Like Sun
this is a belated birthday fic (and friendiversary fic) for angela, whom i love(: disclaimed and enjoy!
Pansy can avow things about herself, she thinks.
.
Draco Malfoy wears cheek like dress robes, has winded inquisitiveness, vast gray eyes, and a perpetual pale smirk.
Pansy swears he's the most beautiful boy she's ever seen.
.
She fondles his clipped pastel hair on the train— Pansy likes the feeling of the even barbs under her fingernails. Thin golden wisps are wrenched from his scalp, fall, and catch on her skirt.
Blaise is opposite them, watching Draco, who's splayed in her lap, burdensome but warm. They're talking about Longbottom and Draco's deriding the boy with his eminent sneer.
What's Longbottom got to interest Slughorn? Draco wants to know, knocking aside Pansy's running fingers defiantly.
Pansy fires Blaise a look of aggravation that he ignores.
.
They have double Potions a few days after the start of term and Pansy sees Blaise past hundreds of indistinguishable dark robes.
"Zabini!"
He turns and glowers— and that's all he'll ever do, Pansy's sure —stripping her slight fingers off his pack. "What, Parkinson?" His cool fascia splinters when she pulls at his arm— Blaise wrenches free.
"I want to ask you something," Pansy starts cuttingly, folding her arms. She drops her tone to a inquisitive whisper and lifts her lips to his ear. "What's Draco been up to, lately? He's been acting…" Pansy's sentence wanes and she sinks her teeth into her lip, "…Strange."
Blaise's laugh is stone as he smirks in disdain. "Don't you know? Aren't you his girlfriend, Parkinson?"
Spluttering, Pansy flushes. "It's got nothing…it— it's none of your business." A bit of her face cracks— just the corner of her lip breaks in misery.
Blaise stares at her— thick, dark hair scraped away and confined to a knot at her neck, her disparaging eyes framed with red, and the twisted grimace that cries— and sees that Pansy has never appeared more meager.
"C'mun," Blaise mutters coarsely. "I'll walk you to potions." He rather abhors the unreceptive monotony in his voice, aware that he sounds mean.
A small smile cricks up her right cheek as she swabs her nose.
"You can carry my books."
.
Draco's lost behind the plum circles beneath his eyes and his impassive gray stare.
Does he smirk anymore? Pansy can't be sure. Things are strange between the two of them— she tells him 'hi, Draco' in Potions and he sinks in his chair.
"There's a Hogsmeade trip coming up," She says on a pink-streaked afternoon with all the buoyancy she can muster. "We could—"
"I'm busy, Pansy," Draco says, his lips cut into a serrated scowl.
Pansy's chest tautens, like her ribs are being crushed. "Well…" She digs her fingernails into her palms and says vigilantly, "Maybe next time, yeah."
Draco grunts.
.
Pansy corners Blaise in the common room after dinner and jabs the point of her wand into his sweater. "What's Draco hiding from me, Zabini? You know, don't you? You know."
Blaise flips the wand away and scoffs, "I know you fancy him Pansy, but you're becoming compulsive. And," he adds, as Pansy begins to fume, "I promise, I know nothing."
Pansy throws back her head with a howl of forged mirth. "Oh, rubbish, Zabini," She mocks impersonally, shoving her wand into her pocket.
Uncongenially, Blaise secretes his expression behind The Daily Prophet and remains soundless. Pansy can feel the tension in her chest again, and something blazing behind the bars of her ribs.
Pansy settles into the dense armchair beside Blaise and brings her knees to her chin. "It's so unfair," she spits, persisting the matter in a flat pitch. "That exasperating, thick-headed, secret-keeping—"
"Lay off Malfoy, won't you?" Blaise disrupts coolly, whimsically setting down the Prophet. "What you don't know won't kill you."
The corner of her lip creases with displeasure as she plays with the ends of her dark hair. "I want my boyfriend back, is all," Pansy says quietly.
Blaise stares at the gloomy ceiling, entwining his fingers. "Do you actually love him?"
"Yeah, Zabini, I love him."
"Right."
Blaise tilts the Prophet up again and neither of them speak for hours.
.
Draco's corrupt and Pansy's going mental. Blaise isn't, though— he's serene and collected, relentlessly nattily dressed, and a real scholar.
Pansy curls into that armchair every night while Blaise reads The Daily Prophet, and it's nearly a ritual now.
"Do you talk to Draco much?" Pansy inquires one night, the first bit of her Transfiguration essay in the lap of her robes.
Blaise doesn't look away from the Prophet when he replies. "Not much. He's always 'round Crabbe and Goyle these days, isn't he?"
"I s'pose," Pansy says softly into her essay, licking her lips. "Do you think he likes me? Tell me the truth."
Blaise's rangy features bend unbelievingly. "I dunno," he barks in aggravation. "Why don't you ask him?"
"It'd be a brilliant idea if it was pragmatic," Pansy scoffs, twisting the parchment into a trim roll and reclining in the armchair. "And you didn't even answer my question."
Blaise hates her like this— needy and neurotic, with her conical eyes too probing and her makeup too alive.
"You're mates, Blaise," Pansy continues, amiably laying a hand on his shoulder. "Doesn't he say anything about girls?"
He's wound up now, his fingers vehemently clenching The Daily Prophet, a piece promoting the Apothecary gathering into a puckered tuck.
"See you later, Parkinson." Blaise crinkles the Prophet in his fist and brusquely heads for his dormitory. He can hear Pansy's mystified squeal of protest, but he doesn't acknowledge her— he won't.
.
It's been four days and Pansy hasn't exchanged a word with Blaise; not a fickle hello, or how's that Transfiguration essay coming along? —not even 'you mad git, what were you playing at?'
(Not that she's distressed about it— the flinty escape from the common room that night is hardly anything to worry about— they're still friends, right?)
But then it's six-days-since, and Pansy is beginning to feel bothered. She peeks his way during Potions, fairly goaded by his immediacy to Millicent Bulstrode, who's sharing Advanced Potion-Making with him.
Pansy waits outside the dungeons after class. "You prat," Pansy snarls when Blaise strolls out. "What was that?"
"Oh, are we speaking to each other again?" Blaise marvels impassively, running a hand across his head, black hair clipped close to his scalp.
Pansy grits her teeth and, winding her trim fingers around his arm, drags him down the hall.
"Why were you flirting with Millicent Bulstrode?" Pansy sputters, once they are secluded.
Blaise half-smiles and leans in a bit, his searing breath percolating her face. "Are you jealous, Parkinson?" She can smell the kipper from breakfast on his tongue and, rolling her eyes derisively, Pansy backs away.
"You're dreaming, Zabini," Pansy barks sourly. "But fancying Millicent after plodding away from my love-life explorations in the common room? You're such a prat," she repeats.
"If it's any solace, Millicent was the flirt in that state of affairs," Blaise says delicately. He lifts his fingers and runs them across her flushed cheek, only his fingernails on her skin.
"Don't touch me!" Pansy spits viciously.
Blaise's arm plunges to his waist diffidently as he broods, his dark eyebrows stringing together. "Pansy," he starts in an asphyxiated tone. "I promise, I'd never hurt you." He's turned quiet.
They ogle each other, his eyes darting to her mouth.
Abruptly they are kissing, Pansy's fingernails digging into his shoulder and Blaise's hands on the valley of her waist, teaming her robes.
Pansy can taste the kipper.
.
When it's over, they both swear it was a spur of the moment thing, and Pansy tells Blaise to 'shove off.'
.
They thrive in disregarding one another for twenty hours.
Pansy spends nineteen of them trying to think of a hundred reasons why Draco is better than Blaise Zabini, and the other one hour keeping the marks Blaise left on her neck under wraps.
Blaise spends them all moping.
.
Stable evasion ends after the Herbology lesson.
Pansy hovers over Draco, whose skin is insipid and who overlooks her wasted endeavors at any kind of dialogue, turning instead to whisper things to Crabbe and Goyle.
After the lesson, Pansy slumps out sullenly, her book bag flapping around her ankles. She finds Blaise alone in the common room during lunch, reading, and suddenly it's as if her heart is smothering her throat.
Uncertainly, she slouches over to the armchair beside Blaise's, bites her fingernail, and quietly tells him, 'hello.'
Pansy can tell from his fleet intake of breath that he is staggered with surprise. "Hi," Blaise says after a prolonged moment of silence. "What exactly…are you doing here?"
"I don't want to eat lunch," Pansy breathes into the vinyl textile of her seat, clasping her eyelids shut until she sees spots.
"I didn't mean that," Blaise snaps in a tone as frozen as winter. "I mean here, beside me. Don't you think it's strange?"
Pansy tells him she doesn't know— which, honest, is the truth —and they sit for another half-hour, Blaise with his newspaper and Pansy with her legs crossed.
Finally, when it's nearly one in the afternoon, Blaise sets down his paper, and Pansy begins to feel scorching. She twists the curt ends of her hair off her neck, which is paneled with perspiration.
"Maybe we could—"
They conveniently lunge for one another all at once, fleet like a wave, and Pansy knows it's awful but all she can think is, 'finally.'
.
Blaise and Pansy are excellent enigmas.
They slink around so overlooked that none of the other Slytherins have time to miss them. It means missing lunch most afternoons, but Blaise doesn't mind.
Intermittently Blaise will catch Pansy with her eyes fixed on Draco's pastel head, but he compels himself not to heed it and presses her against the wall when they are alone, kissing her crimson.
Sometimes Pansy will mumble inane things like 'this is silly' and 'we shouldn't do this, Blaise,' but he doesn't think she means it.
She's tried to elude him, but lately everything's been lips or lust, and their vitality is lit like sun.
.
He says it in the common room, her legs tucked and his fingers in her hair, snaking around the undiluted chocolate-hued pieces the way candy floss clings to the rod.
"I like you," Blaise voice as analytically as possible, staring rigidly into the fireplace. Pansy twists her neck to look at him.
"Yeah?" She mumbles. Pansy sounds moderately cynical.
"Yeah."
And she doesn't really say anything but mm after that.
.
They continue to sneak around until Blaise has to ask, "Why, Pansy? Why can't we—"
At this Pansy whirls around and, as if making to slap him, flexes her arm. "Don't be thick, Blaise; there isn't a 'we,'" she says crossly.
"The hell there isn't," Blaise fumes, wishing he hated her— wishing he could. "This is about Malfoy, isn't it?"
"What's it to you?" Says Pansy scornfully.
Blaise doesn't really want to answer, so instead he tethers his long fingers in her dark hair and kisses her again.
That's all he can resort to when she's being difficult.
(She's often difficult.)
.
Nott catches them at it one night, Blaise's hand twisted in her shirt and her lips at his neck.
"Bloody hell," is what he cries, his pale eyes flicking between Blaise and Pansy. "You?" He jabs a finger at Pansy and approaches her guardedly, a muscle darting in his jaw. "With Blaise? But what about—?"
Scowling, Pansy straightens the folds of her shirt. "It was nothing," she deadpans, bashing away Nott's bulky finger. "It was…" Pansy digs her fingernails into her palms, the falcate silhouettes dinting her chalky skin as she searches for a word, "…an accident," she finishes fairly lamely. But then her tone is pleading, and she's grasping Nott by his emerald sweater and beseeches, "Hell, don't tell Draco."
Nott diffidently crosses his heart before scampering out of the common room.
Everything's quiet.
.
"'Hell, don't tell Draco,'" Blaise mocks at last. "Just brilliant," he spits insolently. Blaise anticipates her raging fists and dismayed eyes and 'you're such a prat, Zabini' and 'I hope you are trampled by thestrals.'
But Pansy just sags in her skin. Blaise waits intolerantly.
Finally, she turns summarily and mutters that she's sorry.
"What for?" Blaise demands apprehensively. "We—"
It seems Pansy has the strength to disrupt him, at least. "Don't be an idiot, Zabini; you know I hate it when you use that word." A very un-Pansy like frown, sullen and disgruntled, inks to her right cheek. "Draco…" Is all she says then.
"By God, Pansy, he doesn't even like you!" Blaise bursts, throwing up his hands in defeat. "He's a mess, Pansy. He doesn't like you and I do and everything is wrong."
Pansy fists her hands into her eyes and moans, curling her lips impishly. "I don't know what to do," she breathes.
This aggravates Blaise, because she should know what to do, and— well, it's fairly morbid —but Blaise wants to strangle something.
"It's just…" And Pansy pulls her fingers from her eyes, which Blaise notices have little red veins cropping up in the pointed crooks. "It's complicated. I'll need time to think."
"I'll give you a week, Parkinson," Blaise snaps ferociously, feeling searing-hot as he wrings his fingers.
Pansy stares at the ground. "Right."
.
Blaise really wants…a firewhisky, or something.
Something that burns more than seeing Pansy Parkinson alongside Malfoy.
.
It's a balmy Saturday and there's a Hogsmeade trip. Pansy asks Draco if he'd like to go with her a second time, but he snubs again.
"I'm so busy," he brogues, staring at his goblet of iced juice. "Go with Blaise, or something."
The hairs on Pansy's arms stand on their ends. She thinks maybe she'll swear off boys and move to America.
.
Pansy meanders 'round Hogsmeade alone, her hair pulled back from her pasty visage and bound in a chaotic chignon.
She crosses the threshold of Honeydukes for a licorice wand, her fingers already chafing the bottom of her pockets for Sickles.
Out of the corner of her eye, Pansy spots a string of kipper taffy— syrupy oblongs permeated with breakfast fish.
Her stomach grits unnervingly as Pansy, thinking swiftly, reaches for an extra Sickle.
.
Nott and Warrington, who in truth seem painfully arid, sit across from Blaise in The Three Broomsticks.
Pansy can see that Blaise has his long fingers swathing a butterbeer, his head bent, and eyes focused fixedly on the table.
Before she can lose her nerve, Pansy saunters inside, taps Blaise's shoulder, and tells him, "I need to talk to you outside." He's warm through his sweater.
Blaise stares up at her, his expression made mostly of importunate eyes. His lips are set in a sinewy recession. "Okay."
Nott giggles.
.
"The first time we kissed, you tasted like kipper," Pansy asserts, picking at her fingernails.
"What?" Blaise sounds strangled and exceedingly protective. "I like kipper."
Pansy shoves the taffy into his arms. "I like you," she says at last, ogling Blaise bashfully as he unfurls the wrapper.
There is a gap of stillness during which Blaise takes a stab at obscuring his smile, and fails. "Yeah?"
Pansy flushes. "Yeah." She kisses him.
And that's it— just Pansy and Blaise in burnished yellow sunlight, exultant.