Thanks to Weasly_Girly_83 for being my beta for this fic!
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“I told you, I don't like spiders, Harry! We're not hanging them!” shouted Ron, as Harry grabbed a handful of toy spiders from his Halloween bag.
“Don't be so silly, Ron,” said Hermione, in her pretentious voice, “they're only fake.”
“But you know I hate spiders! It's like, you hate Voldemort don't you Harry?”
“Er, yeah,” said Harry, as he started sticking the spiders to the wall.
“Well, see, it's like that, only worse!”
“Worse? You're saying spiders are worse than Voldemort?”
“Well, spiders are everywhere, you never know where they might be, whereas there's only one Voldemort...” reasoned Ron.
“Oh, Ronald,” sighed Hermione.
“You do realize that I don't have a map telling me exactly where Voldemort is, right?” laughed Harry.
“Look, we need to get these decorations up. Your party is in three hours, Harry,” droned Hermione; she'd been constantly nagging them about it ever since they started.
“I know -” started Harry, but he was loudly interrupted by a woman's scream and the sound of a car screeching to a halt and banging into something. “Er, what was that?”
“I don't know, come on, let's take a look,” Hermione went straight to the front door and out into the street; the scene in front of her made her gasp.
“What is it, Hermione?” asked Harry and Ron, finally catching up with her.
“What do you think you're doing in the middle of the road?” shouted an old man, who had clearly smashed into the lamppost because of this girl.
“ME? ME? This isn't my fault you muggle!” a brunette girl's back was to Harry, Ron and Hermione.
“Muggle? Is that what you kids are calling us these days?”
“Ugh!” shouted the girl, picking up her dropped things and turning around to face them.
“You? You?” shouted Harry as he ran down the steps and into the road.
“Yes, me, Potter.”
“Er, Harry, how well do you know her?” asked Ron, looking from the girl to Harry; the tension between the two was growing.
Ignoring Ron, Harry went on to question the girl.
“What are you doing here?”
“What does it look like? Really, Potter, for a wizard with such achievements you are clearly not the brains behind your operations,” said the girl, glancing at Hermione who was now beaming from ear to ear. “Now, are you going to let me in, because you know very well I can't see your house.”
“You know my house is there?” asked Harry, a quizzical look on his face.
“Well, I expect you aren't just wondering around random muggle streets with fake cobwebs all over you for fun, Potter.”
“Why would I let you in?”
“It's polite.”
“Is anyone else finding this situation incredibly bizarre?” Ron whispered to Hermione, his arms crossed and his face confused as the situation unfolded.
“Polite? What do you know about being polite, Parkinson?”
“Oh, just let me in, Potter. That look makes you seem constipated.”
---
Half an hour later, and Pansy Parkinson had a handful of pumpkins and was hanging them up in Harry Potter's house.
“Why are you here, Parkinson?” asked Hermione, a rude tone locked in her voice.
“I like Halloween.”
“So?”
“So, I overheard you at school saying you were having a Halloween party and neither my family nor Draco's family celebrate it, and i've always wanted to come to one so I thought i'd just turn up.”
“Do they know you're here?” asked Hermione.
“No. None of them do, and you better not tell them either!”
“But, why here? You hate us!”
“So?” asked Pansy, an obvious look on her face, “why should hate get in the way of a good time?”
“You're very peculiar, Parkinson, you know that?” laughed Ron, edging slightly too far to the right and knocking Harry off his step ladder.
“Thanks, Ron,” said Harry sarcastically, as he stood up rubbing his back.
“S'alright, mate.”
---
Another hour passed, the four of them decorated Grimmauld Place, before Pansy started to speak again.
“Who is coming tonight?”
“Er, just the Weasley family, I think,” muttered Harry, scratching the back of his head.
“Good. I want all your assurances that nobody else will know I was here. Draco would never forgive me.”
“We can't guarantee that -” started Hermione, but Pansy cut her off and walked slowly towards Harry, a menacing look on her face.
“You can defeat a Dark Wizard but you cannot stop a few people from saying a few words?”
“We'll try our best,” smiled Harry meekly as Pansy pushed him against the wall.
---
The decorations all up, the house spotless (except for the fake cobwebs of course), and the Weasley family back from Diagon Alley meant the party was ready to start. Mr and Mrs Weasley had welcomed Pansy with open arms, but the others were more skeptical of her, assuming she was there to spy on them.
“Why did you even let her in, Harry?”
“Yeah, I don't get it,” mused Fred and George.
“Unless you -”
“- fancy her!” they laughed.
“No, I don't fancy her, it's just, I don't know – a random moment of insanity, okay?” Harry made them believe him, whilst watching Pansy out of the corner of his right eye; she was struggling to open a bottle of butterbeer and nobody was helping her; Ginny and Hermione were stifling giggles from the other side of the room.
“Er, see you two in a bit,” muttered Harry, as he ran to Pansy's side and opened her bottle for her.
“Thanks,” smiled Pansy – it was the first time Harry had ever seen a genuine smile from her, and he liked it, he even thought she looked pretty whilst smiling, but quickly stifled those thoughts as he saw Ginny giving them death glares. “I always have trouble opening these things.”
“Can I ask you a question?”
“You already did,” Pansy took a sip of her butterbeer, “but sure.”
“How did you get here?”
“Apparition – I only passed a few months ago so I'm not quite an expert. That's how I landed in the middle of the road and caused the accident.”
“Oh right,” laughed Harry.
“Won't they notice you've gone?”
“No. Mother and father are rarely home – the mansion is an empty shell most of the time.”
“And Draco?”
“Let's just say he's busy,” Pansy forced a smile and downed more butterbeer.
“You're not like the rest of them, you know.”
“Thanks,” she smiled.
“I thought you were, but, you're not.”
“Well, I guess having hated of everything you stand for does that to you.”
“Hatred?”
“I hate my life, Potter. Being forced to laugh at people I'd rather be friends with, growing up alone and not wanted, you know how it is.”
“I can imagine,” Harry thought back to his Dursley days, and how he hated them, resulting in him taking pity on the girl in front of him, who was clearly a vulnerable, defenseless soul underneath.
“BOO!” someone in a mask ran up to them and Pansy fell over, screaming; Harry only just caught her in time. From behind him, he could hear Hermione and Ginny laughing at her, and with the heat of the moment and everything she'd just said, he kissed her; the most passionate kiss he'd ever had in his life – and it didn't matter that he could hear gasps of shock from behind him, or the dropping of plates. What mattered was that she was kissing him back, with more affection and more love than he'd ever known anyone to show.
---
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