They were making dinner together when Pansy first told him about phantom limbs. Parts of your body that lingers even when they shouldn't. She said that oftentimes, when people lose a finger, they still feel it prick. They feel as if a thin fiber is stretched under the invisible skin. The twitchy uncomfortableness. She let him know that when someone lost a hand they'd still reach out to touch something with it.

That must be why he still reaches out for her when he's out of a nightmare.

There's nothing but cold air to greet him, of course. Cold and piercing as the realisation hits him that she's as good as gone. That he's made sure of that. His scar hurts, and he feels like a child, scared and desperate with a stiff gap in his chest. His fingers curl into a tight fist. For a while he could smell lavender on her side of the bed, and in his bathroom, and in the living room she rearranged, but the smell is all but gone. A shallow surface of the first note of the cursed flower, some frail reminiscence of citrus. For a while this calmed him, for a while he could pretend he could live like that. That he'd gone through breakups before. That it was a dead relationship from the get go. That nothing's ever going to work for Pansy if she keeps her hatred coddled like a child, if she lets her mother and her cold, stagnant life get in her way.

That even though he loves her, and knows in his bones that she loves him too, it wouldn't be enough. The world is wide and cruel and it breaks people like them. It swallows them up to leave a few broken bones behind like splinters. Sometimes people patch up, sometimes they just… don't.

He isn't sure how much time has passed since that blasted day. A few hours? Weeks? Months? All days seem the same when you have nothing to look forward to. He'll never be an auror. He'll never live up to his name or his life.

He'll probably never get to tell Pansy that he loves her again.

Three cursed words. He wonders if he ruined it by saying them allowed. He wonders what would've happened if he hadn't. If he'd chosen some delicate alternative. Like. Adore. I understand you.

No. He did what he did. He said what he felt. And anyway, the problem isn't that he's too involved. It's that she is a hypocrite. She heals him and tells him that his life is his own when she never even tries to grab hold of hers.

There is a growling creature in his chest. He can feel it's scaly talong scratching the walls of his chest. He closes his eyes and the room feels smaller, too small, now congested. He mutters accio and a vial flies directly in his open palm. Something Pansy sent to him a few days ago, he thinks. A farewell gift? A way to let him know she still cares? It was set on his table when he woke up one morning.

With a note. With her posh handwriting begging him to take caution.

Please, she'd written, take a drop only after a nightmare. And don't take it more than three times a week.

He hadn't wanted to accept it. But his dreams keep getting worse. The nights are almost always sleepless. And he's so tired. All the time. Being with Pansy was almost like taking a rain check from his troubles. And now they're all crashing in. He hadn't realized just how well he'd been sleeping when she was around that now that suddenly she's not, he feels all the uncounted, comfortable hours crashing in on him. Most nights he wakes up to find Sirius in his room. Then Cedric. Dobby. All the people he failed. He tries to touch them and they disintegrate in his hands. A wisp of smoke. Black, charcoal smoke. He wakes up sweating. And the reality is worse. Pansy isn't here. No one is here except for a family of portraits who hate him. Who think that he's tainted their house. He thinks that he's tainted this house. He's probably tainted every place he's ever been in. He doesn't go back to sleep. He tries to practice for work. Auror magic. Doesn't work. His hands shake. His wand drops from his hand before a burst of magic might fight off an opponent. In the real world this would've gotten him killed. He wishes it would get him killed. He volunteers for dangerous outings but they don't let him go. You're too valuable, they say. What they mean is, you're not good enough. We thought you'd be good enough.

His days pass in surprising bouts of nothingness. He leaves his house, roams around the streets he visited with her and tries to tell himself that it's all the same. It's all good. He tries to tame the hatred that sprouts from his chest when he remembers her face. Cold tears. Her mask breaking. How he knew exactly what to say to hurt her and how he doesn't have a dementor to blame it on.

It's him. It's all him. All he could think when she was talking in a voice that didn't sound like hers was Stop stop stop. We have something good. Don't ruin it. I love you. Let me love you.

His scar prickled. Ominous. Forboding. He could feel the words in his throat like bile. Something corrosive. Something he should've shoved back on the back of his mind. Slip of tongue, slit of throat. Blood on his clothes now. His or hers? Doesn't matter. It's all bright and red and ugly. They were both bleeding by the time he was out of her home.

But they were having such a good day. He'd felt the warm blaze of relief when she kissed him in front of her mother. He thought, this is it. She's finally ready. To hold his hand in a room full of people. To let him pick her up from the front door of Mungo's, not the spare one. He'd gone to his training with a fresh sense of belonging, he'd felt the spark of magic in his hand after a long time, he'd forgotten all about the piece of human garbage that incited the untimely confession.

But of course. Nothing's ever pristine. He stared at her, anxious and unstable and looking at him. Begging him for an explanation. An excuse. Something to make sense.

But it didn't make sense. He did what his hands told him to do. Beat the guy to a pulp. His head a mess of fire and uncounted thoughts. Sinews filled with kerosene. After Malfoy and some other people pulled him off, he could think of only one place to go. His place now. Almost. He couldn't tell her how it made all the sense to him.

And as he looked into her face set with soft carefulness, he couldn't fathom why anyone would ever bring her past to her again. Surely, they see what he sees? A girl with lovely hands. The one who stays when things are terrifying, who has dark circles under her eyes now because she makes sure he sleeps?

He took and took her love and her care and he was filled with a sudden, glaring shame, a terrifying thought, what is that's all he's been doing? What if he is hollowing her out, and using her to heal himself? He knows there are people like that guy, and that she's heard enough of these nonsenses to last her for a lifetime, but has she been told how beautiful she is?

So he told her. The words formed before him like breaths in freezing air, hovering over them like soft clouds.

But of course. Things have to happen the wrong way. Pansy has to hear them through other people. He should've seen that coming.

Doesn't matter now.He wakes up with a drumming headache. He must have slept on the wrong side of the bed. But every side feels wrong when the bed is empty. When he knows that it'll stay empty.

He stares at the mundane ceiling, his vision blurred through pain. He doesn't know if it's morning or evening and he tries to remember if he cares. He wants to go to sleep again even if it means bad dreams but all that keeps repeating in his head is the conversation he had with Ron when his friend finally decided to confront him.

"I know you've been seeing someone." His tone was flat, knowing, annoying. "You looked good for a while." Ron was in the middle of his bedroom and he swished his wand in a poor copy of Mrs. Weasley. Harry watches from his couch Ron's poor attempt at housecleaning. His friend made a face when the pile of dishes on the side only wobble instead of levitating.

"Harry, look at me."

He did. He saw red hair and warm blue eyes. He felt a sharp pang of nothing in his chest.

"What's wrong?"

Everything.

"Nothing."

"They're going to let you go if you miss another practice."

"They won't."

" Harry. "

"Ronald."

"Mate, come on." Ron was at his side now. "It'll only be over if you let it."

He almost snorts. "Of course, Ron."

Harry wondered how long he could keep this up without losing his friend. But like a tree, like the sky, Ron persists. He always does. "You've been seeing the healer, haven't you?"

He's been seeing a healer, that's for certain.

"Yeah."

"It's good up there now? Better?"

This was Ron trying to be cautious. This was Ron trying to help him. His hands involuntarily formed fists. "I'm fine, Ron. I just -"

"Did you break up with the girl you're seeing?"

The lump of air stuck in his throat made a download deflection. Now it condensed with the hollow in his chest.

"Yes."

Ron pursed his lips. "It' alright. I'm sure it's nothing -"

"It was Pansy."

He stares at Ron to register the shock and surprise and a bubble of resentment already starts to grow for his friend when he wonders if it'll be disgust, instead.

But Ron only shrugged. "I know." His face turned red. "I mean, I guessed."

"Pansy Parkinson," he said again. Just in case.

Ron rolls his eyes. "I know. I guessed it by the way she took care of you that time you poisoned your entire arm… then you always seemed to want to visit Mungo's - and - and you're my best friend, Harry. Don't forget that."

The dead air finally finds its way out of his chest and he shakes before hiding his face behind his palm. It felt as if the room finally had air. Finally had some substance to hold him up.

Ron patted his back awkwardly. After a while, he said, "Merlin, what is with these Slytherins?" He chuckled. "Maybe I should date one too… d'you think Millicent Bulstrode is available?"

He's at some grim old bar. A greasy place with greasy people. He isn't sure how he ended up here. He'd been to see off Hermione. She'll be leaving for Spain. To find her parents. To bring them back. He wished her luck and told she'll find them, and heal them, even though he doesn't believe it. And even though Hermione could see through his obvious faux positivity, she hugged him until he felt guilty.

"Things will be alright in your end too," she told him, dark eyes bright with hope. "With Pansy. I just know it."

So that was it, then, the mention of her name. Nowadays it brings up anger and shame and regret along with love. It's all jumbled up in his mind until he has to untangle his thoughts from themselves. Until he needs a drink or two or three.

So he's at a bar. It's almost midnight and he has no idea what day it is. But there is a girl eyeing him. She looks interested. Blond, blue eyes, brash and loud. She is nothing like her, so why does he keep thinking about her? He's telling himself that it's all right. He can take her home and try to bury the numbness, but when they're at the back of the bar and he has his tongue down her throat already, he feels nauseous. She touches the front of his jeans and he's suddenly backtracking, not there, and hears himself spluttering an excuse. Work, early morning, he's sorry. For leading her on. For being there. For not being there.

He apparates to his grim, old house and he's hastily unzipping his jeans. He's hard, he's just a guy, his body is just his body and it's pathetic. He touches his semi hard cock and shivers and she's all there , like she never left. Pansy was never shy, she always knew what she wanted. And as he touches himself, lonely in his couch she once sat in, he remembers her on his kitchen floor, her bent over the side of her bed, her not waiting until they're both out of their clothes. How she hiked her skirt up after a particularly lovely date and she decided that she wanted him, there, suddenly as they were eating ice cream. So they apparated hastily to her apartment and

" Merlin, what the hell were you doing to that ice cream?" She panted, her fingers working on the front of his jeans.

He popped the first button of her top. "Uh, eating it?"

She smirked. "You know how it makes me."

He did. He made a point of licking the blasted thing all cream before flicking his eyes at her to let her know he'd do the same to her by nightfall.

"No, I don't."

"You massive tosser."

She hikes her skirt up, he pulled down his boxers, his length already hard and ready. She stared at his lips as her hand went down, pumped him for a second before guiding him inside. The way it feels stretching inside her, to make a place for himself inside her was indescribable.

Pansy could be bashful sometimes, but never shy. And Harry savoured her encouragements. The soft sighs, the yes and good and god. And his name. His name like a chant, like whisperings in a secret gathering, his name fresh and belonging in her lips. He loved her encouragements and when she'd take matters into her own hands, when she'd take his hand and show him exactly what to do, where to touch.

"Oh fuck. " He stayed like that for a fraction of a second. The moment brings out the facade. "I knew. I was thinking of you when I was licking it."

She shuddered and he felt it through her. God bless. "Lick me now."

So he did. He imagines her again instead of his hasty shaking hands. The way she bit on his shoulder, her soft encouragements. He screws his eyes shut and he can taste her sweat and her. Citrus and lavender and the frozen yogurt they had that just moments before.

Oh yes yes yes there. Oh, Harry.

He pumps into his fist the way he pumped into her. He picked her up and she wrapped her legs around him for leverage. And after a few hasty strokes, they found a steady rhythm.

Oh, Harry.

And when his release washes over him, he feels a glob of air stuck in his throat. A cry or a moan. He isn't sure. He isn't sure. But one thing is certain. The memory was all it was, a memory. Nothing tangible. He can't really taste her again. Can't really kiss her forehead after they both came and still they stood against the wall, catching their breaths. He couldn't draw circles on her naked back again when they were settled on her couch later, watching muggle movies on the TV she'd bought recently.

And after a second, when the post masturbatory shame finally kicks in, it's worse. He's panting and his heart burns with such longing that it's unbearable. He wants a drink. He wants ten.Nothing haunts you quite so effectively like a memory. He's at his room in Private Drive, walking around as if he's a ghost. He's not quite sure if he isn't. Because he doesn't feel his presence, he doesn't really feel his feet pacing on the floor. He stares at the bed and he's almost certain he can see the scene playing here, which had been playing here exactly two months ago.

She was smoking one of those blasted strawberry cigarettes that leave her mouth all bitter and sweet, ridiculously kissable. Her hair was dark and wild, his shirt too big on her, it slipped from her one shoulder and the skin was milky and smooth and inviting as she lay on top of him.

They'd decided to down a few beers, and for some reason, muggle alcohol had a strange soft effect on her. Entirely unmasked. Entirely happy.

She was giggling about Dudley's nickname, smokes erupting in puffs from her nose.

" Big D, Harry?" She snorted, looking at him with her chin on his chest. "Honestly? You're not kidding?"

He laughed. "God, Pans. Not like that."

She giggled, poking him at his chest. "Well, why then?"

"He was a big kid. His name was Dudley. "

"It could be a double edged sword… what if I picked the wrong cousin?"

The thought was as ridiculous as it was hilarious. Harry's laugh vibrated through his chest.

"What?"

"You haven't met him." He chuckled. "You'd have scared him away in a heartbeat."

Her eyes widened mischievously. "What do you think Vernon Dursley would think if he saw us here?"

Another bout of laughter. He pushed his fingers through her hair. She closed her eyes, leaning into his hand with a happy sigh.

"A witch and a wizard under their roof? They'd have fainted."

She scrunched her nose in disbelief.

"You didn't know them." He tapped on the upturn of her nose. "They were always freaking out if I even showed the tiniest bit of magic. When we were young it just sprouted out sometimes, didn't it? They turned purple. They were scared I'd burst out magic any moment."

That's why they kept you under the stairs, a nasty voice said in his head. He cringed inwardly. He didn't want to think about that.

But Pansy had other plans. "Tell me about your childhood," she said, eyes still closed. When Harry didn't answer, she opened one and said, softly, "You don't have to… but, you know, you can tell me about some good stuffs. The bad can stay under the floorboards for now.

So he told her. The good, the average. He had to dust through his memories. He had to sift uncomfortable truths he didn't want to say aloud.

He told her about dunking Dudley's jokes on himself, he told her about Mrs. Figgs and her cats and the house that smelled like cabbage. He told her about his magic, sparking out of him and lending him luck when he needed it. He told her about his scar and how for a while it was the only thing he liked about his appearance.

He didn't tell her about how he's been touch-starved since forever. He didn't mention that the time he played with Mrs. Figgs' cats he really actually wanted to go wherever the Dursleys were going. It was always off to some latest amusement park or diner or zoo. He didn't tell her how he had been filled with crippling, primal fear that there was something fundamentally wrong with him. That maybe this was the reason he always had to stay behind.

So the terrible truth is, he always assumed there was something wrong with him, inherently, the sort of mess up that lurks in someone's bones, invisible. But palpable, teeming at the edges of his skin. When he looked in the mirror, he didn't seem to be any different than other kids. No extra limbs, nor absence of some. Nothing strange.

Occasionally there were sprouts of magic, of course, like his untameable hair. Cutting it was the only time Aunt Petunia actually, physically, touched him. There was that too, lack of actual human contact to tell him that he wasn't supposed to be touched. His aunt and uncle resorted to poke him with anything that occupied their hands at the moment - a newspaper, a stick, the television remote. He remembers the first time he was left alone in the house when they all went to some new amazement park and he was left with a gut wrenching, cursed freedom, he went to Dudley's room. Stood in front of the giant mirror and just - stared. His eyes. His hair. The gangly limbs spilling from the loose t-shirt. The lightning bolt scar. Eventually he took off Dudley's spare shirt and observed his body marks for rashes, something contagious. Vernon had shoved him aside to make room for Dudley, and after he was pushed to the side, Harry saw him wipe his hand on the sides of his shirt. So he looked and looked for some sense, some logic to account for. He did all this while crying, he was so small. He wanted to go to that park. He wanted to ride on the roller coaster he saw the advertisement leaflet Dudley had thrusted in his face.

They found him sleeping in front of the mirror. After that they always made sure he wasn't alone. After that he was left off at Mrs. Figgs every time they went somewhere.

But he didn't want to say any of that. He didn't want to be that pathetic grown up version of that kid. Not right then. He could buy a roller coaster if he wanted to. He could book an entire amazement park for a day and have a date there with Pansy Parkinson, who right then was looking at him like she would rather be there than anywhere else. Pansy Parkinson who liked it when he touched her. Didn't see it as a starved man fighting for scraps. Who understood his compulsion, the wretched creature, in some way even he didn't. Pansy didn't have a sneer, not like his aunt, his uncle, his cousin at the sight of him.

He told her about the day he got the letter from Hogwarts and Vernon Dursley's comical effort to get rid of it. She laughed, her eyes crinkling mischievously.

"I can't believe they thought you were dangerous! I mean… unless you're the Dark Lord.. you're the nicest guy I've ever met! Do you know what Draco did to his governesses?"

Then she went great lengths to describe that little menace. Harry only half listened, he stared at the soft, excited blush on her cheek, the tip of her adorable nose, the spark in her eyes. When she finished and looked at him expectantly, he had to agree that Draco Malfoy was indeed a little monster when he was ten.

And he knew it was not a competition, but somehow it was. So he told her about the time he blew up his aunt Marge. And okay, alright, he may have flexed a little, but the way her eyes lighted up and she looked at him with renewed awe, it was well worth it.

All is fair in love and war anyway.

She got up after she'd done laughing and reached for her trousers. When Harry looked at her in confusion, she replied, "I'm going to make some soup, you're going to eat it all up, and then I'll give you a blowjob." She considered for a moment. "Then if you have enough stamina left we'll fuck on the kitchen floor. Just to spite your folks."

He pulled her down for a searing, needy kiss. "God, you're perfect," he told her.

She was. It breaks his heart now. Breaks it right in the middle of this warm, lonely house.

"Harry, you don't just need a girlfriend," Ginny had told him the day they broke up. Flatly. Disdainfully. "You need a girlfriend and a healer and you mom. "

What he wanted to say was, Fuck you. What he thought was, I think you're right.

"Have a nice life, Ginny."

"You too, Harry."

He let Ginny go, and as feisty as she usually was, she didn't make much of a fight. So he guesses it all went for good. He did the noble thing. Broke her free from a guy running from the prophecy he fulfilled. A broken chrysalis of her childhood crush.

But with Pansy, he never wanted to do the noble thing. He loves this vulnerability, this compulsion of hers. She wants to take care of him. He wants to let her. He wonders when he became so selfish. Or is love the creeping, screeching monster? Does that mean he never loved Ginny if he was able to let her go so easily? If it hurt, but he knew the other option was worse?

He wonders if he's the most terrible person in the world. If the parasite that lived inside him for eighteen years finally won? If all he ever looks for the people he loves is how well they can love him back.

He can't look at a mirror without getting enraged.

He wonders if people have a limited portion of love in their quota, if somehow that is filled too much too soon, it only means despair for the rest of your life. Maybe because he'd been loved the wrong way all this time, that he can never put it right. He could only be either a bloated mishappenstance or a celebrated hero. Could it be that he is both? That he'll always be both?

Maybe he's trying too desperately to fill his deserted quota. He looks for love, the personal kind, the kind that's specific only because you choose it to be. Maybe that's not healthy, maybe that's what precisely makes it impossible for him to find healthy love.

Maybe he did make Pansy feel trapped.He thinks about the time, her birthday, after their date, in her bed, how he held her naked body from behind and pleasured her. One hand palming her breasts and the other down on her clit. She rolled back into him and merely mewled how good it felt, how good he made her feel, always did, and God, just there and there and there.

These memories are what he thinks of when he fucks himself in the howling quiet of his house. He comes silently, painfully silently, as if even the sound of what he's doing is so shameful that it's unbearable. The memories vanish like wisp in a demented forest when he finishes. And it's always, always the same. Always embarrassing and lonely and his hands are sticky and as soon as he can manage to get up, he goes to the shower. He scrubs his hands and wishes he wasn't so typical, such a guy and that his needs were purely emotional, not something so visceral, not something that can accentuate just how pathetic it is.

But he wants her whole, her heart and her body and her mind. And for a while he had it. It kills him to know that he had it. The wisp, the oplacent mist, the light in the dark.

He scrubs his hands until they're raw and red.

Then he apparates, almost unknowingly, letting the stone in his stomach take control. The cold air nips his skin as he finds himself right in front of the posh bar he used to get in touch with Blaise Zabini. He goes to the back of the building to look for him, but their mutual acquaintance gives him another address.

"I don't deal anymore," is how Blaise Zabini greets him at the front of his new rendezvous. It's dark in the park and he's leaning against a beech tree, smoking. The cherry light on the butt of his cigarette and his sharp eyes are the only thing visible. He stares at Harry in soft caution.

"I'm not here for -" Harry blinks. "Wait, really? Why?"

Zabini rolls his eyes. "Don't look so shocked for fuck's sake. I can make an honest living if I want to."

"Didn't know you were making living with that stuff. Aren't you, like, the third line of the Serbian throne or something?"

"I'm honored that you know that." He chuckles dryly. "Anyway, that's just a title. I'm not that well off. Drugs are easy money."

"Then why'd you -?"

"Your girlfriend made me. Pansy's a tough bitch when she wants to be."

She's here again, and even though it is mostly the reason he's here, to say her name out loud, clearly, not those hoarse moans that are scratched inside his throat. He wanted to be with someone she had been with, so he could make certain that she's fine. That she's talking to someone, that her touch could be felt off of that person.

But still anger sprouts from his chest. Like dead air, it's been lodged there for so long. Zabini stares at him as if he recognises it.

"She's not my girlfriend."

He sighs. "So I've heard." He takes out another cigarette from his silver case. He puts the edge on his already lit one and offers that to Harry. "Couldn't keep up with her doubts, right?"

His tone is flat, still accusatory. Harry takes the cigarette. "More like she didn't let me."

"With Pansy that's always the case." He takes a long drag. "Still, you were good for her."

She was good for him.

"Pansy," he says. The name of a flower he's grown to love. The name that tastes sweet on his lips. Tastes right. Tastes like her.

"How is Pansy?"

"As good as you, I suppose." Blaise shrugs. "She doesn't talk much these days."

"About me?"

"At all."

He takes a long, slow drag, lets the toxic smoke soak his insides before blowing them out. He feels worse now. With Blaise Zabini. With the knowledge he can bestow on the life of Pansy Parkinson, and how much of it Harry will hate.

He should go away. Get out at another bar. Maybe go to Hagrid's. Or meet with Mrs. Weasley. It's been too long since he's seen either of them. It's been too long since he's seen anyone who wasn't persistent on keeping tabs on him.

But what he says is, "So what are you doing tonight?"So it goes. He meets with Blaise Zabini. He forms some sort of a friendship with him. He asks about Pansy, he lets his sharp, dark eyes pierce his insides. Zabini knows too much. He understands too much.

He drinks too much.

"I have to get my fix somewhere. " He rolled his eyes when Harry complained about how hard it was to carry him to Pansy's door at the end of the night. His skin waxy and dead-like in the moonlight. "Just like you need to get your Pansy fix here."

When Harry doesn't answer, he slurs, "Oh come on. Don't be so unnerved. It's my job to read people."

"You're annoying."

"I have to get inside everyone's head so I don't get into mine."

"Shut up, Zabini."

He chuckled dryly, his laugh rattled Harry's insides and placed a hollow mirror in front of him. Harry sees his desperate reflection and suddenly feels terribly embarrassed.

Zabini has a special gift for drawing confessions out of people. This is what he does: He offers them a smoke and he breathes the air like a vacuum. Then he waits with his knowing stare and lets the person in front of him fill the empty space with words that have dusted too long in their minds.

Maybe he's a genius. Or maybe Harry's just too susceptible.

He breathes out the smoke. They're sitting on a swing in an abandoned playground. Zabini keeps fiddling with his pockets and Harry tries to let his steam off enough so he wouldn't drink. He tries to concentrate on the cigarette and exactly what went wrong with his life.

"All my teen years are blurry. I had to run as fast as I could. To survive. To… fucking exist. And now I'm tired. Now suddenly I have all the time in the world and no clue what to do with it. God, I feel so small."

Blaise doesn't say anything. When Harry looks over, he sees an all too familiar vial in his hand.

He blinks. "Hey, man."

Blaise recognises the concern in his voice and turns to look at him. Harry holds out his hand.

"Give it to me."

Blaise scoffs. "Fuck off, Potter."

"Blaise -"

He jerks his hand away. "I said fuck off. You don't know about the day I've had." He closes his eyes. "I need it."

Harry cautiously gets off the swing. He is not the person to deal with an addict. Hell, he himself was just a line short of an addict. "You don't. If you just get to Pansy, you can -"

"Pansy can't solve this."

Harry tentatively touches the back of his wand. "She'll be -"

Blaise doesn't wait for him to finish. He screws open the cork and raises the vial to his lips.

Harry's hand moves in a swish to disintegrate the vial in a second.

Blaise doesn't believe what's happened for a moment. The night air seems too crisp and silent around them.

Then. Blaise Zabini jumps out of his seat like a swish of flame. Harry braces himself, but still he is knocked down by the force Blaise jumps on him.

Now they're on the ground. Blaise lunges for his chest like a menace. But he's drunk, so he misses and Harry grabs hold of his hand.

Blaise struggles against his hold. "Who the fuck are you?"

"Your friend. "

He tries to twist his hand free. Harry breathes deeply to cool himself. Blaise closes his eyes, his face contorted in anger for a second, then, quite unexpectedly, he breaks in tears. His head falls squarely on Harry's chest.

"Oh man." Blaise shakes with cries. "I'm all fucked up inside.

Harry lets go of his hand and Blaise grabs his arms, crying. "I needed that vial. I'm no good without it."

Harry holds him, his throat is dry and chafed. "Not true."

He has his heart in a tight fist as he apparates to her home. There is the familiar shift of pressure, the uncomfortable knot in his stomach, then there he is. In her living room. The very same place. Blaise Zabini lets out a choking sob and holds onto him.

"Pansy!" Her name comes out of his mouth like it's the most natural thing. Her name comes out of his mouth and it's worse than when he wasn't calling her. He feels his chest burn, he feels the fire spread to the rest of his body as she comes out of her room, sleepy, bewildered and… wearing his shirt.

She stops dead at the sight of him.

"Harry?"

She's so close. The room's too small. He can see her eyes and the redness in it. Is she crying?

The moment of soft heartbreaking silence ends when Blaise finally bulges forward. Harry holds him by his shoulder as Pansy gasps. He coughs, once, before emptying the contents of his stomach before giving in to gravity and dropping on the floor.

"Jesus Christ." Pansy crouches down next to him. She holds his head up with her hands on her cheek and Harry looks on. He knows his Pansy. The healer. The one who understands. The one he loves.

She opens up his eyes with her fingers. "Has he been using again?"

It takes him a moment to grasp that the question has been thrown at him. His heart knots even tighter. His voice has a desperate longing as he answers, "No. He was trying today… but I - I stopped him. But then he started convulsing. Cursing his mum and I -" his voice is apologetic. "I didn't know where else to go."

She sighs. "Good. Thank you." Then, "Could you hold him while I get my wand?"

"No problem." He helps her fix Blaise on her bed, watches her work on him, urging him to take a potion, promising him he'll feel better in the morning, telling him she's proud of him for lasting for so long.

He sees it all with a pang of embarrassing jealousy, with reverence and longing. With love.

After she'd done everything she could, she asked if he would stay for a while.

"Would you like some coffee?"

Yes, he would. He would like some coffee and he would like to crush her heart like petals in his palm like she did his. He's pathetic. He's in love with her. He would take almost any chances to be in the same space as her.

He would like to take her to his bed and never let her go, and everytime she tries to speak nonsense about how they're not good for each other, he would like to kiss her breathless, so that he could swallow up every bit of hollow resistance. But mostly, he would like to see her smile, the mischievous spark in her eyes. He would like to make her smile. Again. Forever.

"Harry?"

He coughs. "Coffee's fine."

They sit in silence in her living room, facing each other. The décor is the same, but the air is different. Colder. Harry takes a sip. He doesn't quite know what to say. Pansy takes the lead.

"Blaise and his mum have a… complicated relationship."

"I gathered." They've heard about it, of course. A witch with ethereal beauty. Six husbands. All dead. Some of their ghosts must leak out sometimes.

"It's about his step-fathers...?"

Pansy purses her lips and nods.

They drink coffee and ignore the fact that she's wearing his shirt. That he's in love with her.

"So you've been meeting with Blaise?"

"Yeah." To meet with you. To see your afterimage in him.

She smiles softly. "What is it, your new project? Reforming evil Slytherins who were mean to you at school?"

There she goes again. The carefully constructed self deprecating jokes.

"Only the ones who are pretty."

Her cheeks turn pink.

"I've got to go." He can't stay another moment in this room, in this miasma of lavender and sweet orange. To see her and not kiss her. He didn't expect the emotions to flow in quite this way. He should've. He's an idiot. He's fortune's fool. He's the proverbial blind man walking into a room full of stars.

"Yeah. Yes, of course."

He stands up, she follows suit.

His fingers flex. Why does it feel like goodbye? It shouldn't. Goodbyes are abrupt. Like a slash of blade, like the flicker of an eyelid. It isn't supposed to draw out the moments like careful strokes in a canvas. The omnipotent painter drawing this scene is a sadist. God is a sadist.

"I want to stay," he says. "It's just that I love you. I can't - can't pretend that we're simple acquaintances, sharing coffee and stories. I can't."

She nods. Her eyes are softer. And he relishes the sight of her as if this is a farewell. He knows his woman. He knows that if he takes a step to her, if he pulls one of the locks of her hair surrounding her face, she will melt in his arms. He can kiss her on the mouth and open her up, drink her in, he knows all the notes and bases of her perfume and her lotion and the ridiculously costly washing powder she uses on her clothes. He can kiss her and taste it all, pull the neck of his shirt that she's wearing and find her responsive. He sees her want pooling at the corners of her eyes, ready to spill out, fill him in, hollow him out. He looks at her and memorizes this face as if it's the last time. He thinks that this is as close to a closure as he would get. He thinks about the hole in his kitchen that needs repairing.

"Tell Blaise to call on me when he gets well, OK?"

Just before he can apparate, he hears her

"Harry, I l-"

But he's gone. He's back in his apartment. He knows the ending to the sentence. He felt it every time she touched him, healed him, made love to him. He wanted to hear it for so long. But now, suddenly, at the very moment, all he can think about is how tired he is. How very tired. Of her, of himself, of Blaise Zabini and his mother.

He thought for a long time that love really would solve it all. That it could patch the broken piece of god in him, that it could glue back the pieces he lost in the war. He used to believe it would be enough.

He looks around his empty house. Dark and grey and lonely and filled with portraits of a family who hate him. He can't see love changing his life anytime soon anymore.

So she loves him. He wishes it were enough. It isn't.