Sloshed Slytherin Shenanigans
7 March 1997, 11:42pm | Slytherin Girls Dorm
“Hey Pans?”
“Yeah, Daph?”
“How did you know you were in love with Draco?”
Despite the quietness of Daphne’s question and the fact that she’s clearly nervous and seeking some sort of misguided advice—and most definitely clutching her pillow to her chest and biting her lower lip—Pansy nearly choked on her tongue at the absurdity of her best friend’s inquiry. “I—I beg your pardon?”
“I just—I don’t,” Daphne stammered, “how did you know, you know?"
“I don’t know.”
“You must know.”
“I really don—”
“You must!” Her shriek stunned Pansy silent. “You must. You—you and Draco have been together for years. The two of you are so confident in your adoration and affection for one another and you look at him like he’s hung the stars in the sky and I…and I want to know how you knew.”
“I don’t know. And before you cut in, just know that I never will know—”
“I—”
“—because Draco and I aren’t together.”
A beat of silence. Stupefied fucking silence. And then a scream—more of a squawk, really—echoes off the dungeon walls.
“You and Draco aren’t WHAT?!”
—
8 March 1997, 12:02am | Slytherin Girls Dorm
Twenty minutes, one apology to Millicent the-lightest-sleeper-this-world-has-ever-seen Bulstrode, and two shots of liquid courage later, sitting with her best friend on her now-silenced bed, Daphne decides to ask it again. Or…a version of it, at least.
“So…” she starts, “you and Draco aren’t together.”
“Nope.” Pansy’s lips smacked, popping the ‘p.’
“Were—were you ever?”
“Officially? No, but I suppose you could say we were something.”
“What does that even mean?”
“Well, you know with our parents, our customs, there was a certain pressure on us, I think. So he asked me to the Yule Ball in fourth, payed me absolutely no attention, and when he leaned in to kiss me goodnight, we just knew it wouldn’t work out.”
“But that,” Daphne hiccuped, “that was over two years ago. You two have bragged about your anniversaries and broom closet shenanigans for at least a year and since then, more often than not do the both of you return to the dorm late at night, with matching love bites and mussed hair.”
“Just because all that happened doesn’t mean it was real.”
“So you faked all that? To what, seem cool?” Even in the dark, Pansy could see that Daphne’s eyes shone with bafflement.
“No. Well, I reckon that might have been some of Draco’s reasoning—bragging rights and puffed chest and all that. But the truth of the matter is that our interests just resided in different places than each other. We learned that night that Draco quite prefers curly-haired, crimson-wearing, gold-glistening swots, and—and I…”
“You what?”
“Well…my interests align with witches.”
“Oh.” Pansy watched as those blonde eyebrows of her best friend furrowed, watched as those blue eyes widened in understanding. “Oh.”
Panic seized Pansy’s chest. She downed another shot, let it burn her throat, preparing for the worst. “Listen, Greengrass,” she snarled, “if you’re going to shame me—”
“—shame you? What? Pansy, I just—”
“—I don’t want to hear it. It’s taken me so long to get to a point where I don’t feel ashamed and I—”
“—why didn’t you tell me sooner? You didn’t have to, I’d never want to pressure you, but I swear I would have understood—”
“—don’t need you to do it for me—you’d what?”
Daphne’s lips shifted into a small, shy smile. She clutched her pillow—Pansy had been right that she’d be holding it—tighter and sighed. “I’m guessing there’s someone special that made you realize that, yeah?”
Pansy nodded, ignoring the tears that threatened to fall from her emerald eyes and the way her chest clenched, cursing the fact that she’s an emotional drunk, thanking all the gods for blessing her with a friend like Daphne. “Yeah,” she whispered.
“That’s why I wanted to know if you knew what it was like to be in love. I don’t give a single shite that your person is a witch—honestly props to you, you’re way too far out of Draco’s league in my opinion—but…” she trailed off, “there might be someone like that for me, too.”
Thoughts and memories and pieces of the past aligned and rearranged themselves in Pansy’s head. The piqued interest in Arithmancy. The subtle exclusion of dairy in combination with meat at mealtime. The blue and bronze tie she’d hidden in her trunk, too flustered to play it off as Astoria’s. All the hints were there, had been there, and Pansy was too clever to not pick up on them.
“It’s Goldstein.”
A choked noise and a definitive denial. “No.”
A sly smile and a knowing nod. “Yes.”
“It is not—”
“Oh it so is!” Pansy said, mischievousness lacing her tone. With a laugh, she ripped the pillow out of Daphne’s hands and smacked her across the head with it. “It just makes too much sense. You, with the religiously motivated—”
Smack!
“—stupidly attractive—”
Smack!
“—wildly independent—”
Smack!
“Pansy!” Daphne managed, her gasp followed by a cascade of giggles, “Stop!”
Smack! Smack! Smack!
“—too-smart-for-his-own-good half-blooded boy your parents would never approve of, and me failing my parents’ expectations by being fucking besotted with a girl, the girl—”
Daphne surged up, rolling herself over Pansy, wrenching the pillow back into her own hands and smirking knowingly down at her best friend. Two can play at that game. “You mean with Lovegood?”
Smack!
—
8 March 1997, 12:17am | Hogwarts Hallways
“Daphne—Daph,” Pansy wheezed, slightly out of breath from the stairs and more than a little lightheaded from the alcohol, which, admittedly, she’d ingested more than she’d thought. “W-wait up. You’re going—gods—too—fast.”
“I can’t help it,” Daphne squealed, spinning on the spot and nearly tumbling backwards down the stairs, “I can’t wait any longer to tell him.”
“Tell him what? That you looooooooooove him?”
“Yeah.” Daphne took hold of Pansy’s hand and swung it back and forth. “I mean, I’ll tell him ani ohevet otcha and probably that he’s my neshama, too, but it basically means the same thing.”
“English please.”
“Oh! Sorry, he’s been teaching me Hebrew. I’m telling him that I love him, and that he’s the other half of my soul.”
“That is…repulsing.”
“Oh please. I bet Lovegood calls you her smooshy little crumple horned snorkack or something equally so.”
Pansy, already quite flushed from the firewhiskey, went beet red.
Daphne’s jaw dropped. Her laugh boomed across the stone stairwell. “Please tell me you’re kidding.”
“One must not tell lies and all that rot.”
“Oh my god! Pans!”
“What? You brought this on yourself. Asking me about love and pseudo-ex-boyfriends—”
“Oh my gods you never even told me how you knew you loved her!”
Pansy shrugged, with far too much nonchalance for being a panting mess—finally at the top of the stairs. “Not much to tell. I just…did.”
“Oh.” A brief pout, and then, “I guess I get that. I suppose that’s how it happened for us as well.”
“Draco said that too, you know. That he didn’t know he loved Granger until—
What has a ring but no finger?
“—he knew for certain he couldn’t ever love anyone else. Sorry, what did you say?”
Daphne’s head snapped towards Pansy, a little too fast of a motion if her expletive indicated anything. “I didn’t say anything. I was thinking though, about the odds that all of us last. We’re only sixteen for Merlin’s sake.”
“We’re Slytherins, though. We latch onto people like Devil’s Snare. Our poor Ravenclaws and Gryffindors will have a hard time getting rid of us.”
Daphne smiled. Soft and slightly tearful. “Anthony’s said that, too,” she sniffed. “Gods, I love him so much.”
What is dirty when it’s white?
“Come on then, my little emotional drunk —are you sure you aren’t hearing anything?— let’s go find him.”
—
8 March 1997, 12:34am | Entrance to Ravenclaw Common Room
What can you catch but not throw?
“These hands!” Pansy shrieked. “You’ll be forced to catch them if you don’t let me into the goddamn common room!”
What has eyes but can’t see?
“You, you bloody fucking stupid door knob! You’re mocking at this point! Let us in!”
I have cities, but no houses. I have mountains, but no trees. I have water, but no fish. What am I?
“I don’t know!” Daphne wailed. “I’m not in the smart house, I just want to see my boyfriend!”
—
8 March 1997, 8:00am | Entrance to Ravenclaw Common Room
Saturday morning trips to Hogwarts Library weren’t part of the routine of an ordinary student. But Astoria Greengrass— Hogwarts Third Year, first-ever Ravenclaw on her family tree, self-dubbed Second Brightest Witch of Her Age—was no ordinary student.
And so Saturday mornings were for studying for OWLs, two years in advance. In the library, with nobody but herself and Madam Pince, with the exception of the occasional day where she found Malfoy and Granger asleep in one of the aisles.
This Saturday morning, however, she was greeted by two sleeping figures right outside the entrance to her common room.
Two…familiar sleeping figures, reeking of firewhiskey, curled up on the floor in the middle of the hallway.
With a sigh, Astoria turned back to the door, answered the riddle before the enchanted door knob was finished speaking and stomped her way back up to the dormitories, not caring in the slightest who she woke in her wake.
“Goldstein!” Astoria barked. “Lovegood! Get down here! My stupid sister and her barmy best friend require your assistance!”