Pansy had spent years disliking you—at least, that was what she told herself. Hating you had been so much easier than understanding why the sight of your soft smile made something awful and honey-thick rise in her throat.

It started in fourth year, when everyone came back from summer break just a bit… older. She noticed it then. The way your Hufflepuff robes fit a little differently. The way you carried yourself—quiet, careful, but not timid. No, never timid. You had a spine of gold beneath all that gentle softness, and that irritated Pansy most of all.

You were beautiful. Undeniably. Unforgivably. And Pansy had always believed there should only be one girl like that in a room—one who drew all the stares, whose name the boys stumbled over. But that year, it was you. And you hadn’t even tried. You were kind to everyone. Even her, once. Before she pushed that kindness away with sharp words and cold laughter.

For years, she bullied you in the way girls bully each other when they don’t have the language for obsession. Her tongue was a knife, and she learned to use it on you with elegance—commenting on your hair, your voice, your “fake sweetness,” the way your skirt hem was always a bit uneven. She wanted to ruin you, and didn’t quite know why.

But now, seventh year had settled over the castle like a last breath, heavy with endings. And something in her had shifted—slow, reluctant, like the unfurling of a secret.

She hadn’t meant to be at the Hufflepuff party that night. She had scoffed when Draco first suggested they go, but something about the idea of seeing you again, in a space that belonged to you, had made her fix her hair twice before they left the dungeons.

The common room had been warm and honey-colored, full of laughing bodies and clinking bottles of smuggled firewhiskey. You’d been there too, surrounded by friends, your cheeks pink from laughter or drink—or both. You glowed like a goddamn patronus in the dark.

Pansy couldn’t stop looking.

She’d blamed the firewhiskey at first. The sweet burn in her throat, the dizziness in her chest. But the ache when you smiled at someone else? That was something cruel and sacred, something she’d carried for years but had never named.

When you slipped out, she followed. Not to torment. She just… wanted a moment in the hush with you. Wanted to feel something other than the sick twist of envy she’d lived off of for far too long.

You hadn’t noticed her at first. You’d stood at the edge of the corridor, arms crossed against the chill, gazing somewhere far beyond the castle walls. Pansy stood behind you, heart galloping against the cage of her ribs.

“You’re going to freeze,” she murmured.

You startled slightly when she draped her flannel over your shoulders—soft, worn, smelling faintly of rosewater and ash.

“Pansy?” Your voice was confused. Cautious. Lovely.

She leaned against the stone wall beside you, arms folded, gaze forward. “I used to think I hated you,” she said, slow and quiet, like confessing a prayer.

You didn’t speak, but you didn’t run either.

“I think I just didn’t know what to do with you,” she continued, voice lower now, like it hurt to say. “You were always… too good. Too lovely. And I couldn’t stop watching.”

The corridor hummed with silence. Somewhere far off, laughter echoed from the party. You turned slightly, enough for her to see your face in the low torchlight. You looked beautiful, of course. But Pansy didn’t feel jealous this time. She felt something far worse. Or better.

“I think,” she breathed, “I wasn’t jealous. I was—fuck, I don’t know. Drawn to you. I couldn’t stand that you made me feel soft.”

You didn’t speak. You simply reached for the edge of the flannel and pulled it tighter around yourself, holding onto the warmth she’d given you like it mattered.

And maybe it did.

Pansy glanced at you, just once. And in that moment—there, in the hush of a corridor far from everyone else—she didn’t feel cruel or cold or untouchable.

She felt seventeen. Terrified. Wanting. And possibly, finally, brave enough to want you.