Crown of Green Shadows

The Slytherin common room smelled like damp stone and old secrets, and I had learned to breathe it in like air.

Draco was holding court by the fireplace, his silver head tilted back in a laugh that carried too far. He always laughed like that now. Like he was performing for an audience that existed only in his head. Crabbe and Goyle flanked him like mismatched bookends, their grins slow and stupid. Blaise Zabini sat in the armchair across from them, one eyebrow raised in that way he had, watching everything without ever really committing to any of it.

I sat in the corner. My usual spot. The leather chair that had molded itself to my shape over five years of trying to disappear.

Pansy Parkinson was draped across the arm of Draco's chair, her hand resting on his shoulder like she owned him. Her dark hair fell in a perfect curtain, and she laughed at something he said, her chin tilted up, her eyes bright. She looked like a painting. A very deliberate one.

I didn't look at her. I looked at the fire.

But she was there anyway. She was always there. A static charge in the air that made the hair on my arms stand up whenever she walked past. A scent of something floral and sharp that lingered in corridors after she'd gone. A laugh I could pick out of a crowd without trying.

I hated it. I hated her.

No. That was a lie. I hated that I couldn't stop noticing her.

"Eden."

I looked up. Daphne Greengrass stood in front of me, holding a book against her chest like a shield. She was the only person in Slytherin who talked to me like I was a person and not a curiosity.

"You coming to dinner?"

"Not hungry."

She gave me a look. The kind that said she knew I was lying but wasn't going to push. Daphne was good at that. She understood the value of silence.

"Suit yourself." She turned, then paused. "Pansy's been watching you all night."

My stomach dropped. I kept my face still.

"Let her watch."

Daphne's mouth twitched. "She's not the only one."

She walked away before I could ask what that meant. Not that I would have. I didn't ask questions. Questions invited follow-ups. Follow-ups invited attention. And attention was the last thing I needed.

The common room thinned out as people drifted to dinner. Draco stood, stretching like a cat, and Pansy's hand slid from his shoulder to his arm. She said something in his ear, and he laughed again, that too-loud laugh, and then they were gone, sweeping out of the room like they were the only people in it.

I stayed.

The fire crackled. The green light from the lake filtered through the windows, casting everything in an underwater glow. I counted the seconds until I could breathe normally.

Thirty-two.

Then the door opened again.

Pansy walked back in. Alone.

She stopped when she saw me. Her hand was still on the door handle, and for a moment, neither of us moved. The firelight caught her face, softening the sharp edges she wore like armor.

"I forgot my Charms essay," she said.

I didn't say anything.

She walked to the table where she'd been sitting, picked up a roll of parchment, and tucked it into her bag. She should have left then. She didn't.

"You're always here," she said. "In this corner. Like you're trying to become part of the furniture."

"I like the furniture."

She snorted. It was not a delicate sound. It was real, and it caught me off guard.

"Draco thinks you're plotting something," she said. "He says you're too quiet. That quiet people are dangerous."

"Draco thinks a lot of things."

"He's not wrong about everything."

I looked at her then. Really looked. She was standing with her weight on one hip, her arms crossed, her chin lifted. Defensive. Defiant. But her eyes were searching. They moved over my face like she was trying to read a book written in a language she didn't quite know.

"What do you want, Pansy?"

Her name in my mouth felt wrong. Too intimate. Too heavy.

She blinked. For a second, the mask slipped. I saw something underneath. Something raw and uncertain.

Then it was gone.

"I want you to stop looking at me like you know me," she said.

"I don't know you."

"You look at me like you do."

I stood up. Slowly. I wasn't tall for a Malfoy, but I was taller than her, and when I moved, she took a step back. Not fear. Something else. Something that made her breath catch.

"Maybe I'm just looking," I said.

"Don't."

"Why not?"

She didn't answer. Her jaw tightened. Her fingers curled into her palms.

"Because it's complicated," she finally said.

"I like complicated."

"You shouldn't."

She turned and walked out. The door swung shut behind her, and I was alone again. The fire popped. The green light shifted.

I sat back down in my corner and didn't move for a long time.

The thing about Slytherin was that everyone had an angle. Everyone was playing a game. Draco played the loudest, the flashiest, the most obvious. He wanted everyone to see him coming. He wanted them to know he was a threat.

I played differently.

I played quiet. I played still. I let people forget I was there, and then I watched them when they thought no one was looking.

I had watched Pansy Parkinson for three years.

I had watched her laugh at Draco's jokes when they weren't funny. I had watched her smooth his collar and fix his tie and play the part of the devoted girlfriend with a perfection that bordered on desperate. I had watched her eyes flick to me in the middle of conversations, quick and guilty, like she was checking to see if I was still there.

I was always still there.

I didn't know what I was waiting for. A crack in the armor. A moment when she stopped performing and just was. A sign that the thing I felt when she walked into a room wasn't one-sided.

But tonight, in the empty common room, with the fire dying and her scent still hanging in the air, I felt something shift.

She had come back for an essay she'd forgotten. That was plausible. That was normal.

But she had also come back when she knew I would be alone.

I didn't believe in coincidences. Not in Slytherin. Not with Pansy Parkinson.

The fire hissed. The lake pressed against the windows. And somewhere in the castle, she was walking to dinner, her arm linked through Draco's, laughing too loud at nothing.

I stayed in my corner.

I waited.

Because in Slytherin, patience wasn't just a virtue. It was a weapon. And I had been sharpening mine for years.