Disclaimer: All characters from the Harry Potter universe belong to J.K. Rowling, Bloomsbury Publishing, Scholastic Inc., AOL/Time Warner and associated companies. No offence, legal or otherwise, is intended by the online publication of this story. Neither is profit. Make love, not lawsuits!

Notes: Power doesn't come easy to Slytherins. Pansy/Ginny femslash.

Giver is Quiet

'Parkinson.'

I turn around. Potter is standing near the door of the classroom, hefting his bag uneasily. 'Parkinson. I... I need to talk to you.'

I raise my eyebrow. Potter? Talking to me? I shrug and brush past him. Talking to Potty isn't at the top of any self-respecting Slytherin's social list. Especially outside the Potions lab. Strange that the Mudblood isn't with him.

'It's about Ginny.'

My shoes screech to a halt.

I can hear him taking steps closer to me. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. My heart is hammering; suddenly blood is roaring in my ears. My hands are sweaty again. But I have nothing to hold on to this time. Nothing to tear.

My voice is dry when I turn. 'What about that little charity-case?'

Potter touches my elbow and I nearly snarl. 'Don't touch me.'

He looks startled. 'Um... Sorry.' His eyes are wide behind those hideous glasses, and he's staring at me--like I'm some kind of freak, something he hasn't seen before.

The fear begins to rise in me again. It is harder to keep my voice even. 'Well?'

Suddenly he steels himself. 'You're bullying her, aren't you? I don't know how you do it, why you do it, but... She's not the same anymore--and she--'

'What the fuck does that have to do with me?' I sound just a little too sharp.

Potter's eyes narrow. 'I saw you leave for the greenhouses last night. After dinner. I didn't think much of it until we noticed Ginny was gone too--she's been gone a lot recently. Hermione said she saw Gin going in the direction of the greenhouses as well. And when Ginny came back--' Here Potter's mouth tightened with anger. '--She was crying.'

There is a sharp sting in my mouth, and I realize I've bitten my tongue. It feels dry suddenly, rough, and thirsty for the taste of tears.

I shrug nonchalantly. 'So your little Weasley just broke up with whatever idiot is going out with her. There are seven different greenhouses, Potter. And if she was fucking crying, frankly, I could care less.' Oh, I could. Care less. I could.

Potter is more uncertain now. 'I know, but... We didn't... I mean... There was nobody else going in that direction...'

'What do you do, Potter, sleep with the mandrakes? Make fucking tables of everyone who goes there? A lot of us go back there to smoke. Or snog.' I grin as Potter looks slightly green--perhaps at the concept of Slytherins snogging, or his little 'Gin' doing so with someone else. You don't know half the story, fool.

I shoulder my satchel and shoot him a final smirk. 'Baseless accusations are such a pain, Potter. Even if they are rather flattering.'

He growls as I turn and start walking again. Before I turn around the corner, though, his voice rises to follow me. 'I'm watching you, Parkinson. If you or Malfoy make a single move, if I see you near Ginny...'

'See me where-ever you want, Potter!' I call back jauntily.

But once I'm far enough away, I slip into the girls' toilet and collapse on one of the seats. I take out a cigarette with trembling hands and light it. Shit, my brain keeps saying. Shit. Cold sweat trickles between my breasts. It's fucking hot in here. I can't light the fucking cigarette. 'Incendio', I whisper quietly, softening the charm before casting it. The end of the cigarette glows.

I lean back against the wall. She should have gotten my note today. Meeting again. Charms classroom. I imagine her thighs, white and streaked with red, pubic hair soft, so soft, crushed under my hand. The taste of her mouth so lost and gentle. She always tastes of tears. Even the tiny scar on her belly, circling the belly-button like a comma. She is all smooth punctuation, Ginny. Run-together sentences. Her ankles, so thin, sweat glistening in their hollows. The night circling, circling, falling, in the moon-shaped shadow under her breast.

Be kind to me.

Smoke rises to the ceiling, slowly, uncoiling like a grey flower. I breathe into it and it fades away.

Just like her words.

Later, wrapped in her cloak, we do not talk. We never do. Not really. The floor of the Charms classroom is hard under our backs, despite the padding. Her knee is a small round stone under my palm, warm as if sunned on a beach. She is summer, beautiful summer, intensity on a firespin. Her eyes are open and black in the darkness, glittering with what may or may not be tears.

She isn't looking at me. As usual. Instead her head is turned towards the window, staring at the black night. Moonlight splits stars in her hair.

'What are you thinking about?' My voice is soft, unexpectedly, and I am startled that I even asked the question. We never talk.

But she does not seem to be surprised. She turns to me, slowly, eyes dark and silent. Her hand rises slowly and smooths itself along my arm, as if petting a large cat. Careful as always. Afraid of being hit back.

But I lie still. There is a fear growing in me, a peculiar fear, and it's not supposed to be like this, and she's supposed to break, tonight, as always, and I break her but she comes back, together and broken again, and together and broken again and Potter's finding out, fuck, and they'll know because she's such a bad fucking liar, fucking Gryffindor and she's--

Her mouth stops my thoughts. It is soft, gentle, closing over my own in a painful parody of tenderness--and I'm shivering, suddenly, and I don't know why--she's never--but I've always--

Her palm moves up to cup my breasts. Warm, smoothing, the slightly rough silk of her inner wrists where I tore the skin before. It must hurt her to touch me.

I close my eyes. There is a lingering spark of colours behind my lids, a blue-black punctuated with pink and red and green when she touches me. There is a part of me that knows I shouldn't be allowing this. I never have. Slytherins don't give--we take, dammit, and she's so fucking--and her thighs--moving around--her hair brushing my face--her mouth--

'I'm going to tell them.'

This whispered, like a confession, into my ear.

The air trembles.

Her mouth leaves mine. Her hands drop away. And I'm left cold, as she sits up, and I can see her pale in the darkness--smooth and nude, like stone, warm and white and breakable. Her breasts that cast moon-shadows.

Her palm comes back to rest against my face. How dare she. Behave like she's the one, the one calling the shots. When it was me doing the fucking, dammit, me all along...

I get up slowly. The cloak slides off my shoulders. She removes her hand, but does not turn away. It strikes me that it takes her courage to do this. I resist the urge to smirk, but she flinches anyway. Fucking Gryffindor.

When I lean down to take her nipple in my mouth, she arches and I can pretend it's all back to normal. That I can still hurt her. That it means something, my hurting her, and her coming back for more...

I bite.

And suddenly she's rising, like a river, belly and hand and thigh and mouth--a storm of red butterflies, moans and sobs and she's crying, yes, and I'm swallowing her tears and her tongue and her blood where my nails tear her, and she's choking, struggling, moaning words that break into the air in sobs. The wards around us glitter. I take her in my hands, and her thigh rises against my face like the swell of a white wave, her belly undulating--a powerful ripple that lifts her back. When she comes she screams, a song of pain and joy caught by the wards and thrown back at us, and I know I've torn her, and when I pull back my fingers are slick with blood.

It is black in the moonlight. India ink. She trembles on the floor. So much for your strength, little girl... I want to write across her, or perhaps across myself, with her blood. I want to be gentle about it. I imagine her name emblazoned in red, across my breasts and thighs. Red as her hair. Yes, blood-girl?

This is my sweet revenge. In the morning I know I will stroll into the classroom, after watching her be silent at breakfast again--and the walls will still be white. Pure white, indifferent, but there is not enough blood to hide what we have done from the world.

'I'm going to tell them.' Her voice trembles when she speaks. A glass filled with bitter liquid, close enough to spill. I plant soft kisses along her jaw, nuzzle her dirt-sweet, blood-sweet hair. I lick at her tears, slowly, and I know my tongue must be cool against her skin. I am so gentle with her. I try to mask my hunger.

'I'm going to tell them.' She repeats, louder--and then falls silent, abruptly, as my kiss brushes her mouth.

'I know.' And my voice is soft again, and comforting, but this time I mean it to be, and it's alright. Her face is turned away from me again. The air in the classroom wafts gently. Her breath is more even now, a soft web where words may come to dwell.

But they don't.

'Same place, here, tomorrow.' I murmur into her shoulder, my hand smoothing her hair. She curls on the floor like a fist, silent. Maybe she is too broken to answer. In the darkness I can barely see her nod.

Her silence means victory, for me, as much as her hollow eyes and tear-stained skin. It doesn't matter if she doesn't beg today. She has left already, out the window, escaped. I can see her eyes staring out of it again, into the night--I know she sees her soul running swift, bare-footed, far across the grass.