The Slytherin common room was a place of low light and heavy velvet, a sanctuary where the sharp edges of the school day were meant to soften. Harry was not softening. He sat in a leather armchair near the hearth, watching the embers die down, his mind still stuck on the way Harry Potter had looked at her after the hex. The tension of the last few weeks had become a physical thing, a cord pulled tight between the duelling club and the quiet, bruised spaces of the dormitory. Pansy sat on the edge of the sofa, her eyes bright with the kind of scrutiny that only a girl who had grown up beside you could manage.
"You were being dramatic," Pansy said, her voice cutting through the quiet of the evening.
Draconia jaw tightened as she adjusted the silk of her robes. "I was being efficient. Cormac was being a bore, and he was being loud."
"You were being a girl," Pansy countered, tilting her head to the side. "A girl who wanted to make a point. There is a difference between a hex and a tantrum, and you were practically throwing a tantrum with your wand."
"It was not a tantrum," she replied, her voice cool and level. "It was a correction of the social atmosphere. He called me a favour-girl as if the term has any weight at all. It was an insult to the transaction."
"It was an insult to everyone who had to watch you lose your temper," Pansy said, though her tone was not unkind. She leaned forward, her elbows resting on her knees. "But you didn't lose it. Not really. You looked like you were having the most fun of your life while you were doing it."
The conversation drifted, moving through the mundane details of the week, the upcoming examinations, and the latest gossip from the Gryffindor table. Harry watched her carefully, noting the way she smoothed the fabric of her skirts. She was performing the role of the unbothered Slytherin, the girl who had won her rematch and then walked away with her dignity intact. Yet, the victory had felt hollow, a hollow thing that left her wanting more than just a successful duel.
"I am not performing for them," she said, suddenly, her voice a little too sharp.
"Who is 'them'?" Pansy asked, her eyes narrowing. "The Hall? The teachers? Or is it him?"
"Do not be ridiculous, Pansy. There is no one else."
"There is always someone," Pansy murmured, her gaze drifting toward the window where the green light of the lake shimmered. "You act as if you are a statue, but even statues crack when the temperature changes. You have been acting differently since the east wing. Since the drills started."
"The drills are a necessity," she said, her fingers tracing the rim of her tea cup. "He is a clumsy duellist. It is a favour to the school that he learns to move with intention rather than just instinct. It is a transaction of skill for silence."
"It is a transaction of something else," Pansy whispered.
The two of them sat in the silence of the common room, the fire crackling as a log collapsed into ash. The heat of the room felt stifling, a contrast to the chill of the stone walls. She felt the weight of the unspoken things, the way she had been trying to maintain the distance while simultaneously closing the gap in every room they shared. She had spent years perfecting the art of the bow, the art of the slight tilt of the head, the art of the perfectly timed smile that meant absolutely nothing. But the rules of engagement were shifting, and she was finding it harder to keep her footing.
Greta entered the room then, moving with a quiet, deliberate grace that always made her feel slightly more disheveled by comparison. Greta was not one for the sharp-tongued wit of the Slytherin girls; she was a listener, a watcher, a person who collected truths like dried flowers between the pages of a book. She sat in the chair opposite them, her hands folded in her lap, her expression unreadable.
"You two are hovering," Greta said, her voice soft but firm.
"We were having a discussion," Pansy said, though she looked slightly defensive.
"It was not a discussion. It was an interrogation," Greta corrected. She turned her gaze toward the girl, her eyes steady and calm. "You have been very busy lately. A lot of duelling. A lot of 'favours' and 'lessons' and 'transactions'."
"It is a very efficient way to spend one's time," she said, trying to reclaim her composure.
Greta did not smile. She did not look amused by the deflection. She simply sat there, a person of substance in a room full of shadows, and waited. The silence stretched, longer than it should have been, until the girl felt the urge to say something, to perform, to fill the space with a clever remark or a witty observation. But the words would not come. The mask was heavy, and the exhaustion of keeping it in place was starting to pull at the corners of her eyes.
"You are working very hard to pretend you are not interested," Greta said.
"I am not pretending. I am simply being," she replied, her voice catching slightly. "There is a distinction."
"There is a distinction in the way you speak, but not in the way you look at him," Greta said. "You can call it a favour until you are blue in the face, but the way you hold your breath when he enters a room is a dead giveaway."
"He is a central figure in the school," she argued, her heart rate increasing. "It is natural to notice his movements. It is a matter of situational awareness."
"It is a matter of you," Greta said, her voice dropping an octave. "You are trying to make it a technicality. You are trying to turn a feeling into a curriculum. But you cannot grade a feeling, no matter how many rules you make for it."
Pansy nodded in agreement, a rare moment of total consensus between the two of them. The girl felt a sudden, sharp prick of irritation, a defensive instinct that flared up like a spark in the hearth. She wanted to argue, to explain the nuance of their arrangement, to define the exact boundaries of their interaction so that it could be categorised and filed away. She wanted to say that the drills were about precision, about the way his hands felt on her wrists, about the way the tension in the room was a tool rather than a symptom.
"You are both being tiresome," she said, her voice a little too loud for the quiet room. "It is a simple matter of respect. He is a person of importance, and I am a person of skill. That is all there is to it."
"It is never just a matter of skill," Greta said, her eyes never leaving her. She leaned forward, her expression softening into something that was almost pitying, yet entirely certain. "You can hide behind your bows and your clever names for things, but you cannot hide the truth from someone who is actually looking at you. You like him. Everyone knows. Stop."