Pansy has always been fascinated by the human brain. The anatomy of it, complex structures, white matters inside greys. The sulcus and gyri of that big load of grey matter carrying fibers that can transport information at the speed of light. There is a small structure of your brain lying just behind the forehead that collects information. Stores memories. Short term, long term; things correlate inside your mind. One thought stems from another, you remember the steps you take and thousands of steps before them that led you to it. That's why brain traumas are the worst. Because, in your messy, broken mind, it's all connected. Someone with blue eyes hurts you, and then all of the evils of the world are blue. You notice a butterfly the day your mother dies, and it's the ugliest thing ever. You can't see another one without seeing your mother's lifeless eyes. Healing the trauma is another matter. You don't just heal the part that was hurt first, you heal the other parts too, the ones flushed over by the ever incoming tide.

"It all hurts," Harry told her one day when she asked about Sirius. On the living room couch at number twelve Grimmauld place. His head on her lap, he twisted sideways so she couldn't see his face. "All the parts related to him." Him. Sirius Black. His godfather, who is still his godfather, even though he's dead. Pansy thinks there should be another word for the relation. Because Harry Potter's going to grow up to be forty one day and his godfather will stay thirty six. His parents will stay twenty one. There should be a word to carry the bitterness this reality brings.

But maybe there shouldn't. She isn't sure.

"When does it start?" she asked softly, combing her fingers through his hair. Because he was telling her about his dream, how at first it was Sirius asking him if Harry would live with him, like a family. He said it was near the Whomping Willow. It was a full moon and before chaos took over in the shape of a werewolf, it was the most beautiful night.

"From the beginning." He mumbled against her palm. "Because I remember it's a dream. I know what happens next. Then I try to warn him, but it doesn't work. It's the same every time."

"Maybe we can navigate the way," she said, "if you have the same dreams, maybe we can trigger some words or actions to snap you out."

"Maybe." He sighed. "My head burns even when I wake up. It's this house too, I think. Anything related to him."

"Why do you stay here?"

He turned his head so she could see him. His eyes were glassy and wide. He looked embarrassed.

"He left me this house."

Pansy pursed her lips.

"It's the last place he's lived. I - I dunno, it's better than not being here."

So he haunted this place as much as it haunted him. He closed his eyes again. "I probably would've lived in my parents house too, if they hadn't built a memorial in it." A shaky sigh, his cheeks puffed up. "I know what it looks like. I'm a parasite."

"No you're not." He's a starved man living off scraps. He's an alive boy dancing with ghosts. He's parasite the way the moon is a parasite, brightened by the ever-glowing sun.

"Pans, I know you want to make me feel better, but -"

"It's not to make you feel better." She leaned back further into the couch, felt a quiet heaviness settle in her heart. "Humans need each other. And if we don't have that - we just improvise, don't we? That's what you're doing. You're… improvising."

"Hmm." Somewhere in between, he had touched her hand, and now he was spreading his fingertips along hers. He stared at that for a moment, then said, "Are you concerned that I'm improvising with you? Latching onto you?"

Yes. And I am too.

She couldn't answer, not the truth, not the half lie. And after a while he pursed his lips and didn't stretch his question further. But really, it was useless, she had an answer she couldn't say out loud. In them she saw the possibility of them latching onto each other, hollowing their vulnerabilities into someplace they could ignore, or look on later, if necessary. But it wasn't necessary, not right then.

So Pansy ignored the growling beast, the harrowing conflict that it wasn't healthy, probably. That maybe the only reason they are together is because they just want to touch something that would touch them back with the same intensity. But then. But then she led him to his bedroom and they made love and everything else melted away. And Pansy told herself it wasn't just that, because they were more than their loneliness. They had to be.

Hardly matters now. What was what wasn't what should never have been. Now all she has left is the same quiet, but more feral. Insipid. It eats her out a finger at a time.

Memories can feel like twisted knives if you're adamant enough. And Pansy's adamant enough.

Her mind backtracks, she doesn't just remember the good stuff, the shiny moments. Times when he laid his heart so bear that it was hard to look at it, the tattered edges, the kindness that stil leaked from it. How alive he still was even after all that happened. There were moments of bleakness too. When she confronted him about his lack of direction.

"You can't do this forever, Harry," she said, wrapping a bandage around his ankle, the skin ther red with inflammation. When she looked up she saw him picking at his nail. Childishly.

"Can't do what forever?"

" This. " She checks the white cloth, charmed to make his skin heal faster. "This could've been ignored if you had been careful. They have dragonskin boots to avoid this sort of injury. I'm sure you know."

"I forgot."

"That's what you say every time," she mumbled, waving her wand over the damage.

His voice was just irritated enough, "I have a faulty memory."

"No. You just don't care. You hardly care about anything."

A drop of poison in the air. He was silent until she said, rather embarrassedly, "I meant about your training."

He shrugged. "OK."

There was no right time to ask the question. And since she already laid the scene and pierced his pride, she might as well ask, "Do you want to be an auror, Harry?"

She asked carefully, softly. Still she could see him straighten up. Like steel. In the kitchen of Private Drive, in the brash light of the electric bulb, everything looked chafed. The brightness of his eyes unnerved her, sometimes. Especially so in moments like these. He ignored her eyes until he could pretend that there was something inherently interesting about his fingernails, but when she didn't budge, he looked up, and sighed.

"What do you want me to say?"

She scoffed involuntarily. "What? Will you say whatever I want you to say?"

"Yeah."

"How about the truth?"

He shrugged. "I don't have it."

"Do you want to be an auror?"

"I think so."

"Will you try harder to be one?"

No answer.

She stood up. "Harry."

"Pansy." No mischievousness in his voice. Nothing sneaky. Just tired. Bored, even.

"I don't want to fix you up so you can get hurt in another new, creative way the next day. And for something you don't even want to do." There, she said. As much as she liked healing him, it was too regular an occurrence to be gratifying.

It had become repetitive.

"I - I want to be an Auror, Pans. That's all I can say."

"Then why do you act as if you want to get killed?"

He opened his mouth, then closed it again. She saw the strain in his muscles and knew in her bones that it was the end of the conversation for the night. Such a child.

He stood up. She took a step back.

"Harry -"

"Look, I don't want to." He sighed. His hands shooting up to his forehead. His scar hurt every time they argued. It made the ground beneath her feet quiver every time. She walked on eggshells around this man. She knew no other way.

But she tried. Still. "Don't run away this time."

"I can't have this conversation." His voice was steel. Her heart was steel.

"Just stay."

"I can't."

"Harry -"

He apparated. It was a cruel trick, apparation. The space that he filled was suddenly replaced with air. With nothing. His rejection. Her hands formed fists involuntarily.

He came back, of course he did, later. She knew he would, and so she stayed behind in his muggle house, letting the motherly warmth soothe her shaky heart. In the dark room, on her side of the bed, sleepy but not asleep. She heard the familiar click of apparition. Felt the shift in the air. Smelled something distinctly bitter. The bed creaked as he settled in and held her from behind.

She didn't answer.

"I'm sorry." His voice drawled, languidly stopping on each syllabus.

He was drunk. It made her shiver uncomfortably. Nothing worthwhile comes out of a drunk man. No matter how sorry he is.

"I shouldn't have left." His fingers skimmed over the outline of her nightdress. She screwed her eyes shut tighter.

"Not in the mood."

He stopped his movements immediately. She felt him tense behind her. "Are you kicking me out?"

"This is your house, Harry."

"You know what I mean."

His hand was immobile, though still on the flat of her stomach. Of course she knew.

Get out.

"No."

"I'm sorry."

Pansy sighed softly before turning over. She was right, his eyes had that glassy, lost look. Through his parted lips, as he breathed almost languidly, she could smell the alcohol. He stared at her, apologetic, wistful, soft. Pansy felt her heart twist. It had to be the death of her. The way she instantly forgot everything that happened that evening, except for the fact that she's already forgiven him. Even before he apologized.

She lifted her hand to smooth his hair out, then moved forward to kiss him on the temple. She felt the same old rush, the soft thump of her heart, as he breathed in relief.

They laid like that, looking at each other in titular darkness, the silence heavy like the beating of their hearts.

It was eons after she said, "I don't like it when you drink."

"Then I won't drink," he mumbled, still drawling. She put her hands around him to pull him closer.

"Just don't leave me," he breathed on her skin. "I'm sorry. I'm so messed up. My head hurts. Don't leave me, Pansy."

We're done.

"I won't."

She knew it was a colossal mistake. No one should make these promises. Because life is unpredictable, people are weak and broken and when you have something good you should never take it for granted. You should never think that it would last forever. You shouldn't make promises just because you think you have a right to love what you love forever.

She hated him, at first. He knew what he said would hurt her, that it would mirror her shame in front of her. Her cursed prison. He knew she was scared, he had to know she wanted to hold on. He tried to save their relationship and then hurt her. Just like she wanted to save him and instead ended their chapter. She thinks maybe there was no escape from this. Like the story of the woman who was turned to stone. Her lover was cursed with an impossible task, and every step he did wrong was another nail on the cross. She was turning to stone from feet to head. She watched him, supporting him, as he did everything wrong, made her stone.

Or maybe he was the one turning into stone. Maybe they were taking turns. People destroy one another in love. Sometimes.The childish anger of hers passes after a few days, replaced diligently with self-loathing. How can she hate him for saying the truth when all she offered him were lies? Or half truths. Some half demon, half godforsaken truths. She did put off Greece for him. He never specifically asked her to. She does miss her home, but only until the tight cold hand twists her insides and she remembers the rest of it. The dark corners. Familiarity means familiar demons sometimes. Old acquaintances can morph into old, misbegotten wounds.

It's her fault. She knew she could never sustain her rationality, her hard earned level-headedness. Still she jumped headfirst. Falling in love could be like falling from cliffs if you're scared enough. If you're scared just enough.

It's his fault. He is too much. He needs too much of her. It's not enough that she loves him silently, that she can care for him in the quiet of her house. That sometimes her fear for adversity crepes up like a ghost. That it's how she is. It's how she loves. He should've understood that.

Nothing matters.

It's worse this time around. Because now she knows. That it wasn't just alcohol, or excitement, or the charm. It was them. The golden smoke, the silver dream. That she and Harry do share something that's real and integral. Pure magic, he felt like. And now she can't delude herself into thinking anything will ever be the same again.

When his absence becomes unbearable, she shamefully takes out one of his shirts he never came back to take away and wears them to sleep. But that's small comfort. But that breaks her cowardly heart even more. His smell is disintegrating day by day. She can't smell the freshness of nicotine anymore, and the mint is not lively. Just there. A ghost of a smell. A phantom of the boy she loves.

There are still two pillows on her bed. She still sleeps on her side. She wonders if some night he would be drunk enough to stumble into her bed. If she would turn around again, smooth his hair and kiss him. He doesn't come. She knows the answer. Sometimes, when the darkness is too pressing, when the night is too in on itself, she stares at her ceiling and imagines him there, not a phantom, not a wish, not imaginary. She takes a soft breath and her hand finds its way inside her nightdress, places he's touched, places he'd seen. And when her fingers stroke against herself, she almost feels him again, soft and needy and hers.

What she regrets most is that she didn't tell him she loved him. The boy who lived. The man who keeps on living despite despite despite.

So she improvises every memory she brings back. Does it right this time around. It doesn't matter for a moment that it's only in her mind. When he brought flowers for Peony, instead of holding her heart in the tight cusp of her chest, she tells him she loves him. When he's inside her, and his eyes are like the eyes of a man at the edge of the word, chaos and green magic, she tells him she loves him.

She misses him in all the places of her body he touched. The curve of her shoulder where he rested his head after a wear day, her stomach, where he draped his hand when he slept. The gaps between her fingers, her fingertips. Her neck at the baseline of her hair. The wind blows against her hair and she shivers. She can almost feel him. She can no longer feel him. He's a living phantom. He's gone. He never existed.

She takes care of Blaise now, and laughs inside at her own volition. She wonders if this is her fixation. If she has to take care of every broken boy she knows just so she never has to work on herself. If she was using Harry as much as he was using her. If it can be called using if they both genuinely love each other. And it is that, at least. Genuine.

She tells him she loves him back in the memory when he said it the first time. Even though the memory is tainted. Even though if there is a drop of poison in a memory, it spreads all over until everything hurts. Until she rethinks every single detail to ascertain her insecurity.

"You think too much," Blaise told her, lying flat on her living room floor and watching the ceiling as if it were an open sky. He had been staying with her for a few weeks. The first withdrawal is the worst. And Pansy insisted on staying with her so she could help him work through it.

Pansy looked down from the book she was reading. "I thought we were doing you this week."

"Taking a short detour." He turned to her. Withdrawal had a concerning effect on his health. His skin didn't have that same attractive shine, his eyes sunk under the indents that shaped like a crescent moon. He had an irritating humor most of the time when he wasn't cursing Pansy to give him a vial. But his voice was unchanged, surprisingly clear.

"Give him another chance," he said.

Pansy tried very very hard to not show any emotion. "Not talking about it."

"You're miserable."

"So are you."

"Well, I'm working on it, aren't I?"

"Maybe I am too."

He scoffed. But luckily, didn't say anything else. Her lie was as obnoxious as it was painful. She went back to her reading, the letters danced, changed colors, and completely eluded her while she felt herself getting trapped inside herself, some hidden door, some dusty cabinet.

Pansy deals with adversity by retreating into the cocoon she built for herself, the taut skin of the shell keeping her in, moulded in her skinny shape. Her own invisibility cloak. That's how she survives. But she knows Harry's way is different. He stumbles around, loud and pressing. With alcohol and violence, probably. It may even be sex. Pansy wouldn't be surprised if he's already slept with someone in a bout of loneliness. She would believe him if he told her it didn't mean anything.

But maybe he'll stumble back to someone meaningful. Ginny Weasley again. Maybe it'll be alright this time around. Maybe the detour he took with her would be enough to rekindle their relationship. For him to realize what's good for him.

Ginny Weasley, bright and warm and fun. When she walks into a room, people gasp for different reasons. Her names brings affiliations someone would be proud of.

It's not that she's jealous. She doesn't want to be Ginny Weasley. After quite a while of living in your own body, inhabiting the skin and blood and bones, you have an integral attachment to it. She knows her mind, and she is keeping herself safe and tidy inside it. But what it might mean for him makes her wonder. Always did.Give him another chance.

But he hurt her.

You think too much.

But he spoke the truth.

She is wearing his shirt again, touching herself, not touching herself, alone on her bed. The room is dark so it doesn't hurt eyes to keep them open. Blaise has gone someplace she doesn't know of, and she's trying to trust him. He had been off the tracking charm for a few days. She let him off as a sign of trust, and she's not trying to overthink it, temporarily glossing over the fact that he's been talking about his mother in a way he hadn't in a long while. And what that means. What that may mean.

Her mother came by to see her again, letting her know that it was indeed Hermione who he is dating. Pansy told her she doesn't care. Hasn't cared for a long time. Then she asked her to go. Get out. And what a joke. She turns away everyone. She turned away Harry for her mother and now her mother for herself. So what she told Harry must have been bullshit. So she was lying. So she is alone for nothing. She wishes she knew which is which but all her chain of thoughts are loose. She took a sleeping draught but all it does it make her head even cloudier.

She thinks about what she might do with her life.

She could stay as a healer. This lonely girl. Lonely woman. Talking with a number of people who will persist to be in her life. She doesn't think she can be with anyone, not like that, not like anything, for a long time. She can go to Greece and stay around for something revolutionary to happen, she could stick around so she might feel something as well.

Or she could go back to her mum. Apologize. Agree to marry anyone she deems suitable. Even the one Draco pointed out at the party. He had been asking about her, as it turned out. She thinks she can bear it. Live half a life. Marry Henry Thornton or someone who is just like him and have his children. Teach them how to tie shoelaces. She can attend galas and plan parties and smile and pose. She may be out of practice but she can practice again. She was destined for that role, anyway. She doesn't have to go to Harry. If she doesn't want to, she doesn't have to bear the painful ache from caring. She doesn't have to share her scared, black heart with him.

Or…

A crack of apparition. Then, the phantom calls her, urgently, "Pansy!"

She gets out of her room in a daze. And such a peculiar sight. Harry Potter is in her living room carrying Blaise.

She blinks a few times, she thinks she calls his name. And before anything else, her friends lunges forward to throw up on the floor.

"Jesus Christ." The healer instinct rushes in. She hurries to help him. Harry helps along. And for a moment everything makes sense. She checks Blaise's blood for any trace of drugs, feels a sharp relief when she sees that he is clean. She puts on a calming charm on her friend like a clockwork routine. She reassures him that everything is alright. She's here. She'll look after him. As if she can be trusted to look after anyone. As if the first time she has tried to hasn't completely backfired.

Harry looks on. She tries to ignore his stare, but it's inescapable. It's all she feels. It's horrifying. She's wearing his shirt. It's lovely. It's just like before.

She asks him if he would like coffee after because she is not ready to let him go. He looks worse, the finger spasms have made a reappearance. His shoulders are hunched. He looks skinnier. He looks like the same haunted painting he did before. She loves him.

"So you've been meeting with Blaise?" To meet with her? To know about her?

Or is she delusional and of course everything is not about her.

"Yeah."

Has he been taking the potion she sent him?

"What is it, your new project? Reforming evil Slytherins who were mean to you at school?" The same, tired joke, the same her. It's getting so old.

Harry half smiles, half smirks. "Only the ones who are pretty."

And there it is, the reminiscence of the Harry she knows. The mischievous, knowing smile. The glint in his eyes. For a moment it is so much like before that she melts, almost. She thinks how she can share her heart with him, as painful and scary it may be. That being cut open is also like being known. It's the price we pay.

Do it right this time.

She wants to tell him she loves him. But the moment ends too soon. He gets up, hurried, he has to go.

"I love you," he says the accursed words. And he can't pretend it's anything else. She understands, she does. And nothing matters. His words, her knife, her chest bleeding from what he said. She's been silently bleeding since. And it's all pouring out again with vengeance at the renewed sight of him. He's a glimpse into the other side of life where she doesn't have to worry about hating herself. Where her worth won't be on her capability to produce an heir to a long line of aristocrats. Where she can be loved not because she is the last line of Parkinson's and her blood is of a certain price, but because he likes her hands.

She is pouring out. Out of her living room. He looks as if he recognises it. The words come out on their own.

"Harry, I love you."

But he's gone. Halfway through her confession. He's gone like before and her hands stay still. She waits a moment, surely he heard some of it? Surely he is apparating back?

But dead air is all there is and after eons, after she pulls back some remnants of self so she can go back to her room and find the skin she left behind is when she cries.