Chapter 3
Later, they’re all sitting around in the RoR when the passageway opens and more people come through. Remus Lupin, a bunch of Weasleys, a young woman with pink hair, a tall man Pansy recognizes as Kingsley Shacklebolt, Fleur Delacour from the Tri-Wizard tournament, and many others come through.
There’s plenty of drama when Percy Weasley shows up and admits (yells) he’s been a fool. Apparently, the Weasleys have been missing a son for a while as he was off being a Ministry lapdog.
And then, of course, because she can’t have a moment of peace, the Weasley twins see Pansy.
“Why are there snakes here?” one of them asks.
“Oh give it a rest, would you? Yes, I’m a Slytherin. Yes, there are multiple Slytherins here. No, we are not spies, yes we are on your side, yes we hate You Know Who, and now would you all stop making children your villains?” Pansy says. There’s silence in the moments after her outburst.
“That was positively Gryffindor of you, Ms. Parkinson,” Remus Lupin tells her, a hint of a smirk on his face. Her jaw drops. Next to her, Neville snorts and his shoulders shake with barely suppressed laughter.
“Not a word,” Pansy hisses to him. He holds his hands up in surrender, still laughing.
The Galleon in her pocket heats up and Pansy pulls it out to see the new message from Daphne.
We’re being called to the Great Hall. I think you’d all better come.
“Nev,” Pansy says. She shows him the Galleon and he nods.
“Alright, we have to go to the Great Hall,” Neville announces to the group.
“Keep your heads about you,” Pansy says softly.
They walk to the Great Hall in silence, meeting with the other students and blending in seamlessly. Neville takes Pansy’s hand and squeezes it briefly when they separate into their houses.
Daphne grips Pansy’s arm tightly when Pansy slides into the space next to her. Blaise and Draco look over at her and Theo, and Pansy sees them sag with relief. They stand in silence as Snape looks out at them.
“Many of you are surely wondering why I have summoned you here,” Snape begins. “It has come to my attention that earlier this evening, Harry Potter was sighted in Hogsmeade.”
Whispers and murmurs fill the room. Pansy barely stops herself from rolling her eyes. Snape is so dramatic.
“Now. Should anyone, student or staff, attempt to aid Mr. Potter, they will be punished in a manner consistent with the severity of their transgression. Furthermore, any person found to have knowledge of these events… who fails to come forward… will be treated as,” Snape trails off and looks around. “Equally guilty. Now then.” He begins to walk through the students. “If anyone here has any knowledge of Mr. Potter’s movements this evening, I invite them to step forward. Now.”
Harry steps forward, inciting gasps from all over the room. Pansy stops herself from rolling her eyes yet again. There’s far too much dramatic flair for so late in the evening.
“It seems despite your exhaustive defensive strategies,” Harry begins. The doors open and in comes the Order of the Phoenix, as Pansy has learned they are called. “You still have a bit of a security problem, Headmaster. I’m afraid it’s quite extensive,” Harry finishes. “How dare you stand where he stood!”
Now Pansy does roll her eyes. Leave it to Potter to make it into a thing about Dumbledore.
“Tell them how it happened that night. Tell them how you looked him in the eye, a man who trusted you, and killed him. Tell them!”
Instead of answering, Snape draws his wand. Students nearest him back away, but then, McGonagall steps in front of Harry, drawing her own wand, and everyone practically runs for the sides of the hall, away from the fight. Somehow, Neville ends up next to Pansy as the teachers duel. Pansy doesn’t dare to reach for his hand, not now, but knowing he’s there certainly helps.
It’s not lost on Pansy that Snape redirects McGonagall’s spells to the Death Eaters behind him, killing them. But the man leaps through the window, and everyone cheers as McGonagall lights the torches around the room.
But the excitement is short-lived.
There’s screaming. A high, cold voice begins speaking. Somehow, Pansy knows it’s Voldemort. None of his words register in her mind.
All she can hear is her heartbeat and panicked breathing.
And then she feels someone take her hand and squeeze it tightly. She focuses on the touch to bring herself back to the present moment, just in time to hear Voldemort say, “Give me Harry Potter, and you will be rewarded. You have one hour.”
She blinks. It’s silent in the aftermath of Voldemort’s command. She looks over at Neville, who’s still holding her hand. When he meets her eyes, she raises her eyebrows slightly in a question of ‘do you trust me?’
He nods and she squeezes his hand before letting go and pointing at Harry.
“What are you waiting for? Someone grab him!” she says, making her voice shake a little.
Immediately, Pansy feels her heart shatter at the looks members of the D.A. give her. They look horrified, confused, and she hates that she put that look there. But she was raised to hide her feelings, so she schools her face not to betray any emotions. She doesn’t dare look at Neville. All she can do is hope he understands what she’s trying to do.
Movement from all over the Great Hall catches her attention. People from many different houses are moving towards Harry.
Quick as lightning, she begins disarming and stunning them, moving through the Great Hall. Next to her, Neville does the same, neither of them needing to look at each other to coordinate their movements.
They work well together. Months hiding out and being part of a rebellion will do that, Pansy supposes. (But then, it might also be that Pansy and Neville know each other well enough to predict each other’s actions.)
By the time all the people who would have seen Harry Potter taken to Voldemort have been taken care of, Neville and Pansy are in the middle of the Great Hall, back to back, wands up.
“Anyone else?” Pansy asks.
She can hear the mean smile in Neville’s voice when he says, “Go on, try it. See what happens.”
“Mr. Longbottom, Ms. Parkinson!” Professor McGonagall sounds absolutely scandalized.
“Sorry, Professor. Had to check, you know,” Pansy says. Neville turns to stand next to her instead of at her back.
“And that was the best course of action?”
“It worked, didn’t it?”
“And no offense, Professor, but we’re way past the point of expecting the best in everybody,” Neville points out. “We couldn’t risk it.”
By now, everybody has grasped what Pansy was doing, and people are lining up the stunned students on one side of the Great Hall. There aren’t very many of them, Pansy’s glad to see. More likely than not, they just want to avoid a war.
(They haven’t learned yet that some things can’t be avoided. They haven’t learned not to trust people when they promise good things as a result of doing worse things.)
The rest of the D.A. comes forward to Neville and Pansy. Ginny flies at Pansy and almost tackles her in a hug. “Never do that again!” she says. “I was so scared!”
“Come on, Ginny, you know Pansy wouldn’t betray us,” Luna tells her.
“But how were you so sure?” Pansy asks. She’d seen Luna’s face when she’d put her plan into action. Luna had just looked at her with her head tilted to the side, waiting to see what would happen.
“We know you, Pans,” Neville says.
“Did you two plan that out beforehand?” Seamus demands.
“Nope,” Neville and Pansy say.
“So how did you…?” Hannah asks.
“Know what she was doing?” Neville finishes for her. “Easy. She’s pretty predictable.”
“Like hell, she is,” Theo says. “I’ve known her my whole life and I’ve never known what she’s going to do.”
“Okay, well in this case it was pretty clear what she was going to do.”
“Well,” McGonagall says. “As entertaining as this is, we do have more important things to worry about. Such as getting students out of here-”
“We can handle that, Professor,” Ginny says. “We have a plan in place.”
“Oh. Well, alright then.” McGonagall gestures for them to go on.
Neville gestures for Pansy to begin. She casts a quick sonorous and begins speaking.
“If you are a seventh year and you wish to fight, please go stand over there with Professor Lupin-”
“It’s just Lupin, Ms. Parkinson!” Lupin calls. “I haven’t been your professor in years.”
“Yes yes, well anyway. If you are a seventh year and you wish to fight, go stand with Lupin. If you are not a seventh year, or if you are and you don’t want to fight, follow Ginny and Seamus here, and we will get you out of the castle.”
“What if you’re of age but you’re not a seventh year yet?” Luna asks serenely.
“If you are of age and you want to fight, you may. If you are not of age, you will not fight, understand?” Neville takes over, casting sonorous on himself. Pansy ends the spell on her and heads over to the Order while Neville continues to give orders.
“Parkinson,” Harry says. Pansy mentally prepares for something bad. “I… Thank you. For that.”
“That sounds like it hurt, Potter,” Pansy says, raising an eyebrow. “Anyway, I believe you have something you need to go find?”
“Oh, right. Er, where’s Luna?”
“Right here,” Luna herself says, popping up behind Harry. He jumps a bit but goes with her to wherever the Grey Lady is. Pansy turns to Hermione and Ron.
“What do you need from us?” she asks.
“Pardon?” Hermione says.
“What can we do to help? Do we need to create a distraction or something so you can do whatever you need to do, do you need somebody to help you, what do you need?”
“I… You and the D.A. have a plan anyway, don’t you?” Ron asks.
“Yes.”
“Do whatever that is and take feedback from the teachers. We have to go find something and then find Harry,” Ron tells her. “But, a suggestion? Get Fred and George to help with the secret passageways of the castle.”
“I can help with that, too,” Lupin says. “Fred, George? Let’s go cause some mischief.”
“No offense, Remus,” one of the twins starts.
“But what would you know about mischief?” the other finishes.
“Well,” Lupin grins. “Moony, at your service.”
That apparently means something to the twins, because they straighten up and salute Lupin.
“Ms. Parkinson, do you know how to send a Patronus message?” Lupin asks her.
“I’ve never cast a Patronus,” Pansy admits. Lupin just nods.
“Well, when you all are ready, ask McGonagall to send me a message to call us back.”
“Will do.” Lupin and the twins head off. Ron turns back to Pansy.
“You play chess, right?” he asks.
“Of course.”
“So you know strategy?”
“She’s helped us plan this entire thing, pretty much,” Neville says for her, slinging an arm around her shoulders. She jumps a bit at the sudden arrival of her friend. She hadn’t heard him coming up behind her.
“Okay, perfect. We’ll follow your plan, I don’t think we have any specific things we need help with,” Ron says. With a nod, he and Hermione go off to do whatever it is they need to.
“Mr. Longbottom, if you could help me and Professor Slughorn with some protective boundaries?” McGonagall asks.
“Sure, but uh, why me?” Neville asks.
“Are you or are you not one of the leaders of this?” McGonagall arches an eyebrow. “And anyway, Gryffindor and Slytherin traits combine fairly well for a war.”
“So why not Pansy?”
“Because I think Ms. Parkinson can handle things here, and you do have plenty of Slytherin traits, Mr. Longbottom.”
Neville’s jaw drops and Pansy breaks into a fit of giggles.
“Shut up, Pansy,” he mutters.
“She’s not wrong!” Pansy grins. He narrows his eyes playfully at her as he follows McGonagall away.
Who’d have thought the poster boy of Gryffindor, one of the leaders of the D.A., would have some Slytherin traits?
(And who’d have thought McGonagall would be the one to point it out?)