((A collaborated effort of sorts. This story is far deeper than this chapter indicates. Complete and detailed backgrounds have already been established for both characters and will be incorperated into the story as it progresses. Based on two of the most intriguing secondary characters in the Harry Potter series, I give you When It's Love.))

Chapter 1: To Say 'I Do'

Numb.

From the minute Pansy had arrived in Germany, to the manor, there had been nothing but movement all around her. Words flying back and forth; hustles and bustles from familiar faces, from strangers. The world seemed to be spinning around her, and yet she stood still. Pansy didn't hear of feel anything, she was completely numb.

She couldn't hear her mother's torment about what a bad person she was for leaving her fiancé alone for so long. About how lucky she was to have such a man waiting for her, regardless of the little stunts she was pulling. Pansy couldn't hear her mother-in-law's unyielding talk about the fact that such manners were unbecoming for a lady. Nothing seemed to be enough to rouse her out of her state. Their concerns, their offenses simply slid off of Pansy, and she neither realized it, nor cared. There wasn't anything left to care for, not even the misdirected efforts for her the wedding.

But it wasn't her wedding, it was theirs.

And as the world spun, Pansy just stood there. There was an awareness of sorts. She was aware of where she was, of what she said, but it was all too mechanical to be considered real, and if it was real, it needn't have been. Her mother nagged her, as she always did. About her errors, about what she needed to fix, about who she needed to be.

"Pansy, you need this family, you need this name. All this, 'needing to get away' or 'time out for yourself' it just isn't going to work. You need this marriage.

'No mother, you need it,' Pansy thought bitterly, resenting her mother's insistance with every inch of her being, but on the outside...no one would have guessed by her placid appearance. She watched as her mother went about her business as happy as anyone could be. Almost as excited as if it was her own wedding she was preparing for. Completely unaware of her daughters shadowed state. Unaware that Pansy knew what the name Gessler meant for mother, and that there had been a time where she thought it meant something to her as well. But really, it was just a name, and it wasn't attached to a person, not even her future husband. And even when Henrik had worked up enough courage to ask her if she was alright, Pansy's simple 'of course I am' was enough to satisfy his curiosity.

Reality had a funny way of settling itself down around a confused person.

The confusion might have been there the entire time, but Pansy couldn't, for the life of her, pinpoint where it had started. Since before they had announced the wedding? Since she had escaped to London? Since Draco? Since Theodore?

Theodore.

There hadn't been a single letter since their holiday together in Rome, and it only took one trip to Hogwarts to figure out that he was gone. Whether he was gone for good, she could only imagine, his talks of escape only a few weeks before had been taken in jest, but now, they seemed eerily connected. They had joked that she would go with him, and deep down inside she felt as if she actually would have, had he but asked her. But he hadn't asked. Theodore had gone out to seek his own path, and he hadn't even bothered to say goodbye. It wasn't Pansy's right to hold it against him, but she did so just the same. They were supposed to be friends.

And now she was stuck. The wedding was moving forward but she couldn't catch up. She wasn't sleeping and all of her mother's wasted efforts with energy potions and revitalizing serums weren't enough to make the dark circles under Pansy's eyes less noticeable. She wasn't eating, and when she tried on her wedding gown for the very last time, it was too big. They all chalked it up to bad measuring; trying to deny the fact that she had lost weight, because they hadn't bothered asking and they didn't want to know.

As the days blended into one, Pansy fought to find meaning. To find the reason behind her sense of foreboding as the day of her wedding drew ever closer.

((Comments and critiques are greatly apreciated!))