Parvati drank some of the water Padma gave her, and wiped her eyes.
“The thing is, Paddy, I think Draco may have been watching me for a while. But he hasn’t done anything …until now. And I have sort of noticed him in the last couple of days too. Well, you know I always thought he was good-looking, even when he was really snotty. Not that he isn’t snotty now - I mean, I guess he still is horrible, but he doesn’t taunt people as much.” She took a deep breath and tried for a better level of coherence, as Padma looked bewildered. “But I was thinking on the way here, if he really had wanted to attack me, he would have done something to me - the Immobility curse or something. I mean he only kissed me, really.” She pushed the stray strands of her hair out of her eyes.
Padma raised her eyebrows. “Anything he did without asking is suspect,” she said sternly. She looked down, and gave a gasp. “And just look at your wrists!” Parvati followed her gaze, and saw the tell tale marks. She was going to have some fine bruises later. She winced, pulling down the sleeves of her blue sweater, hiding them from her sister, but Padma wasn’t finished. “You know the only reason that Malfoy isn’t as obnoxious as always is because his father is in Azkaban, and he doesn’t have an ‘in’ with the Ministry any more. And he has no money to flash around and impress people with, and he hasn’t got Crabbe and Goyle with him to beat anybody he doesn’t like senseless. That is the only reason he is a little more subdued this year, and even then seeing what he just did, he hasn’t changed much! He is a whiney, cowardly, sniveling Daddy’s boy, and you should remember that.”
“I know,” sniffed Parvati. “He wouldn’t have let me go either, only I kneed him well in the groin. You know that Muggle course Dad had us take?”
Padma’s face lit up. “I am so glad,” she said simply. It had been her that insisted that the course was important, mainly because she had a crush on the cute Muggle policeman that was teaching it.
Parvati gave Padma a weak grin, and then dropped her gaze, tracing round a pattern on the bedspread with her finger. The next part she found harder to say, even though her sister was the person who she most trusted in the world, and the one who knew her best. “Paddy - do you think I am a masochist or something? I couldn’t think for a minute or two, and then, when my head started hurting, and I sort of started thinking again, I realized I was kissing him.” Parvati screwed up her face in embarrassment, not really wanting to see her sister’s reaction, but wanting to hear it.
Padma thought for a minute. “Well, you didn’t enjoy it once you found out he wouldn’t let you go,” she pointed out. “Maybe you were just in shock?”
Parvati didn’t look at her sister. “The thing is, if he didn’t actually try to hurt me or anything, I think I might like him to kiss me,” she confessed. “It was rather exciting and heady, and he tasted really good.”
Padma looked at her, for a second, in complete disbelief. Finally she said, “I’ll get out your chart.” Parvati brightened a little.
*************************
When they had joined Hogwarts, both sisters were very interested in Divination. Their mother was a respected, but not remarkable Seer, who had been brought up in India and Parvati and Padma had come to Hogwarts desperate to study Divination in the Western style. It had taken Parvati more than a couple of years of hopefully gazing at her tea leaves, and worrying about Harry Potter (who she was sure was going to die soon), before Firenze took over the class, and she finally realized that Professor Trelawney was a fake, as everybody had been trying to tell her.
After a few classes Firenze had talked to Parvati, and told her very kindly but honestly, that there was no point in her taking Divination to N.E.W.T. level. She was competent, but not gifted in the same way as her sister. Once she had got over the shock, Parvati had actually found it liberating.
Padma, however, was very gifted at Divination. Being a twin, and the daughter of two twins, she had a very strong concentration of magic, although it manifested itself only on one aspect of the magical spectrum. Parvati’s gift had appeared when they were children, but Padma had struggled with the feeling of inferiority until she had developed mentally and found her niche. Unfortunately there was no real respect among the students for the Art of Divination at Hogwarts, so she never had the accolades she deserved. However, Firenze had accepted her as his sole pupil for the sixth year, and she was enjoying herself more than ever before.
The chart she had made for Parvati was beautiful. It was a heavy, lengthy roll of parchment, inked in sepia and hand-decorated with gold leaf and watercolor drawings. Parvati had great faith in Padma’s charts (which Firenze did not approve of, as they dealt with lesser human worries and not the studies of the heavens in their entirety). ‘Gullible’ was the word most usually chosen to describe Parvati, next to ‘beautiful’, but so far, Padma’s chart had not proven wrong. She sat on the bed and waited expectantly.
Padma picked up the chart with a little difficulty and unrolled it on the bed. She paused, eyes narrowed, muttering under her breath. She worked for a long time, and then looked up, a puzzled and rather worried frown on her face. “Nothing bad is supposed to be happening right now romantically speaking. In fact, quite the reverse “ I know I am reading the signs correctly! Perhaps this is a one off thing, and won’t happen again, but…” She broke off, frowning again, and started to bite the end of her pigtail. Parvati leaned over and took the pigtail out of her sister’s hand “ an automatic reflex. She lay on her stomach, trying to make sense of the chart upside down, to see which particular time zone or constellation was worrying Padma.
“What is it?” she asked.
Padma looked up at her, obviously disturbed about something she had seen. ”I’ll check this tomorrow, so don’t believe it from me today, but I don’t think you are in any danger from Draco.” She saw Parvati was about to question her, and not being ready to answer, she tried to divert her. “Maybe I should call you Perv, not Parv.”
Parvati gasped, and threw a pillow at her sister. Padma giggled, and rolled the chart shut. “He is rather gorgeous, though isn’t he?” asked Parvati as her sister pushed the chart back under the bed. “With that white fair hair, thin arrogant lips and totally dreamy chin.”
Padma rolled her eyes at her sister. “Definitely NOT my cup of tea,” she replied. “I like them slim and dark, with just the tiniest beard. Hairy chest. Totally opposite.” Parvati laughed. “Come on,” she coaxed, “you must have noticed…. When he wears those black trousers, or those Muggle type jeans that really fit him, have you never noticed his bum?”
Padma yelped, throwing her pillow at Parvati “Yuck!! If you say any more I’m calling Madam Pomfrey! Or I’ll be sick….one or the other! Draco Malfoy indeed! I liked it better when you were stuck on Harry Potter!“ She gave an elegant shudder.
The sisters had fun until Parvati had to return to the Gryffindor common room. As she left, Padma leaned out of the Ravenclaw door and said seriously “Remember, the stars are sometimes difficult for us to understand, so don’t just go and think everything is OK. Those bruises on your wrists are not funny. Be careful Parv!”
Parvati assured her she would be, but she was not worried now. If Padma had seen no threat in her chart, there was no threat. Her sister may doubt herself, but Parvati had total confidence in her twin. Her step had a new spring in it, and her eyes were brighter. So Draco was a challenge, but not really a threat. She bit her lip thoughtfully. It did not bother her that Padma found Draco unattractive. She never found her sister’s boyfriends remotely interesting either. So long as none of the Slytherins were out to grab him, she probably had a clear field. She almost danced back to the Gryffindor common room, trying to think of a highly edited version of events that she could tell to Lavender.
**************************************
Draco lay on the floor of the dungeon, noticing how the damp seemed to rise into his very bones. After a while he groaned and sat up. He had reached a new low. Bested by a woman - Parvati no less. Nothing could ever beat that. She was half his size. Why was it he could never emerge unscathed from an encounter with a Gryffindor? And why, why did he never learn not to pick on them? What was wrong with Pansy anyway? (Apart from the fact that she was Blaise’s girl now, and he didn’t even remotely fancy her any more.)
He got to his feet, as thoroughly depressed, as it was possible to be. His usual sense of self-worth had departed, along with the family fortunes, his father’s imprisonment and his lack of popularity. He felt the taste of failure, and it was bitter. Draco Malfoy did not lose (apart from to Gryffindors with alarming regularity, he remembered with a scowl). Now, the only thing he really knew he wanted was to kiss Parvati properly. Everything else was secondary. He would find her again, and this time he would win. He would just be more careful. That is all. Draco’s lips pressed together in a thin line, and his nostrils flared. He did not realize how like his father he looked.
Draco bent to pick up his bag, and as he did so, realized that Parvati had run off leaving her bag, scarf and wand on the floor of the dungeon. He picked up the wand first. It was ebony, like his and he guessed it contained a unicorn hair, as it had a tiny disc of ivory inlay at the tip. It was rather long “13 inches “ and beautifully polished. He got out his own wand to compare them. They were the same length, and the same wood, yet his wand was wonderfully ornate, with exquisite carvings of entwined dragons, and a dragon heart-string core. Hers was plain, but well polished. They did not look as if they belonged together. He picked up her bag of books. Well, the least he could do was take them and leave them outside the Gryffindor common room. It was late enough that Gryffindors would all be inside, and he could leave them outside the portrait of the Fat Lady without being seen. But first he would do a little snooping through her bag.
Her scarf was there too, that long fluffy thing. Draco picked it up, and found that although it looked hairy, it was actually soft. It smelled of her, that scent of roses. He looked around quickly to make sure nobody was watching, and flushing, stuffed the scarf into his own bag. If anybody had been watching, they would have received an Unforgiveable.
As he walked back through the corridors, Draco thought about Parvati. For a moment he thought that she had been kissing him back. He sneered at himself. There is no way that was true. But it had seemed that she was. And he hadn’t felt disgusted with her, or himself. In fact, it was the most incredible feeling. Of course, if she had been, she had stopped very quickly, and tried to move her head away. The more he thought about it though, the more he wondered about it. Her lips had definitely seemed inviting for more than a moment. Then she had jerked and moved her head.
Draco remembered seeing Hermione look at Ron as they came out of the Potions classroom together once. If anyone looked at him like that, he would feel like the world had just been laid at his feet. He felt his hand tremble at the thought of that expression on Parvati as she looked at him, and then he clenched his fist, and put away the thought. He didn’t need anyone to look at him like that. It was how his mother had first looked at his father wasn’t it? They had wedding photographs to prove it. Draco bit his lip so hard he drew blood. He would rather have a girlfriend who didn’t matter, as Pansy hadn’t. A girlfriend who could be ignored when not required. He bit his lip even harder, realizing that he had just described his mothers and father’s current relationship. Girlfriends didn’t matter. Enemies were more important. Enemies like Potter. He sneered superbly, and hoisted both bags further onto his shoulder.
A few more steps along the passage he suddenly stopped. She had called him Draco! Nobody ever called him ‘Draco’, it was always ‘Malfoy’. When he walked on again, his step looked almost jaunty, and the trace of a smirk lingered around his lips. If one looked closely, they would see it held hope.
Draco had gone through Parvati’s bag before leaving it outside the Gryffindor common room and found what he was looking for: her class schedule. He hoped it had been worth it. He should just have left the bags where they were, because as he arrived outside the Gryffindor common room, so did Peeves. He had tried, uselessly of course, to keep Peeves silent, but of course the Poltergeist had shouted; “SLYTHERIN OUTSIDE THE GRYFFINDOR COMMON ROOM! MISCHIEF ABOUNDS! COME AND GET HIM!” and pelted him with what smelled like over-ripe figs. He was quick, but he knew that he had been seen by at least a couple of Gryffindors spilling through the portrait hole as he dodged around the corner, wiping figs out of his hair and pursued by Peeves. Luckily they fell over Parvati’s bag that he had left right outside the common room, which helped him get away, and Peeves never went near the Slytherin common room, in case the Bloody Baron was lurking down there. It rankled that Parvati would probably know he was soft enough to spare her a trip down to the dungeons.