A/N: Sup, all you peoples. This is for the Rival Ships Challenge over at the HPFC, done by Jg rox. Took me ages to get inspiration for this, but here we are! PleasepleasePLEASE review, for me? *puppy dog eyes*
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Ice
Pansy Parkinson lies in bed, heart torn, mind tarnished, with longing for the one man who ever really mattered to her. The Daily Prophet lies beside her, front page smeared with tears, blurring the face of Draco Malfoy as he shook hands with the Minister for Magic in a never ending loop, sealing yet another life altering deal. She curls herself into a tiny ball beneath the covers, drowning in insecurity. She can feel the roughness of the cotton sheets on her bare skin. They were all she could afford. The tacky glow from her Muggle alarm clock by her bed throws a glaring green light onto her face, lighting up her cheekbones and making her look sallow and ill. She wraps her arms around her knees and draws them into her, hugging herself, attempting to relieve herself from the cold that had plagued her since the war had ended. She has tried everything. Heating charms, Muggle space heaters and Muggle electric blankets. But she knows why she can't shake the ice. It has seeped into her bones and frozen her from within, and there is only one thing that can melt her and return her to who she used to be, to who she can be. It has been nineteen years, and she needs a break from herself. She needs to break the ice.
Steam
The clouds of steam billow around her, enveloping her in thick, muggy fumes. She stands isolated at the back of the station, hidden from the rest of the world by a veil. The crowds push forward, greedy, aggressive, right up to the side of the train. Yellowed hands pressing on train windows, unnecessary tears, wails from devastated mothers. But Pansy has none of it. She lingers, hanging back, leaning on the glass behind her. She feels the cool surface through her robes, hard, inflexible, supporting her as she scans the multitude of shoving, snatching bodies, heaving against each other in a sweaty rhythm. Her eyes ruthlessly dissolve the steam, dissolve the cries, dissolve the redundant flickering eyes passing over her, ignoring the chaotic shroud around her. Soon, there is only one thing left. A man, and his wife, waving to the train. Both with silvery blonde hair. Both slender. Both standing tall, expensive clothes, expensive watches, expensive time to spare. Her breath rips in her throat, and she knows it is him. With another woman. She had read about the marriage in the paper, but she had barely acknowledged it to be real. She couldn't believe it to be real. She lowers her eyelids, shutting off the world. Her head turns to the side, so that when she opens them again, she won't be able to see him. But she doesn't. She stays in the dark, for maybe an hour, waiting for something to happen, but nothing does, unless the dissipating steam soaking her clothes, sticking to her skin, is counted as something happening. The sound of the crowds falls into a soft, steady silence, and she finally opens her eyes. She is alone on the platform, as she was before, but this time, it is a real alone. It is an undeniable alone. It is an unavoidable alone. All but her reflection.
Reflection
The misty reflection of her face on the glass is vague, revealing nothing. If a stranger saw her, she would have no past, she would have no future, she would have no present. Just another face. She'd have been ordinarily pretty were it not for the squashed nose, her stringy hair, her flat black eyes, that used to reflect everything and anything, but now simply were. The person in the glass sighs, just as Pansy does. Her breath fogs up the face, but she doesn't bother to reach out and rub it clear. It would make no difference. She tugs on a strand of her hair, and is suddenly overcome by memories, nostalgia, missing her life from before. As though in a trance, she ties up her hair in pigtails, an ugly mockery of her younger self from when she was at Hogwarts. She wants to be this person again, no, she needs to be this person again. But she doesn't know where she's gone. Pansy presses her own hand up against the glass, so like the children who just left on the train, hoping to reach through and touch her younger self. There was a man, once, who loved to hold her pigtails, twist them around and around until they bounced when she walked, curling into burning ringlets of molten gold. But now there is another woman who he does that to. Words of love were once spoken, but they disappeared alone with the war, along with the future, along with the girl in the mirror. She wakes up now with the world of tomorrow, the world of yesterday obliterated along with the spitefulness of people's natures.
Mirage
Condensation from the steam drips down the face of the glass, and she steps forward hurriedly to escape the liquid making her clothes more sodden than they already are. All the fog has cleared, and she can see all the way up and down the platform without any impairment at all. Right at the end, she thinks she sees a movement, but perhaps it was only a mirage, a flickering image of her mind, craving the one thing that will make everything alright for her again. But then, she sees it again. Far off, so far of she can barely ascertain its true existance. But she wants to, so badly, because it has silvery-blonde hair, and expensive clothes, and an expensive watch, and expensive time, and expensive everything, and he is expensive too. He wobbles, and her heart nearly breaks as she realises the truth that he really is a mirage. She curses her mind, and her shoulders slump. He dissolves into the setting sun, and she lets her eyes drift shut, heartbroken.
Water
"Pansy?" She feels a hand on her shoulder, but she doesn't open her eyes. It isn't real, it can't be real. But the deep timbre in that voice, the calming weight, remind her completely of him and him only. She knows she's only imagining things, but the tiny droplet of hope swells in her chest, and she begins to shake her head.
"No, no, no…" But even as she says it, she can smell him, his strong, soothing scent of cold water and clouds, and she knows that, for the first time in nineteen years, it's really him. Suddenly weak at the knees, the glass behind her unable to hold her up, she slides down, leaving a clear, vivid trail of nothing, surrounded by beaded white condensation. "You," she breathes. "It's you." Her eyes flick open, and she finds she is looking into his own. He is so very close, so close that she can see so deep in his own eyes, right through the shifting grey waters to the treasure at the bottom, should it exist. And at that very moment, she can feel a drop of water within her, sliding down her heart, the vague promise of heat welling within her at the hope that it is actually him, and she is beginning to melt. For the first time in nineteen years, the ice is melting, she is turning to water, and her frozen black eyes are shining and new. For the first time in nineteen years, there is a reflection in her eyes, and it is him.
Air
His voice is uneven, breathy, as though a violent wind has swept through it and left nothing but words. "Yes, it's me."
Her own voice is choked, trapped within her. It doesn't want to escape, for fear of being trampled. "I read about you in the paper," is all she manages to say. Like she did last night, she wraps her arms around her legs, but not for the heat. She isn't cold at the moment. She isn't warm, but she isn't cold. She pulls her knees into her chest, and rests her head on them. It's all she can do to hold herself together, keep herself in one piece until he goes. All she wanted was a glimpse of him, but now, like a fresh breeze, he has swept through her and left her clear and new, like the glass she rests on. Pretty to look at, yet easily breakable. "Everybody's already left, why are you still here?" she whispers.
"My son left on the train."
"It's been a long time since the train left," she acknowledged, avoiding his gaze.
He thinks for a moment, as though tasting the words he is about to say on his tongue. "I guess I was looking for something, easier found once the crowd left. And why are you still here, Pansy?"
"I came for the memories." The silence floats down around them, settles on their shoulders. Neither say anything, but just listen to the sound of the others breathing. Each wonder who will be the one to break it, to leave, or to say something they regret. Each wish to wait. Each wish to say something. Each wish to make everything better.
"I missed you, you know," Draco mumbles. "I couldn't find you in the year after the war, you weren't in any of the wizarding villages. I searched. I even went to Little Hangleton, where The Dar- You Kno-" He takes a deep breath, still unaccustomed to saying the name nineteen years later. "Voldemort grew up."
"I've been living in an apartment in Muggle London." She pauses. "I never knew you had a son."
"His name is Scorpius."
Pansy stares up at him, wonder and disbelief hidden in her eyes. "But that was what we said we would call our son, if we ever had one."
"I know. You kept tying your hair up in pigtails?"
"No. Like I said, I came here for the memories."
Fire
They stay on the platform, bathed in the iridescent light from the setting sun. It stains them a fiery orange, lighting up their faces together, and making them look as one. Draco's arm has shifted from his side to being around her shoulders, and she leans into him, warm, her spicy, smoky smell enticing him. He draws her scent in, breathing deeply, and sighs. As he lets out the breath, she snuggles deeper into his embrace, resting her head on his chest. With his free hand, he reaches up and twirls the end of her pigtail around his finger, twisting it tightly before releasing it. It curls back into a bouncing flame of yellow, and a smile creases his face.
"I remember when you used to do that to me," Pansy laughs.
"Astoria doesn't like me to do that to her. She says it ruins her hair."
Pansy reaches for his hand, and holds it tightly in hers, lacing their fingers together. She strokes the side of his hand with her thumb, tracing an unknown pattern on the pale, unscarred skin. Expensive skin. He continues to play with her hair, stroking it, rubbing it between his fingers, braiding it, twirling it around and around as he had done so many years ago.
"What else doesn't Astoria like?" she whispers, her breath warm on his face.
"She doesn't like me to do this-" He cranes his neck, and kisses her on the forehead. "Or this-" He kisses her on the nose. "And she especially doesn't like me to do this-" and ever so delicately, ever so heatedly, he kisses her on the lips, and unleashes the fire within her, sets the passion burning so high within her that all she can do is kiss him back, pulling herself into him, releasing all her pent-up flames onto him, creating a blaze within her so powerful that the ice crusting over her heart doesn't melt, instead it simply evaporates into non-existance, and once again, her heart is burning, and she is burning against him, and they are both evaporating in the fiery night, just as they used to in their childhood memories that have plagued them both for nineteen years.
Eternity
This is how it is meant to be, together, sharing their expensive time and rough cotton sheets, for all of eternity.