Pairing: Pansy/Penelope.

Rating: PG.

Disclaimer: No copyright infringement intended. Characters owned by J.K. Rowling.

Summary: A collision in front of the Transfigurations classroom leads to unlikely revelations.

Pansy Parkinson was late. Running up the final staircase towards the Transfiguration classroom, she didn't even notice Penelope Clearwater turning the corner. When the two slammed into each other, their satchels went flying in opposite directions, contents spilling and mixing on the floor.

"Idiot!" Pansy said, struggling to find all her belongings. She hadn't even bothered to notice who she had inconvenienced in the hallway. "Could you watch where you're going?" She looked over the other girl, her breath catching at sight of Penelope's naturally curly black hair, wildly twisted around her face from her fall.

Penelope sat up, flipping her hair back into a more attractive hairstyle. "I wasn't the one running up the stairs." Penelope replied defensively, brushing off her robes.

The icy rebuke stung Pansy's ears. "I was late to class," Pansy said, trying to cover for herself with the Ravenclaw prefect. She didn't need to lose more points for Slytherin. "McGonagall would dock me if I was tardy again." She added, pointing out she wasn't breaking any rules. "Unless you want to take points anyway for going to Transfiguration?"

"I should simply take two points for your attitude, Slytherin," Penelope said, "but I'm late as it is." The seventh-year Ravenclaw leaned over to retrieve a book that had fallen onto the top tread of the staircase, her curly black hair falling into her face. Pushing the curls back, she muttered. "Stupid hair, always getting in the way..."

"You don't like having curly hair?" Pansy asked a little enviously. "Yours is always so beautiful." The Slytherin caught herself, cursing herself for admitting that she had noticed Penelope's hair before, usually bent over some dusty book in the library. Who cared how pretty some mudblood girl looked? Who cared that Pansy could never come close to looking like that even if she tried? She spent hours in front of the mirror trying to make her barely shoulder-length hair look even halfway presentable, but the straight hair hung dully. Her stepmother despaired that any Wizarding family would ask for Pansy's hand in marriage, much less the Malfoys she secretly fancied.

Penelope said. "More trouble than it's worth." The Ravenclaw stuffed the rest of her textbooks into the satchel until the bottom bulged from the weight. Tucking smaller items in other pockets, she reached the bottom of her bag, apparently searching for something. Penelope glanced around where they had bumped into each other near the stairwell. "It must be around here somewhere." She muttered aloud. "Maybe I left it in my room..."

"Do you always talk to yourself?" Pansy asked irritated. She wondered what the girl was so frantic to find. She stuffed the last of her own belongings into her satchel, checking to make sure she had everything -- quills, parchment, textbook, makeup... everything looked to be in its place. Except she was missing her mother's ivory hair clips. Pansy was sure she had put them in her satchel. She had thought about wearing them to impress Draco, but felt like she was betraying a memory.

By rights Pansy shouldn't even have them since her stepmother had appropriated all of her mother's old jewelry, but Pansy couldn't bear for those clips to be seen on that golddigger, so she had swiped them when she was last at home. They'd never be missed, except by Pansy.

"Do you always ask so many questions?" Penelope shot back, clearly not noticing that Pansy was distracted by her own searches. "It's just my way of making sure I've done everything." She said, twining a finger around one long black curl at her forehead. "I'm forgetful sometimes. But I'm usually so careful about this." Turning to leave, Penelope added over her shoulder. "Look, forget about the points, take that second corridor, you'll find it's easier to get to Transfiguration."

"But why...?" Pansy asked surprised, picking up her satchel.

"Do you want to be late?" Penelope returned. "McGonagall doesn't like excuses... or compliments."

Pansy thought about that last comment, before hurrying on to Transfiguration. Hadn't anyone ever commented on Penelope's hair before? Pansy thought that fact strange, especially since the Ravenclaw had been dating that Weasley boy for the last two years, until the breakup. Pansy hadn't heard a single rumor why they broke up, only that they weren't seen together even at the Quidditch World Cup over the summer.

Taking the corridor Penelope suggested, Pansy slipped into her chair next to Milicent Bulstrode, as if nothing happened. Only her rapid heartbeat told her otherwise.

When Pansy opened her satchel, though, to find her copybook and quill, she noticed a silver hairbrush along with her makeup. Making an effort to find her inkwell, Pansy turned the hairbrush over, examining the gilt edges. She could almost see initials engraved on the bottom of the handle. Pansy didn't own anything this old or fine even at home. Even if she did, her stepmother would not have let her keep it.

Bulstrode asked, leaning towards the other girl, "What's so fascinating in the bag, Parkinson?"

"Shove off, Bul," Pansy snapped, closing the bag quickly, taking out her inkwell and quill. "I just spilled some ink in my satchel. I'll have to clean it up later." Fortunately Bulstrode didn't question her further and McGonagall called the group to order.

Pansy wondered why Penelope carried around the hairbrush in her bag. Pansy wouldn't have risked something that valuable, unless she was afraid someone might steal it, which was more likely in Slytherin than Ravenclaw. The initials had matched Penelope's own. Presumably the hairbrush had been a personal gift to Penelope from someone. Cattily she doubted that Percy Weasley could afford such finery even if he was working for the Ministry now. Perhaps Penelope had a new richer beau, someone who could appreciate that mass of curls, along with the rest of her slender body.

With a start, Pansy returned quickly to Transfiguration before McGonagall could notice her daydreaming. What had provoked Pansy to comment so favorably on Penelope's hair anyway? Not that Slytherin girls had any objections to the occasional assignation with their own gender, but Penelope Clearwater was a mudblood, a baseborn girl with no magical lineage of her own. The scandal would be horrific.

Remembering the hairbrush, Pansy imagined Penelope seated in front a mahogany vanity, running those bristles through her thick black curls before bed. For all of being a mudblood, Penelope obviously appreciated fine things. Pansy wondered how much the hairbrush meant to girl. With amusement crossing her lips, Pansy looked forward to finding out.

After the lesson ended, Pansy took her time packing up her satchel. When Pansy finally came out into the hallway, she felt herself roughly pulled by the arm into a smaller hallway, her body pressed against a wall. Pansy tried to speak, but Penelope's hand covered her mouth before she could continue. Pansy was a little shocked by the Ravenclaw's reaction, used to the shy bookworm.

"Shh, I don't have much time before the next period." Penelope said quickly, eyes occasionally darting towards the hallway see if anyone was passing by. Penelope released her hand from Pansy's mouth. "I just wanted to ask you if you'd found something of mine in your satchel."

"You're hurting me," Pansy winced. "Does that stupid trinket mean that much to you, mudblood?" Pansy waited for the outraged reaction, but Penelope only became colder and more resolute.

"Do these, Slytherin?" Penelope asked angrily, holding up Pansy's missing ivory hair clips. "I found pretty things wedged between the pages of my Advanced Arithmancy textbook."

"Give them back," Pansy demanded, trying to take the clips from her. "They mean nothing to you."

"But they mean everything to you," Penelope pulled her hand away, realizing her advantage, "just as that hairbrush hiding in your satchel means the same for me. We do appear to have reached an impasse." She said. "Do you want to hand over my belongings?" She had reached into her robes to remove her wand, relaxing the pressure on Pansy. "Or should I just split open your satchel and take back what's mine?"

"You'd go that far?" Pansy said surprised, thinking she had underestimated Penelope.

"If you forced me to," Penelope bit her lip. "Please." She said quietly. "It's all I have left."

Hearing those words, Pansy opened her satchel and felt inside until she found the hairbrush. Even in the torchlit hallway, the old silver glinted with the craftsmanship of an old master. Pansy handed the hairbrush back to the girl, receiving her hair clips in return.

"Thank you," Penelope said. "I'm sorry about trying to hurt you earlier." She grasped the hairbrush handle tighter. "This has a lot of sentimental value to me." She added, noticing the way Pansy fingered the hair clips with tenderness. "Those are beautiful. You should wear them sometime."

"I don't think I should," Pansy said hesitantly. "My hair would never hold them up."

"Pull your hair back tighter and the clips will hold." Penelope suggested, reaching to pull up Pansy's hair into a fashionable chignon. "You would look better with your hair up, less severe."

"No!" Pansy pushed Penelope's hand away, but not before their hands brushed against each other. "My mother used to wear her hair that way before..." Pansy explained. "I can't wear my hair like that, not yet."

"Maybe eventually?" Penelope said.

"Maybe," Pansy agreed. Watching her leave, Pansy found her courage to ask. "About the hairbrush?" Penelope stopped in her tracks expectantly. "Whose was it?"

"My grandmother," Penelope turned back towards her. "The hairbrush belonged to her until she died last year." She explained. "Her initials are on the handle." Pansy remembered seeing the engraved initials, thinking they belonged to Penelope. "She was the only one who accepted me when I received my letter, calling me the family jewel," Penelope laughed bitterly. "Calling me a mudblood is a compliment compared to what my parents used to say about me. To them, I was a disgrace, an ugly family secret, something to be hidden away every summer from their friends. Percy stopped visiting when he realized they would never accept him." She said before she left. "Guess the mudblood received what she deserved, right?"

Pansy flinched, watching Penelope leave. "Guess the Slytherin did too." She looked down at the hair clips, squeezing them a little, until she felt the clasp prick her palm. She'd wear them, not to impress Draco, but show Penelope she remembered. No one would ever know the difference, except the one who needed to know.