So much for Slytherin survival instincts," He murmered, before 
bursting into a hysterical bout of laughter, leaping into the warm 
bath with his clothes still on. "I love him, I love him, God help me, 
I love him!"

He laughed until he cried.

He was crying for himself.