A/N: I'm super excited to share this fic with you guys. I know it's not my usual Dramione, but I ended up adoring where this story went, and hopefully you will too.
The story is complete—seven chapters long and around 18,500 words in total. It was my entry to this year's HP Drizzle Fest on LiveJournal. The fest featured all sorts of pairings, all weather themed, which was pretty awesome! Here is my prompt from LJ user 'mebeingmebe':
It's raining buckets, she's lost in the Forbidden Forest looking for a missing student, and now her five-hundred galleon fur-lined boots are forever ruined! Enter Charlie Weasley, Hogwarts' new groundskeeper, to the rescue! Pansy Parkinson/Charlie Weasley. Post-Hogwarts.
Rating: T for occasional profanity and mild sexual themes
Disclaimer: Don't own Harry Potter. Do own this story and also the cover image (of which I am particularly proud!). Please don't republish/use either without my permission. Thanks!
...
It was second period on a sunny November morning, and the girls in Pansy Parkinson's class were curiously distracted.
They were supposed to be working in silence while Pansy marked a stack of test papers and lamented internally over their sieve-like minds—she'd ban summer holidays if she could, except then she'd never get a break—but there was some very definite giggling going on at the back of the classroom. Not to mention the extraordinarily high number of female students needing supplies from the cupboard under the window.
"Snapped another one, Miss Finch-Fletchley?" Pansy asked drily as the girl returned to her seat with a new quill.
Lauren, a Hufflepuff like her father, nodded.
"Yes. Sorry, Miss."
She didn't look particularly sorry, Pansy thought. The girl's eyes were sparkling, and she had her bottom lip pulled beneath her teeth like she was trying very hard not to laugh.
Seeing her teacher's sceptical stare, however, Lauren attempted to compose herself.
"Won't happen again," she said earnestly, giving the quill a shake and writing energetically on her worksheet.
The student beside her snorted and rolled her eyes.
"Something wrong, Miss Weasley?" Pansy inquired. Rose started and flushed as red as her hair.
"No, Professor," she said. "Sorry."
Pansy watched the girls scribble frantically on their parchment for a moment longer, then, satisfied they were getting on, returned to her marking.
Not a minute later, she heard it again.
A giggle.
Her head snapped up, just in time to see the chair of every girl sat on the right-hand side of the classroom teeter precariously towards the windows.
"Right, that is enough!" she said, leaping to her feet and marching over. "What could possibly be going on out there that has you all so… oh!"
She stopped short, staring open-mouthed out the window.
Because there, hard at work in the flowerbeds below, his bare skin slick with sweat, was Hogwart's new groundskeeper, Charlie Weasley.
Shirtless.
"Merlin," she breathed.
He was planting something or other—Pansy didn't know what and, quite frankly, she didn't care. She was far too busy drinking in the rippling muscles of his arms, the strong hard slope of his shoulder, the golden glow of his skin in the sunlight…
"Merlin," she whispered again.
A flutter of feminine sighs from behind brought her sharply back to her senses. She whirled around, pink-cheeked, to discover every girl in the class had left her seat to join their teacher at the window.
All except one. Poor Rose Weasley, who had her head in her hands and her fingers pressed into her eyes as her friends and professor gawked at her uncle.
Embarrassed, Pansy drew herself to her full height.
"Back to your desks!" she said crossly. "All of you!"
"But Miss," Lauren said dramatically, not budging an inch. "Look at him!"
"He's majestic," added Megan, pressing her nose to the glass.
"Like a magnificent dragon," agreed Prisha, joining her.
"I'd like to tame his dragon," Megan said longingly.
"Repeatedly," Prisha concurred.
"That is enough," Pansy ground out, shocked at the girls' smuttiness. "Back to your desks now, and stay there until I get back."
No one moved.
"Where are you going, Professor?" Lauren asked, not even bothering to turn her head.
Pansy narrowed her eyes.
"To get rid of this"—she gestured towards Charlie, still hard at work in the garden, still entirely oblivious to the explosion of third-year hormones he'd triggered upstairs—"this eyesore!"
And with that, she flounced from the room, robes fluttering dramatically around her.
Really, she thought crossly as she stomped down the stairs, the man was old enough to be their father!
Not yours, a little voice reminded her, but she shook it off.
She was not going there. No way.
Never mind his twinkly brown eyes, or his tanned freckled skin, or his devil-may-care grin.
Never mind the first time she'd seen him, the very first day of term, he'd been crouched beside a tearful first-year at Hogsmeade Station, talking in a low kind voice until the boy had grinned and giggled and skipped away.
Never mind that no matter how doggedly she ignored him, the infuriating man always found a way to catch her eye across the Great Hall and wink or smile or do something else that made her want to melt into a dripping puddle at the dinner table.
No, she was here at Hogwarts to work. She was still only relatively new—this was her third year at the school but only her second as a full-blown teacher—and although the other teachers seemed to like her so far, she still felt like she had to prove herself. Flirting with the groundskeeper, no matter how ruggedly handsome said groundskeeper was, was not the way to garner respect as the school's newest charms mistress.
But Merlin was he handsome. That bloody man. Everything inside her seemed to liquefy at the sight of those loose work trousers slung low on his hips.
"Weasley," she snapped, marching across the lawn towards him—no easy feat in stiletto-heeled boots.
Charlie started then straightened, pausing his digging. His eyes raked over her like they always did, from her dark bob and full fringe, tousled just so, to the fitted black skirt beneath her billowing velvet robes, before lifting to meet hers, eyebrow arched.
Now Pansy wasn't a woman unused to male attention—she was attractive enough and entirely prepared to use it to her advantage—but she was a professor and trying her damned hardest to be an imposing authoritative figure, and the way he was looking at her was making her feel anything but.
She scowled at him, stopping at the edge of the flowerbed.
"Parkinson," he said, with that maddening half-smile of his. "Oh dear, look at that face. What have I done now?"
He made it sound like she was always telling him off, which wasn't true. Certainly, she was often rather short with him—mostly so no one could accuse her of fancying him rotten—and she did tend to return his saucy smirks with a fierce glare.
But still. She wasn't that awful.
She raised her chin, hoping she looked at least halfway dignified.
"You are distracting my class," she said stiffly. He rested an arm on his spade, causing certain muscles to flex quite interestingly—do not ogle his naked chest, do not ogle his naked chest—and regarded her with amusement.
"Am I, Professor?"
Entirely aware he was teasing her, she fixed him the hardest look she could muster.
"You are."
"And how, may I ask, am I doing that?"
Pansy pursed her lips.
"That," she said, gesturing in the general direction of his glistening muscles. "That. Your naked sweaty self is distracting my class."
"Naked, sweaty self, huh?" He eyed her knowingly. "Are you sure it's your class I'm distracting, Pansy?"
Oh, she did not like him using her first name. And she did not like what he was insinuating.
Incensed, she took a step towards him—a horrible idea, really, as the pointed heel of her boot sank into the soft earth and she pitched forward with a squeak of alarm, almost falling flat on her face in the flowerbed.
Almost. Charlie caught her before she fell, wrapping an arm around her waist and bringing her flush against him. Her hands splayed flat on his chest, his skin hard, hot and damp beneath her fingers, and she almost stopped breathing.
"Steady, Professor," he murmured, eyes on hers.
He had beautiful eyes. Up close, she could see the amber flecks in his brown irises, the long lashes wasted on a man, the fine lines around the corners—laughter lines, she knew, because they deepened when he smiled.
She blinked, trying—and failing—to pull herself together. Had his lovely thick red hair always curled so charmingly, so boyishly, across his forehead, she wondered dazedly. And if so, why in the name of Merlin was it so very distracting right this second?
A loud whoop from the windows above brought the world into abrupt and unpleasant focus.
The anger had evaporated at the feel of his body against hers, but now it returned full force, along with a fair dose of humiliation that her class had witnessed her trip and fall, right into Charlie Weasley's naked, sweaty torso.
"Let me go," she said, pushing at his chest. Another bad idea—Merlin, the man was solid. But he released her at her request, carefully, ensuring she was back on her feet, then stepped away.
"Thank you," she said, rather ungraciously actually, but he smiled at her in his usual affable way.
"So I'm distracting your class, huh?" He wrenched his spade out of the ground and turned to assess his beds. "Well, I suppose I don't have to finish planting these now. Give me a minute to finish getting these daffs in, then I'll be out of your hair."
Pansy would much rather he stick a shirt on and leave immediately, but she supposed that might sound rather unreasonable. She flashed him a stiff smile.
"Thank you."
He winked, making her flush scarlet (the man knew what he was doing to her—he just had to!), then carried on with his digging.
Of course, Pansy couldn't stand there forever watching the sweat trickle down his muscled stomach, so with another brisk nod, she turned on her heel and picked her way back across the grass. It wasn't the dignified exit she'd have liked—her heels sank straight into the soft earth with every step, making her look, she was sure, like a constipated hippogriff—but it would have to do.
Her class had clearly been watching the entire exchange from the window. When she entered, the desks squeaked as the last few stragglers leapt back into their seats. Lauren had her hands over her mouth, clearly trying not to laugh, and she wasn't the only one. The whole class looked like they were smothering giggles, exchanging knowing glances as she stalked, back ramrod straight, to the front of the classroom.
It was, all in all, utterly mortifying. Pansy had had some iffy moments as a new teacher, but this was the worst by far. And it was all bloody Charlie Weasley's fault.
She surveyed her class through narrowed eyes.
"Since you all must have finished the questions I set you," she said ominously. "Perhaps I should set you some more. Page twenty-two, questions one to twenty. If you're not finished by the end of the lesson, I want them done for homework. By tomorrow," she added, well aware she was being mean.
Her malice worked though. The suppressed smiles vanished in an instant, replaced by identical expressions of shock.
Pansy simply smiled serenely. She didn't often give in to nastiness as a teacher—she wanted her pupils to respect her, not despise her—but damn it if, at times like these, she didn't relish the power.
A loud scrape caught her attention; she zeroed in on Albus Potter, the nephew of the very man who'd caused such humiliation. The boy had clearly forgotten himself and shoved his chair back in utter outrage.
"Problem, Mr Potter?" she asked coolly.
The boy looked conflicted for a moment—he was actually a rather well-mannered child; it was his brother, James, who had the runaway mouth—but apparently his sense of fairness won out.
"Me and Scorpius have Quidditch practice this evening," he said, a blush rising high in his cheeks. "We can't do those questions for tomorrow."
Pansy lifted a brow.
"Is that so? Well, then perhaps it would be better if you and Scorpius do your homework here with me in detention, where I can ensure you complete it," she said, taking a perverse sort of pleasure in the way the boys' mouths dropped open and their eyes bulged. "Four o'clock," she added. "Don't be late."