requested by laisvega on tumblr, posted originally in September 2016. The prompt was Hansy and the phrase "I dreamt about you last night"
The red on the back of her stiletto's cut through the haze of neutral at the black tie affair.
He thought the color looked better on her lips. Or, in a ring of teeth marks over her shoulder, or her ribs, her thigh…
"Harry, do you want another drink?"
"No, Ron."
The cool press of glass with the beginning of condensation pressed into his palm anyway. He didn't pause to see what it was before pulling a less than cordial sip, only wincing a bit as the bite of cold fire coated his tongue and throat. On its fiery path down to his gut, the bourbon found each spot along the way that threatened to form into a new ulcer.
"Not worth it, mate."
"It's my party," Harry grumbled, burying his nose in the short glass for another drink. "I can do what I want to."
Ron laughed, a dark and mirthless noise. Harry could hear him tugging at the tie around his neck, something Hermione had insisted on. Something about how they were all less likely to hex each other if they celebrated at a Muggle club. Wishful thinking.
The entire exchange was completed, and Ron back to mingling like a good war hero, and Harry moved to sit at the bar where the liquor bottles were moved just so, enough of the mirror behind them to reveal the entire room with a bit of maneuvering.
"You'll stare a hole in her dress if you keep that up."
"She's not wearing enough for that, Ginny."
[[MORE]]
Her skirt rustled when she settled next to Harry, their thighs touching beneath the granite bar top. There were several open seats in either direction, the wide berth something Harry was used to, and honestly thankful for. But, Ginny always found a way to be right up in his comfort zone. Like a weed pushing through pavement cracks or the way Pansy just showed up looking like that -
"You're boring when you sulk, did you know? Ginny, how do you stand this bore?"
"Frankly, I can't stand another second, so you'll need to take my place, Parkinson."
Was he that drunk already he heard the interaction in a delay? A delay long enough to allow a potential sympathetic ear to up and walk away, clearing the path for the one thing making him drink in the first place?
"Potter." The pointed end of that damned shoe brushed his calf as she settled herself.
Harry waved his hand to the bartender and gestured for a refill, two fingers upheld. "Parkinson."
"I can't stand that swill on the rocks. Make mine neat," he heard her call the last few words over to the man in pants that had to be a size too small, at least around his ass and hips. The tip jar was full enough to prove that point, the bills enormous, betraying who exactly was in the room that night: rich pureblooded assholes who exchanged far too much gold for Muggle money and wanted it all out of their pockets by the end of the night, whether they were trying to get into the pants of the attractive bartender or carpet the ground so they could walk on it instead of the tile floor. Purebloods like the one next to him.
"I hate you."
"You're a terrible liar. Let's try this again: Hello, Pansy. How are you? Fancy a drink?"
"You got your drink," Harry slurred, not sure whether he was angry or just tired. Tired of the bullshit, like charity fundraisers and itchy rented tuxedos.
Pansy laughed, throaty and promising. The stiletto bumped his leg again. "I didn't even have to blow you for it."
Harry hissed to try to forestall any further commentary, picking up his drink in one hand, and grabbing her arm with the other. Most of the guests were in the upper decks of the bar, crowded around tables of donated goods up for auction, so there weren't many to witness the way he pulled her out the front doors, into the lobby, and over to the glass elevator. He guided her in first, a part of his mind recognizing she could have brushed his grip off easily by now, but allowed him to take her away anyway. When the glass door slid shut and the call button for the fourteenth floor lit up a cool blue against stainless steel, Harry took out his wand and cast a spell to frost the glass.
Leaning against the back of the elevator, Pansy rested her hands over the railing and looked through her lashes at him, the hem of her skirt riding up enough that he knew where her stockings ended, supported by a bright red garter. The scratch of her dark stockings rubbing against each other as she rolled her hips, thighs pressed together, filled the silence until Harry could only hear the rush of blood in his ears and the sound of his own breathing.
The movement of the elevator rising alerted his distracted body to bend his knees so he wouldn't topple over, Quidditch skills coming in handy.
"Have you bid on anything tonight, Harry?"
"What I want isn't on those tables," he said, eyes tracking each swirl of Pansy's hips.
A cackle poured from her painted lips."You aren't the highest bidder tonight."
"Fuck if I didn't already know that!" The bitter tone of his voice lost power through slurred consonants and too-long vowels stumbling over themselves. "I can't stand this…this snake charmer act you pull. I can't get you out of my head. I fucking hate you for that, did you know? You act like this all…that I felt nothing! If it meant you wouldn't go home with anyone, even me, I would pay double whatever that other…crup fucker did. Shit. You want to know what's really fucked up? I dreamt about you last night. I haven't dreamt about anyone since…in a very long time."
"Oh, Harry. You're acting like you care. It's incredibly pathetic."
Harry's breath, increasing pace in and out of his lungs during his ranting, stopped short with a rough gasp. His eyes snapped from her legs to the hard line of her mouth and the cutting gaze beneath too many lashes to be natural.
Pansy pushed away from the wall, the elevator dinging to signal they'd almost reached their destination. Her hands landed on either side of his head, where he still stood in front of the line of buttons, and she used her momentum and his stunned silence to shove his lower half against the wall, the hard line of his belt pressing into the buttons for the five lowest floors in the building. The multiple blue lights cast his all-black clothes in an eerie light, and Pansy's red lipstick turned black the closer she moved to him.
"Pansy," Harry said, his breath moving the ends of her feather earrings. His hands moved to cup her ass, holding on for dear life while his body screamed and begged him to give in while his mind continued the litany of what the fuck are you doing. The sharp line of her knee pressed a warning into his groin as her fingers traced his lips, tingling from the alcohol and the over-stimulation.
"Hush. I would say to go fuck yourself, but I don't wish that for the precious Boy Who Lived to Fuck Sluts. Owl me when you're not acting like a self-absorbed, whiny prick, Harry Potter."
A sharp ding announced the fourteenth floor, and Pansy moved away after grinding Harry's too-responsive groin against her own. He could feel the press of circular wizarding coin hidden somewhere on her person, and he itched to reach his fingers under her skirt to find them. But the coin meant someone else had placed their bets on her space, the roulette board was still spinning, but no matter where the ball fell he was shit out of luck.
His breathing matched the click of her heels, and it took the entire ride back down, stopping at each floor his ass had selected, to return it to some semblance of normal. Harry would fall asleep that night with his trousers unbuttoned, and bed empty except for a growing stain on the sheets and mattress from spilled firewhiskey.