Battlefield

That voice. It always grated on her nerves and over the years it never got any better. In fact if anything it only got more high pitched. Pansy Parkinson.

Emma turned around and starred at the girl whose face never lost the pig look and hair that never settled right on her large head. Emma gave a sigh, tossed her long hair over her shoulder, cocked one hip and settle her hand on the other while giving Pansy the I’m bored look. “I’m sorry did you squeal?”

Pansy clenched her hands and took a step forward away from her group consisting of Draco Malfoy, Millicent Bulstrode, Crabbe and Goyle. The Slytherin court. Gah! They were all a bunch of stuck up wankers.

“So did you have fun rolling around in the mud this summer mudblood?”

“I’m sure I didn’t have as much fun as you did. You did share donor information right? I mean I’m sure Malfoy wouldn’t want to catch anything you got from someone else. Oh! Better yet. I hope you used protection. I’d actually feel sorry for Malfoy if he had to claim someone else’s bastard.”

“Why you little stuck up…” Pansy trailed off as she charged at Emma her arms reaching out to her. Emma braced herself and at the last second dodged to the side, came out of the roll, crouched on the ground and watched as Pansy lost her momentum and crashed into the wall. Emma stood up dusted her robes off and turned to walk away again. Pansy wasn’t going to attack her again tonight. Her nose was bleeding rather profusely.

That night Emma laid in her bed and chuckled with Hermione over what had happened. Yeah it was great to be back at Hogwarts. With a smile she drifted off to sleep.

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Draco Malfoy sat at his usual seat at the Slytherin table next to Pansy and Blaise Zabini. It was his last year at Hogwarts and mostly likely soon to be the last years of freedom. His father was pressuring him to join the Dark Lord and wrote to him daily reminding him of his duties. He had even been signed a new task. Get closer to Potter and company and start to dig up information on the group. Find the weak link and expose it. Destroy the link, destroy the group, destroy Harry Potter. But even though Draco wanted to please his father, he also just wanted to forget about this stupid war. He could see what was happening to his mother, she was slowly breaking down completely and his father was doing nothing to stop it. If he could just remain neutral everything would be great.

The sound of laughter broke out across the Great Hall and Draco looked across the room to the Gryffindor table, where the sound was coming from. It was Potter and company and it looked as if someone was telling a story as he saw hand motions and everybody laughing but he couldn’t see who was making the joke. Suddenly Longbottom shifted and he saw her. Emma Lynn Maguire, the blond Gryffindor princess. He remembered their first meeting on the Hogwarts train and how she tried so hard to make friends with him. He hated her for being a mudblood because she was the only person who seemed to not care about someone heritage but more of their qualities. His Slytherin friends only talked to him because of his power and wealth. He knew it. Always have. But that didn’t mean that he didn’t wish for a friend, someone that was there for him because they wanted to be. If Emma would have been a pure-blood she could’ve gotten away with it. Now because Pansy absolutely hated her, he was forced to pretend that he did too. But if was really honest with himself, he couldn’t. She was just too friendly and frankly funny. Not for the first time he cursed his own heritage. More laughter broke out and he watched as she threw her head back and laughed. She had long blond hair, it trailed past her shoulder blades and was the color of wheat in the suns rays. Her face was pixie like, almost impish, which suited someone who liked to laugh. But the most dominating feature was her eyes that stood out like green emeralds. He hated to say it but Pansy had nothing compared to the little fairy that Emma was. Gah! He was turning into a bleedin’ poet thinking things like that. He watched as the Golden boy led his group out of the hall and he watched as the little pixie ran back in to talk to a Hufflepuff but he lost track of her when his group decided to leave too.

He was leaning against the wall, impatient waiting for Blaise, who was whispering love words to another Slytherin at the end of the table, when she came back out. Pansy had chosen at that moment to speak to her. “Hey Mudblood the Trio got you playing slave for them now?”

It wasn’t very clever but then again Pansy wasn’t. However Emma was quick on the draw. “I’m sorry did you squeal?”

The verbal war that ensued was quite entertaining. When he heard his own name mentioned his eyes shot up to the speaker. She only looked at him with disdain. But as he watched he saw Pansy slowly getting redder and he knew what was about to happen. When she charged, he almost stepped up to hold her back but decided against it. He still had a part to play. Emma’s effective dodge was so impressive that Draco forgot about Pansy smashing into the wall. When she turned and walked away he shook out of his trance and the group went over to take care of Pansy. Nothing was broken and they stopped the bleeding and cleaned up her cloths with a quick spell.

That night Draco lay in his bed and read his father’s latest letter.


Draco,

The Dark Lord is getting weary of Potter and co. so he has assigned to you the task of discovering the weak links that surround Potter. He would very much like to eliminate them. It is up to you to spy on said co. until you have something useful to report. Use whatever means necessary. Should you be successful you will be able to receive the dark mark. Make me proud. Take down the Trio by destroying those around them.

Sincerely,
Father

Draco tapped his wand on the paper and it quickly burned to ashes. In his mind he was conflicted. As he tossed and turned in bed he wondered how his mother was doing.