Happy Birthday, Floorcoaster!

Thanks to feelingsofthesea for cheering me on and iwasbotwp for beta'ing!

Harry Potter characters are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No copyright infringement is intended. No profit is being made from this creation.

Pansy Parkinson had horrible luck when it came to dating. It wasn't that she couldn't find men who wanted to date her. She was attractive enough, which seemed to be all many of them cared about, so she never wanted for company. The problem was that the men who wanted her company also expected her to fawn over them and that just wasn't her style. It didn't help that they were all terribly boring.

She hadn't felt a spark of genuine interest from any of the men she had dated in the past several years about anything other than her body. And she certainly hadn't made a sincere connection with anyone.

Until now.

When Granger had let slip at one of their monthly dinners that she had the perfect man for her, Pansy had been understandably sceptical. What could the Gryffindor possibly know about matchmaking, let alone about the inner desires of Pansy herself? But it seemed the soon-to-be Mrs Malfoy had been onto something.

Here she was, eating an exquisite meal in one of the nicest restaurants in Wizarding London, sitting across from none other than Percy Weasley, and falling a little harder with every passing minute. He was well-spoken, intelligent, clever, and even funny. Not to mention attractive enough to distract her from their conversation.

If someone had told her last week she would be trying not to swoon over a redhead, she might have suggested they have their head examined at St Mungos. But she had to admit, there was something about the glasses perched on his nose that made his appearance more appealing than she would have thought possible.

If the thinly veiled heat in his eyes was anything to go by, he also liked what he saw. She briefly found herself fantasizing about licking each one of his freckles and she swallowed thickly, resolving to interrupt whatever he was discussing about some Ministry policy before she combusted. Truthfully, she hadn't been able to follow for several minutes now. She put down her fork.

"Percy, what are you looking for in a relationship?"

It wasn't like Pansy to be so bold, but sometimes desperate times called for desperate measures, and she was dangerously close to drowning in his blue eyes.

"I…" Percy faltered. He seemed to reflect for a moment, his brow crinkling adorably, before continuing. "I'm lonely, to be honest. I suppose I want companionship. But with someone who is willing to support my ambition. I'm willing to support them in return, of course."

His initial response did nothing to cool Pansy's interest. If anything, it intensified it, despite his hesitance.

"But you could find companionship and mutual support from friends, couldn't you? What are you looking for from a woman?" Pansy pressed, unusually flustered.

Percy cleared his throat. "Well, sex would be nice."

Pansy narrowly avoided choking on her wine. Her imagination readily supplied her with a vision of herself slowly undoing the buttons of his crisp blue shirt, on a quest to discover if his freckles continued past the collar, and she could feel an unbidden blush rising to her cheeks.

"Pansy... don't you ever wish you could just be yourself? That you could have one person you could really let your guard down with, and just breathe?" He paused, looking her in the eyes with an intensity that stole her breath away. "That's what I want."

Pansy reached her hand out to place it delicately over his where it rested on the table between them. "Would you like to get dessert to go? We could go back to mine…"

She barely registered the moment of surprise on Percy's face before he smiled at her in a way that made her wish they could immediately Apparate from their seats.

"I don't think we need to wait for them to bring dessert, Pansy." Percy placed money on the table to pay for their meal and licked his lips, making her pulse quicken. "I'm certain you have something I'll like at yours."

Pansy stood and pulled Percy through the restaurant as quickly as her manners would allow. It seemed her luck was changing.