Pansy lies awake, charmed, her cheeks the color of a freshly blossomed rose, looking at the ceiling of her room. But instead of the sight of the plain muggle ceiling fan, a hundred stars are blinking down on her. After they were done - desperately, languidly done - he charmed the ceiling so they could see the open sky.

She lies, her head on the crook of his arm. Harry holds her other hand, entwining their fingers even in sleep. She can feel his even breaths on her hair. He's been sleeping for the better part of the hour and she has been silently contemplating all her choices that led to this moment. She's wondering about stars and cosmic miracles, thinking about earthly ones. Thinking about mistakes. Amidst the cluster of thoughts, she really is trying hard to concentrate but all that comes flooding through her mind is the event of this night.

It was like they opened a Pandora's Box. The lust was obvious in the way they touched each other, finally, after so long of just thinking about it. And Merlin, she had been thinking about it. He hooked his finger into the lock of hair falling into her place and moved it sideways to kiss her. And she had her hands cupping his face, his sharp jaw and then dropping down to feel his shoulders, firm at first, then relaxing and melting into her.

She has thought about this since the day she saw him at the station, she realizes. She just hadn't admitted it.

And by the way he shivered when she slid her hand up his shirt to feel the warmth of his skin to skin, he has been thinking about it too.

"Come inside," she mumbled.

He flashed a winning, contagious smile. "Fuck yes."

With her hand beneath his shirt, against her door, she felt the coolness of her corridor sharpening on her skin, her skin where he wasn't touching. She charmed Alohomora distractedly as he kissed along her jaw, his hand on her hips.

Pandora's Box is a muggle myth. Of a girl too curious of the things hidden inside the box. She was told the world she knows would tip over if she ever opened it. But she did anyway. Because the gods that entrusted her with the box also bestowed her with the gift of curiosity. Pansy scoffed when she'd first heard it.

"Of course she'd open it," she had said, "there was no other way."

Blaise had smirked. They were ten. They were so young. "Knew you'd say that… Pandora."

So of course Pandora would open the box that promised chaos. Of course it would all fall over.

Of course Pansy's lonely lonely soul would latch onto him. And of course he would touch her back.

So they fumbled, first time, hurriedly, against her living room wall. Her wall cool against her skin, she gripped his shirt collar to pull him down and kiss more pressingly.

"Do you want this?" he asked, panting.

She grabbed his hands and led him to her throat and shoulders and down down to her hips to answer him. "Touch me," she whispered. "Touch me."

But instead of taking full advantage of the free reign she just gave him, he touched her lightly on the jaw. He tilted her head to the side and stared for a moment.

"You OK, Parkinson?"

"What? Yes, of course." She blinked to break off the haze. "What?"

He stared, his eyes softer. His breath ghosted on her face, cigarettes and mints.

She swallowed her own breath and he tilted his head to kiss the upturn of her nose.

"Do you think I only want you when I'm not alright?" Because she asked him to leave the other day? Wasn't all forgotten? Was he -

His voice matched the tenderness in his eyes. She felt her knees almost giving in. "No. But I need to be careful with you." He kissed her throat. "You are like a wisp of light in the dark. You. Are. Very. Complicated." She felt him unbuttoning her dress, wistfully, slowly.

The first button done. He pointed at the middle of her chest.

"I'm good."

The second one, then the third. His hand between her breasts, but he didn't touch. Green, needy eyes. Bright and stark green. So uniquely him that she can make another name for it entirely.

She pushed him softly. Then took off her own dress, smoothly, in one quick movement. She saw his pupils dilate and raised her own eyebrows. It had been a while she felt so forward, it was exhilarating. She could feel the blood rushing to her head, she could feel her heart beat quite unsteadily. All this would mean, medically, that she was close to fainting. What a joke. She had never felt more alive.

"I'm good."

The world tips over. He picked her up and took her to her bedroom. It was always too big for her, but now she felt the walls coming together in soft unison, warmer.

Pansy wishes she could give attention to every detail with tantamount importance, the jagged edges, the throaty moans. But not for the first time in her life, her mind eludes her. Memories coagulate. She remembers him undressing her, the rest of her. She remembers herself throwing their clothes on her floor like the nuisance they were. She remembers the refracted light in her room. Blue and soft moonlight. He twirls his tongue around her nipples and she arches her back, he breaks off a glass ceiling of her mind. She guides him inside her and feels a delicious ache, she sees the scar on the side of his biceps for the first time. Some of it is not distinguished at all, some of it is metaphors, in her mind. It was slow, she remembers that as well. He was careful. She was too .

After all, he stayed inside her longer than necessary, and she put her arm around him, and they stayed just like that on her bed. Pansy waited for her heartbeat to slow down, waited to hear the steady drumming of his heart, and then said, "What do you want for dinner?"

"I don't think we have to carry the sins of our fathers, Pansy, that's all," was what he said when she apologized and asked him, sincerely, why he didn't care about her name. About who she is.

And, "I don't think you're a bad person for believing some bullshit when you were fifteen."

"I really want to believe that," she said.

They took the train to her home, for old times sake. After spending the afternoon in muggle streets, after he showed her a pub his mum used to crash in, after she detailed the events of that cursed day at Azkaban, she invited him to her place. Her voice didn't quiver, as she'd feared, and he didn't reject, as she'd expected.

When they sat next to each other in the same empty compartment, she felt calm enough to rest her head on his shoulders and confirming that she was right, it did feel comfortable. Her fingers ghosted over his open palm, memorising the lines of it, the edges of his fingers. She started speaking, soft and slightly embarrassed.

"You know, there is an insect. A type of caterpillar. They live in trees, feed on the leaves and plop down, one by one, when they're of age. They stay there on the ground, crawling an inch a minute. Inconspicuous little things. Inconspicuous. But poisonous. If you touch them you get rashes all over. In a day they will putrefy and then your skin falls off. Like dried flakes. Dementors are like that, in a way." She sighed. "But death eaters are not."

She felt him kiss the side of her head. "You're not a death eater, Pansy."

She stared at her wrist. The blank, white skin. No. She wasn't. But... almost. Then she remembered another wrist that wasn't so lucky.

"Draco was a death eater."

"I think it's different when you're seventeen and the choice you have is between being a death eater and being dead. Well, the culpability has to tone down a bit."

"You sound like his lawyer."

"I'll take that as a compliment. That guy was a fucking beast."

She smiled. "It was kind of you to speak on his behalf, though. When you testified for him. I thought it was very…" Her sentence trailed off in the air. She didn't quite know how to finish it.

"What?"

"I… don't know." She glanced up at him. "I guess that was the first time I realized how absolutely noble you are. It unnerved me a bit."

He lifted his hand to push a lock of her hair from her face. "I was just paying my dues. He didn't -"

"Tell everyone he recognised you? I know. I wasn't surprised, though. He never had that last bit of cruelty in him to be… whatever he had to be. That was his Bogart, actually, him being incompetent. Faltering... not being able to do a spell. We saw it when we were ten, maybe, Blaise and I. It made sense later. Much later."

She pursed her lips. "I get him. In the Azkaban.. I felt so stupid when I couldn't get the charm right. Couldn't even do a non corporeal one. Everything I thought of… every good memory changed. They changed until I couldn't remember if I ever had any."

"I wish I was there."

There is a silence. Quite, wistful one. Pansy imagines him there, determined and protective. It swelled her heart a little. She remembered something she had always wondered, never thought she'd have the chance to ask.

"You know, there was a rumor that you were able to produce a full corporeal patronus at thirteen."

He coughed, when she looked up, he had a hint of pink on his cheeks. Her eyes widened.

"Honestly?" She nudged him. "I always thought it was a stretch."

He chuckled, awkwardly still. "Ouch."

"Not like…" She nudged him again. "It's just that there were so many rumors. Someone had to tread very determinedly to get the truth. But - at thirteen ? Never heard such a thing. Gosh, it's true that you taught your friends to do it… in fifth year, then? When Umbrige grounded all of us?"

"You weren't grounded! All the Slytherins did were-"

"Sure we were… we just sucked up to her a little. But that didn't help us much. Aside from the blasted club Draco was in, the rest of us were pretty much grounded. It was like being in the least damned hell." She stared at him. "Was it true, then? You formed some sort of a special gang?"

"Yeah."

"And you were the teacher?"

"Sort of. Most of them taught themselves."

Her eyes sparkled. "And you called it Umbitching?"

He laughed in pure joy. "Who the hell were you listening to?"

She didn't mind the pinch. She huffed wistfully. "That was such a funky name."

"We called it Dumbledore's army."

"Ugh. Forget it, then. Even if I could ignore my pride and all the bad blood… wouldn't have joined."

"Because of Dumbledore?"

"Uh-huh. He reminded me too much of my mother." She shrugged. "So all of you were able to do it? Full, corporeal patronuses?"

"Yeah."

"Interesting." She entwined their fingers. "And everyone told us it was almost impossible."

"It's very different doing it in reality, though. When we all practiced we were surrounded by friends, we were just excited for the hell of it. In the presence of a dementor… well, that's different."

Some bitterness still leaked in her voice as she said, "Don't I know."

He said nothing for a minute. She heard the familiar sound of her train fuse with her own heartbeat, and felt him sliding closer. Then he asked, "What's your patronus?"

"A doe."

She felt him stiffen a little. An awkward cough stuck in the air.

"What?"

"I -uh, nothing. Just. It was my mother's patronus."

"Oh." She felt warm, suddenly. Her breath got quicker in response to the blooming rose in her cheeks. "Mine was a wildcat, at first. I think it changed sometimes last year… it's not a charm I use daily, obviously. So I can't be sure."

He twirled the ring in her hand. It's a dainty heirloom. She knew he was thinking about his own patronus, which everyone knows is a stag, and his parents' patronuses and what that meant, maybe. She felt a flutter of anxiety in her chest, a quick sweep of adrenaline. A buzz that leaves a quiver. She shouldn't really read into this. A person's patronus can change for a number of reasons. She is just about to stupidly number them aloud when he says quietly -

"You don't have to explain everything, you know. It can just… be."

She swallows her response. "Am I that easy to read?"

"No. I just devote an extraordinary amount of time to you."

This brought another wave of blisters, not all of it bad. She pursed her lips in an attempt to ward off her smile and kept looking at her entwined fingers. He had a habit of rubbing small circles on the back of her palm, and her heart tied and untied tiny knots in itself.

"I… would you like to come to my apartment?" She scoffed slightly, at how foolish it sounded. But once the words were out, they were hanging between them, soft but pressing.

"I shouldn't have told you to go. Well, I shouldn't have said any of that, at least not like that, but I didn't mean it at all that I didn't want you to be there. It's actually the farthest from the truth. Harry, I - it scares me how much I wanted you to be there. Because if I realize, if you realize how all of it - how you make me feel, you'll… well, you would -"

God, it's embarrassing. She pressed lips in a tight line. She had never been this inarticulate. "I mean -"

But then he tugged at her hand. When she looked at him, he smiled in all his mischievous glory and said, "You are the most brilliant idiot. If anyone has anything to worry about being too invested in us, it is me. I am essentially whipped. Even Zabini realized -"

She stopped him with a kiss. She felt his lips quirk into a smile as he sneaked his hand up to her cheek. She could see the event of the entire night, quite clearly. It was all soft and deliberate and soaked in mint and cigarette smoke. He pushed her lips open with tongue to drink her in, taste her full. She smiled as well.

It's nice, Pansy has to agree. Being with him feels as exhilarating as it is freeing. It feels like getting out of a stuffy room, her private prison, filled with traditions and expectations, after a long long while, finally succumbing to the sweet smell of spring and taking all she can in a single breath. It feels like succumbing to her impending doom, it feels like the tick of a clock running out of time. She tells herself she will walk slowly, tread the tumultuous region of this relationship with her deft feet and careful eyes. But it's harder than she'd feared. Because he is determined. To push all of her buttons. To push her off the cliff. To make her want to finally try freefall without rope.

Harry Potter is handsy in a careless way. He likes hugs, the warm, crushing ones that envelope her after a dreary day at the hospital. He likes to kiss the upturn of her nose, he likes to kiss her on the back of her neck when she's reading, not to elicit anything else, just to make his presence haunt her. He likes to mess up her hair when he kisses her goodbye, his kiss burns too long after he leaves. He likes to smell her hair. And for Pansy, silly, touch-starved Pansy, it's her Achilles Heel, it hits that once shadowy spot she's kept within herself for so long. And the fact that he does this absentmindedly, that he twists locks of her hair when she's beside him just out of habit, it just makes it worse.

Pansy thought for quite a while that she had buried all things physical somewhere deep, maybe in the pit of her stomach, or at the very corner of her brain, somewhere where need gathers dust until she is no longer aware of it. She believed all needs had vanished from her, and would have continued to believe it if not for the pesky Gryffindor.

He touches her, in places she didn't know she wanted to be touched. Her faces, coddled in his hands that were too big, her calves, the hollow in the middle of her chest. He touches her and she melts and then solidifies enough to touch him back, the apple stuck in his throat, his shoulder blades, the tips of his fingers, with both her hands and her tongue. It is now she realizes why love is acquainted with devouring. She can never feel enough of him. At first she thought it should fade away, the lust, after they've done touching each other, poking at every part where the loneliness has seeped in and formed into something solid and unbreakable. But that hadn't happened. What happened was that they found ways back to each other, finding more places where they ached. More touching. More fucking. Then she waited for it to become tiresome. That maybe the high of making the girl that tried to sell him out to save herself need him would wear off, then she could deal with the empty he leaves behind. That hasn't happened either… yet.

She wishes it could be all good. And easy. But there are gods that neither like her or him. Restless, petty gods. The types that thrust the curse of prophecy on unsuspecting children.

It's different when you sleep beside someone. Because there is a special agreement, isn't there? Here I am most defenseless, most vulnerable. Most human. You can see and run. You can see the terrible offering of my body and reject it.

Pansy stays. When there are more nightmares. When there are none. The cries tear through his chest sounds like a broken howl, sometimes. His voice catches and gets stuck in his throat. He hyperventilates, unable to let it out, stuck in his dream. Sometimes his eyes aren't even closed. He looks at her, unable to see her. Sometimes he calls her names. Mean ones. Not so mean ones. Ones that never belonged to her.

Bellatrix.

Hermione.

Ginny.

And she does what she does best. She tries to heal. She calls him back to reality. She stays up until he can sleep again.

But there are other bad days as well. Like when she baked a cake for the first time in her life for his birthday, and he came to her house three in the morning, eyes brimming with apology. Pansy swallows the solid contempt and says it's alright. It isn't his fault, because it isn't, not really. He can't help that his friends at the Burrow wanted to throw a surprise party. It's not his fault that she doesn't want anyone to know about them. But still, the image of him surrounded by people she will never be acquainted with makes her mad. Because that may very well be what he needs. Family. Familiarity. Warmth. Not her alone in her cold house. No family, not really. Just she can her shaky healer hands that can pull him out of a dream but won't pull him to her in a room full of people.

It's not his fault that, try as they might, they are two worlds apart.

But still he apologizes, eats the entire cake and says it's the best thing he's ever tasted… aside from her that is. She smiles and shoves him.

Then there is sex, of course there is. Birthday sex. His eyes never leaving her in a way that makes her toe curl sex, sex that is more about reassurance than anything else. But it doesn't make up for it. Doesn't soothe the scratchy ache. She reaches for him in the dark and he's always there. She sits and puts her head between her knees, naked but for the sheer lingerie that neither conceals nor shows, on her side of the bed. There is now a her side of the bed. She has his shampoo in her bathroom. She thinks she's beginning to smell like him too.

She wants to know if Ginny Weasley was there, but she tries to stop, think about something else, have sex again. Anything but let him know that there is a paisly schoolgirl in her head and she is stomping her feet, trying to be a nuisance, not cooperating with reality.

Pansy bites her lips to stop the question dangerously edgy at the tip of the tongue. He notices it, though, like he always does.

"Ginny was there… but there's nothing between us like that anymore."

"It's alright." Her voice sounds chipped and angry and not alright.

"I'll tell you anything if you ask. But you have to ask."

"Alright."

"What do you want to know?" he says, drawing figures on her naked back with his fingertips.

Pansy sinks further into the gap between her knees. She wants to know everything.

But she settles on the one that has bugged her the most, the one that, maybe, is the most important of all. "Why did it end?" she asks, her voice hoarse.

His fingers stop in their tracks. Pansy shivers as she feels his palm spread out on her back. She could feel the warmth seeping into her. "Ginny," he says, her name melting on his lips like a sigh. "Ginny. Ginny."

They way he says her name brings an unpleasant knot in her stomach. The word rebound makes an appearance in her head, but she pushes it away.

"It didn't work because… I dunno. Just didn't. Something faded, I guess - I guess we both got caught up in something we didn't bargain for," he says after a moment.

"Do you regret it?"

"It's hard not to regret it. With Ginny... it wasn't just her. It was the entire Weasley pack. I - it sounds silly, but I always imagined our wedding, you know? The lot of them. Ron would have been my best man, Luna the maid of honour. I'd officially be a brother to Ron, could call Mrs. Weasley mum ." He snorts. "I'm sure it speaks volumes about my parasitic needs. But I just thought - I thought if I could be happy with Ginny, then it would all be alright. I'd have my life in a - a solid direction."

"I get it." It was the same with Draco. Although from a different point of view, her eyes were always on the prestige, the familiarity. The money , a snide voice that sounds too much like her mother chimes in her head.

As if her thoughts were transparent, he asks, "What about you and Malfoy? I was always under the impression that -"

"I know." She does. She worked very hard to give off that impression. A lifetime ago, Pansy tried very hard to maneuver the similarities they had into some semblance of love. She guesses Draco tried as well. "It - well, we tried. But we're friends, at best. We went through a lot of bad times together. It creates a bond - but however much I'd tried, it was never that… the way it should be at least."

The way it should be. Desperate, hurried, with a rush of fear if it should ever end. Like his quivering fingers when he's just out of a nightmare. He touches her hair like he's afraid if he should touch her with any force, she would vanish like a wisp of smoke.

Pansy always believed love should feel like an anomaly. Like a tumor. Something that can perch in your most defenceless part and slowly eat you up. A shift that wasn't there before. Something distorted that can never be put right.

She feels a poisoned apple stuck in her throat when she begins to admit to herself that Harry Potter almost makes her feel that way.

She wonders what her mother would say about this, even though it should be the last thing on her mind. She is trying to remould herself to someone fathoms away from Cynthia Parkinson. Fathoms away from Pansy Parkinson, the pureblood, purebred mean girl. The one who would sell over a classmate to save her skin.

"I wouldn't have done it." She is surprised by her own voice. The words come out of their own accord before she can stop herself.

She feels him shift from his posture, sliding closer. "What?"

In her mind the words were raw and vulnerable. But out here it sounds silly, almost embarrassing. The guy died twice. And she's a privileged bitch who tried to hand him over to the dark lord. Apology doesn't cover her shame. It doesn't even outline it.

But the words, as fleeting and flimsy as they seem, are out, and Pansy Parkinson knows more than anyone that none of them could ever be willed back into oblivion.

So she continues, "I wouldn't have handed you over to him. I - it's a thing I have, I had. This pathetic need for self-preservation. I spew out words that are my first instinct. And my first instinct is always to run and hide. I am working on this. To be a better person." She takes a shaky breath. "But I wouldn't have handed you over in the end. I wouldn't have been that selfish. I think. I hope . I am sorry all the same. I'm sorry, Potter."

Her shaky apology ensues a heavy silence. At least to her it's heavy. He still has his hand on her back, still running circles over her skin.

He talks after an eternity, during which Pansy has hastily constructed her getaway sequence.

She had never really thought she would apologize to him, never thought the chance would come, never thought she'd actually take it when it does. So she never thought of a response either.

He says, "It's alright."

She snorts.

"Really."

She turns her head to look at him, and finds his expression set sober and transparent. He really is beautiful. The light from the open window reflects on his shoulder, the side of his face, the tip of his nose, his eyes like melting emeralds. Pansy feels like melting too. Like a liquid, putty version of herself.

"We were kids. And it was a desperate situation. It was the goddamn dark lord. I'm sure half of the people thought what you did. And I don't blame you. Maybe I did when I was seventeen, but we're older now. We understand each other better. I like you. I adore you now. The past is gone."

The past is gone?

It's pure bullshit. She is reminded of the past when people at the hospital narrow their eyes at her when they see her, when at some restaurants she can't get a seat because of the affiliations her name brings, when she closes her eyes and sees a white, sharp hand coiled around her neck.

The past is not gone. But still they hope. She wonders if they hope desperately enough whether it will become true.

And she nods at him, a glob of air stuck in her throat. The speech felt meant for him too, as much as it was meant for her.

"You fucking Gryffindors." She says after a moment. "Always being noble."

"Shut up." He chuckles, looking as relieved as she. "I wasn't being noble. And anyway - I think you like it."

God help her, she does.

Another question pricks at her mind. She has to ask this. He just said he adores her. Somehow she, from the far side of another world, the world with Draco Malfoy and fund raising events and awkward, extravagant dinner tables is now sitting on her bed with Harry Potter, almost naked, with half a mind to lose the remaining items of clothing she has on if he decides to continue running his fingers along her back as he seems to be so keen on doing.

I adore you.

"How do you rationalize this? You and me?"

He leans to kiss her on the shoulder. "Do I need to? I just know it feels good to be around you."

Around you, not with you , the sneaky voice says. Meaning, they aren't together, together. Meaning they just happen to be at the same place at the same time - this mindless post-war uncertainty. Meaning, this might be a phase. Something to touch on before he goes on doing great things. Maybe killing another Voldemort at another corner of the world.

Pansy would really just rather if she didn't think so much. She'd just rather be in bed with this man, this handsome man, and kiss him, and maybe have some good conversation, and try not to be entirely empty when he goes away.

"I know that this - here, you, us - this feels right. It's good enough for me. Is it for you?" His palm slides upward to softly cup the back of her neck as he slides forward to meet her. He leaves a soft kiss at the back of her throat, just at the ending of her shoulder. She rolls her head backwards, instinctively, to give him more access.

"This feels so right," he whispers again.

The word delusion comes to mind, but Pansy pushes it aside as she turns back and kisses him fully on the lips. He moans immediately, his hand sneaking around her hips to pull her closer, closer, until there is no peripheral sight. All that matters is that Harry Potter is in her bed, very naked, very eager. And so is she. A hundred other words with her mother's accent floods her head. But she pushes them all aside.

She pushes him down on her bed and climbs on top, he looks up at her with wide, wondrous eyes. She rests her palm on his chest to feel the unsteady drumming of his heart. Quick and alive under her palm.

"This feels right to me too," she confesses.

It does.