What you don't know...
Who: Draco and Pansy
When: Late night.
Where: Slytherin Common Room
Rating: G
Summary: A little homework, a little chatting... and a few memory charms?
The fire was starting to die, its warmth being chased away by the perpetual cold of the dungeons. Draco was sprawled on one of the black leather couches in front of it, his face cast into severe shadow both by the warm embers and by the brightness of the tip of his wand which was tucked behind one ear so he could read Pansy's potions essay with his hands free. He had a revisions quill which he was using to edit her essay, murmuring tips to her from time to time as he went. "This would be a good place to dig for points by going into the other uses of vervain... you might want to add something here about the significance of the milkflowers needing to be picked during the gibbous moon rather than the full, you know, their unique characteristics related to their creativity-enhancing powers and the affiliation of the gibbous moon with poetry and ballad, they don't call it the poet's moon for nothing... This should be micah, not mirconite...." He was mostly muttering all that to himself, but loud enough for Pansy to overhear while he made shorthand notes in the margin.
Pansy was listening attentively though, really, she knew she didn’t need to. Draco was making notes for her in the margins, as he always did, helpful hints that would gain her points, as well as Slughorn’s favor, but not doing the work for her. Still, she didn’t want him to think she was slacking off. She wasn’t at all. In fact, she was probably working harder this past month than she had the entire previous year.
“I thought I had that one wrong,” she said softly, curling her legs up under her as she sat on the leather sofa, watching Draco.
He shot her a slightly distracted smile. "That's why I'm proofreading," he told her, scratching one cheek with the hand holding the quill and managing to smear ink across the corner of his jaw. Fortunately, it disappeared after a few seconds when it found nothing on his skin to revise. "You're doing better, though. I told you reviewing all the tedious basics of symbolism was a good idea. Makes everything so much easier to remember." He drew up one knee so he could use it as a writing surface.
“You were absolutely right about that,” she said, stifling a yawn as she pulled one of the many green and silver throws around her shoulders to ward off the chill. “I don’t know what I was doing second year, but I obviously wasn’t paying very much attention in class. I feel much more confident in my brewing since you began tutoring me.”
"Well, I am a genius, how could you not?" he wondered under his breath, the corner of his mouth quirking upward just slightly to show he was joking. Mostly. He rolled on his side and reached over the low table to hand her her essay. "Go ahead and revise that later. It's getting late. I'll let you go but before you do..." he rummaged in his pocket, the crackle of parchment audible before he pulled out a square-folded packet of it. "There's something I think you need to know."
Pansy rolled the essay up, quickly shrinking it so it would fit in her pocket without getting too damaged. “What’s that?” she asked, her head cocking slightly to the side.
"This is a letter from my Aunt," Draco told her. "The details aren't important. What's important is simply this, and I feel you should know it before anything else happens down the road." He sat up and rested his elbows on his knees eyeing her solemnly. "If you're entertaining the notion of marrying me, ever, there are certain protocols that would need to be observed. The most ... precarious... of which is an evaluation of your ... shall we say, character?.. by a certain Someone we all know and fear."
Pansy cast a glance around the Common Room, slipping around the table separating them to join Draco on his sofa. She cast a muffling spell around them, just as a precaution, that way they could speak frankly and not worry about who, or what, may be attempting to listen in. One never could be too careful.
She sat beside him a moment, considering how to respond. It wasn’t every day that someone told her that the Dark Lord wanted to see her, personally. “Draco,” she said softly. “You know how I feel about you. If taking a meeting with him is what I must do, then it’s what I must do.”
"He's a skilled legilimens," Draco told her, gray eyes the flat color of stone. "He can see straight into your mind if he likes. That poses a problem with two solutions. I could keep things from you with the understanding that it's too risky to tell you things he'll find easily. Or I could teach you occlumency. You're already overloaded with extra tutoring for N.E.W.T.s, and it's not an easy discipline by any means, not to mention it takes particular skill and finesse to use it without the legilimens in question KNOWING you're using it. It's extremely high-risk for both of us, this whole business. The problem is, I'm not sure I can afford not to have you by my side... you and several key others, all of whom will be subjected to his scrutiny at some point. It's a highly dangerous balancing act I'm considering here, and I simply can't make the proper arrangements myself. I NEED the rest of you." That admission didn't seem to pain him nearly as much as it would have a year ago. Apparently, his near-failure sixth year had been quite a learning experience. "So sooner or later, we're going to have to take the serpent by the neck. It's just a matter of when, who, and how much is risked."
Pansy considered what Draco had said. She turned the thoughts over and over in her mind, trying to look at them from every angle. On the one hand, she didn’t want to endanger Draco, or herself, or either of their families more than absolutely necessary. If she made a mistake, they would be the ones to pay for it, and that was completely unacceptable. On the other hand, she was loaded down and there wasn’t enough time in the day. The only way she’d have enough time to learn occlumency would be to give up sleep or drop a class. Being this late in the year, that seemed a bit silly.
When it all boiled down, she had just one question for him. “What is the safest course of action for us, and for you? What will benefit us most?”
He sighed. "I honestly do not know. We could move fast, plan things for the end of the school year, and hope He doesn't want to see you again after the initial interview. If that's the course we decide to take, I'm not going to have any choice but to remove the memory of this discussion from your mind. Otherwise, he's certain to find it, because you and I both know you won't be able to help worrying about me and what I'm up to. You'll probably be hurt that I'm keeping things from you and there's no help for that, I'm afraid. Also, it took me a full two years to learn occlumency with the finesse I can use it with now. I don't know if it's possible to teach you to resist His mind in this short a time, even if we did nothing but practice."
Pansy nodded, chewing her lower lip. “Then it’s best I know as little as necessary.” She sighed, taking his hand in hers and squeezing it. “Draco… I want to help you, anyway I can, in any manner I can… But if me knowing anything other than the bare basics is going to endanger you or anyone else I love… Well, I couldn’t live with myself if something happened.”
He nodded and squeezed her hand back. "I agree, but I wasn't about to do anything without your consent. Call me revolutionary, but I hear these 'relationship' things are supposedly based on partnership of relative equality," he said with mild humor. "The ones that work, at any rate."
“You know, I think I’ve heard that rumor as well. Once or twice.” Pansy chuckled, squeezing Draco’s hand again.
Then her eyes suddenly narrowed. “Perhaps I’m just imagining things but I seem to recall something along the lines of there may be a way to bury certain things in a person’s subconscious mind, like blocking a memory, but doing it in such a way that it can later be recalled? While I don’t mind you wiping dangerous information from my mind so that he can’t get to it, I’m sure I’ll want those memories back eventually.”
"I don't know that I can cast that intricate of a memory charm," Draco told her. "All I can do is promise you that when it's safe, I'll tell you everything. It's not that I WANT to hold back," he told her helplessly, "it's just that there's a rock, and there's a hard place, and what I want has to take a back seat to what's necessary."
“I understand,” Pansy said, quickly leaning forward to press a soft kiss against his cheek. “And I trust you and your judgment.” She sat back, a smile pulling at the corners of her mouth. “We’re in this together now, right?”
"That's a definite," he said dryly. "It's a bit late now if I wasn't entirely certain. But my primary concern here, beyond everything else, is making certain you're not at risk. Not just because I'm that generous and charitable," he said with a dry smirk, "but because I fully intend to have a LIFE after all this sturm and drang is over, and there are certain aspects, and people, that I want to be in it."
Pansy smirked, throwing Draco a wink. “I’d like to see them try to keep me from you, love. Everything is going to be perfect for us once this is all over and done with, and we’ll never have to worry about that megalomaniac coming between us and what we want.”
"Unless it's Potter," Draco added snarkily. "Honestly, you realize if he DOES take down You-Know-Who, there'll be no living with him after that. Well, assuming he doesn't die in the process. He'll be the biggest martyr self-flagellating miserable GIT that ever walked the earth and I'll spare a moment to feel sorry for his friends."
“I won’t,” Pansy chuckled, settling back in the sofa. “Friends choose each other… So, obviously, they enjoy it.” She cocked her head again, grinning. “Honestly? I don’t expect him to survive. Him or his merry band of idiots. He’ll possibly succeed, but he won’t live to tell the tale.”
"Well, it's the best possible ending, really," Draco said flatly. "He doesn't know how to get over things, or let them slide. He's always fighting. When the Dark Lord is gone, he'll fight whoever's nearby. Gryffindor bloody-mindedness, it's why they have short lifespans," he observed with a negligent wave of his hand.
“Short life spans to match a lack of common sense and self-preservation,” Pansy agreed.
Draco nodded and picked up his wand. "I suppose we'd better wrap this up. Don't worry," he assured her, "I know what I'm doing."
“I know you do,” Pansy said with a smile. “There’s just one thing I want to do before you do it.”
Pansy leaned forward, toward Draco gain, this time pressing her lips directly to his, but softly. “Try not to take too much away, darling. I don’t want to end up paranoid.”
Draco smiled and kissed her back. "All I'll take away is the middle. The conversation about Potter isn't dangerous, nor is the discussion of your essay. there's a full night's worth of friendly chat there."
Pansy chuckled as she sat back, relaxing so that the process of wiping the conversation from her memory was as easy as possible. It could be done forcibly, true, but it would be much easier if she weren’t fighting it. “You should plant something risqué in there to cover up the fact that something’s been wiped. I’m amused at the thought of me thinking we did something naughty down here.”
He grinned. "Rings and vows first, my dear, let's not shame our families. I'm still nursing a certain fear of your brother." He pointed his wand at her forehead, visualized very specifically the slot of time he wanted to erase, and said, "Obliviate".
Pansy had closed her eyes as Draco took aim, not wanting to watch while he performed the charm. Her eyes fluttered slightly when it was over. She opened them slowly, looking vaguely confused. “Did… Did I fall asleep on you darling? I’m sorry!”
"You were yawning," Draco told her matter-of-factly. "I'm sorry for waking you. I would have taken you up to your dorm, but you know that thing the stairs do if a boy tries to climb them," he explained. "Anyway, I think we should wrap up for tonight. I'll take a look at your next draft later."
“Blasted stairs,” she said, stretching as she fought off another yawn. “I’d sleep so much better if you were with me.”
Slowly, she stood, giving Draco a small smile. “That night at the Bed and Breakfast is the best night of sleep I’ve gotten in ages.”
"Same here," he said truthfully. "But when school's out we'll have all the time in the world to get thoroughly sick of each other." He stood and gathered his things. "In the meantime, goodnight. See you tomorrow morning."
Pansy double-checked the location of her essay and nodded, smiling. One last kiss to his cheek was followed by a sleepy smile as she departed for her own dorm room. “Goodnight, darling. Sweet dreams.”
When: Late night.
Where: Slytherin Common Room
Rating: G
Summary: A little homework, a little chatting... and a few memory charms?
The fire was starting to die, its warmth being chased away by the perpetual cold of the dungeons. Draco was sprawled on one of the black leather couches in front of it, his face cast into severe shadow both by the warm embers and by the brightness of the tip of his wand which was tucked behind one ear so he could read Pansy's potions essay with his hands free. He had a revisions quill which he was using to edit her essay, murmuring tips to her from time to time as he went. "This would be a good place to dig for points by going into the other uses of vervain... you might want to add something here about the significance of the milkflowers needing to be picked during the gibbous moon rather than the full, you know, their unique characteristics related to their creativity-enhancing powers and the affiliation of the gibbous moon with poetry and ballad, they don't call it the poet's moon for nothing... This should be micah, not mirconite...." He was mostly muttering all that to himself, but loud enough for Pansy to overhear while he made shorthand notes in the margin.
Pansy was listening attentively though, really, she knew she didn’t need to. Draco was making notes for her in the margins, as he always did, helpful hints that would gain her points, as well as Slughorn’s favor, but not doing the work for her. Still, she didn’t want him to think she was slacking off. She wasn’t at all. In fact, she was probably working harder this past month than she had the entire previous year.
“I thought I had that one wrong,” she said softly, curling her legs up under her as she sat on the leather sofa, watching Draco.
He shot her a slightly distracted smile. "That's why I'm proofreading," he told her, scratching one cheek with the hand holding the quill and managing to smear ink across the corner of his jaw. Fortunately, it disappeared after a few seconds when it found nothing on his skin to revise. "You're doing better, though. I told you reviewing all the tedious basics of symbolism was a good idea. Makes everything so much easier to remember." He drew up one knee so he could use it as a writing surface.
“You were absolutely right about that,” she said, stifling a yawn as she pulled one of the many green and silver throws around her shoulders to ward off the chill. “I don’t know what I was doing second year, but I obviously wasn’t paying very much attention in class. I feel much more confident in my brewing since you began tutoring me.”
"Well, I am a genius, how could you not?" he wondered under his breath, the corner of his mouth quirking upward just slightly to show he was joking. Mostly. He rolled on his side and reached over the low table to hand her her essay. "Go ahead and revise that later. It's getting late. I'll let you go but before you do..." he rummaged in his pocket, the crackle of parchment audible before he pulled out a square-folded packet of it. "There's something I think you need to know."
Pansy rolled the essay up, quickly shrinking it so it would fit in her pocket without getting too damaged. “What’s that?” she asked, her head cocking slightly to the side.
"This is a letter from my Aunt," Draco told her. "The details aren't important. What's important is simply this, and I feel you should know it before anything else happens down the road." He sat up and rested his elbows on his knees eyeing her solemnly. "If you're entertaining the notion of marrying me, ever, there are certain protocols that would need to be observed. The most ... precarious... of which is an evaluation of your ... shall we say, character?.. by a certain Someone we all know and fear."
Pansy cast a glance around the Common Room, slipping around the table separating them to join Draco on his sofa. She cast a muffling spell around them, just as a precaution, that way they could speak frankly and not worry about who, or what, may be attempting to listen in. One never could be too careful.
She sat beside him a moment, considering how to respond. It wasn’t every day that someone told her that the Dark Lord wanted to see her, personally. “Draco,” she said softly. “You know how I feel about you. If taking a meeting with him is what I must do, then it’s what I must do.”
"He's a skilled legilimens," Draco told her, gray eyes the flat color of stone. "He can see straight into your mind if he likes. That poses a problem with two solutions. I could keep things from you with the understanding that it's too risky to tell you things he'll find easily. Or I could teach you occlumency. You're already overloaded with extra tutoring for N.E.W.T.s, and it's not an easy discipline by any means, not to mention it takes particular skill and finesse to use it without the legilimens in question KNOWING you're using it. It's extremely high-risk for both of us, this whole business. The problem is, I'm not sure I can afford not to have you by my side... you and several key others, all of whom will be subjected to his scrutiny at some point. It's a highly dangerous balancing act I'm considering here, and I simply can't make the proper arrangements myself. I NEED the rest of you." That admission didn't seem to pain him nearly as much as it would have a year ago. Apparently, his near-failure sixth year had been quite a learning experience. "So sooner or later, we're going to have to take the serpent by the neck. It's just a matter of when, who, and how much is risked."
Pansy considered what Draco had said. She turned the thoughts over and over in her mind, trying to look at them from every angle. On the one hand, she didn’t want to endanger Draco, or herself, or either of their families more than absolutely necessary. If she made a mistake, they would be the ones to pay for it, and that was completely unacceptable. On the other hand, she was loaded down and there wasn’t enough time in the day. The only way she’d have enough time to learn occlumency would be to give up sleep or drop a class. Being this late in the year, that seemed a bit silly.
When it all boiled down, she had just one question for him. “What is the safest course of action for us, and for you? What will benefit us most?”
He sighed. "I honestly do not know. We could move fast, plan things for the end of the school year, and hope He doesn't want to see you again after the initial interview. If that's the course we decide to take, I'm not going to have any choice but to remove the memory of this discussion from your mind. Otherwise, he's certain to find it, because you and I both know you won't be able to help worrying about me and what I'm up to. You'll probably be hurt that I'm keeping things from you and there's no help for that, I'm afraid. Also, it took me a full two years to learn occlumency with the finesse I can use it with now. I don't know if it's possible to teach you to resist His mind in this short a time, even if we did nothing but practice."
Pansy nodded, chewing her lower lip. “Then it’s best I know as little as necessary.” She sighed, taking his hand in hers and squeezing it. “Draco… I want to help you, anyway I can, in any manner I can… But if me knowing anything other than the bare basics is going to endanger you or anyone else I love… Well, I couldn’t live with myself if something happened.”
He nodded and squeezed her hand back. "I agree, but I wasn't about to do anything without your consent. Call me revolutionary, but I hear these 'relationship' things are supposedly based on partnership of relative equality," he said with mild humor. "The ones that work, at any rate."
“You know, I think I’ve heard that rumor as well. Once or twice.” Pansy chuckled, squeezing Draco’s hand again.
Then her eyes suddenly narrowed. “Perhaps I’m just imagining things but I seem to recall something along the lines of there may be a way to bury certain things in a person’s subconscious mind, like blocking a memory, but doing it in such a way that it can later be recalled? While I don’t mind you wiping dangerous information from my mind so that he can’t get to it, I’m sure I’ll want those memories back eventually.”
"I don't know that I can cast that intricate of a memory charm," Draco told her. "All I can do is promise you that when it's safe, I'll tell you everything. It's not that I WANT to hold back," he told her helplessly, "it's just that there's a rock, and there's a hard place, and what I want has to take a back seat to what's necessary."
“I understand,” Pansy said, quickly leaning forward to press a soft kiss against his cheek. “And I trust you and your judgment.” She sat back, a smile pulling at the corners of her mouth. “We’re in this together now, right?”
"That's a definite," he said dryly. "It's a bit late now if I wasn't entirely certain. But my primary concern here, beyond everything else, is making certain you're not at risk. Not just because I'm that generous and charitable," he said with a dry smirk, "but because I fully intend to have a LIFE after all this sturm and drang is over, and there are certain aspects, and people, that I want to be in it."
Pansy smirked, throwing Draco a wink. “I’d like to see them try to keep me from you, love. Everything is going to be perfect for us once this is all over and done with, and we’ll never have to worry about that megalomaniac coming between us and what we want.”
"Unless it's Potter," Draco added snarkily. "Honestly, you realize if he DOES take down You-Know-Who, there'll be no living with him after that. Well, assuming he doesn't die in the process. He'll be the biggest martyr self-flagellating miserable GIT that ever walked the earth and I'll spare a moment to feel sorry for his friends."
“I won’t,” Pansy chuckled, settling back in the sofa. “Friends choose each other… So, obviously, they enjoy it.” She cocked her head again, grinning. “Honestly? I don’t expect him to survive. Him or his merry band of idiots. He’ll possibly succeed, but he won’t live to tell the tale.”
"Well, it's the best possible ending, really," Draco said flatly. "He doesn't know how to get over things, or let them slide. He's always fighting. When the Dark Lord is gone, he'll fight whoever's nearby. Gryffindor bloody-mindedness, it's why they have short lifespans," he observed with a negligent wave of his hand.
“Short life spans to match a lack of common sense and self-preservation,” Pansy agreed.
Draco nodded and picked up his wand. "I suppose we'd better wrap this up. Don't worry," he assured her, "I know what I'm doing."
“I know you do,” Pansy said with a smile. “There’s just one thing I want to do before you do it.”
Pansy leaned forward, toward Draco gain, this time pressing her lips directly to his, but softly. “Try not to take too much away, darling. I don’t want to end up paranoid.”
Draco smiled and kissed her back. "All I'll take away is the middle. The conversation about Potter isn't dangerous, nor is the discussion of your essay. there's a full night's worth of friendly chat there."
Pansy chuckled as she sat back, relaxing so that the process of wiping the conversation from her memory was as easy as possible. It could be done forcibly, true, but it would be much easier if she weren’t fighting it. “You should plant something risqué in there to cover up the fact that something’s been wiped. I’m amused at the thought of me thinking we did something naughty down here.”
He grinned. "Rings and vows first, my dear, let's not shame our families. I'm still nursing a certain fear of your brother." He pointed his wand at her forehead, visualized very specifically the slot of time he wanted to erase, and said, "Obliviate".
Pansy had closed her eyes as Draco took aim, not wanting to watch while he performed the charm. Her eyes fluttered slightly when it was over. She opened them slowly, looking vaguely confused. “Did… Did I fall asleep on you darling? I’m sorry!”
"You were yawning," Draco told her matter-of-factly. "I'm sorry for waking you. I would have taken you up to your dorm, but you know that thing the stairs do if a boy tries to climb them," he explained. "Anyway, I think we should wrap up for tonight. I'll take a look at your next draft later."
“Blasted stairs,” she said, stretching as she fought off another yawn. “I’d sleep so much better if you were with me.”
Slowly, she stood, giving Draco a small smile. “That night at the Bed and Breakfast is the best night of sleep I’ve gotten in ages.”
"Same here," he said truthfully. "But when school's out we'll have all the time in the world to get thoroughly sick of each other." He stood and gathered his things. "In the meantime, goodnight. See you tomorrow morning."
Pansy double-checked the location of her essay and nodded, smiling. One last kiss to his cheek was followed by a sleepy smile as she departed for her own dorm room. “Goodnight, darling. Sweet dreams.”