Disclaimer: I do not own the HP franchise, universe, or characters - they belong to the illustrious J. K. Rowling and to the Warner Bros. No copyright infringement is intended and I will not be making any money from this story.

A/N: Hello everyone. So, I'm trying out Pansmione. :) Unlike my other stories, this one is rated M, so read ahead at your own discretion, especially if you are not a fan of profanity or f/f pairings, because this fic will earn its rating.

I was originally just going to post this on Tumblr, but decided that it would be more accessible here XD Please let me know what you think of it if you can spare a moment! On we go.

Pansy Parkinson's mother (Madam, she called her; not "mom" or "mum" or even "Mother" like Draco called Narcissa Malfoy; no: Madam) had drilled into her daughter from a very young age the notion that a lady–a proper, Pure-blood lady–does not use vulgar language. No; a proper, Pure-blood lady is always polite, well-mannered, and courteous in the presence of her peers, Madam Parkinson would insist (and as she grew older, Pansy would silently remark that those are synonyms, you sanctimonious cow). Yes, a proper, Pure-blood lady could find ways to express her frustrations without resorting to profanity–or better yet, she could just not express her frustrations, full stop. Restraint was a quality to be admired, Madam Parkinson imparted, and her daughter would do well to employ it.

Well, yet again, Pansy thought, she was going to be a disappointment to her mother, because she was damn well going to express herself, and you know what?

She was so fucking fed up with all of this shite. And there was really no better way of putting it than that.

One week back at Hogwarts and already, she was regretting her decision to come back and complete her education.

Pansy Parkinson was Hogwarts's latest and greatest social pariah. Being ignored was the best that she could hope for, though, it seemed; because if she wasn't being ignored, she was being accosted on the way to class, dodging jinxes and hexes galore, or finding her possessions vandalized with such charming slurs as "Death Eater whore", "Slytherin's slut", and the simple, timeless classic, "cunt."

Not even her former allies in Slytherin would acknowledge her beyond their icy, calculating stares and pointed silences in the common room.

And she understood, she really did.

She was "that bitch" who'd tried to turn Harry Sainted Potter over to the Dark Lord. Of course they would all hate her or avoid her, depending on which side they'd been on.

And of course, nothing else mattered.

It didn't matter that she'd been scared out of her wits; didn't matter that the rest of her housemates had been thinking the exact same thing but hadn't had the stones to say it aloud; didn't matter that she'd had her family to think about and that she couldn't control her father's allegiances; didn't matter that she'd seen one of her best and only friends devolve from a healthy, cocksure teenager into an emaciated and defeated young man and through him had learnt exactly what it was to be out of the Dark Lord's favour.

It didn't matter that McGonagall, the sitting Headmistress, had left the entirety of Slytherin House for dead in the dungeons before they'd been rescued by some of their parents. No, it was simply an unfortunate accident that three of the harridan's students, two first-years and a fourth-year, had been crushed by a cave-in when the wards were breached and the first barrage of curses had shaken the castle.

No, none of it mattered.

Draco was under house arrest with his mother and had a private tutor for his N.E.W.T.s, the lucky prick. Greg was in Azkaban and Vince had been incinerated alive in the Room of Requirement. Blaise had long since fucked off to Italy with his mother and was sleeping his way through Milan's fashion industry. Millie had been caught in the crossfire of the second half of the Battle of Hogwarts, her hefty frame found pale and shrouded in her crimson-soaked uniform on the stone ground, her eyes glassy and vacant. Theodore had pulled a Socrates and downed a vial of hemlock before the Aurors could take him in for questioning. Daphne was the new queen bee of the House; she'd had the good fortune of being from a neutral family, and she'd capitalized on that to gain status in Slytherin and across the school in the aftermath of the war, becoming the face of the new strain of moderate Pure-blood traditionalists.

So, naturally, Pansy became a scapegoat, the only senior year student left who'd been actively supporting the Dark Lord's cause, and thus guilty of all of his sins by association.

And she probably deserved it, too; that much she could admit to herself. She'd been petty and vicious and self-important and had reveled in other people's misery and embarrassment. Not that her mother hadn't encouraged her behaviour–after all, Pansy never picked on those Madam Parkinson would have considered "peers". She focused her efforts on the incompetent and those of inferior bloodlines–read: Longbottom types and Granger types.

Except that Granger herself had completely defied Pansy's expectations.

Madam had taught Pansy to expect Mudbloods to be a combination of hideous, idiotic, sycophantic, and cowardly, if not all four. They were innately inferior, like savages, Madam had told her. Only slightly more civilized than Muggles.

Madam had been, as always, full of shite.

Granger was no coward–fuck, she was basically the model Gryffindor. Well, no, that was more like Potter, but whatever. Granger had been by Potter's side throughout all of his misadventures, and from what Pansy had heard through the grapevine, she knew that the Muggle-born had often been the one to get him and the Weasel out of trouble. Fuck, she'd even resisted torture at the hands of Bellatrix Lestrange. Pansy shuddered. Meeting Draco's insane aunt at Malfoy Manor had been a terrifying experience. That woman's entire being had reeked of Dark Magic.

And somehow, Granger had managed to stand up to her, even if she was worse for wear because of it.

She wasn't a sycophant, either. No, if anything, Potter got far more out of his relationship with Granger than vice versa, and Pansy had seen her fight with both of her idiotic friends on more than one occasion, leading to bouts of estrangement that could last months. Granger never grovelled when she was on the outs with them; she just carried on, miserable as she always was in her solitude. Pansy knew this, because those times had been the prime opportunities for her to pounce on Granger with snide remarks and sly hexes. The most infuriating thing, though, had been that after the first couple of times, Granger seldom responded to her efforts. She just ignored Pansy, the small crease between her eyebrows the only tell of any annoyance on her part. Ignored Pansy, her superior! It was inconceivable.

And idiotic? Pansy snorted. She didn't even need to touch that one.

Hideous, though; that was something that Pansy had to work with for a few years, and she had clung to the idea like a lifeline. Granger had what might have been the bushiest hair known to man, and for the first few years of school, she'd had a spectacular set of buckteeth to accompany it. The chipmunk quips practically wrote themselves. Aside from those qualities, Granger was also fairly plain as a child, which made her imperfections all the more prominent.

And to make things even better, it seemed that looks were a sore spot for Granger. The comments about her hair and teeth had been the most likely to elicit a clenching of the girl's fists, the grinding of those same teeth, maybe even a faint retort that could be twisted and thrown back in her little Mudblood face.

And then there had been a series of incidents in fourth year that had changed everything.

It had started with Draco's Densaugeo, the source of a short-lived slew of beaver jokes that had been rendered flat when Granger had returned to class the next day with not only not beaver teeth, but not buckteeth. No, her teeth had been perfectly resized and aligned, and what's more, they were a sparkling white, something Pansy had never noticed before. That subtraction from Granger's obvious aesthetic flaws made Pansy fight even harder to prove that Granger was a hideous wretch.

She'd resorted to using that reporter Skeeter to get as many horrid rumours about the Mudblood as possible into Witch Weekly. Granger had despised those articles, and Pansy had taken vicious satisfaction from the other girl's anger and embarrassment, as well as the hate mail the article had provoked.

But then, the Yule Ball had happened.

Pansy had been forced to wear the god-awful, frilly robes that her mother had sent her, in the most ghastly shade of pink she'd ever seen. She had been mortified when she'd tried them on, but was determined not to let her embarrassment show, and it wasn't as if she'd been trying to impress anyone in particular. Sure, she and Draco had paired up without a second thought and everyone had assumed that they were a couple, but the reality was that they were just very good friends and that she loved him like a big brother. They played up their relationship in public, though, because neither of them had been ready to face an entrance into the pure-blood marriage market. If their parents were convinced that the potential for a contract was present and being nurtured between them, they would leave her and Draco alone.

It was as simple as keeping the peace.

So she and Draco had gone together that night, and both of them had utterly failed to keep their jaws shut when they realized who that girl on Viktor Krum's arm was.

The elegant periwinkle robes had fit her perfectly and their colour had complemented her English rose complexion. Her hair had been practically glossy, arranged in a simple but classic up-do that brought her normally chaotic tresses away from her face.

For the first time, Pansy had really looked at Granger's eyes. Her irises were a kind of amber-brown, a blend of coffee and butterscotch that Pansy had never before encountered, and they sparkled with a radiant joy that had left the Pure-blood girl flabbergasted. And her lips…but Pansy cut herself off there.

Suffice it to say that Granger had been gorgeous that night. And after that, Pansy hadn't been able to see her as ugly again. Sure, Granger was no supermodel, but she had lean figure, clear skin, and ridiculously pretty eyes. Pansy also discovered after some begrudging observation that Granger's bushy hair was actually rather intriguing, in a messy, wild kind of way. The revelation stunned her, and she felt disgusted with herself for noticing Granger as she had.

The girl was a Muggle-born, and yet in spite of everything that Pansy had been taught, she was somehow brave, independent, brilliant, and attractive.

In short, Hermione Granger was the spark of an idea that had the power to shatter Pansy's entire belief system.

And Madam would call her "uncivilized."

No, Granger was likely the most civilized person that Pansy had met in her entire life, despite their antagonistic relationship. In fact, Granger was probably the only person who hadn't looked at Pansy like she was the scum on the bottom of her shoes or worse so far this year.

Instead, she looked at her with a weird combination of dislike, pity, sympathy, and something else that Pansy, for the life of her, could not identify. It was confusing as hell, and it kept the Muggle-born girl at the forefront of Pansy's mind.

She could feel Granger's eyes following her every time they were in the same room, which was odd, because that was often library, and Merlin knows that Granger loved her books. After the disaster that was her first night back, Pansy had quickly learnt to take refuge between the rows of book-laden shelves, Pince's no-nonsense reputation protecting her from potential assailants, afraid of earning the wrath of the librarian and any ensuing punishment by causing a disturbance. Granger, naturally, also spent a great deal of her time there, researching and writing her papers for class. Sometimes her little Gryffindor friends would come and sit with her, irritating the brunette with their idle chatter instead of actually focusing on their work; but typically, Granger was alone.

And when she was alone, she watched Pansy.

Pansy dutifully ignored her, determined not to show any kind of curiosity or receptiveness to the enigmatic girl.

Of course, that didn't matter either.

On the eighth day after their return to Hogwarts, when Pansy had her nose buried in an Astronomy tome, a thud sounded and her table shook as a heavy bag was dropped deliberately onto its surface. Pansy had immediately tensed, fingers itching for her wand, but when she looked up, she froze upon seeing Granger pulling out a chair at her table. She sat stupefied, watching as once settled, the bookworm pulled what looked to be Arithmancy homework from her bag and set to work with a polite and perfunctory, "Parkinson," in acknowledgement.

Pansy replied with the first thing that came to her mind, too bewildered to bother filtering her words.

"What the fuck do you think you're playing at, Granger?"