Characters: Pansy Parkinson, Draco Malfoy

Pairing: Draco Malfoy/Pansy Parkinson

Treason

The moment it's socially acceptable to leave the ball, Draco and Pansy escape into his bedroom. She used to live for social events. The glamour, the dresses, the exclusive guest list filled her daydreams as a girl. Being on the guest list was a mark of success, a sign that you were important. Now, the parties are tainted with dark magic. It hangs in the air, polluting everyone and everything. The glazed look of someone under the Imperus curse is too common nowadays.

Draco heads straight to his desk to pour them both a much needed drink. She's torn between wanting to scrub her skin from the vile magic that lingers in Malfoy Manor and needing to forget the evil she had just witnessed. Crawling into bed, she accepts the drink and savours the burn of firewhisky as it travels down her throat and warms her chest. Draco joins her, his perfect hair mussed and his grey eyes unguarded.

It had always been the two of them against the world.

"What if He wins?" she asks, voicing both of their fears.

He takes a swig of the amber liquid. "Then we're screwed. We're screwed either way."

"Maybe we should consider going to Potter. I know we don't have the best history, but he could help us."

"No. Absolutely not."

Pansy sits up, the blanket pooling at her waist. "We're in over our heads. I think it's time that we recognized that."

"Of course, we're bloody in over our heads! The Dark Lord is living in my house. There's nowhere for me to run to. If He ever found out that we were considering running to Potter, he would wipe out our families."

"What else are we supposed to do? Serving Him is tearing us both apart. If we don't go to Potter… we'll be sent to Azkaban."

"And if we go to Potter, we die a painful, gruesome death."

Pansy downs her drink. "I can't sit back while He burns this world to the ground. After everything we've seen, been forced to do… I don't care if I don't survive this."

"Potter is on the run, the old coot is dead, who are we supposed to go to?"

She doesn't answer, only clutches her empty glass and burrows further into the bed. He's right. With Potter and his friends on the run and Dumbledore dead, there's no one else to turn to. There was too much bad blood between the Parkinsons, Malfoys and Weasleys for Pansy and Draco to turn to redheads for help. Apart from Potter, Granger, and the Weasleys, there was no one else's loyalty that they could afford to trust. The Dark Lord's spies were everywhere.

"We'll have to figure it out ourselves," Pansy finally says.

Draco grabs her glass and places it on the nightstand with his own. "Same as we always have."

"Together," Pansy says as he wraps his arms around her.

She relaxes into his familiar embrace. Despite their fallouts, they had always supported each other. They had their parts to play: the pureblood prince and princess. But at least in the safety of his room, they could take off their masks for the briefest moment.