The day before she gets married, Pansy tells Draco she loves him.

They're nineteen years old, and she doesn't want a bachelorette party (she's only got one fucking female friend, anyhow, and Daphne's already making a fuss about how the wedding's cutting into her plans to go to France) and so they just spend the weekend at Malfoy Manor, she and Blaise and Draco, and she says she just wants to enjoy herself. Lucius is fond of Pansy, and Narcissa never flat-out disapproves of her, and so she's always a welcome guest. And Blaise...well, anybody who was anybody adores him, because he's more or less the perfect pureblood man.

The three of them start drinking at noon and by the time it's six o' clock they're all drunk enough to think it's a good idea to break into Lucius's extensive liquor stores. They grab as much as they can carry, and Pansy downs vodka with that same scrunched-up facial expression she always wears when drinking, and Blaise teases her for it incessantly. "Still, Parkinson?" he sneers, his grin sloppy. "You still make that stupid face?"

She tells him to fuck off and they take another round, and soon they're far more drunk than they have any right to be. They sit there for hours, drinking and laughing and Draco even gives Pansy the go-ahead to smoke a cigarette in the parlor, because, "Might as well enjoy your freedom." Blaise proposes a toast and Pansy immediately shuns the idea scathingly.

"No fucking way," she growls, her eyebrows angled down low, red hot anger in her chest coloring the ends of the words crimson. "I'm not gonna celebrate this bullshit marriage."

It's four in the morning when the three of them head off to their separate rooms to sleep, stumbling and giggling and nearly destroying several very expensive pieces of decor on the way through the long halls of the manor.

It's four-fifteen when Draco bursts dramatically into the guest bedroom Pansy's staying in, grinning at her lying there wearing one of Blaise's button-downs. Soon he's kissing her and she's pouring all of the anger and sadness and longing in her body into kissing him back, and his hands snake underneath her shirt and she's gasping out a sound that's sort of like his name. It's dark and sloppy and wonderful (it always has been, since that first time on her birthday and sometimes he looks so fucking beautiful she could die), with Draco cursing and Pansy whispering words of poetry and love into his ear. And then, right when she's about to break, she weaves her fingers in the hair at the nape of his neck, pulls him closer still. She can feel his labored breath against the bare skin of her shoulder, smell the cologne and sweat on his slick pale skin. He slams a hand down next to her head and growls, and she feels his tongue glide from the hollow of her throat to her ear.

"Pans," he groans, the canting of his hips growing more erratic, his skin slides against hers so perfectly and she's dying in a way that's so perfect and beautiful that she wishes it would never stop.

"I love you, I love you, I love you so much," she breathes, the words tumbling forth against her will, and he lets out a guttural moan - she's not sure then if he's heard her or if it's just because she's clenched so tight and wet around him, crying out his name.

They're all hungover the next day, and in photographs of the wedding Pansy mostly looks pissed off. Draco falters during the toast he makes at the reception, and Blaise puts his face in his hands when the crowd laughs or the applause is too loud. It's a sham and everyone knows it, her and Goyle especially - she's made it clear she's not a fan of this whole union thing and he's growled back that she's not so hot herself.

When guests start to clear out, Pansy finds herself standing in the corner with Draco, looking at everything but each other. They say very little and they say it very quietly, like if their voices rise everything will get so much darker.

"Feel any different?" he asks her, trying to grin but grimacing instead. And she doesn't understand it, but Pansy feels an overwhelming urge to cry. If he remembers her confession, he doesn't mention it, and still there's that agonizingly painful lump building in her throat.

"I guess that was the last time," she mutters, looking down - and she looks beautiful but no one, especially not Draco (especially not now) is going to tell her so.

He doesn't answer her, and when her father beckons her to come over to him he lets his hand fall on her shoulder and linger for longer than it should.

He tells her congratulations.

She wants to disappear.

When Daphne tells her Draco's dating Astoria, Pansy says she doesn't care. "He's a free agent," she says, and there's a smirk playing at her features that suggests that she really doesn't give a shit. "She's his type, anyway. It makes sense."

Daphne raises an eyebrow, looking at Pansy curiously over a steaming cup of coffee. "Has he not told you, then?" she asks.

Pansy takes a long moment to pause, and something flashes behind that icy visage. She purses her lips, sips at her coffee (Daphne doesn't know it, but she's poured whiskey in the mix). "No," she finally says. "No, he hasn't."

And it only bothers her a little bit at first. She assumes it's as casual as Draco makes it out to be, even when the sings that this isn't the case become frightfully clear. She doesn't allow herself to believe that this little girl with her fucking weird mannerisms and her pretty long hair (Pansy's is still short and angled and harsh) and her soft features (Pansy's all angles and shadows and hollows of bones) has a chance of taming Draco Malfoy. There's no way. There's just no fucking way.

Even when Draco invites Pansy and Blaise to dinner at the manor with Astoria, clearly seeking their approval, and Pansy notices the generous amount of affection between the two of them (she swears she sees red when she sees Astoria's skinny arm move in a way that suggests she's placed her hand on Draco's knee and Draco grins) she can't believe it. Because this isn't the end, even though she's married to fucking Goyle. This can't be it, because she belongs to him and she's always tried so fucking hard for him to present her his heart in return, and she's the only woman who really knows him and Astoria Greengrass can't possibly make him forget it.

"I love you, I love you, I love you so much."

She wishes she had the courage to tell him sooner.