SWING SET ° G. WEASLEY

four

Waverly had first met Pansy Parkinson in her first year, when Waverly's screams and sobs had made their way into her room and tortured everyone's ears to the point where they were all afraid they would start to bleed. Waverly had night terrors where she dreamed about the glass walls of the common room caving in, flooding the place until no one could breathe.

From what she'd told her, Pansy had had nightmares that were worse than Waverly's; if that was possible. And so, Pansy let Waverly sleep in her bed so that she wouldn't feel so lonely all the time.

Then in her second year, Waverly had gotten a cold so bad that she had to go to the hospital wing. The cough shook her bones, and on more than one occasion Waverly was afraid she would start coughing up blood. Pansy made Crabbe and Goyle sneak into the kitchens to get her chicken soup, and for that Waverly was eternally grateful. The medicine Madame Pomfrey had given her was absolutely awful, and she wished she'd never have to take it again.

The nightmares had stopped, but Waverly's visits to the other girls bed hadn't.

In third year when they held the Triwizard Tournament, Pansy and Waverly had gotten each other ready for the ball. They picked out each others dresses, did their makeup, and went on their way. And when Waverly didn't have a date, Pansy even offered to go with her. Waverly knew how much this meant to her to dance with Draco, and the fact that she would give it all up just for her was something Waverly had never experienced before.

Alas, Waverly refused. Although, it was quite bemusing watching Draco stumble over his own feet and seeing Pansy's cheeks tint red when she accidentally stepped on his toes.

That night, after everyone else had gone to their dormitories, Pansy and Waverly had one stolen dance together, no stumbling, no tinted cheeks. Just the both of them lost in the idea of friendship and wanting. And Waverly may or may not have let her lips run over Pansy's. It was chaste, and neither of them knew if it meant anything.

Then in fourth year, when Pansy and Waverly joined the Inquisitorial Squad. The two girls sat on either sides of Pansy's bed, wondering how on earth they had gotten to where they were.

"What are we doing?" Waverly had asked her.
sometimes Pansy responded with "whatever we want", or "what we have to", and some nights she said, "surviving".

But survival is an umbrella term for anything around "pushing people off the top" to "five star resorts and chardonnay", and Waverly knew that they were not the latter. Sometimes she wonders how Cedric Diggory got by. She wonders how the poster boy of Hogwarts managed to balance everything on his plate. She wonders if maybe death was a sort of release for him, as terrible as that may sound.

Waverly didn't leave Pansy's room that night.

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