Queen of Hearts

A/N: Pansy's POV. Oops. She's just such a fun character.

Ahem. But I digress. All comments appreciated.

"Malfoy, you stupid tosser!" Pansy Parkinson screeched like a particularly livid bird. Pale brown splotches of tea dripped down her kitchen walls and formed a small Earl Gray puddle. At least her skin had been spared this time. She released a long groan, setting the now mostly empty mug on the counter. "Honestly, Dray, is it that gargantuan of a task for you to Floo without, oh… hello?"

A sooty Blaise Zabini stepped a patent-leather shoed foot gingerly over the shards of Pansy's replacement vase, his eyebrows raised in a skeptical arch. "Obviously you were expecting someone else? I hope you aren't busy…"

She slicked a tea-dampened hand through her black hair. "No, no, it's just Draco stopped by the other day and..." Her sentence dissolved into the air. "And Zabini, I haven't left my house in nearly five months. What could I possibly be busy doing besides playing Exploding Snap by myself?"

Blaise scanned the room. "Making tea, apparently."

A multicolored array of mugs and tea cups dotted the parlor, positioned precariously on tables and chair arms, some drained, some half-filled. She wasn't exactly certain when her tea addiction had begun. It had started as a sleep aid and had rather progressed to the point that she worried her blood had been converted to the stuff… "Blaise, it's barely—" A quick glance at the grandfather clock. "seven-thirty. Why call so early?"

Blaise sniffed. "Well, why are you up?"

She swore under her breath. She was in no mood for Zabini's annoying habit of waltzing suavely around every question thrown at him. "I'm making tea, you tosser. Where are my manners? Would you like some tea? I must say that my skills as a hostess have somewhat atrophied since my friends have taken to stumbling out of my fireplace every hour of the day without so much as a bloody owl… Not to mention breaking everything in their path."

"One disgusting vase is not everything, Parkinson. And don't put things so close to the fireplace."

It was hideous vase. She scowled at him, and vanished the broken porcelain from the floor. "Do you always have to be right, Zabini?"

A smirk twitched at the corners of his lips, but suddenly morphed into a grim line. "Pans, did you see the Prophet today?"

"No, I only just got up, and I know what the front page is." She glanced down at the flashing Witch Weekly ad on her table whose opposite side she knew sported the face of one particular Death Eater…

Blaise shook his head, chocolate eyes so dark she couldn't tell where his iris ended and the blackness of his pupils began. "Sit down, Pansy."

"It's my house; don't order me to sit." she said, but obediently collapsed into the chair Draco had sat in the day before. The chair in which she had dusted her Earl Gray lips against his cool ones. The chair in which she had said goodbye. She sighed.

Zabini settled himself in the chair opposite, and pulled out a folded copy of the Daily Prophet from his robes. "Look here," he said, and passed her the paper.

She unfolded it, and her eyes were met with an array of flashing ads and photographs. "Blaise, I don't need to 'tame my rebellious house-elf'…"

"Flip it over."

The sudden leaden hardness apparent in his words made her jump, and with shaking fingers she turned over to the front page. "Merlin, he's gone mental!" she gasped.

"Mhmm," murmured Blaise.

"Like, full-on, Janus Thickey-ward mental!"

"Mhmm,"

Malfoy Manor was caught in a continuous inferno. Flames leapt from its windows as smoke curled around it like acrid tentacles into the night. That was the worst part of seeing a photograph in a wizarding paper… you could never look away. Malfoy Manor was burning and burning and burning and Pansy knew even if she turned the paper over it would keep burning and burning and burning, trapped in an endless loop of ash and fire. The words Draco Malfoy Sets Ancient Family Home Ablaze After Father Sentenced to Dementor's Kiss curled around the photo, an inky serpent.

"It seems like Draco was quite busy yesterday… his father's sentencing, getting betrothed…" he paused and quickly glanced up, but seeing no reaction from Pansy, continued. "So he told you?"

She nodded. "I am no longer Draco Malfoy's property, if that's what you're asking." The words were poisonous, biting.

Blaise flinched. "We're all Draco Malfoy's property."

The statement hung into the air, a shimmering bubble of a truth that was often left unsaid. Pansy popped it. "Burning down a thousand year old manor… very busy indeed."

There was a rustle of fabric as Blaise shifted in his seat. "Malfoy's prouder than a bloody hippogriff. I thought he'd be rotting in that manor counting galleons until the day he died."

"He always said it had too many rooms." she said in a whisper.

Blaise cleared his throat. "Read the article."

Pansy's eyes darted across the page as she took in the words. "He used Muggle fire sticks?"

"Mhmm,"

"Greengrass certainly has a fine right hook."

"Better than Goyle's. I actually thought I might save that picture." He leaned over to watch as a four centimeter tall Astoria Greengrass pummeled a cowering Draco Malfoy.

"That photographer must have a damn good Disillusionment charm."

"I think he wanted them to see."

The next picture documented Astoria endlessly slamming into Draco with a vicious head but to his stomach.

"Wanted us to see, huh?"

"Well… maybe not that picture."

"That looks like a healthy start to a marriage."

"I'm worried."

This time she was startled not by the harshness of Blaise's voice, but by the sudden softness. She had felt the tears welling in her eyes when Blaise had made the property comment, burning and wet and so very un-Pansy-like. She had felt them again when she had stared into the twisting fires of the photograph of Manor, watching them dance and twirl and burn for eternity and in that moment she had felt Draco's own anger which had simmered and boiled for so many years finally surfacing and burning and burning and burning like his ninety-six room house. But it was the soft worry eating at the corners of Blaise's tired and frayed voice that had shattered her. Her composure exploded into a thousand little pieces as she collapsed into tears.

She was vaguely aware of Blaise rising from his chair and wrapping his arms around her in a tight embrace. "I know, Pansy."

She looked up, feeling rather undignified with her puffy eyes and runny nose. She sniffed. "I-I haven't even said anything…"

"I still know." he said.

"What are we going to do?" she asked, face buried in Blaise's robes. "I'm getting snot everywhere…"

Blaise pressed her head against him and shushed her. "I don't care, Pans. And I don't know. I really don't. But I'm worried about him."

"He's gone mad. He really has. And I can't do anything about it. I'm stuck here with my bloody tea and broken vases and…" Her words were swallowed up by her sobs and drowned gurgling in her throat.

"I'll see him. I'll go and see him right now."

Pansy shook her head. "He won't even tell us where he lives, Blaise, I…"

She felt Blaise's chest rise and fall in a deep sigh. "The reason that he won't tell us where he lives is because he's living around Muggles. That's what I reckon. Remember that hippogriff-complex thing I was talking about? Draco may have burned down his own home, but he's still too much of a Malfoy to admit to living within cursing distance from Muggles. But I'll find him. I doubt there are too many Unplottable Muggle flats."

Pansy flushed with rage. "I hate this house arrest shit. I can't do anything. You're lucky you don't have a Death Eater father. They don't trust my family name."

The arms around her stiffened. "I wouldn't say lucky. And that's not the only reason you're here. If I recall you were awfully eager to hand over ickle Potty during the Battle."

All the blood in her body seemed the stagnate as the heat was sucked from the room. "You know we don't talk about the…" Her words crystallized in the icy air and she shivered.

"Number nine, Parkinson. She's on number nine."

"Your mother?"

"Yeah,"

"Sorry,"

"Isn't everyone?"

"Let's talk about Draco."

"I don't feel like dealing with him, either."

"Astoria is a bitch."

"Mhmm," His grip around her tightened.

"Blaise?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you want tea?"

"You haven't made it all already?"

"Blaise,"

He turned her face toward his own. "You know what I want, Pansy." His breath dusted over her face, warm and alive. She blinked.

"Blaise…"

And before she knew it he had pressed his mouth against hers and despite herself she was responding just as eagerly, filling his mouth with her Earl Gray taste, running her fingers down his back… She pulled away.

"You bloody tease!" hissed Blaise, grazing his lips over her neck.

She shook her head. "It's too soon, Blaise. Blaise! Really! Stop!"

He obeyed.

A sharp tingle remained on her neck where he had kissed her. "Thank you, Blaise." She wasn't sure if the faint whisper ever reached his ears. "Go see Draco for me? Please?" She craned her neck and touched her lips to his forehead.

Blaise complied without protest, and walked to the fireplace. He tossed a handful of floo powder and the room was bathed with vermillion light. "Pansy Parkinson," he said, shaking his head before stepping into the flames. "Queen of hearts. Owner of none."

"Tell him to come and see me. And you come see me too."

"Move the vase next time. And do try to pick one that isn't so ghastly." And he was gone.

Pansy decided it was time to make some tea.