When Pansy Parkinson was younger, she had an idealistic vision of what her grown-up life would be like. She would be married to a rich pureblood, reside in a huge manor, and live each day without a care in the world. And for many years, anyone would have agreed that such a future would probably be her fate. That was until the day everything changed. The day her world came crashing down around her and life became a harsh reality that required her abrupt cooperation. The day her once best friend and longtime childhood love Draco Malfoy died by the hand of the man he had been ordered to serve was the day Pansy lost her will.

She had felt Draco becoming more and more distant from her as time passed but carried on as usual after sensing that he was desperate for some semblance of normality. She continued to play her part as the cruel Slytherin queen, even as it became more and more tiresome, and took his snide remarks in stride only hoping that a time would come when he was happy again, even if it was not with her.

So when he was killed the day after the Battle of Hogwarts, she was shaken to the core before slipping easily into a shocked state of numbness. She had based her entire existence around this boy, her childhood friend, and now he was suddenly gone. Pansy had not been present for the battle, so she didn't even know the events that led to Draco's demise; the only real news she had heard was that almost all of the "Light's" side, as they called themselves, had perished after the Dark Lord had retreated from the scene, even the supposed Chosen One Harry Potter himself. Pansy wasn't entirely surprised by the Dark's victory in the battle because the Light had the disadvantage of having inexperienced witches and wizards constantly in need of protecting. She had heard that many of the adults had perished as a result of being distracted from their own battles by the battles taking place around people they cared about.

Apparently, Harry Potter's own death was caused by his Gryffindor stupidity when he threw himself in front of Hermione Granger, taking a fatal curse in her place. This was all hearsay of course, but Pansy was surprised when upon first hearing this she did not feel a Slytherin's contempt but a strange admiration of the kind of love that caused one to value another's life to such an extent over one's own. She wondered if she would ever be loved like that.

And then all ponderings were cut short the following day when the Dark Lord took the light out of her life. She never learned what it was that Draco had done to justify such an action but it hardly mattered. There was no stopping the Dark Lord. Pansy went into a haze after that day; it was as if her entire identity had been wiped away and she simply didn't know what to do with herself anymore.

She had been staying at the Dark Lord's base of operations the day Draco was killed and was thus made into a plaything by the Dark Lord. He treated her like a pet and lent her out to Death Eaters that pleased him. All the while, Pansy never spoke, never showed an inkling of being present mentally. She only ate and slept because the house elves insisted on it. Every day she merely did what she was told and mechanically went through life like a robot, taking the abuse of maniacs and killers.

"That's what I like about you, Kitty," the Dark Lord had told her one-day while she sat at his feet like a good pet, "you don't make trouble, you're obedient, and above all you're quiet. It just makes me want to mess with you all the more." He had chuckled darkly after stating this and pushed her face first onto the floor where she laid until finally being told get up and follow after some random Death Eater he wanted her to entertain.

She had thought life would continue on like this forever until she finally got permission from the Dark Lord to die. That was until one fateful day a few years later. She had been walking down one of the hallways of the mansion the Dark Lord had claimed for himself after hearing some rumors that two very important war prisoners had been captured. She had not given it too much thought because she never gave anything much thought anymore. That was until she had passed by a secluded part of the house and heard muffled shouting.

Without much conviction, she had approached the noise and silently cast a transparency spell on the door. Not talking for so long had greatly improved her nonverbal magic, if only to perform menial tasks she did not physically or mentally have the energy to do herself.

Upon approaching the now transparent-on-one-side door, she was greeted with the rather disturbing scene of one of the higher up Death Eaters pinning down a girl while another girl was forced to watch from her tied up position off to the side. While realizing in some part of her brain that she was witnessing rape and it was horrible and she should do something, the numbness Pansy had cultivated over the years rooted her in place. She stared into the room, digging through her clouded mind to try and figure out why these two girls looked familiar. And then in a rush it hit her: Hogwarts. They both went to Hogwarts with her.

She couldn't get a good look at the one on the bed because of the big lug blocking her view but the one in the chair looked like an older version of that crazy Ravenclaw girl that had always seemed to be missing her shoes. Pansy guessed she must have been one of the survivors of the Battle of Hogwarts and had continued fighting since then until finally being captured. She was mildly surprised, despite her numbness, that the girl had so much conviction despite her rather wishy-washy appearance.

Before Pansy could observe the batty girl any longer, her attention was once again caught by the struggle taking place on the bed. The girl, who had apparently been the one shouting earlier, was now in complete view and had adopted an expression of pure loathing and utter contempt, but that was not what made Pansy catch her breath. It was what the girl said in such a steely voice that held inexplicable strength despite her situation.

"Is that all you've got, Scum?" she ground out without an ounce of self-pity.

Pansy stared at the determined face of the girl for what seemed like forever. It was Hermione Granger and yet it wasn't. She had changed. The frizzy-haired bookworm who dutifully followed behind her two best friends was nowhere to be seen. Instead, a hardened soldier lay in her place, determined to survive no matter what happened to her. It was that power of will that finally shook Pansy to the core.

She felt something for the first time in years and it almost undid her. The pain of everything that had happened washed over her at once, crippling her down to the ground in front of the door, sinking her deep into a state of chaos as all of her forgotten feelings rushed through her body in painful realization. Just as she thought the suffering was too much for her, that she'd rather die than continue like this for another second, Hermione Granger's face sprung up before her eyes once more. It was an angry face. A face that seemed to say, "what gives you the right to give up? You tortured me for years and I've never given up. Not even now when the unspeakable is happening to me."

They stared at each other in Pansy's mind for what seemed like forever before Pansy realized that suddenly she was feeling something other than pain. She was feeling anger. Anger at being treated like an animal for four years, anger at the "scum" who didn't need permission to do what he pleased to women, anger at the Dark Lord for all of his sins, anger at Draco for dying, and most of all anger at herself for letting all of it happen, for not fighting back. She had never been so angry in her life and the realization that she had a right to be angry was liberating. She suddenly felt lighter than she ever had before and she almost giggled from the strange high. Almost.

She was slowly regaining her senses, recovering from the strange rebirthing she had undergone when the door in front of her suddenly opened. She froze in her place on the ground as the large hulk of a Death Eater placed two wands in a drawer next to the wall before casually stepping over her limp form and calling back tauntingly, "Now, now Kitty, I know you enjoy playing dead but try to avoid blocking people's walkways. You may be the Dark Lord's pet but that doesn't justify getting in people's way."

Pansy didn't respond to the provocation, realizing that reacting would give her newly acquired sense of awareness away. She was prone to lying down in random places after all. It was no wonder he had not been at all suspicious of her. It was this realization that she had almost literally become invisible as a threat that had set Pansy's mind to planning in a way that had not been possible previously. She had been so apathetic before that no one had ever bothered to even take her wand away from her or restrict her movements around the mansion. She was a ghost.

The gears in her head spun quickly as she slowly sat up, her body damp from her earlier metamorphosis. She looked around her to see if anyone was present in the now empty corridor before quickly making a grab for the wands that scum had just deposited in the drawer moments before. She slid them down the front of her corset in case anyone should happen upon her and then turned back toward the door.

Both girls were now tied up at opposite ends of the room facing each other but neither one spoke. They merely stared at one another as if having a silent conversation. Pansy knew what she was about to do was rash but for once if her life, she wanted to try being a Gryffindor. She had planned out the escape in her mind of course, she wasn't that rash, but she had never taken a risk like this before. She knew, though, she couldn't go back to how things had been. In those few minutes of torture, she had become a new person. An angry person, but a new one. With a determination modeled after what she had witnessed on Hermione Granger's face, she got up and threw open the door.