Uh, use your imagination to fill in the holes. There are a loooootttt of holes.
All JK'sIt's been five years.
Fives years.
She's twenty-two and he would be a year older. If he's still alive, somewhere, somewhere. They've all lost faith in him, pronounced him dead. All except for her.
It's been five years since he had left for the battle that would determine their fates. The night before he went to his lord, he had promised her he would always be with her. Forever.
It wasn't until after he was gone that she remembered Draco Malfoy doesn't believe in forever.
The Dark Lord is gone now, but he had left his mark seared into the world. Life feels raw and fragile, battling through a sore recovery from it's near-demise. Things are getting better now, things are getting so much better it hurts her to watch the world pass her by. Because things are not getting better for her.
And she really doesn't give a damn if Hogsmeade is rebuilt or of Beauxbatons has been reopened. She doesn't mind the burn marks left on the walls of the Parkinson Manor. She doesn't really think about the fact that her parents are dead and half of the Slytherins are dead. She doesn't want to think about the fact that Harry Potter is alive and well and thriving. All she knows—or all she really needs to know is that there is no proof Draco's dead. And she still believes he's there, somewhere, somewhere.
She can feel it, see, this ache in her bones that reminds her he's still alive and he'll come to her. All she has to do is wait. Perhaps a lifetime.
So she drowns herself in brandy and gin, firewhiskey when she's cold.
She's always cold.
There are no visitors for Pansy Parkinson, the queen of Slytherin, anymore. But her manor isn't quiet, never quiet. The sounds of glass breaking and a young girl laughing her hollow, haunting laugh echoes through the overgrown acres.
Draco!
She screams and another bottle shatters.
Draco!
Her lake screams back and she giggles, delighted. If you didn't know better, you'd think she was back at Hogwarts with her Draco.
You never even told me you loved me.
She whispers, softly now so that no echo came.
Because you didn't.
She cries, her sobs gasping and throbbing.
She stood on her balcony, the fringes of insanity, swaying with the wind when there was no wind and still wearing her dirty school robes. Her house elves beg her to come in, to take some tea, to eat a truffle, anything. She doesn't hear them. All she can hear is her Draco telling her he loves her.
Because he never did.
And she hates him but she doesn't, she really doesn't. He's the only thing keeping her alive, now. She's living off of faith alone.
No—that's not right. She's living off of love.
And she's barely living, but they can all hear her screams and her sniggers, long into the night.
She used to say, all the time, that she doesn't need him.
And he would tell her that she does.
She still says that she doesn't need them.
And now he's not here to tell her that she does.
"I'm leaving, Parkinson, but I'll be back. You know that, right?"
"Of course I know that, you prick."
"Don't call me a prick you bloody wench!"
"Fine Malfoy, fine."
Pansy Parkinson never backed down from a fight, he went to her and grabbed her cold hands in his colder ones.
"I'll come back for you. Never forget that. Even if they all say I'm dead and gone, I'll come back for you. I'll never die because you need me."
"I do not."
"Yes you do, and don't say you don't because you keep me alive."
She looked at him and wanted to cry. But she didn't. Of course she didn't.
"All right, I need you."
"All right."
"I love you," she said, quietly, almost ashamed.
"I know."
"Aren't you going to tell me you love me too?"
"No, not yet. I will though, when I come back for you. So you have to wait for me, okay? Because I promise, I promise that I'll be with you forever."
"Forever?"
"Forever."
"Bye Mal—bye Draco. I'll be waiting."
And she's kept her promise.
fin