I wrote the bulk of this fic in May, finished and edited it in early July. Then it took a long, hard nap on my hard drive. I've finally decided to post it, after yet another bout of editing. It's set in HBP, so there are no spoilers for DH (although it is DH compliant). Enjoy!

Harry Potter is property of J. K. Rowling, who I definitely am not. No profit is being made from this story.

Draco never wears short sleeves, but Pansy thinks she can see the mark anyway, right through the white of his uniform sleeve, standing like a large, black bruise against the perfect pale of his forearm. As proud as she knows she is supposed to feel, these days all she wants to do is cradle his arm in her own and weep over it, as she did once many years ago, when things has been simpler and wounds had been bleeding things that could be bound with white cloth and stitched together underneath, never seen again. She wants to kiss it better, knowing she can't and doubting that he would let her try. Sometimes she imagines that he would, pictures herself brushing her lips across his skin, from the wrist to the elbow, and waking him from the deepest slumber, holding him close as the enchantments break and he sees everything for the first time.

Sees her.

And then she would take his hand, and they would go away to wherever the people always go at the end of the fairytale, to a place where there are no more wars or sides or choices, and there's nothing to do but be happy and in love.

xxxx

She imagines a lot of things. Ways to save him. Ways to keep him. She imagines a thousand wild scenarios, a million impossible solutions. Imagines taking his hand and saying "Let's go away from here." and Draco nodding his agreement and only asking:

"Where?"

"Anywhere."

She imagines diving into the lake, sinking right to the bottom, where no one would ever think to look. They could live there, she thinks, with the merpeople, and she would eat plates of gillyweed, buckets at a time, and kiss him in the kelp beds. She imagines pushing off the ground like off the bottom of the lake, floating gently into the air together, lifting their arms above their heads and watching their hands break through the surface of the sky. Imagines leaping off the Astronomy Tower, hand in hand, like the tragic lovers in the romance novels Daphne Greengrass is always reading. Imagines holding each other tight, just standing still while the war rages on and the world crumbles to dust and the stars fall like rain.

Wildest of all, she imagines leaning over to him at dinner and saying "Draco, you look terrible. Eat something." And him saying "Yes, mother," ruefully, but eating a good meal anyway and then stumbling off to bed, really sleeping for the first time in months, waking up looking fine and healthy. He would smile at her, colour in his cheeks, and say, "Thank you, Pansy."

And she would ask, "For what?"

And he would say, "For everything."

xxxx

She loves him desperately, completely, and more than anything else in the world. He loves the attention. Anyone with eyes can see it, and Pansy does have eyes: keen, observant, Slytherin eyes. She knows he loves her simpering smiles, her compliments, her tenderness, and she gives it to him, spoonful by heaping spoonful, lets him grow fat on it. He wants a cushion, someone who will never let him feel lonely or second best, and oh, she can give him that. If she plays her cards right, she knows he will want to keep her forever, has known for years. It's been her goal, her destination, and she can't remember a time when she didn't look at him, all points and angles, white-blond hair shimmering in the sunlight and think "This will be mine."

Somewhere along the way, she stopped wanting him and started wanting his soul. It was such an easy trap, to fall in love with him. She didn't even notice until it was much too late, until she looked at him one day and realized he didn't really see her at all. Realized that she wanted him to. She's always known he'll never love her. It's never hurt like this before.

She's been playing this game for so long that she's afraid to wonder if she really wants the prize. Sometimes, it's frightening, to imagine that hollow, oedipal marriage she's planned since the beginning coming to pass. To see herself sitting across the dinner table from him for all of eternity, cooing and fawning and loving him and never, never getting anything back. And then she thinks, "But he will be mine" and finds her solace.

The image is dire, so unlike all her silly fantasies and love stories. It's disconcerting. It's heartbreaking.

It's enough. It has to be.

It's all he can give.

And still, in spite of herself, what she really wants is the impossible: for Draco to fall in love with her. She wants his attention, wants him to think of her with even a modicum of the zeal that Harry Potter inspires in him. She wants to be the focus of that passion, but wants love to be behind the fire in his eyes, wants kisses instead of blows. She wants his eyes on her, always on her, wants her name to be the one constantly on his lips, uttered over and over, screamed at the deaf ceilings of the dungeon or whispered against her knees, in a voice that's broken and bereaved.

She knows it can never be this way.

And still she waits, coos over him, clutches at his arm, brushes her fingers through his hair. She doesn't mind doing it, because she knows that the only way to keep him forever is to keep him dependent on her. Because it's all she can do, and the closest thing to having his love is having his loyalty, forever. The game is nearing its close, and she follows her strategy, as always. She's so close. Her victory is so near.

When Draco shakes off her comforting hand and steals away into the depth of the castle once again, she suddenly feels very cold and alone.

xxxx

"I doubt he lasts a year before he gets himself killed. Or kills himself," says Blaise Zabini. "It's only been four months, and he already looks ready to give it up. At this rate, he'll waste away before he even completes one mission."

At that moment, Pansy could kill Blaise with her own two hands. Vengefully, she imagines choking the life out of him and burying him under the Quidditch pitch. But before, she thinks that she could shave him bald, save up a million of his hairs, a billion, one for every day of the rest of her life. One cup of Slughorn's potion, and Draco Malfoy could mysteriously disappear, and oh, Pansy would mourn and despair, but eventually find solace in the arms of Blaise Zabini. She would dote on him, then, and they would live in his mansion, two purebloods with no connection to the Deatheaters or to the Ministry. Every day, for the rest of their lives, together. Their kisses would taste like Polyjuice.

"Shut up," she tells Zabini, and keeps her hands to herself.

xxxx

She knows it's wrong to spy on Draco, knows how angry he would be if he knew, but she follows him anyway, every time he slips out of the Common Room and leaves Crabbe and Goyle behind. She follows him subtly, softly, up the stairs and down the hall, sits down, leans against the door to the girls' bathroom and listens.

He won't talk to her. It hurts, but she doesn't blame him. He believes, she knows, that she would think him weak. He's afraid that she won't love him if she doesn't admire him. She's too afraid of losing him to tell him that she's never admired him at all.

This is true helplessness, sitting on the cold ground and listening to Draco breaking, through the wall between them. She wants to curse the Dark Lord, to kill him, to beg him: "Let me do it, whatever it is, for him. Take me, instead. I don't care what you want. I can do it, for him. Please, please…"

"I have no one to turn to," Draco whispers, his voice raspy from crying. "I'm all alone."

And he really believes it.

xxxx

"What's going on?" she asks Draco one night in June, when he comes rushing into the common room.

"Nothing," says Draco. "Nothing's going on."

He sprints up the stairs, but he's back moments later, clutching something tight in his left hand. He's paler than ever, apprehension in his features, swaying on his feet as if the only thing keeping him going is pure adrenaline, and she doesn't believe him for a moment. Fear clutches at her heart as she realizes that it's finally happening, whatever it is.

"You should— They might—" He seems to be debating with himself for a moment, then: "They wouldn't. Everything's fine. Go to bed."

He moves to go, and she grabs his arm to stop him, fighting back panicked tears.

"Will you be here when I wake up?" she asks, tightening her grip.

He opens his mouth and then closes it again. Looks away. "Of course I will. Don't be silly."

He pulls his arm free, and she knows, beyond any doubt, that he's lying. It's written all over his face. She can read his lies like no other, knows his features, perhaps, better than she knows her own. Sorrow twists her stomach into knots, and she feels faint. Her hand is empty, her body unanchored.

"I love you," she whispers, almost pleadingly.

He's very still for a moment, and it's like holding out her hand on the Hogwarts Express, letting it hang in the air and hoping desperately that he'll take it. She looks up into his eyes and wills him to really look at her, to thaw, to love her.

"I'll see you tomorrow," he says, and turning, walks away.