Disclaimer: Everything belongs to JKR, I'm only borrowing for a while.
AN: Written for the prompt "quiet, Harry/Pansy" given to me by chanteur_dombre over at lumos_main on LJ.
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It started the day she sat down beside him in the library. He stared at her as she opened her Transfigurations book and began to do her homework. After a few minutes of him just staring, and her doing homework, Harry frowned slightly, but went back to his own homework. When he finished, he packed up his things, stood – hesitated only a moment as he gazed down at the top of her head bent over her parchment, and left.
A week later found him back in the library. It was only fifteen minutes before she arrived and silently repeated her routine from the week before. This time, she was the one to leave first, though unlike before, when she had ignored him leaving, Harry watched. She shouldered her bag, and left with a small smile.
The third time it happened, Harry wasn't surprised and gave her a small nod in greeting. This time when he left, she gave him a smile and a wave before bending back over her work. They engaged in these quiet little homework sessions six more times – but Harry wasn't counting.
The next couple trips to the library saw Harry alone, though, and he wondered if she had given up whatever plan she had been trying. Maybe she thought whatever it was she was attempting was taking too long. He didn't go back to the library for three weeks.
His potions essay saw fit to drive him back to the quiet stacks, though. Books were strewn around him, his hair was tousled, and he had ink stains on his fingers and cheeks. Harry's head was in his hands in despair when she arrived. He jerked when she sat down beside him this time, rather than across from him, and he just stared at her as she calmly took his quill and parchment from him. She smiled softly at him, and quietly began to explain just why powdered bicorn horn and crushed lemon balm could not be used together in a potion. This was the first time she had talked during these meetings; so Harry talked back.
Soon, they began meeting outside the library; she would find him when he went for walks around the lake, when he ate lunch outside alone, or when he went to the Quidditch pitch just to fly and enjoy the cool winter air and bright sun. It took a while, but soon they were talking like they had always been friends. It started with discussing homework, then school, friends, teachers, Christmas hols, summers at home, politics and the war. She wasn't anything like he had expected; quieter than he had thought, less hostile than he remembered, less the simpering follower.
Christmas hols arrived, and Harry stayed at Hogwarts as usual while she went home. They exchanged a couple letters, but it was when she arrived in the library their first week back, all large smiles and stories about her holiday that Harry realized how much he had missed her stories, her wit, her intelligence, how much he had missed her. It took four more library visits, three flights around the Quidditch pitch, two walks around the lake, and one snowball fight before he kissed her, her cheeks red from the cold, her eyes sparkling with laughter and snow in her hair. She looked stunned for a moment before she smiled, threw her arms around his neck and kissed him back.
It took a month for Ron to talk to him again after Harry told him he was going out with a Slytherin, a month and a half before Malfoy stopped threatening her, pleading with her about how she could choose Potter, of all people, over him, and two months before everyone realized just how serious Harry was about this, how serious he was about her.
By May, they were both surrounded by friends. They sat cuddled on a couch in Gryffindor, talking and laughing, they played chess in Slytherin, talking politics and slowly, so slowly, changing prejudices. They loved it all. But every so often they could both be found sitting at a table in a back corner of the library, across from each other and focussed on homework, not speaking, but content with each other and with the quiet that reminded Harry, that when Pansy had sat down across from him that day in September and he didn't leave, that he had made the right choice in staying after all.