It wasn't like one day she'd woken up and decided she was going to love him.

Her mother had severely advised against it. "Don't bother with love, Pansy. It will only get in the way." And Pansy had believed her. After all, Regina Parkinson hadn't shed a tear when her father had died a year prior to seventh year. She'd been accepting. Pansy wanted to be like that. Not that she wished death upon her future husband, but you get the point.

But she had reasoned with herself that she could make the man she wanted fall in love with her and not love him back. It took her a few days to formulate a plan, but it seemed entirely logical when she was finished.

She would make Draco hers and make sure everybody knew. She would not be unfaithful to him and he would love her too much to be unfaithful to her.

Pansy hadn't ended up much like her mother, personality wise. Regina had always been a bit on the cruel side and not an ounce of happiness had ever existed within her. Pansy was happy. She was happy with her plan and happy with how perfectly it had worked.

At first, she was a bit worried about whether or not it would work. It certainly wasn't going to be in her favor if Draco joined the Dark Lord. He'd forget about her, paying all his attention and time to Voldemort. And that would foil her plan.

It was easy once she'd convinced him not to take his father's lead. She'd begged him, and he'd promised. She knew the second he said, "I promise, Pansy," that he loved her. He loved her more than he'd ever know.

Nobody had ever really loved him. His mother hadn't even really, more concerned with social status and how much money was in her bank than the child she had hardly raised.

It wasn't long before he would do anything for her. Anything she asked, he'd be too clouded by how much he loved her to care.

She didn't notice, however, that when he asked something of her, she agreed to comply in an instant. At first, she blamed it on the fact that in order to make her plan work contingently, she was going to have to give a little.

But she started giving as much as she was taking. He needed her to survive, she would tell herself. That was why she always complied. He needed her.

Pansy was stubborn. She didn't want to admit to herself that she had foiled her plan. Not in a sense that he didn't love her, he lived off of her. But in a sense that she loved him. She needed to see him when she woke and before she slept or her days and nights would be ruined.

Her plan was ruined. She'd broken her mother's words and broken the thought that she had kept in her mind. She'd fallen for him, just as he had fallen for her.

It wasn't like one day she'd woken up and decided she was going to love him.