Pansy kicked through the rubble, ankle-deep, uneven, crumbling piles of brick and dust and shards of wood. It was with unexplainable terror and awe that Pansy remembered that this had once been a castle, once been Hogwarts, a place she had thought she’d known better than her own home, every corridor, every hallway, staircase, doorway, and passage. Now she couldn’t even tell where she was.

She wondered if she might stumble across a body, forgotten and hidden among the debris. The thought sent a shiver of revulsion and anticipation race up her spine, curl in her stomach, choke her. She hadn’t seen any of the dead bodies yet.

She wondered if it might be anyone she knew.

Pansy didn’t know where everyone she knew was. She knew Millicent, Nott, Crabbe and Goyle, and Draco had gone to join the Death Eaters. She knew Daphne had run back to find her sister. She knew Davis had run away. But with the exception of Sophie and Blaise, she didn’t know where they were. Pansy didn’t know if they might be dead.

Some part of her, hissing like a serpent and flicking its tongue, thought that it served them right if they were dead. Slytherins knew better than that. Slytherins knew when it was smart not to fight, knew that one’s own skin was not to be put in the path of that of another. It wasn’t worth it.

Pansy, Blaise, and Sophie had been the smart ones. They had stayed well out of it, stood silently in the middle of Broomsticks and waited until it was all over. It wasn’t worth it to give one’s life if the thing was going to end without it.

And it had ended. Pansy hadn’t needed to die for it. All of them were stupid, all those dead who had given their lives for absolutely nothing, were stupid, utter fools….

She knew Sophie was still back in Hogsmeade, sobbing in a crumpled, quacking heap on the Broomstick’s floor. Sophie was weak.

Pansy felt her fingernails dig into the palms of her hands, curled tightly into fists at her side. Pansy hadn’t cried. Pansy hadn’t hid her head and trembled.

She had stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Blaise, in the middle of the empty, gaping floor of the bar and waited. She had not moved an inch for what had seemed to be hours, days, years, waiting….

It felt good to move again. She roamed the crumbling courtyard and felt the stiffness in her muscles slowly melt away. It felt good to be out in the open air, in the sunlight that filtered unevenly through the clouds of ash and dust hanging in the sky.

The sun glinted on the drifting particles of dust, like sparkles floating in the sky, coating the rubble on the ground. The sun glinted off the sharp, jagged edges of cracked brick and overturned stones. It glinted off the polished metal of the suits of armors and decapitated statues. It glinted off the puddles of blood, glinted like rubies.

Pansy breathed deeply. It felt good to be out in the open air, after a night had been spent in that stifled, rackety old pub. Pansy didn’t think she’d ever visit the Broomsticks again, as long as she lived. She had never before realized how ugly it was, broken down and rusty, until she had stood in the center of the bar for a night, nothing to do but watch the stillness of the air and the cracks in the floor and the counter, the stains of drink on the tabletops.

Her legs had ached, standing so still for so long. She had slumped against Blaise and he had leaned against a rod that held up the ceiling.

Pansy had never been friends with Blaise. She had never really liked him. He was arrogant and a snob, even to her he was, and she had more money than he did; she had purer blood than he did. She didn’t like how he spoke to her -- how he spoke to everyone -- with that high-and-mighty lilt in his voice that hinted he had better things to do, that this conversation was wasting his time, he didn’t care.

But they hadn’t spoken, not a word, standing in the Broomsticks together, so Pansy supposed it hadn’t been terribly bad to have to be in the same room, basically alone with him for so long.

Still, she had to admit -- if she closed one eye and tilted her head -- he was bloody gorgeous. His dark skin gleamed in light. He had deep, muddy eyes. She’d seen him shirtless, once. But he was a snob, had to be if he’d never asked her out.

Then again, maybe he had just known that she was Draco’s girl, and off limits.

Everything Draco Malfoy touched was gold, was owned, was unattainable.

That was what Pansy had been, since the first day of school almost. She had sold her soul. She had enjoyed it. She had volunteered for it. She had -- sought that out. She’d been sure she was going to marry him someday. She knew her parents would like that. She knew even his parents would like that.

Pansy pushed passed a chunk of rock, something that had once been stacked into a wall, something that had once been unbreakable and solid. Pansy wondered where Draco was.

She hoped he was dead.

She had never wished that before, that someone was dead. But she wished it now. She hoped Draco Malfoy was dead, was gone. It would make things so much easier.

She hoped all of them were dead. Millicent, Nott, Crabbe, Goyle…Blaise, Daphne, Sophie, Tracey. Her whole class, the whole school of Slytherins. That way they wouldn’t have to deal with this -- this loss -- this end. They wouldn’t have to deal with any of the bloodtraitors and Muggle lovers who would now believe that their way was right solely because Potter, bloody Potter, had killed the Dark Lord.

Pansy didn’t believe it. She still didn’t understand how it had happened.

They had won. There wasn’t any way around it. Potter had been right there and the Dark Lord had been coming and no ever got away from the Dark Lord. No one ever -- not ever.

They had won. Were supposed to have won.

Pansy was tired. She wanted all of this to go away. It was so unfair the bloodtraitors had won. It didn’t make any sense. It was unfair that suddenly Pansy was on the bottom, unfair the way they had all turned on her in the Great Hall. All of this could have come out so differently if they had only listened to her.

Pansy was smart. She always had the good ideas. She could have been the hero if they had only bloody listened to her. Potter was right there. He had been right there.
What had they been waiting for?

Pansy clenched her teeth hard, until her jaw hurt. She sucked air in through her nose. She had always hated her nose. It was snub and pointy. It looked like her mother’s.

Pansy had always hated her mother. She wondered where her mother was now, whether or not she was worried for her. Pansy didn’t care if her mother was worried.

Pansy’s mother didn’t understand, had never understood. Pansy’s mother was beautiful and perfect, and Pansy’s mother had known that. Pansy’s mother was -- was -- annoying and overbearing and always got in the way.

She wondered where her father and step-mother were, probably safe at home with their precious, spoiled, grasping little brats. Her father never did anything. He wouldn’t have turned out for a war. He had probably sat safely at home with Selene, shoulder-to-shoulder, unmoving.

She wondered if they had even known there was a war.
War. It was a funny thing to call it. It hadn’t been much of a war. Nothing much had happened. Pansy had sat safely at Hogwarts, unconcerned because nothing was happening. It wasn’t as if there had been battles. There hadn’t been any fronts of fighting. There hadn’t been any soldiers.

There had simply been the Dark Lord, taking his rightful rein and the Death Eaters, wiping out the bloodtraitors and Muggle-lovers. There hadn’t been a war. There hadn’t even been much of a rebellion. There had never been a fight.

They had supposed to have won.

“What are you doing here?�

The voice was sharp, demanding, threatening. Pansy looked up, expecting to see one of the filthy bloodtraitors, a disillusioned student who thought they had some sort of rule over Pansy now.

She wondered if they would try to put her in prison.
They hadn’t any right to. Pansy hadn’t done anything. Anyway, her mother was rich and had legal sway. Just let them try.

The biting retort that had been hanging on her tongue dissolved when the dust cleared and she saw him. He was standing in half-of a doorway, the other half had been blown away. It hung over his head like a kind of shattered halo.

He was dressed all in black. Pansy had never before seen him wear anything else. His face was stained with grime and sweat, and blood. She wondered that he, even he, untouchable, unreachable Draco Malfoy had not escaped the battle without a scratch.

Several retorts fought to spill out of her mouth. I could ask you the same question. None of your business.

“Why shouldn’t I be here?�

“I thought you’d left.� It was the closest Draco ever got to sounding apologetic, but the curl of his upper lip made it apparent he was insulting her.

Pansy suddenly felt proud, incredibly proud that she had not left, if only she could rub it in his face. “Well I didn’t. Blaise and I waited until it was all over, that way neither of us needlessly died.�

Draco’s lips fell. Pansy felt triumph leap in her heart, hardly recognizing what she had hurt him with, only that she had hurt him. Then she realized maybe someone had died, that was why he looked so cold.

“So?� she demanded, “Where are all the others?�

“Don’t you know?� he sneered.

Pansy felt something leap into her throat and fly out of her lips. She realized as the sound faded into the dust that it was a laugh. “Davis ran,� she crowed. “She probably forgot she had a wand she was so scared.� Stupid girl. Stupid bloodtraitor. They would hunt her down, afterward. She couldn’t run forever, couldn’t hide from them.

But of course no one was going to hunt Davis down now.
Now that they had lost, the thought sunk hollowly into Pansy’s stomach and nestled there.

Draco looked unconcerned.

“And Sophie started sobbing,� Pansy continued. Her shoulders were shaking with laughter but strangely she couldn’t feel her lips, which were no doubt smiling. “I could barely hear a thing over her blubbering. But she’s always been so pathetic.�

Draco looked impassive.

“I don’t know where anyone else has gone,� Pansy snapped, wanting him to say something. Do something. Stop glaring at her like it was all her fault. “I thought you would know. They all came back, too.�

“Well I haven’t seen them,� Draco said impatiently, like he was batting her away, an irritating fly buzzing about his head. He waited a beat and added, “Crabbe’s dead.�

Pansy felt her lips purse.

“Oh.�

It had taken most of first-year before she was able to distinguish between the two of them, Crabbe and Goyle. She wondered if Draco minded, having half of his posse gone. Dead.

They’d been handy to have around, she’d noticed, she herself having spent much of her time with Draco. Two hulking, scowling boys like they were. People seemed to let one alone in the face of brute force, even more than knowing one was quick with a wand.

Pansy thought, and felt another laugh bubbling in her stomach -- it got clogged half-way up her throat -- that it was ironic. Brute force hadn’t done Crabbe much good against whatever he’d died by.

What are they going to do to us? But Pansy couldn’t ask that of Draco. Draco wasn’t the kind of boy one could ask that. Besides, how would he know? Draco Malfoy didn’t know anything.

Pansy wracked her brain for something else to say. She tried to think of something witty, or light, something to dissipate this cloud of ash and dust that hung over their heads.

“Where’d Blaise run off to?� Draco said finally.

Pansy hadn’t expected him to speak. She hated the sound of his voice, flat and droning, because he didn’t care. She didn’t care. She didn’t know why he even bothered asking. The laughter pressing against her throat grew more insistent, choking her.

It was really quite funny.

The whole thing was bloody hilarious.

It was like the start to one of those crass, corny jokes her father always told to make Selene giggle.

Two Slytherins stare at each other across a crumbled, ruined courtyard, neither of them really care….

“His mother came to get him,� said Pansy. A bit of her laughter leaked painfully passed the block in her throat and squeaked out of her lips. She sounded repulsive. She tried to stop herself from laughing because those strange, choking, animal sounds spilling from her throat were grotesque. “Bloody -- stupid -- child…little mummy’s boy Blaise was summoned home -- pulled by the ear back with Mummy --�

Draco’s lip curled at her. He was sneering, looked disgusted. Pansy didn’t blame him.

“Stop looking at me like that!� She coughed back her laughter and heard her voice echo against the broken walls of the courtyard, reverberate off the particles of dust, making them quiver in the air.

“I’m not looking at you any particular way, Parkinson,� Draco said.

“You -- you bloody are!� Pansy insisted. She felt blood pounding in her brain, the need to scream, words wrenching themselves free of her throat and scraping her flesh raw. “You think I’m disgusting! You think I’m filth! But I’m not! I’m not! You -- you’re filth! You’re weak! You -- you lost! I didn’t fight but you did so you lost! You -- you failure!�

Her throat pinched shut and she choked on the words running off her tongue.

Draco didn’t even blink. She wanted him to bloody do something. Anything but stand there so solidly, so unmoving, so bloody calmly --

She felt her fingers close around a jagged chunk of brick before she recognized she had dropped close to the ground, knee skimming the rubble. “You -- it’s all your fault!� he flinched as the piece of stone left her fist and hurtled toward his head. It flew through the air several feet to his right, and skidded to the ground with a clatter.
“I hate you!�

She screamed and screamed and screamed it, every ounce of her energy and volume because she meant it. I hate you, I hate you, I hate you -- it echoed off the decaying walls of the castle.

Draco’s face was carved in stone, unmoving, solid, and fierce. His eyes gleamed at her, burned with exhaustion and anger…maybe hurt, maybe tears. She hoped so. She wanted him to hurt.

Pansy had never seen Draco this way: broken and tired, uncertain, yet fumbling for the broken pieces like the rubble littered around his feet. She had never realized until now how ashen his face was, how bloodshot his eyes were, how he too was weak. Disgusting, failed, worthless.

She felt a trickle of cold run down her cheek. But it wasn’t tears. Tears were hot, surely boiling from the built-up pressure inside her head. She wasn’t crying. She would make her makeup run. Then she remembered she wasn’t wearing any, because they’d been woken in the middle of the night and she hadn’t time to put any on. Strangely she hadn’t thought to charm her hair or anything while waiting in the Broomsticks with Blaise.

She probably looked bloody hideous.

She remembered every time Draco had kissed her. She remembered the pressure of his lips on hers. She remembered the way her fingers had felt, tangled in his hair.

Pansy felt ugly. She felt soiled and dirty and disgraced for ever touching him, for ever looking at him.

She remembered the screams of students, under the Carrows’ wands, and how Pansy, looking at them roiling on the floor, had only ever been able to think how ugly their faces looked, screwed up in agony, how disgusting their mouth were, stretched wide and gaping.

She wondered why she thought of that now. She wondered why she could suddenly feel the tingling in her arm, an aftereffect of the crutiatus curse streaming out of her wand.

She’d only done it once.

Draco straightened up, brushed off his robes, and glared at her, as if he was affronted she had had the gall to attack him like that.

Crabbe was dead. Pansy wondered who else was. Millicent, Daphne, Sophie, and Tracey. Maybe all of them were dead. The castle would be so empty now. It was a stray, unconnected thought and Pansy reminded herself that, of course, she wouldn’t even be coming back to Hogwarts. This had been her last year. So it didn’t matter that the castle would be so empty because Pansy wouldn’t be there to see it.

Pansy became aware that she was shaking. She wondered for how long she had been. She pressed her nails harder into her palms and tightened her muscles, wanting to stop trembling. She wasn’t cold. It didn’t make any sense. Besides, Draco could probably see and she didn’t want him too.

“Why don’t you go home, Parkinson?� Draco said. His voice was heavy, like she was annoying him, like he was patronizing her, like she didn’t belong there.

“You can’t tell me what to do!� she yelled. She didn’t understand why her voice was raised.

“I wasn’t bloody telling you what to do,� he sneered. “I just don’t understand why you’re still sticking around.�

“It’s none of your business!�

“I bloody don’t care, Parkinson.�

“You’re pathetic, you know that?� Pansy stumbled forward and suddenly Draco was very close, standing directly in front of her. She could see every individual particle of dirt staining his face. “You -- you think you’re so smart, strutting around the castle because your father was so big. Well your not -- not anymore, you’re not! You -- you’ll probably go to prison!�

She had a sudden, vivid vision of Draco Malfoy, pale and skeletal behind bars and didn’t understand why her stomach churned like maybe she was going to be sick.

“And you bloody deserve it!� she shrieked. She imagined her voice colliding against his face but he didn’t even flinch. She pelted him harder, yelling louder. “You deserve to be punished! You worthless -- you lost! You lost and now you’ll be punished for it! And you thought you were so clever, given the privilege to kill Dumbledore! But you lost at that, too, you failure!�

His eyes darkened. She knew Draco had a temper, but she had rarely been on the receiving end of it. Now she wondered without honestly caring whether he might turn on her. Perhaps she’d egged him on enough to take out his wand, to slap her, to bloody do something.

“Just leave, Parkinson,� he said. His voice was tired, spiteful, like he still thought he was better than her.

“No!� she screamed. “You leave! You! I don’t have to take your orders! I won’t listen to you!�

She remembered how she had used to bend to his every will and whim, how she used to feed him off her own fork. She remembered how in sixth-year she had felt so hurt, so confused, so betrayed when he had stopped paying attention to her. Now that he was finally becoming important he had stopped liking her, stopped wanting her to sit on his lap, to run her fingers down his cheeks. How he hadn’t time for her.

She’d hated him then but she hadn’t realized it, because she’d been so busy trying to get him to like her again, to look at her again because she was beautiful. He had to see that she was beautiful.

She and he had been Head Girl and Boy that passed year. Pansy had thought that might help, that maybe he’d see her again. But he’d barely shown up for meeting, leaving her to do all the bloody work. To deal with the stupid Prefects who had been specially selected by the Carrows. To deal with the foolish students whom tried to fight back, even though it was useless, even the stupid first-years had thought they could somehow loosen the hold of the Dark Lord’s fist.

Pansy was suddenly almost overcome with the desire to fling Draco from her, to push him away hard, to get away because he was so disgusting. Everything around her was so disgusting.

The world was nothing but a roiling, bloody, revolting place, and it was closing in on her. The walls of the courtyard were collapsing around her. The blood stains glinting in the sunlight were spreading over her shoes, climbing up her legs, running down her fingers.

She wanted to scream and thrash and get away.

Malfoy looked like he wanted to roll his eyes; instead they stayed fixedly on her face and his upper lip curled like she wasn’t worth it. The audacity. She wasn’t worth it? She wasn’t? He hadn’t any right. She felt another laugh rise in her stomach at his utter arrogance. He, fallen, beaten, trodden, child thought that Pansy was not worth it.

She tried frantically to think of some way to hurt him, to tear into him with her nails or teeth or words. Her mind was still spinning for some kind of an answer when his eyes tore away from her face and he turned.

He left. His footfalls echoed in the empty courtyard, against the walls that were getting close. She tried still, wildly, frantically, to think of something to yell after him, but she was too late. His footsteps faded away into the distance.

Pansy felt wild triumph seer in her chest because she had made him leave. She had won. The triumph changed to a piercing ache that cut across her heart and made her bleed. It wasn’t bloody enough.

The laugh building in her chest broke painfully up her throat, tearing at her skin because it was too large to slip seamlessly out of her esophagus. It transformed into a scream and Pansy screamed, and screamed, and screamed, not caring who heard her.

It scratched at her throat like sharpened metal. It made her ears ring. Her fingernails finally bit through the skin of her palms and she felt blood trickle down her wrists. She kicked at random at the piles of rubble and rock surrounding her. She felt pain rattle up her legs. She threw herself against the walls, trying to fight them backward because they were coming closer.

Closer and closer and closer.

There was nothing she could do to stop them. They were going to crush her. Pansy flailed. She was going to explode. This multiplying tension in her cells was going to tear her to pieces. She screamed until she was hoarse but kept screaming, her voice leaking out of her lips by lowering intervals of volume. She screamed until she couldn’t breathe.

She felt the cold, dusty ground against her forehead and realized she had collapsed to her knees. It was the first time she had been off her feet that whole night, leaning against Blaise in the middle of the floor of the Broomsticks.

She felt heavy. She was so tired. She couldn’t move.

She felt her stomach press against her thighs curled under her as she breathed, in and out, trying to refill her lungs. She could hear the last echo of her scream ebb away against the ash and broken walls, the sky in which the sun gleamed.

Her throat hurt.

She could barely swallow.

She closed her eyes and felt cold water spill onto her cheeks, turning the dust beneath her face into mud. She wasn’t crying. These weren’t tears. Tears were hot. Tears were -- but she was so cold.

Her whole body ached and trembled. She wondered if she had bruised herself, by throwing herself against the walls and rubble. Her knuckled were swollen and red. She wondered, if anyone found her, if perhaps they might think she’d been hurt fighting in the battle.

She remembered how proud she was when she had turned thirteen and looked in the mirror to realize she was finally starting to look like a woman. She remembered how thrilled she was when she started wearing makeup, how proud she was because she knew she put it on better than the other girls in her dormitory.

She remembered how happy she was when she discovered her hair was shinier than Tracey’s, she didn’t have to wear glasses like Sophie, she could walk in heels better than Daphne, she was thinner than Millicent.

She remembered how excited she had been when she had turned seventeen, how she had then been of-age and truly a woman, truly respectable, truly beautiful.

She felt the mud beneath her cheeks cake on her lips and she knew she was ugly. Uglier even than she had been when she was eleven, stepping into Hogwarts for the first time, hair lank, robes flat against her chest.

Pansy was sure, had she looked in the mirror and seen herself at eleven instead of herself now, mud trailing down her face with the water from her eyes, she would have been grateful. Because at least at eleven, Pansy would have been able to fix something, start wearing makeup, mold her body beneath her robes.

Hogwarts was now unrecognizable, unfixable. Pansy couldn’t even tell where she was.

End.