Pansy doesn't go to the game. She was supposed to, she was going to, almost, as Draco kept nagging at her all week. It's such an important match , he told her. It's all he's been looking forward to since he came back, since he realized that Quidditch might be the only thing that still felt the same, had a level playing field, had some sense of accomplishment for him.
Pansy listened to him, with a sort of apt admiration, about what a leap it would be for the Slytherin house, such a humongous, giant event. Such bullshit. If Draco was looking for a purpose, he could do better than flying over a broom, knocking other guys, getting hit by bludgeons for the senseless, borderline violent game she only ever pretended to like for him.
But who is she to judge? If Pansy was looking for a conjuncture, she shouldn't have tried to find it in Harry Potter's bed, which wasn't even his bed, to begin with. It was a foolish idea, inviting him in. If she thought back to that night, as she often did, fool as she was, she could see him standing against her door frame like a vampire. Skin waxy and pale, lips bitten to the raw redness. She had wondered if he did that when he was nervous, and she was nervous. She was nervous because she talked to him as an act of pure brashness. She wasn't thinking. She was mad at Draco and everyone else and Harry looked so bored, so desperate, so like her.
"Can I come in?" he asked later, or something similar. She was focusing too much on his face, the light glinting on his specks. She hardly heard the words, though it wasn't necessary. The scene was set, he could have tripped on a hundred different words but it would all mean the same thing.
Pansy clutched the paperback stiffly and said yes. And with this one-syllable catastrophe, Harry Potter entered into her life like someone entering into the empty house they plan to renovate. Except he didn't plan to, and it really made things worse.
Again, looking back, the scene was set. Lucy Westenra had no other option, not any real ones, but to invite the count. No other choice but to be the collateral damage. It's comforting when she thinks that her life, and everyone else's life is set even before they make a noise in the world. It takes away her accountability, it's a cowards way to wade through life and convince herself that she was supposed to be a bitch, she was supposed to peel of her skin every other Sunday, she was supposed to have no real propriety - what else was there to do but offer up her classmate in that dark hallroom? Was there any other answer she could've come up with when the same boy asked her if he could come into her room?
There are, of course. But succumbing to that answer means accepting the fact that she has led a terrible, terrible life. She made stupid choices and accepted the stupid consequenses and she could've been a better person. She just didn't.
Pansy ran across the corridor as soon as Harry went away with Weasley. She could hear the violent clinking of her heels against the pavement. The shoes were made for a lazy stroll across a ballroom, the sort of walk that seems as if one's feet are half an inch off the floor. They weren't meant for running across her school hallway, chest burning, the fumes, the embarrassment rises through her throat into her nosepipe, throwing dusty specs over her viscera before poking her at the eyes. Pansy wanted to get into her dorm before the tears made an appearance.
All her rigidness, the constant chafing off soft edges to force out the bones, something white and pristine and by all means tough can't even hold up the ruse anymore. She really is blundering mess made of nerves, she really should not be allowed to prance through the castle where presence of Harry fucking Potter threatens to both ruin and save her day.
He looked good, he looked glad to see her. His eyes had that impish crinkle around them when he told her she was selfish a hundred fucking times. For one crucial second, she was on the cusp of hanging onto the loose, invisible thread tying them in knots. She almost touched his hand.
But it's good that she didn't. And after she cried till her eyes were red in a dusty broom cupboard (she couldn't reach her room), and she could feel a violent emptiness in her stomach, she told herself that again and again. Steady breaths, empty head. She'd ended good things that weren't good at all. She survived without ballet lessons, she survived without eating cheesecake, she could survive without Harry Potter. An hour passes or two or however, she doesn't care, she rather likes sitting on the floor of this stuffy room students probably utilized for having sex. If she wasn't so keen on keeping memories that stab like a knife, she could pretend maybe she and Harry misused it sometimes. But they haven't. Not this one. They used the one on the third floor, and the fourth, the sodding room of requirement, the prefects showerroom with its glorious bathtub, and once, on a particularly stupid inclination, their potions classroom. She rolls her eyes at her stupidness, feels them irritated from all the useless moisture.
Her joints ache when she finally gets out of the cupboard. She's already cast a charm on her face to deter any interrogation, she just reminds herself of appearing casual when she walks back to her dorm. But before she even takes a detour, a backward thrust sucks her back into the hallway. She yelps, heart in her throat, before the orge shouts in her ear.
"We won!"
Pansy jerks the arm away and spins around to find Blaise, shiny with sweat, grinning at her.
Her ears ring from the shout, both the one Blaise kindly decided to jam right next to her ear and the one that seems from a distance. She narrows her eyes in surprise. She hasn't really expected this outcome.
"We won?" she asks again, softly.
Blaise's smile dims a little. "Well, yeah. Don't look so surprised ."
"It's just that Harry -"
"Harry? Potter?"
She instantly regrets every decision that has led her to this.
"What has Potter got to do with it?"
She feels as if she's been slapped. "Nothing," she says too quickly. Blaise narrows his eyes and a single drop of sweat falls from one of his eyebrows.
"Nothing," Pansy repeats like an idiot. And then, like a saviour, like a golden retriever, the rest of the Quidditch team comes into the picture.
The green of their house bursts into her view along with the cheers of We triumph like the basilisk. Draco leads the cluster of people, leading them like a glossy messiah. In his hand there is a golden snitch the size of a bludgeon. Pansy would smile if she could take in the scene in its full glory. Draco looks good, exhilarated with the Quidditch Cup. He hoots something when he notices them. Blaise gives her another look but doesn't say anything. Pansy manages a grin by the time the troop reaches them.
"We won!" A collective cheer nearly shatters her eardrum. Draco passes the cup to Blaise before taking a step towards her. She smiles, honestly this time as she gets a good view of his pointed face glowing in happiness. She thinks of saying something along the lines of you made it or I'm happy for you or how does it feel to get what you wish for? but before she even could form a syllable, and Draco is almost hugging her, arms almost engulfing her whole, a lot of things happen at the same time.
One: She sees Harry at the farthest corner of the hall.
Two: She realizes he's not alone.
Three: He is, very determinedly, walking towards her.
Pansy nearly trips over as Draco hugs her, she hugs back, instinctively, smelling broom wax and grass and sweat. He mumbles where the fuck she was and she wants to crawl into a rock. Because Harry is coming towards them, his eyes locked on her. She isn't sure how anything looks from his point of view, she isn't sure she is even standing upright now.
When he's at a hearing distance he shouts, "Hey, Parkinson!"
Silence drops like a heavy veil. You can hear a papercut in it, you can hear your own scared heart as if it was the size of a giant. She thinks she hears Granger gasp, Draco drops his arms and turns back to his persistent rival just as he gets closer.
Closer. The sound of her heart. Closer.
"Hey -" Draco starts, but Harry only stares at her.
It's an excruciating amount of time, she feels the silence seep in, feels the air clogged with it, realizes everyone is looking on.
Harry looks as if he'd been through the wrong end of some tunnel. He looks tousled over, he looks so good. "I don't like losing," he says, his voice hoarse, just how it gets after he comes. Pansy doesn't want to think about his voice when he comes.
She takes a shallow breath. "Well, no one likes losing."
"I think you do."
Draco coughs. "Potter, what are you -"
"It's not about you." Harry straightens up, he looks taller than Draco, for some reason. "It's about me and Pansy."
This is downright embarrassing. Pansy can't believe his guts. What is she supposed to say? Everything is out in the open now. Like a sewn wound tearing at the edges.
About me and Pansy.
Me and Pansy.
"Harry," Pansy says, and saying his name feels the rest of the stitches giving up. Harry, what? Nothing comes out. She wants to tell him about two houses that are not alike in dignity should never meddle with their fates. She wants to say that two different ends of magnets always attract one another, but attraction can't cross out familiarity.
"I don't want to lose you, Pansy," the boy from the other side of the world says. "I don't care if everyone knows."
Well, want is not a choice. You can't choose what you want but you should - her hands shake -
you should -
the rest of the world looks on
you should -
She wants to do something entirely reckless. Something to match him. Something to let him know that he can't lose her, even if he wanted to.
She takes a step forward and grabs him by his collar. His head drops down, right to her level. And she wants to hit him, wants to disappear. Wants to kiss him.
She kisses him.
He falls into like how he always does. Uninhibited. Like slotting the last piece of a puzzle. They kiss like two people so familiar with each other that they know what's going to happen. Even before she kissed her and he poured into her a little, she knew he was going to kiss her back with the same intensity. Something acidic, something that can chase away the embarrassment she has about her body, how her body is both too little and too much to bear. She pulls his face closer than before. She knew he would moan at this. And melts a little into him as Harry pushes her leg to settle between. One of his hands finds her hair and the other settles on her hips. It's like a jigsaw puzzle, like finding the perfect vein for shooting up drugs. He bites the softness of her lower lips and she moans. Like waltz, like a routine. He tastes like strawberries and mint. She can't fathom anything else but him, the feel of him as she touches his face, feels the remnants of the weekly stubble chafing her fingers.
It's only when they're gasping for breath that they break apart. And it's still silent. Pansy chuckles, actually, really chuckles, cheeks flushed as she looks behind his shoulder. When he follows her eyes, not helping the grin in mouth as well, and they find at least fifty people looking on. And it makes her heart jump to his throat again. It makes no difference at all. Granger and Weasley match the grin on Harry's face, Draco looks as if he's been bludgeoned. When she catches Ginny Weasley - who she doesn't know, not really, but to whom she feels that she owes something, has a bottle of firewhisky in her hand. She smiles, raises it to them and she gets the sign.
Well, if you must.
She feels the rush of wind when she takes his hand. And Harry, with a breathless grin, tugs her hand.
And the scene is not set, the story is not written, Pansy makes this decision. She makes this choice to follow him, the rest of the world is chattering with a soft buzz. Like a hundred bees all struggling to talk over each other. Surprising herself, she decides to not care.
"You're worse than Draco, show off," she tells him when they're alone.
Harry's whole face lights up like a Christmas tree at this. He presses another one of his hasty, overwhelming kisses before he answers, "Thanks."
After, still reeling from the little scene they composed, Harry offered to go to Three Broomsticks, or wherever she wants. She backs against the wall of the courtyard before she can even think of an answer, and can see the astronomy tower piercing the evening sky as she looks up. Her arms encircling around his shoulder and Harry kisses her, soft, effervescent kisses. On the tip of her nose, the smile stretching on her lips, her cheeks. She giggles, her hand at the nape of his neck, the breath stuck at her throat feels bubbly and easy.
His hand skims the edge of her top, finger sliding just a little over her skin.
Pansy barely gets the words out. "We should talk." Because that's the sensible thing to do, right? That's the way to rationalize the outstanding flip she took today.
Harry is adamant. His mouth moves her neck, teeth scraping against the skin before his tongue chases the callous bite, not a bite, but oh she can already feel it. Feel his teeth and tongue and the blunt hickey he plans to plant. She never allowed it, not for her or him. But everyone knows now. So why -
"Talk," he mumbles, his breath feels too hot up this close.
"Hmm." She pushes him, slightly. "We can't talk while you do this."
"What?"
" This. " This. His hand at her throat to tilt it, slightly, to get better access. This. The trails of kisses that end on her lips. This. His thigh between her legs so she can just push her hips forward, almost innocently, to add friction to some of the warmth she feels budding in there.
"Do you think we use sex to deescalate our frenzy?" she asks before she can stop herself.
This stops him. Harry looks up, though doesn't move away. "What?"
" This. We were fighting this afternoon. And now I -" she suddenly feels the warmth spread all over her body. "Now you - you know. This is all leading to sex. And it's good. The sex, I mean. But after, when it's six o'clock -"
"Six o'clock?"
The genuine confusion in his voice snaps the chain of her thoughts. Pansy almost feels guilty. She of course hasn't told him about any of it. The time, the ticking time bomb peeking through her ribs.
"It's - I dunno. It's my misery hour."
"Misery hour? Why?"
Oh god. "Nothing, I -"
"If you're miserable about any aspect of our -" He turns red. "Well, our sex then of course I'd like to -"
"No." She takes a deep breath. Harry finally takes a small step and offers her long due space. He looks more confused than ever. And - hurt?
"It's going to take time," she says. "I still don't know what to make of us."
"Just tell me there's an us."
She snorts. "We just ate each other's faces in front of both our houses… I'd say there's an us. Though it's complicated." It has to be. "I'm not sure I know why you pulled that stunt."
"Stunt?"
"You kissed me in front of everyone. You can't take it back."
"Who says I want to take it back?"
"Didn't you like the secrecy?"
Harry looks flabbergasted. "I - yes, I did. But not because I wanted to hide you. It's because… I dunno. And - well, you said it was a good idea too! And I - don't be mad at me, but you're not so easy to read either. Half the time I'm not even sure you like me."
" Why would I be with you if I didn't like you?"
He shrugs.
Pansy scoffs. "I didn't use you for sex, if that's what you mean. And also, you had a girlfriend."
"I told you we weren't exclusive."
"Then why were you always circling around her?"
"Why are you always around Malfoy?"
She feels borderline incredulous. "But Draco - it's -it's nothing. It's -" It's a ruse. It's what she does when she sees him with Weasley. It's -
Fuck.
Fuck no. No no no. Please don't let her be this dumb.
"Pansy?" His voice is sincere again, the same soft freckled concern in it. "I swear to you I am not lying. I - you're not my secret. Remember the first night? The first ever? I said I wanted a quiet space. Somewhere I can sleep. And it was that… before you became that space. I could be - just be careless around you and I guess I didn't want to ruin that with everyone questioning or whatever it is that people do. And then… I thought I was your secret. I figured you didn't want anyone to know about us because - well - that stuff -"
"The stuff about my image?"
He almost chuckles. "Well, yeah. History. Details. I know how important image is to you."
"Details." Her bloodline, her guilt, her history. Details.
"Yeah." He offers his hand. "Just details. They don't matter."
She considers taking his hand, she considers running away and never looking back. "Then what does matter? To you?"
He touches her hand, just the tips of the fingers, carefully. When she doesn't budge, he grabs her wrist and leads it to his chest. Places it in the middle. And there it is. His heart is another wild bird, frantic and restless and just like hers.
" This matters."
She nods and she nods. Then, softly, "At first I thought you only wanted to… have sex with me because I wanted to hand you over. I thought you wanted to hurt me."
"Then why'd you let me?"
"I figured you'd be worth the hurt… and anyway, I owed you one. For calling out your name in the great hall."
"You don't owe me anything." He looks completely aghast. "And I wouldn't do that to anyone , let alone you."
It makes her blush even more horribly. "That's how my mind works. Something that feels too good to be true is too good to be true." She lets out a breathy chuckle. "Still want to be with me?"
In answer he takes her palm and kisses on the inside of the wrist, his eyes not leaving her.
"I see."
"I'm sorry I wasn't more clear about what I feel," he says. "I'm pretty messed up too."
Pansy says she understands. And then - "I've never felt anything… quite like this," she says, barely whispers. "I want you to be happy more than I want me to be happy."
His voice is huskier, almost chokes in on itself. "Pansy, I -"
"It's quite frightening for me, Harry."
And her voice makes herself shiver. If she had even an ounce of doubt that she has not made enough of a spectacle of herself it's gone by the time she cries - actually cries. Some familiar voice in the back of her mind yells at her to get away, do anything else but be a witness to another ballad of this embarrassing story, the one she has tried and tried again to ignore. If only she could let him know all this without talking, or even without talking in first person, but it's impossible. She's the spectator of her own catastrophe. And Harry, of course, looks on. Softly, with eyes so accustomed to kindness that it becomes him.
"I understand."
"Oh you don't have to say anything." She sniffles. "It's humiliating enough to be admitting it."
"It's not -"
"Oh fuck off."
" I want you to be happy more than I'd care about myself." He leans in, places a kiss at tear-stained cheek. "It's not embarrassing. It's beautiful."
Is it? Making soup at four am, not knowing whether he'd like it, whether he'd even want it. It didn't feel beautiful, it felt like a raw wound, like picking at something itchy. Like she was making a fool of herself, every time she fled back to the room of requirement to seek refuge from reality.
But then, when he'd finished the soup, and smiled gratefully, as if he couldn't believe the trouble she took was for him only. And he'd ask her, and she'd lie, though it was useless. Part of her knew that he knew. She wasn't the blunt edge of a knife for him, she was the skin it cut into. And she'd tell him about her grandmother, the only family member she liked, not only loved, and he looked so grateful to hear it, as if the boring, useless scraps of her life actually meant something to him. She would decide, on his expression, that it was worth it. If those bits of information made his shiverings stop, took his notice elsewhere but the trouble he was in, she'd open up to him, be the skin, cut open. She could be the idiot Capulet vying to take the risk.
As if he hears what is going on in her mind, Harry smiles.
"You know…" he says, "there's this play you were reading that night. The first night. It was -"
"Romeo and Juliet."
His smile widened. "It's so funny. After you told me what it was about, sometimes, when we sneaked around the castle, it felt like that. That we were these two desperate people trying to steal whatever time we could find. And it felt so good."
"Didn't I tell you how it ends?"
"Sure you did. But you know." His voice drops as he dips his head down to kiss her neck, his favourite spot, the place that smells most like her. "I cheated death twice, Pans."
She shivers. "And came out so humble."
He chuckles. "This is just the storybook ending. We're here."
Storybook ending? "Life isn't different from stories."
"Well, aren't there stories about people being happy?"
Words trips over in her mind, her mouth. "Yes. I - yes, there is. But - but we -"
"I know. Something that feels good is bound to turn out bad. That's how your mind works. But that doesn't mean you're right ."
There's just the hint of sarcasm behind his words, but the smile he offers her is so pure that she doesn't really care if it means she lost this argument.
Pansy blinks, somewhere in her chest, stubbornness yells like a rebel, tells her to make an argument. But all she notices is that the softly lit hallway does justice to the arch of his eyebrows, how gracefully it slopes downwards, then his eyes, oh the restless green. Harry waits for her to counter, to fight against happy endings, to push him away, to cower under the fucking self-sabotage routine. But she thinks about Romeo Montague, the hero, the reckless optimist and romantic. Maybe that's where the similarity ends between the boy in front of her and the boy from the pages. Maybe she should let Montague rest, be an unchanging frozen tragedy.
Harry waits for her to refuse, and Pansy still has trouble to disappoint him, to do something that's not expected of her. But she blinks hard to get her focus on reality and sports a smile, the most confident one she can muster.
"You win," she says.
His smile widens, and her knees almost give in.
so... there it goes! i hope you liked the story. your thoughts on this little bit of imagination are very much appreciated!!
