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Part Three | Burn with Me
44. Too Young For This
A number of things surprised Pansy about, not just her friends, but also herself during their stay at the cottage. In the few short weeks it had been it had, in many ways, been almost - as strange as it was, perfect. Without the risk of the Carrows encroaching upon them and their business, and away from the prying eyes of the rest of the students, for the first time in a long time, Pansy and her friends, and Neville, were in a way entirely free. Having grown up and lived the majority of her life with a number of luxuries, Pansy was surprised at just how easily she settled into life in the cottage, which - whilst not nearly as ugly as the Head dorms had been, was far from a Manor.
Being on the run, Pansy mused, her back against Neville's front, isn't actually all that bad.
Here she was able to forget, about the Carrows and her father and mother, about the inane and meaningless tirade of terror Voldemort and his followers were inflicting upon both the Wizarding and Muggle words, and, at least sometimes, about Rabastan - which she was thankful for considering her unconscious self was faring far less fortunate. Pansy woke in a cold sweat more nights than not, believing unwelcome and callous hands were reaching for her in the dark. She lied whenever one of her friends asked how she was, only Neville knowing how she sobbed against his chest, protected by a silencing charm and the way his arms felt cradling her in the small hours; the secret, broken part of her kept only by the one she loved and the stars that shone through the never closed curtains.
She felt his fingertips dance across the top of her arm. "You alright?"
Not replying straight away, Pansy pushed herself further into his chest. They were positioned on one of the couches, her between his slightly bent legs. One of his arms slung entirely around her and with his other hand he was flicking a galleon into the air.
"Yeah, you?"
Even though she was facing away from him, Pansy's mind's eye could see the frown lines she knew were covering his forehead. "Just hope everyone is okay."
She wasn't prepared to lie to him, just as she knew he wouldn't to her. Pansy had absolutely no idea how the remainder of the students - a number of whom meant a great deal to Neville, were faring. "I know, babe."
It was Neville's biggest worry, and rightly so, Pansy knew. Of course he'd been planning to leave with Pansy and the others for the few weeks they'd spent planning the event, but she knew the guilt of even the thought had eaten at him, and though she knew he had entirely meant everything he had said to her, the act of leaving the castle would have been a difficult one for him. As it turned out, however, he hadn't had to make the journey - not consciously anyway, and Pansy didn't know if the fact he hadn't actually left of his own accord made it easier for him to handle the guilt of it more or not.
She was glad though, even if he wasn't, even if he regretted it - as much as she hoped he didn't, that he was here. Not just for herself and her sanity, but the time they had at the cottage, without any Carrow or other looming Death Eater-shaped threats had been exactly what Neville's body had needed to heal from the their heinous and one sided attack on him and Seamus.
From over to her left, Pansy became dimly aware of the door that seperated the living room and the kitchen area had opened, she paid it no mind however until the clearing of Draco's throat brought her eyes flickering in his direction.
"I think we should all sit down," Draco said, his eyes on Pansy, "we should probably discuss our next move."
Neville answered before Pansy. "Yeah, alright."
Pansy herself simply nodded and she and Neville disentangled themselves from each other and rose to standing and walked forwards towards Draco, behind whom there stood a large dining table, the only feasible location for such a sit down.
It only took a few minutes for all the current residents of the cottage to congregate together at the table. Draco, standing at the head of the table and looking both exactly where he should be and somehow terribly out of place. He looked, to Pansy, simply too young to be ushering his misfitting group of friends to find their place in a war where they hadn't asked to be a part of. Some had been dragged in, simply by association, to a place where the words Parkinson, Nott and Malfoy meant only one thing, and where Longbottom meant entirely another, where Zabini meant assumption and Greengrass meant the unknown, and Bulstrode now meant something it once hadn't. For Pansy, Draco, Theo, Blaise and Millicent, their names meant expectation and loyalty to a cause none could stand, and Neville's meant ugly memories of brutality and torture and now could very well mean certain death.
For the second time, Draco cleared his throat. "I think we need to make some decisions."
Nobody answered, but Theo, Neville and Millicent all offered Draco nods of agreement.
"Alright, as oddly fun as this strange holiday is, how long can we realistically stay here for?"
Daphne, sitting directly opposite Pansy, leant forward. "Well, we rented this place for a year."
"A- wait," Draco's frown of confusion met Pansy's, "a year?"
Daphne shrugged. "There used to be a sign in the window saying 'To Let', we saw it by complete chance, and it was a good thing we did since you three were no shows. Blaise confunded the woman from the house," Daphne nodded towards the window, "over there - she owns both, and she took the sign down and said she'd call the agency - whatever that means."
On her right, Pansy felt Neville shuffle in his seat. "Are you even paying to live here?"
"Not...at present," Blaise replied slowly, "but we're going to reimburse her once one of us can get into Gringotts."
"But," all their attentions turned back towards Draco, "we can't just stay here like sitting ducks, we need to do something, anything."
When no one answered, Neville cleared his throat. "If your mum is right," he said to Draco, "and something is going to happen at Hogwarts, I vote we wait for that."
"And in the meantime?" Draco said, his nostrils flaring.
"We do what you and Pansy were doing anyway, and what I was making half the school do: we prepare, and when the time comes that we're needed, we go."
More silence greeted Neville's words.
"Unless none of you would go back and fight, of course." His words held no obvious bitterness, yet Pansy knew she'd be a fool to think it wasn't there. Fighting, against Voldemort, was what Neville had been doing, indirectly, since September and Pansy knew, even if she begged him, him staying in the cottage with them away from Hogwarts was temporary and always had been. He may have left for her, but as much as he loved her she knew he wouldn't stay away for her, not when it came to it. Not when it mattered.
And she loved him even more for that.
"I'll be right there with you, Neville mate," Theo replied, his voice steady and without its usual humorous tone.
Pansy squeezed Neville's hand beneath the table. "Me too," she offered him as much of a smile as she could.
Daphne and Millicent agreed also, the latter giving a determined nod as she spoke, as though to convince the others of her intent to stick by them this time. Blaise repeated the sentiment, his arm flug casually over the back of Daphne's chair. "I'm in."
Draco examined his group of friends one by one. "The second any of us - not you Longbottom, of course, it's game over. You're a target."
"Pretty sure Theo and I are already targets," Blaise replied.
Draco blinked. "Well yes, I suppose that is true, but Pansy, Millicent, your parents..."
"Fuck my parents!" Pansy exclaimed, and this time it was Neville who squeezed her hand.
"Fair enough, Mill?"
Pansy watched Millicent swallow as the entirety of the group turned their attention towards her. "I'm with you," she said with a sigh. "Of course I would want more than anything for them to not fight f-for him, but...I won't. I'm with you," she repeated, her voice stronger. Pansy watched Theo stroke her arm affectionately, before turned his face towards Draco's.
"That just leaves you mate."
Draco took a few long, steady breaths. "I won't pretend my reasons for, well anything, are as noble as Longbottom's, or as defiant as Pansy's, or yours," he spoke primarily to Theo, "I want him fucked up because that keeps him and all his fuckwit Death Eaters away from my mother. I want him gone so she can be safe, and have the happiness she's barely ever had but fucking deserves. She's who I'm fighting for, and all of you, of course, but not the safety of the Wizarding World, or anything so moral. And whatever I have to do to achieve that, I'll do."
Pansy's mouth felt all of a sudden very dry. "You can't be seen to not be on his side." It was a truth she'd known for months, and yet saying it aloud somehow made it mean something different, something unavoidable.
"No, I cannot."
"What does that mean?" Daphne asked.
"It means," Draco's eyes met the surface of the table, "that I'm still playing this fucked up role, and if he summons me, I'll go. Because if I don't go, I don't know what he'll do to my mother." he still didn't meet any of their eyes. "He told me at Christmas there might come a time he expects me to leave Hogwarts, if he needs me, and if that happens, I'll have to go."
"Sometimes I forget you're a fully fledged Death Eater," Blaise stated, as casually as if he were commenting on the weather.
"I wish I could say the same," Draco replied. "What I'm trying to say though, is that if it comes to that, and I go, whatever you see, whatever I'm doing, I'm still with you all. And I need you all to know that."
Pansy and Neville retreated to bed earlier than usual that night, and they weren't the only ones. The other two couples, the earlier conversation resting just as heavily upon them as it was on Pansy and Neville, also made their way upstairs early that evening. Only Draco remained downstairs, alone with his whisky and his thoughts.
Not for the first time, Pansy wished Draco had someone. It couldn't be easy, she knew, regardless of the situation, to be yourself living solely with three couples. Pansy didn't know who was right for Draco, for as much as she loved him, his demeanor, not without reason, was often moody and forlorn, not to mention his still very problematic drinking habits, which earned anyone who dared to mention them either a sarcastic snap in response, or silence. Hiding, or throwing away Draco's alcohol simply meant Draco grumpily walking to the nearby village and retrieving more, and perhaps offering an alternative activity may have worked in another life, but the truth was except for practising their duelling, occlumency and advanced spells, other than just being, there just wasn't much else to do. There were only so many riverside walks one could enjoy, and Draco didn't enjoy them at all.
"Suits you, that," Neville said with a chuckle.
"You tell anyone and I shan't be responsible for my actions."
Neville held his hands up in mock defeat, a look of feigned innocence crossing his handsome features. "As if I would dare, although-"
"Don't you dare give me although!"
"I just feel the world ought to know how sexy Pansy Parkinson looks in Gryffindor colours."
Pansy rolled her eyes as she positioned herself under the covers, waiting, rather impatiently, for Neville to take his usual position beside her, in the same way he always did with his one arm wrapped around her as she listened to the gentle thump thump of his heartbeat through his chest.
"Only you will ever know that," she replied as he settled himself next to her.
She felt his fingertips graze first over her shoulder and then up over her jaw before he pulled her face gently upwards and met her lips with his. "I'm very glad I do," he whispered, and kissed her again. Clementine, his corn snake, was weaving happily through the fingers on his other hand.
"We're too young for this," Neville said.
"Hmm?" Pansy's focus had been on the stars through the window.
"War. Preparing ourselves to fight in a war. It's ridiculous."
"Oh," she absentmindedly drew patterns of swirls and curves on his bare chest, "yeah, I suppose."
"I never thought I'd face this, my parents, well… they fought so that I wouldn't have to face this, so no one else would have to."
Pansy gently kissed Neville's chest. "They're brave as hell, you know."
"Yeah, they are."
"So's their son."
He didn't reply, instead Pansy felt his fingers rhythmically massage the back of her head.
"Do you ever," Pansy asked, realising she never had before, "think about it all being over?"
"If You-Know-Who was gone again?"
"Yeah, what you would do."
"Not for a while," Neville said. "Do you?"
"Sometimes," she admitted.
"Yeah?"
"Yeah, I...it's one of the things I do when I'm trying to go to sleep", she wondered briefly whether to add, when I'm trying to forget Rabastan, but decided against it having made a promise to herself a while ago to not do her utmost to make sure Rabastan Lestrange wasn't mentioned close to a time when Neville's parents were. It was the smallest mark of respect she could offer, but Pansy felt better for adhering to it.
"Tell me."
"Okay," Pansy began, "often I wonder what if I'd ever go back to my parents' house, whether everyone will hate me as much as I think they will - which is even more than they do now, if it'll ever be okay for me and you to be together out there, if I could stomach another year at Hogwarts if it wasn't run by those two sadists, and I think I want to come back here one day to look at the stars again, oh and if you'll decide you want to be with Lovegood or someone, instead of me, and fuck off, you prick," she added jokingly.
"You do know Luna is happy with Ginny, don't you?"
"That's hardly the-"
"I mean, of all the people you could be worried about, she's a strange choice."
"Shut up."
Neville laughed softly. "I can't help you with whether you should ever go back to your parents' house, only that if you did you wouldn't have to go alone-"
"My mother would love that."
"As for me and you, of course we can come back here and see the stars, and of course it'll be okay for us to be together out there, why wouldn't it?"
"In case you weren't aware, I'm not very well liked babe, not by your friends anyway."
"Ginny likes you."
"Does she heck."
"She does, actually, she told me. She and Luna both do, and in fact, it's probably more likely that you'll decide you want to be with Luna, and leave me, than the other way around."
Pansy snorted. "Now there's a thought."
"And," said Neville, continuing, "as far as another year at Hogwarts goes, obviously it's up to you, but I won't be going back."
"No?" Pansy asked, surprised.
"After having to go through those constant cruciatus curses by Alecto, no. If I'm honest it's one of the reasons I felt able to leave, after being with you, of course."
"That's understandable."
"She must have known," Neville's tone was heavy, "she must have known it was what my parents were put through over and over again, and she must have known I knew that. Who does that?"
Pansy had often wondered the same thing. "Evil people."
"The only thing that kept me going during those lessons, if you can call them that, was you throwing up those blocks, do you know that?"
"I said a silent Fuck you, every time I did," Pansy relayed, suddenly aware that tears had begun to form in her eyes.
Sitting up, Pansy surveyed Neville. His face, normally so strong with his firm jaw and determined expression he wore more often than not, looked entirely different that night. A part of him, Pansy knew deep inside, was utterly broken and had been since he was a one year old infant, and thanks to Alecto Carrow, that broken part had increased, perhaps more than Pansy had realised. And that night, his brokenness had replaced not his strength, but his secure resolve.
"I'm sorry," Pansy said, trying and very much failing not to cry harder.
Neville's voice was rife with concern. "What? For what?"
"I'm just sorry, for everything you've gone through, and for everything she," Pansy laced the word with the poison she wished she could actually feed to Alecto, "put you through. I'm just… sorry," she repeated.
From somewhere deep in her subconscious, Pansy heard her mother, and she swallowed as the words a face with tears is not a pretty one, echoed over and over in her mind, as they always did when she allowed herself to cry in front of him.
He lifted the hand that wasn't still firmly placed in her hair, to her cheek, she watched his eyes roam over her face. "I love you so much."
She didn't reply instantly, instead she kissed him, hard, breaking away only to say she loved him too, snaking her arms around his neck, and feeling his, in turn, on her waist as she pressed her lips, and her torso, and then waist, into his.
"A-are you sure?" Neville gasped the question as Pansy trailed a line of kisses over his jaw, and down the side of his neck.
Perhaps it was the stark reminder they'd had that day of the reality of their position, or perhaps she'd simply had enough time to heal the part of her she needed, in order to give herself to him intimately again. Or perhaps it was the raw and very real way in which he had given himself to her, in a way unlike any other, in a way that meant he was just as, if not more so, broken than she was. Once upon a time her mother had insisted that showing a man your weakness' was the thing that would make Pansy week, so perhaps it was the knowledge in how wrong her mother had been, about many things but especially that. Because Pansy knew that it didn't make her weak, it somehow made her, them, stronger, just as it did when Neville did the same, because in a way that meant he needed her just as much as she knew she absolutely needed him.
"Yes," she mumbled, her lips now against his chest. "Yes, I'm sure."
