A/N: Hello, it's been ages. I'm sorry. Been through hell and still trying to come back. Do hope you like it and please review to let me know what you think.

Character: Pansy Parkinson
Prompt: She hated green.

Pansy Parkinson hated green.

She despised it with every fibre of her being.

It reminded her of the old days, years she had tried to set behind and forget about.

Green reminded her of her mother. When Pansy was four-years-old and that wretched witch slapped her across the face because she didn't want to eat sprouts and shattered her glass of wine with a burst of uncontrolled magic. She remembered the burgundy liquor dripping off her mother's emerald bracelet, tainting it like blood. "You little brat! I am your mother and you will do as I say. I do not care what you want."

It reminded her of that time Draco and Theo tossed a frog at her face when they were seven. The feeling of that slimy, cold thing on her had given her nightmares for months. The grass a beautiful lemon-coloured carpet beneath her thundering black shoes. Tears they never saw shimmering in her charcoal-grey eyes.

"Oh c'mon, Pansy! Are you crying?"

"I can make you cry, Draco! We all know that's not hard!"

"Then where are you going?!"

"My mum's called me! Can't you hear her shrill?" she had shouted behind her back with masked condescension.

Then it was the constant reminder that she was never good enough. Green was all around her during Hogwarts. And Morgana have mercy on her, everyone knew Daphne wore it better. Because of course Slytherin colours shone against the long, golden curls of her dorm-mate—and it looked positively hideous against her black bob-cut.

And yes, Daphne was good, she was kind, oh so gracious that even boys of other Houses turned their heads to watch her go by.

Meanwhile she was short, nasty. Pug-faced like her mother. Raised to be above everyone else not by popular vote, but because of her blood-status. She had been taught to associate with people like her, as they would lead her to greatness. Whilst simpletons would just pull her back.

It was the dark, muddy-green of the Forbidden Forest where she had been taken as punishment for pulling on Daphne's hair, as third years. Just because her best friend Draco had whispered to Theo that the blonde witch was all grown up already.

"Have you seen her, Theo? Merlin's sake, she's stunning."

"Yeah, about that. . . I asked her out to Hogsmeade with me this weekend."

"Oi! And what about me?! Are you leaving me with Pansy here?" complained Draco.

There she was, flat as a surfboard and perfect rectangle like a bloody door.

They were absolute louts, both of them. She had always known. Their boxing bag, their companion even if they tossed her around. But they were her only friends. Because of course Pansy Parkinson did not get along with girls. Where she liked leather, they preferred satin or silk. Where she chose the comfortable tomboyish sneakers, girls chose ballerina flats. And when she chose the nice denim skirt, they wore dresses.

She simply never got it right. And it was exhausting.

Precisely laurel were the eyes of that Ravenclaw boy she had sneaked out of school grounds with, by the end of fifth year. Where both Quidditch teams were celebrating at the Hog's Head the defeat of those Gryffindor Lions. Where they got smashed and snogged at the back of the pub and he slid a hand beneath her knickers and she panicked. Pushing him away, being called 'a teasing dry-cunt' and left there feeling violated, shameful, and an assortment of things she always thought about herself.

With the return of Voldemort, she despised that colour even more. The phantom-like skin of that monster haunted her—awful, sickly-looking sage-green. He smelled like death. Her mother smelled the same every night she got home during the hols.

In the darkness of her room those nights thoughts of harming herself swarmed her mind, she feared the blood in her veins would be that same colour. Ironically, that dread was the only thing that made her survive.

Since the Avada Kedavra curse was also bloody green.

It was the same colour as the eyes of that stupid golden boy that saved the world and condemned her on the same day.

She was tired of everything. Of the accusing glares everywhere she went. Posters of her face papered most stores in Wizarding Britain, banning her entrance. Labelled as 'traitor' to the good. Dishonourable. Coward.

There was no Draco or Theo anymore. And there wasn't for many years. By the time she met them again, they were all. . . older. Since they had been forced to grow up way before time. Different people that lived different lives. No room for the other anymore.

Draco had gone to exile in France. Theo to Russia. Both pardoned by the British Minister for being Children of War.

And her?

There was no pardon for Pansy Parkinson. She didn't have a Dark Mark, she wasn't branded unwillingly like her friends. To the girl that offered Harry Potter to the Dark Lord in front of the entire school; the very one that doomed her fellow Housemates to await till the end of slaughter in the Dungeons and hope their parents would survive. She was gifted a travelling ban, forced to face penitence in her own home country everywhere she went.

Even close to a decade later the same colour haunted her every path. Like the bottle of that Muggle lad's Heineken beer hitting her on the head at the pub's bathroom stall. Where the world spun as she stumbled sliding down those black tiles to the moist floor.

Mint was the colour she first saw when she opened her eyes. Those slightly slanted charcoal orbs squinting in bright light looking around the room.

Why couldn't she just be colour-blind.

"You're awake." said a male voice at her left. There was a tone of relief in it.

"No, I'm sleeping with my eyes open." she mumbled hoarsely. Then asked, "Why am I here?"

"You're at St. Mungo's." said the voice again.

She guessed whoever it was wasn't quite bright, so she exhaled impatiently. "I know. I asked 'why'." said Pansy irritated.

"I found you on the floor at Die Mannschaft pub last Saturday." he mumbled. There was an odd tone that she didn't recognise. Was it worry?

She breathed in deeply, closing her eyes. Feeling terribly disappointed in herself. Turning to her left she asked, "I was drugged, right?"

Sure as the hell that awaited her, the last colour she expected to see was that emerald green of Harry Potter's eyes.

"Potter?" she choked out. Her throat tingled.

The last time she had seen him, was in the Dungeons back in Hogwarts where she was punished surrounded by green after the fiasco in the Great Hall. He had placed a hand on her shoulder and whispered, "It's over. I don't blame you."

She raised her head at the sound of his calm voice. Her eyes puffed and red-rimmed over crying endlessly for hours. Dreading that she had condemned her friends and their parents to certain death by failing to delivering Potter, as her mother had commanded her.

The moment lasted barely a few seconds, but no one had seen her that vulnerable before. She was positive.

And it was Potter. And she didn't care.

And it was Potter. And then he was gone.

An apology tried to make way in her throat as she watched him walk away, but she couldn't manage. Instead she looked away, wiping another escaped tear.

"W-Why?" she blurted out. Something clicked in her head and her walls started to build up again. With scathing eyes, she cleared her throat, "I'm awake now. Be gone, Auror Potter."

Harry frowned. He had half a mind to get up and leave, he probably should've. But there was something in that skinny witch, covered in sheets to the waist. Pitch-black hair a massively tangled bob-cut that he was sure would make the witch shriek.

Hermione would say he had an affinity for broken things. He had to fix them. He stared into those charcoal eyes, taking in all the shades of grey and black.

"I was a pariah once, too." he said.

There is a tingling, sort of scratching, unexplainable thing that the throat does when all the walls built for protection—isolation—are hit hard. Then the nose clicks when swallowing, and the eyes shimmer. Vision gets blurry and it's futile to stop what's incoming.

She bit her lip hard, looked up to the ceiling holding back, but her eyes wanted to look back down at the young wizard sitting by her bed. Fearing he would vanish if she blinked.

So green, those eyes.

Brighter than the polished bracelet that had caused the slap that turned her heart cold.

Warmer than the cold and humid Dungeon that always had that same-coloured hue around.

Safer than the people she had surrounded herself with for seven years, who wore the same supposed loyalty as her.

And maybe, just maybe. . . green wasn't that bad.

"Please. Stay." she whispered.

He tightened the grip on her hand.

Not bad at all.