Author's Notes: Much, much, much thanks to both Nightfall and Rita Arabella Black, without whom the final two paragraphs would suck. Hardcore. :) Love you!!
Standard disclaimer applies.
Pansy Parkinson hates Draco Malfoy from the top of his glossy hair to the tips of his toenails. She cannot stand the sight of him or the smirk that is splayed (elegantly, always elegantly—he's an elegant bastard and always has been) across his face. She hates him.
Because he told her she was beautiful and promised her fairytales—he wove stories out of the stars and promised happily-ever-afters. He painted her in bright colors, apple green and sea blue and he fixed her up so she believed she was beautiful only to rip it all away when something better came through.
"Sorry," he says. "You're my almost."
Then he walks away, his words leaving a bitter taste like ashes in her throat.
And 'almost' comes to define Pansy—her beauty fades to merely pretty and she's almost-beautiful and almost-lucky and almost-everything, because she was Draco's almost and Draco was her world and now that he's been ripped away—
She's an almost-girl—she's Draco's almost—and she hates that he would define her, that he would rip her stories down from the sky and condemn her to the almosts of evil step-sisters—never to marry, wasting away, watching as their almost-prince rides away into the sunset as it blinds them.
(The sunset has never been an almost—it is full and bright and beautiful.)
The first time Blaise sees her—the first time after the war, that is, it's five (maybe six) years after they've left Hogwarts and the almost-scars of Draco's rejection are pink and shining and painful in the bright sun (the sun is never an almost, it's an all or nothing kind of thing).
And he thinks she's pretty, maybe even beautiful, in that neglected antique kind of way—maybe if someone took the time to wipe the dust away and patch up the cracks and fix the broken pieces, maybe she'd shine like the beauty she is, but for now he has to look past the cracks and the broken pieces, past the dust and the misuse and the disrepair and he can almost see the beauty shining through.
Because Pansy's got this smile, this sad little almost-smile that reminds him of his mother, of the way she used to smile; tinged with desperation and almost-hopeful. The look in her eyes tells him that she's been handled just as rough as he has—he sees a kindred spirit in her eyes and wants to take her hand and say 'I'm sorry,' because Blaise has never seen such sad eyes.
Her eyes are the color of the sea on a cloudy morning—a muddled greenbluegrey full of secrets and stories to tell. They are set in a face that screams at him that she's had so much ripped away—she was almost beautiful before he tore her dreams down from the sky and before everything she wanted was held out to her, like a gift, before Fate cruelly snatched it away. Her eyes scream that she was almost-beautiful before someone shoved her on the back shelf, before the dust settled in and her bright happy green apple and sea blue paint chipped and cracked and before neglect and misuse settled into her bones and everything else. She was almost-beautiful before she was pushed away.
And Blaise remembers her at Hogwarts—before the war, before, when she was almost-royalty with Draco—remembers a bright and beautiful girl with dreams in her eyes.
This Pansy is different—older, but more than that. She's a shadow of that bright happiness she was at Hogwarts. Someone has broken her down, has torn her dreams out of her eyes, and it breaks his heart to see such a beautiful girl reduced to almost.
There's an unfinished feel to her, something in those greenbluegrey eyes and that sad little almost-smile that says she was almost-finished when Draco walked away, distracted by the glitter and sparkles and glory that comes from marrying someone who hasn't seen what she has seen; distracted by the relief of not having to look into those greenbluegrey eyes and see all the different ways she's broken; distracted by someone who was so much more than almost. So much better than almost. Draco has never been good at fixing things—he breaks them and leaves them on a shelf to collect dust, leaves them unfinished and almost-beautiful.
She's twenty-three, maybe four when Blaise sees her and it's an accident; she's dealing with bills and an empty vault at Gringrotts and he's handling his mother's affairs. She looks so tired and broken it takes him a minute to find the pride under all the layers of dust. He says her name and her head snaps up sharply, like she's been burned.
He buys her a drink, against her protests, and this isn't romantic—not even close. Because she's not beautiful and he's hardly a romanticizer and they lost the war, don't you remember and so they have nothing to celebrate. They're both a little bit too broken to deal with roses and romance and fairytales—a little too jaded to believe in true love and happily ever after. They have seen things that broke their beliefs and now it's too late to do anything but buy each other a drink and hope like hell it works out for the better and not the worse.
He sleeps with her that night. Rents a room and fucks her into the sheets, whispers things he maybe doesn't mean, rests his forehead against her collar bone when she sighs his name like a prayer. She doesn't delude herself into thinking there's anything more to this than there is—she has been burned by passion and she keeps her distance.
And yet there are other times, other days. More dates and drinks and rough fucks in hotel rooms. There are more and that more turns into something that maybe could (almost) be love.
He wipes away the dust and patches up the cracks, fixes the broken pieces and keeps his promises. He gives her a fairytale and almost washes away all the brokenness, but she's learned to settle for almost—learned to be okay with whatever she gets. That's what Draco gave her when he walked away and left Pansy to collect dust and grow rusty and empty and broken with misuse. And Blaise hates him for it—hates Draco for stringing this almost-beautiful little girl along, hates him for giving her broken dreams and broken promises and broken fairytales. Hates that she's left blinded by the sunset while he rides away with his princess, hates that Pansy's an almost-princess when she is so much more.
Because she's more than an almost to Blaise and he hates that Draco poisons everything he touches. He broke this beautiful girl down to an almost and Blaise hates him for it. Draco almost ruined her, but Blaise will try—he will try—to find the missing pieces and give Pansy more than almost.