So it begins. It's almost like his old routine when he used to knock on the room every other day to have a peaceful sleep. Except for the fact that they hardly sleep now. He knocks three times and she lets him in without a word. And they pull off their clothes in a daze. A rush of hormones. Like Quidditch, like apparating, it's simple enough - only letting the whirlwind in your stomach take it where it wants to go.
He likes the secretive part. He likes that there's a part of his life no one knows about. And that's the thing about staying in the spotlight your whole life - even the tiny scraps of life you steal feels like a win. Everyone knows everything about him, or at least knows enough to assume, make a story about, make him a myth, not real. Not real.
Harry likes that Pansy doesn't mention his fame, nor does she mention their shared history, never mentions his new Prophet article, or can he really no longer speak to snakes? Does he remember how it felt to have Voldemort inside his head? Is he still there, does he think?
"Can you drive?" she asks one afternoon. He'd snuck into the room as soon as Ron and Hermione got into an argument in the Zonko's. He had the key so he let himself in, not expecting her there at all, but feeling radiantly relieved as she came in an hour later.
Like apparition, letting the pull in your body take you where it wants to go. After they were done, she had claimed his shirt and talked about what a fucking awful day she had had. After hours, it seemed, the conversation went to cars and how her father had a collection of a series of automobiles from 1900's and how he didn't even know how to drive.
"I tell mother to sell them, you know. They're no use to us. And we need the mon-" she stops, her cheeks turning pink. Harry keeps smoking as if he hasn't caught on the slip. The rare glimpse of the life outside Hogwarts for her.
Pansy recovers hastily from the stumble. "Can you drive?" she asks. "Since you were raised by muggles-"
"I think tolerated is the right word, not raised." He shakes his head. "And no, I don't know how to drive."
Pansy tusks. "My father gifted me a Mercedes-Benz for my fourteenth. It was glorious, you could almost smell the antiquity of the leather. But I realized it was really a gift for himself, to feed off his obsession. He was petty like that. But I was pettier. Learned how to drive, ran over his precious driveway and had an accident with his Ford just a week later. Fixing spells don't work as good if the material's entirely muggle-made, did you know that?"
He didn't.
"Something about some boring integral law… I don't know." She sighs. "I wish I hadn't done that, though. Felt lousy afterwards. I realized that maybe I don't really like a thing until I've ruined it a little, as if it was not for me if it was… perfect."
Harry offers an affirmatory hmph.
She laughs. "How profound, Potter. How absolutely enlightened."
Harry snorts, blushing. "Sorry. I'm the beacon of wisdom, hadn't you heard?" Her eyes widens mischievously at his fake pitch. And it lingers, time feels sticky on his skin, like molasses, and he wonders if she might make an exception of her rulebook and sleep with him in this room tonight.
She doesn't. She breaks the light daze of his and pecks him on the lips before getting up and getting ready.
"Got to go," she mumbles. "I had a good time, Potter."
He looks at her from the bed, watches the light shining through the glass of the window catching her earrings with a soft smile. "I always do."
If there is one word Harry could describe Quidditch with it's… life. Pure and untampered. It's all loud noise and harsh beats of his heart and just do do do. He doesn't have to think himself to death, he just has to let the pull in his chest take him to the snitch. He's always been intuitive about it. The golden ball, the flying wish. He chases the one thing and nothing matters. It's life, just as it should be.
He waits steadily on his firebolt, higher than any player. He could see a sliver of green out of the corner of his eye. Malfoy is always steady, steadier than him. More meticulous. But Harry understands the snitch like it's in his blood. He never misses. He doesn't even worry. He'll just let his instinct -
There.
A flash of gold. Not a flash, a sparkle.
Small and inconspicuous. But enough. He shoots like a bullet. The wind roars in his ear, Brush of the wind so sharp it cuts his skin. His hand extends involuntarily. He'll catch the snitch, one who's never stopping, always hiding, lilting behind every crevice she finds. He narrows his eyes in concentration. Just one second, just one more -
His head is in a blur. And then -
"Potter caught the snitch! The point is one-fifty to one-twenty! GRYFFINDOR WINS!"
There's an uproar of Harry's name. The wind bristles on his skin as his teammates fly up to celebrate. Ginny grins at him as the rest of them roar the ode Seamus helped them make the night before. Harry kisses the snitch before thrusting his fist up in the air as everyone cheers.
The roaring continues when they run along the sunlit corridors, the buzz of the win acts like a cheering charm.
"Means we're three points ahead of -"
"Not it's six!"
"Did you see Pucey's face?!"
"Fucking Flint -"
But Harry stops listening into the commentaries as they fall face to face with the other team. There they stand, hustled together in a corner. The rest of them stop talking at once as the other team turns. The animosity between the houses are comically normal these days. Without the occasional bash on the field, Harry feels there is hardly any tension in them.
But a miserly tension rises in his throat as he sees Pansy among the players. She looks on nonchalantly with her arm hooked around Malfoy's. Harry straightens his back, tries to look nonchalant as well. Ignores the blaring horns in his ears as he walks right up to them and offers a handshake.
"Good game," he says.
Malfoy rolls his eyes, but takes the hand. "Yeah, sure." He put his hand on Pansy's shoulder to pull her sideways. And goddamn it.
"Let's get going, Pans."
"Where are you going?"
Malfoy quirks an eyebrow. "I… don't know. What's it to you?"
Harry felt uncomfortable mutterings behind him. Heard Ron snigger, felt Pansy's eye on him sharp and precise. He blushed.
"Nothing. I mean, we could celebrate - perhaps -"
Pansy chuckles. He knows her enough to hear the uncomfortable pitch in her voice as she says, "I think you've taken a bludger, Potter." She pats him on the shoulder. "Celebrate with your teammates, yeah? The ones who actually won the game."
That is Pansy's way of telling him off, he knows. They've never had an interaction with this many people watching. And they had an agreement, he thinks, against all this tomfoolery. Pointless jealousy. But he's just finished the game, he won the game, he should celebrate it with the girl he likes.
Harry feels annoyed at himself for the myriad of thoughts, curses himself wholeheartedly as he, with great risk and foolhardiness, slides his hand into hers when he passes her. Beneath his robes, because he is trying to be tactful. He gives a squeeze, just a small one, inconspicuous if anyone looked on, and he hoped everyone would look on.
The rest of his teammates laugh uncomfortably and ask him what it's all about and he only shrugs, shakes it all away. His ears ringing like a bell, a cacophony of half filled wine glasses in different decimals. His heart is caught up in his throat as he excuses himself from everyone to wait for her in the empty storage room. Waits for quite a while, actually. He tries to remember if he mentioned the place correctly, or if his attempt was just corny. Regret forms dense clouds in his mind with every minute passing. Oh well, he made a fool of himself. It has been a one night stand then - one night stand that just lasted more than one night. It means that she lied when she told him she wasn't with Malfoy, or maybe she told the truth. And another truth was that she doesn't want to be -
"That was fucking risky."
Pansy shuts the door behind her carefully. The heavy oak door is slipped into its place without a sound. She rolls her eyes at him before appraising the broom cabinet.
"Tiny space, Potter." She raises her one eyebrow. "What do you expect to do in here?"
His breath has been stuck embarrassingly in his throat the entire time. It is obvious when he says, rather hoarsely, "You came."
"Well, how could I not? After the stunt you pulled. I wanted to smack you, you know." Even though she doesn't sound annoyed, at all.
And the relief of seeing her smirk, of hearing it when she makes a comment about the hiding place again, of the thought of her excusing herself from everyone else for him is so sharp that before he knows it, he is all over her.
And she kisses him back. As they stumbled against the wall, her hand perches in his neck before moving downwards to feel his shoulders, his biceps and the fabric of his robe forms a bunch in her fist. She bites his lower lip and he opens up his mouth more pressingly, his hands in her hair, pretty, straight hair, always made up. Every strand in place, always. Except when they do this, of course. There's something hungry about her when he does this, messes up her act just enough. So when he tilts her head to have better access and pulls down her hair band with a snap, she trembles, and falls even more into him so he can taste her entirely. Strawberry lips. And cigarettes. And so fresh.
Trembling bodies. Desperate times. She pulls his trousers down in a minute. He only hikes her skirt up before she turns her back to him and waits for him to pull her knickers down just enough.
"Don't have time." She gasps. He pushes her hair out of the way to kiss her neck. "Harry."
And something about the way she calls his name screams intimacy. It pulls at his stomach.
Her hand sneaks back to pump his length. He gasps as well and lets his head rest on her shoulder, puffs of his breath fans over her shirt. His own hand finds her soft and needy between her legs and oh the moan she offers is just as good as her saying his name. Like forming soft clouds with her mouth. Mists of his name when he pushed his fingers inside her to find her softer still.
Harry Harry Harry.
He merely chokes. "Hmm?"
"Inside. Don't have much - oh. "
He takes hold of her hips. And slowly, deliriously pushes in. And fuck. He feels her shudder and the warmth of her engulf him like a tight fist. The hand holding him finds his neck again and she pulls him so there's not even an idea of a gap. He presses an open-mouthed kiss behind her ear, pushing himself just a little bit inside her, letting her settle in. They've been together enough time to know the routine. So he waits, trapped in her warmth, breathing on her skin which is sweaty now, like his. Her neck smells the most like her. Strawberry and nicotine. It makes him confess.
He says, "There's nothing else like this feeling, Pans."
She moans. "Promise?"
"Better than Quidditch."
"Liar." Pansy gasps. "Now. Ready."
So he moves, jutting his hips forward, hasty at first. But they find a steady rhythm, their rhythm. His hand moves, all over. He feels her unbuttoning her shirt so he can hover, his hand making a map, making a mark, sweaty and hasty and so fucking needy even now. Time stops and moves recklessly at the same time. He mumbles more confessions, things he doesn't even know were in his mind and she responds like she never did before. He holds on as far as he can, and there's this connection, this familiarity that he really hasn't felt before. It clogs his mind. Words tumble out again, almost incoherent. He asks her if he can - he's so close -
"Me too," she breathes and he moves his hand down at her request, finds the bundle of nerves she's aching for. He rubs circle on her clit and god, yes, there and there and Harry -
They come together. He holds onto her with his head in the crook of her neck as they come down from the high. Takes time. He still feels the lack of air when they finally let go, and she turns back, breathless as well. She smiles and his heart backtracks a little. This is different , he thinks as he can't help kissing the beads of sweat on her forehead. This feels different , he thinks as they pick up their clothes.
"That was intense," he tells her. Did it feel different to you?
"It sure was, Potter." Not Harry. They are back at teasing, back to the basics. She smirks and the casual playfulness twists his insides a little. "Quidditch effect, I'd say. Or is it the winning?"
"I think it's just you."
She snorts in disbelief. She takes out her wand and works the Scourgify charm on both of them. "Sure it's me. I leave first, and you wait for a few minutes before fleeing."
He combs his fingers through his hair. "Alright."
"And we should have some other sign. Something that wouldn't feature another gauche interaction of you saying good game, Malfoy as if you wanted to eat him raw. We're really not together, you know."
"Yeah." He rolls his eyes. "Yeah, I know." He picks at the corner of his robes, thinks of how to say goodbye, thinking how he doesn't really want to say goodbye.
"Where are you going?"
"Hogs Head, probably. With Blaise and a few others. Where are you going?"
"Haven't decided."
Pansy inspects her skin to pale the marks he has made. Harry never bothers with the ones she leaves. She warns without looking up, "Don't come to Hog's Head, Potter."
Harry feels a shot of annoyance in his head, a disconcertion from the euphoria he has been feeling.
"Why would I go?"
"Exactly." She combs her fingers through her hair before coming closer and standing on her toes for his approval. She tilts her head so their faces are close. Too close. Her eyes have pale green dots in them, pretty, too pretty. "How do I look?" Pansy asks.
Gorgeous.
"Like you've been fucked."
She rolls her eyes. "Guess it can't be helped with all that groping."
"You like it, Parkinson."
"Sure about that?" She pecks him on the lips. "I think we should have a charmed ring or something, you know, for messages such as these."
His mind immediately retracts back to the golden coins Hermione charmed in their fifth year. Of sneaking into a room no one knows about and being upto no good.
"I think I have something you'd like."
And she does like the coins. Likes the room of requirement as well. And like so many students, she remembers stumbling here before, in a jest. It morphed into an empty classroom for her when she was hiding from Peeves.
"Never realized it before," she says happily as she looks inside the wardrobes and file cabinets to look at the things no one ever comes back for. "Funny how things in this castle have their own minds. Like they're reaching out to you exactly when you need it."
Harry smiles. "Yeah."
They're reaching out to him when he needs it. A safe space. A quiet room. A place where you can't feel time so the ticking, damning explosive hums softer. Almost not there.
When they start sneaking around the castle, the trouble truly begins. Because it isn't wait until nightfall anymore. It's between classes, it's after Quidditch practice. It's in the middle of the night when he wakes up sweaty from a nightmare. It's when she gets a letter from home and needs to feel wanted.
Pansy never specifically tells why she comes, but he gets it. Gets the hesitance she has in her voice. Knows that it'll take time to draw her out, that even though she jokes, she appreciates him chasing her. And he is chasing her. It's so exhilarating. His life is made of black and white. Streaks if gray on lonely days. His nightmares are dark, demented string of consciousness that takes him to places he most wants to forget. But chasing after her is chasing the rainbow. When he finds the coin warm with her answer, he likes the beat of his heart. It lets him know that he's alive. Like the tail end of a dream, her perfume lingers on his mind and he thinks about the next time they'll meet. And the next, and the next.
He likes the secretive part, he likes that no one knows so there aren't any assumptions about them. They don't know the tremor in his spine when they shake off all other responsibilities and meet in the room of requirement. They don't know that time stops there. That sometimes after they're done, and she wears his house robe, it feels like seeping color into a gray painting. The most normal thing. And his heart beats steady then, like it's normal. Like the color he left at her body is really the aftermath of what they've been doing, that it's the result of the connection he feels when she doesn't pry at his brain as if he's a stupid lamb but folds her arms around to stop him from shivering. Tells him about her grandmother who was a healer. Brings soup for him while acting as if she really doesn't care.
Harry wonders if it's the case, though. He'd never had a one night stand that lasted this long. He doesn't have the manual of conduct for this.
"Is this normal?" he asks, nonchalantly, sometimes. "Do you do this for everyone?"
"Of course I do," she says with her poker face. "I am a beacon of nursing, Potter."
He doesn't know what to make of that.
She goes away sometimes, even when she's in his arms, so close that he can feel her shiver on his skin when he draws a line over her spine. But still there, corporeal, he can touch her. Ask her questions so she treads her way through the dusty crevices of her mind. He asks her lighter questions, not intense enough to scare her away. But still Pansy is reluctant at first, as if the simple privilege of knowing her is too intense for her. As if she can't bear if someone looks, really looks at her. But he persists. He wants to know her, the girl who reflects everyone she meets. He wants to know who she is without mirrors, he'll take the barest scraps.
"Why would you want to know that?" she chuckles as if she is embarrassed when he asks her about that scar on her thigh.
"Why not?"
"Well -" she stops as he kisses the pink line, almost fading, almost not there.
He kisses further, inches away from her core and she shivers. She plays the sharp girl everywhere else, her eyes like the edge of a pen knife. But in here, in the Room of Requirement, she is soft. Like baby skin, like pastel colors.
She snorts. "Are you bribing me?"
"Is it working?"
"I'll tell you when you're finished."
He takes the challenge. Of course he does. And after, flush-faced and lovely, she lets him know it was when she tried to ride the broomstick for the first time.
"I was six and an idiot." Her cheeks puff. Harry finds it adorable.
"I tried to impress Draco." Pansy drops her voice, "Always trying to impress them."
He asks her more questions. What's her favourite dessert? How often does she write to her family? What does she want to do after graduation? Why hadn't they done this before? Why hadn't they done this before?
The thing about Pansy is that she likes to play games, she likes to win, even if it means losing. And he likes her so much. The girl peeling layers off from her skin. Trying to grow new skin. Always in the middle of the chaos of her own making. Always lovely. Always lovely.
It was a game. A splash of colors. Exhilaration. Kiss and don't tell. It was a game until… until it wasn't. Until he realized he probably learned more about her, and let her learn more about him than anyone had ever. And he still wanted to see her.
And he thought she felt the same, he was sure her touch lingered longer as well, and the looks they shared in the hallway. The fact that they were sleeping together, not like before when they'd tangle unintentionally in a hotel room. They slept on the same bed they had sex minutes before, tangled up in each other. Letting him coax her into five more minutes until five became ten. And then fifteen. And they'd have sex again before going their separate ways but it would feel as if he never left.
I didn't think you noticed.
But that's all he does.
So Harry didn't see it coming, the day she ended it. They ended it. He still can't wrap his mind around the fact that it's finished. Just like that.
I don't think we should do this anymore.
But that's all he looks forward to. How could she not know?
Harry manages to find her alone after an entire week. He has tried to talk to her, but Pansy is as elusive as the snitch. And twice as sneaky. She has at least one of her housemates with her every time they have a class together, and doesn't leave their side. And Harry would risk everyone knowing, the secrecy doesn't give him the kicks after she tells him that she thought she was the secret. But with Pansy already mad at him, he doesn't want to take the chances.
So of course his heart takes a backflip when he finds her, alone, in the corridor. Since almost the entire school is on the field, it leaves the perfect opportunity for him. All he's been wishing for a week. It's afternoon with perfect, clear weather. Everyone has been saying what a perfect day it is for the Quidditch finals and. Well, at least one of the snitches is in his sight.
"Pansy!"
She jumps, almost. He's already halfway when she turns back. If he could concentrate on anything but her face, he would see that her hands were screwed tight into fists.
"Hey," she says coolly.
"We need to talk."
"Do we?"
The sharp Pansy, with jagged edges like a shrapnel. An echo of something destructive, the aftereffect of a damage. That may have done some damage.
And Harry has an edge too. He has been the incendiary, the broken pieces, the empty shell. He can match her sharpness and her acid - something that makes them compatible, he thinks. Similarities that make her easier to understand. In a world of shifting scenarios, somehow she makes sense.
He could mirror her bitterness. But all he feels is a soft ache.
"I've been wanting to talk to you for a week, Pansy."
"And I have, very successfully, avoided you." She looks around. "At least till now."
"I'm sorry for calling you selfish."
She blinks. He knows she hasn't expected him to apologize. She lets the surprise soften her features only for a moment before she contorts back into her shell.
"Well… alright."
"But… you are. You are very selfish. You stay inside your head, making excuses for everything and everyone instead of talking to them. And when I try to draw you out you resist every fucking time. So yes, I misinterpret you sometimes, Pans. I'm only human. But you sit on your God I hate myself throne and get hostile at everyone who isn't instantly getting your logic, which is a faulty logic to begin with. And -"
"OK." She rolls her eyes. "I get it, I'm selfish."
"Yeah." He shrugs. "I just shouldn't have said it like that."
"Like what?"
"Like it's a goodbye. I don't want to say goodbye to you."
"Odd way to apologize or criticize, Potter. It almost sounds like a backhanded proposal."
"It's not an apology. Or criticism."
"Is it a proposal?"
He shifts his weight on his other leg. Something to conserve balance. He feels the pull to her again, like gravity. In early days of their tryst he called it lust. He's not so sure it's as simple now.
"If you let it."
"If I let it?"
"Yeah. I don't see anyone else trying to jeopardize your happiness but you. "
Her eyes widen, just for a moment. Again he catches her in the middle of her mess. Soft only for a blink before she steels herself enough for her sneer. Almost like when they were kids.
"Oh fuck off, Harry. Don't put this all on me."
At least she's calling him Harry. "I'm not the one who's hiding."
"The Room of Requirement was your idea!"
"Only because you wanted to be -"
"Oh fuck off . You told me you like that no one knows. How am I supposed to figure out if it's a cute thing or a tell-tale for don't fucking tell anyone?"
"Pans-"
"And the fucking smile you have on everytime you sneak into the room? You're trying to tell me you didn't prefer it that way? No one knows so you don't have to explain. You don't have to put a name on it or even think about it and when it's over you can just go back to your daily life. Now, I know I made it easy for you. I never asked, didn't demand to put a name on us or even ask you to break up with your open relationship girlfriend. I take my part of the blame, but don't tell me you weren't part of it too."
Harry feels like breathing fire. The world feels too small, the world feels as small as his shape, and he fears that if she moves even a little, it would break and fall on him with all its useless weight.
Pansy has her chin setting in ridiculous determination. And he can't answer. Some of what she says is true, some of it is horrible, twisted misunderstanding. But where does he start? How does he start?
"Harry!"
They both jump apart. Time moves again and moves with such intensity in his head that he takes another step back. Pansy scoffs.
"Harry!" It's Ron. He turns back to find his best friend jogging towards them, the corners of his Quidditch robe flying.
"Do you want me to go?" Pansy asks casually, but he can hear her smirk. The one she gets when she's winning an argument. And she loves to win arguments even if it breaks her heart.
"No." He shakes his head to get rid of bad buzz. It's just a breaking of a habit , he tells himself as Ron comes within an arm's reach. His friend eyes the both of them, blinks at Pansy for a moment before turning to Harry and saying without the least sign of surprise, "Let's get going, yeah?"
"Yeah. Go," Pansy answers for him. She doesn't wait for an answer before turning, her heels snapping on the floor.
Harry turns back at Ron and blurts out, before knowing the ending to the sentence, "She's my -"
Ron gives him a shove. "I know."
Great. Because Harry still doesn't.
