“They’re meant to be if you ask me,” Daphne Greengrass said to her friend Tracey Davis.
“Well, obviously,” answered Tracey. “Draco took Pansy to the Yule Ball, but it was only a friendly thing. They’ve never been properly romantic, although they totally should be.”
The two girls were in the bathroom of the Three Broomsticks, applying the necessary make up to look good. They were standing by the sinks, their faces glued to the mirror.
“It’s a shame, really,” Daphne muttered while putting on some eye shadow. “We have to fight for a boyfriend, but Pansy only has to bat her eyelashes and Draco is hers.”
Tracey added some more lipstick to her already red lips. “Wouldn’t it be great if we came up with some sort of scheme to make them get together?”
Daphne’s eye shadow fell into the sink with a clink! She didn’t seem to notice, though, she was far to busy staring at her friend. “Tracey!”
“What?” Tracey had been applying eyeliner.
“That’s brilliant! We just have to come up with a scheme to make the two of them find out that they actually love each other!”
“Hey, listen, it was just an idea!” Tracey muttered, plopping her eyeliner back into her purse and searching for her next victim.
“No, I’m serious. We just set it up, and Draco and Pansy will soon be crazy about each other! Everything will be so cool!” Daphne must’ve been very excited, as she seemed to have forgotten about the eye shadow in the sink.
“Oh, come on, it’ll never work,” Tracey said, rolling her eyes to emphasize her point.
“Yes, it will! We’ll be the official Slytherin matchmakers!”
“Okay, then think of a scheme!” When Daphne didn’t come up with any brilliant scheme, Tracey shrugged her shoulders. “Told you so. Come on, we’d better get back to our table.”
***
“Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes, located in Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley,” Tracey read aloud.
They were standing outside the joke shop, gazing in through its windows, attempting not to look interested, a task that they were all failing miserably. Tracey and Daphne were accompanied by Blaise Zabini and Theodore Nott. Theodore occasionally tried to snake an arm around Daphne’s waist, but she always slapped him away.
“Looks interesting,” Blaise said.
“No, it doesn’t!” snapped Daphne. “Can’t you read? It says Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes. Anything owned by a Weasley can’t be good.”
“Oh, come on,” Tracey said. “It’s just a joke shop. It’s worth a look.” When Blaise and Theodore nodded in agreement, Daphne gave up. “Fine! But I’m not buying anything.”
The shop was crowded with Hogwarts students. The four Slytherins had to push and shove to take a look at the shelves. The shelves were crowded too, with every possible humorous item imaginable.
Then Daphne saw it. No, not it, but IT. THE thing that would bring Draco and Pansy together forever. “Oh, my God, Tracey!” she squealed.
Tracey, Blaise and Theodore all turned to look at her. “That potion is exactly what we need!”
Blaise picked the small bottle off the shelf. “The Three Words Potion, designed to make the victim of your choice say only three words for a full five hours!” He looked up from the label. “What do you need this for?”
“I, um…” Daphne stuttered. “Listen, I’ll tell you later, just give me the potion so I can pay for it.”
“Uh-uh,” said Blaise. “Not until you tell us what it’s for.”
“I said, I’ll tell you later!”
“Tell me now,” Blaise smirked, leaning up against the shelf.
“Fine!” Daphne exclaimed in exasperation. “I have this plan, that if we give Draco and Pansy some of that potion, then they’ll only be able to say three words. Then we’ll lock them into a room, and then they’ll say ‘I love you,’ to each other, and then they’ll be together forever!”
There was a moment of silence before Tracey broke it. “Okay, I’ll go first.” She turned to Daphne. “That plan sucks.”
“What do you mean? Everyone knows that they like each other, they just need to get together.” Daphne pointed out.
“I’m with you,” Theodore said eagerly, attempting to put an arm around her shoulders. Daphne slapped his hand away.
“I’m with you, too.” Blaise said. “If this works it’ll be pretty cool.”
They all looked expectantly at Tracey. “Fine!” she cried. “I’m in.”
“Wonderful. Operation Draco and Pansy has officially begun.”
***
“What’ve we got first today?” asked Draco the next morning at the breakfast table.
“Oh, first we have Potions, then Transfiguration and then DADA,” Blaise said casually as he carefully slipped some of the potion into Draco’s pumpkin juice while the other boy was picking out a bun.
Draco nodded and sipped his juice.
***
“Have you seen Millicent this morning?” Pansy asked Tracey and Daphne.
“Nope,” was the answer from them both. Tracey caught Daphne’s eye and gave a slight nod.
“Oh, my goodness, Pansy, look at Hannah Abbott’s hair!” Daphne exclaimed suddenly pointing at the Hufflepuff table.
While Pansy was craning her neck to get a look of Hannah, Tracey quickly poured some of the potion into Pansy’s tea.
“Does she even brush her hair?” Pansy wondered out loud as she sat down again. The other girls stared at her expectantly as she drank some tea.
***
Draco had stayed silent since he had taken a sip of his pumpkin juice, and both Blaise and Theodore were growing more and more anxious.
“So, Draco, what do you think of Snape’s new haircut?” Theodore asked, eyeing him.
“Oh, I think…” Draco was left mouthing the rest of the words. He opened and closed his mouth, but no sound came out, though he did resemble a fish.
“Something wrong, Draco?” Blaise asked, trying to sound concerned.
“My voice!” Draco exclaimed.
“What about it?” Theodore said innocently.
“Something happened to…” Once again, Draco was mouthing the words.
“Um, Draco?” Blaise asked, one eye on Theodore, who was shaking with silent laughter.
“WHAT THE HELL?” Draco yelled.
***
“WHAT THE HELL?” Pansy shrieked from the other end of the Slytherin table.
The Great Hall fell silent. Students began whispering to each other and pointing at Draco and Pansy. At the teachers table, Professors McGonagall’s mouth promptly hit the floor. Professor Snape, meanwhile, merely raised an uninterested eyebrow and made a clucking noise with his tongue.
Professor McGonagall regained her composure and marched to the Slytherin table, where Draco had fallen silent. Pansy, however, had steam coming out of her ears as she glared at all those who dared to glance in her direction.
“What is the meaning of this?” Professor McGonagall roared. “Displaying such language in the Great Hall in front of younger students is completely unacceptable! Twenty points from Slytherin!”
Daphne tried to fix the situation, Theodore tried to do whatever Daphne did, Blaise tried to make Draco sit down, Pansy attempted to have a temper tantrum without ruining her make up, and Tracey sat back to watch the show.
***
Pansy and Draco were still fuming when they went off to potions. Daphne had pretended to go and ask Madame Pomfrey for help, and had then returned four minutes later to lie and say that this couldn’t be helped.
Pansy stormed into the dungeon, feeling completely infuriated. To make matters worse, Tracey sat next to Daphne, so Pansy had to sit with Millicent Bulstrode. This is SO not my day, Pansy though, relieved to be able to think in more than three words. First I broke a nail, then Daphne lost my hairbrush, then I could only say three words, for some reason nobody knows how to solve, and now I have to sit next to Millicent, who never even heard of deodorant!
Covering her nose, Pansy sunk into her seat, pitying herself.
Across the room, Draco’s misery was reaching epidemic proportions.* He could only say three words, and Gregory Goyle kept on picking his nose. Gregory’s nose, that is. Not Draco’s.
Snape was lecturing all the Slytherin’s and Gryffindor’s on something. Draco didn’t know and didn’t care what it was about.
“Ah… Mr. Malfoy!” Snape said. Draco’s head snapped to attention.
“Huh?”
“Could you please explain to me all the properties of Death-Cap Mushrooms?” Snape asked, sounding a trifle irritated.
Draco’s heart lifted a bit. This was something he knew about. Forgetting about his condition, he immediately answered. “Death-Cap Mushrooms are…”
He was left mouthing the rest of the sentence to his desk. He felt himself getting redder and redder in the face as he struggled to be able to speak.
“Is there a problem, Mr. Malfoy?” Snape asked icily.
“Yes!” Draco exploded, relieved to have his voice back. He considered attempting to explain this mysterious situation, but decided it wasn’t worth it. He would be allowed to say two more words, and how would that help?
For the second time that day, Snape raised a single eyebrow and turned to Pansy who was covering her nose.
“Perhaps Miss Parkinson can tell the class all the properties of Death-Cap Mushrooms?”
“I can’t.” Pansy said simply, praying that Snape would understand.
He didn’t.
“Excuse me?” He snarled. “Why can’t you? This is a basic subject! You learned about this two years ago!”
“I…er…can’t.”
“THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE!” Snape roared, slamming a fist onto Pansy’s desk. “How can two of my best students no longer remember the properties of Death-Cap Mushrooms?” He was now hissing.
Pansy’s face turned white and Draco’s red. As Pansy sank lower into her chair she saw the Gryffindor’s having a laughing fit across the dungeon.
Sighing, she turned to Daphne and Tracey. Daphne was too busy ripping up Theodore’s latest love letter. Tracey, however, sensed the situation and took control in that way that only Tracey could do.
“Professor Snape,” Tracey said in her sweetest voice, standing up and making her way to Snape. “Please excuse Draco and Pansy. You see, they aren’t capable of saying more than three words.”
“Why is that?” Snape was glowering at her.
“Well,” Here Tracey took Snape’s arm in hers. “It’s Daphne, actually, who did it.”
Alarmed, Daphne’s had shot up to glare daggers at Tracey.
“But it wasn’t really her fault,” Tracey continued. “You see, Professor Flitwick was writing a new spell up on the blackboard, and, well, Daphne was sitting in the back. And you know how Daphne needs glasses, don’t you? No? Well, she does. So she couldn’t see what the spell was, and accidentally cast the wrong spell on Draco and Pansy. So… now they only can say three words at a time.”
Daphne let out a sigh of relief. Only Tracey could calm a fuming Snape down.
***
“So where does our plan go from here?” Blaise asked during break, after the horrific potions class.
The three members of Operation Draco and Pansy were looking at Daphne, the founder and self proclaimed president of the club.
Daphne grinned wickedly before giving the answer. “We lock them into the broom cupboard.”
Tracey rolled her eyes. “Oh, come on, that is SO old. We used that when we were hooking Millicent up with Marcus Flint.”
“But it worked!” Daphne cried. “It’ll work again, I know it!”
“Yeah, but Draco and Pansy don’t have mental slowness, do they?” Tracey said.
“But it will work! I’m sure of it!” Daphne argued.
“I guess it is worth a try,” Blaise said carefully.
“Hey, Daphne, do want to test the powers of this broom cupboard with me?” Theodore asked, winking.
“Piss off, Nott.”
***
“LET US OUT!” A very female voice shrieked from within the broom cupboard.
“Yeah, come on!” a deeper voice agreed.
Outside, Daphne, Tracey, Blaise and Theodore stood back, admiring their work.
“What if we can’t get them out again?” Blaise asked worriedly.
“Oh, they’ll survive,” Daphne said a mischievous grin on her attractive face.
“Come on, let’s leave them,” Tracey said.
“Yeah they probably need some privacy,” Daphne said, emphasizing the word privacy.
Pansy heard them leave and then turned to Draco. She could faintly see his outline in the darkness of the cupboard.
“This is stupid,” she huffed; crossing her arms self consciously across her chest.
“I agree.”
They sat in silence for a few moments until Pansy snapped her fingers and abruptly sat up straight.
“It was them!” she exclaimed.
“What?”
“It was them…”
“Care to share?” Draco asked, sounding slightly annoyed.
“Daphne and the…”
“Go on,” Draco could tell where she was going with this, now.
“Others who put…”
“The potion into…” Draco exclaimed suddenly understanding.
“Our drinks!” Pansy finished, exhausted with the effort of trying to say a whole sentence.
“Wow,” Draco said.
“I know.”
“I never thought…”
“Me neither.”
“I guess I’ll…”
“Miss Quidditch practice?” Pansy asked.
“Yeah,” Draco said, sounding a little surprised.
“You really like…”
“Yes?”
“Quidditch, don’t you?”
“Yeah, I do.”
“I like watching…”
“Quidditch,” he finished for her.
“Hmm-mm.”
“You know what?”
“What?”
“You’re not so…”
“Go on,”
“Bad, Pansy.”
“The feeling’s mutual,” Pansy said, suddenly feeling a good deal better about their handicap.
***
“This is awful,” Tracey announced.
Draco and Pansy had just been let out of the broom cupboard, after having spent two whole hours in it, and therefore missing two classes. Both had been extremely angry when they were let out.
“Yeah, we only have one hour left to make them fall in love,” Blaise muttered. “Maybe this was a bad idea.”
“No, it wasn’t!” Daphne insisted. “We can still make it work!”
“How?” Theodore asked.
Here Daphne was stumped.
***
Pansy was leaving Charms for lunch, feeling highly annoyed. She was no longer speaking to Daphne and Tracey, since they had decided to put her through this mess. Millicent had taken this as an opportunity to hang out with her every second, and the girl seriously smelled.
It was while she was entering the Great Hall that the clock struck one and she heard Draco’s voice.
“Hey- Pansy- wait!”
She turned and waited for Draco. He caught up with her and smiled at her. Why this made her stomach churn, she knew not.
“What is it?” she asked, her voice strangely high pitched. This was ridiculous. She needed to get control of herself.
“Would you like to go to Hogsmeade with me next Hogsmeade weekend? I mean, on a date.” Draco asked nervously.
“I would love to!” she exclaimed, feeling oddly thrilled.
Neither noticed that they could speak normally again.
***
“My plan didn’t work,” Daphne sounded extremely gloomy. “I suck.”
“Hmm-hmm,” Tracey agreed, examining her nails.
“I don’t think you suck!” said Theodore eagerly. “I think you’re beautiful, admirable, and lovely.”
Daphne glared at him.
“Fine! I’ll go to the broom cupboard with you!”
Theodore looked absolutely gleeful.
A/N: Thank you for reading, please review!
* “…misery was reaching epidemic proportions….” Was taken from A Great and Terrible Beauty by the fantastic Libba Bray.