i hope this doesn't get annoying... but I had another little idea for them and this is really a one shot, a peek into their life and i just had to write it.

hope you like it.


The room reeks of memories.

Pansy is trying to find another word for it other than reek . It's proving to be way harder than she anticipated. Reek. Thick and bulky and almost tangible… not bad , certainly, but burning in its intensity to the point of being uncomfortable. Almost for her to touch and fold and make a different shape, form a different mold of it. Their room smells like crushed flowers and the tarty sweetness of his favorite wine and the fresh, piney smell from that time they decided to get high on weed. The darkness of the room cowers over her, even with the occasional twinkling of the stars Harry charmed as a habit on their ceiling. The darkness brings memories too. Good ones, scary, aching ones. One that feels like a distant memory of someone else.

Harry shifts beside her, his face mashed half against the pillow, half resting on his own arm. Shirtless, his biceps bulk a little, makes an elegant curve of muscle as he rests it over the pillow, drawing it closer to his body. It's dark, but he's so clear to her. So unimaginably clear, like a shadow of herself. A part of her own body. Pansy's face is mashed up against the pillow as well. And her face is turned to his. Her eyes—unlike his closed ones—are open and prying, calculating, rationalizing.

She tries to mimic his even breaths as she traces unintelligible lines across her stomach. Breaths stuttering, heart racing as if she's been running a hundred miles an hour. She's stopped doing her contraceptive charm. She's broken the invisible shield of protection. She's exposed herself to a newer, more uncertain future. She's scared to her bones.

Her index draws a line from her stomach to her chest. A hundred different futures swirl and dance inside her.

It's been two days. She hasn't come around to telling him yet.

She can't help feeling like she's cheating a bit. As if she's still toying with the idea. Which she isn't. Not for a long time. It was a steady flow of progression after the christening of Draco and Hermione's son. Their godson. Harry has been silently apprehensive after that. He smiled and nodded and did everything Pansy asked him to when she performed tests on both of them to ascertain their viability. She didn't want to spend trying and trying only to realise that there was something wrong with them.

Which, as it turned out, there wasn't. Harry and her were both perfect, fertile adults. Viable for reproduction. The only thing stopping her from conception was the routinely administered contraceptive charm she performed.

Which she lifted.

Two days.

Pansy lifts her hand to rest her palm against her husband's cheek. The sharp jut of his cheekbone, the stubble littering his jaw, all paint a picture of him stark and clear even in darkness. Even in the shadows. It swirls another rush of painfully sweet memories inside her, another rush of hereafter as she's bared herself to him. She can't imagine doing that with—or for—anyone else.

"I love you," she says softly. "So much."

Her heart jumps when she feels him smile. His lips puckered on her skin, a soft, effervescent kiss on her palm.

"I should hope so," he says, the smirk evident in his voice. "You married me, remember?"

Pansy rolls her eyes, smiling like it's an instinct. He draws her closer—eyes open now, soft eyes, muddled with sleep and exhaustion—and settles his hand across her body, just where she was touching herself a moment ago.

"I thought you were sleeping," she says, only slightly embarrassed.

"Hmm… so did I." He pecks her on the nose. "It's good that I was conscious, otherwise I'd miss your confession."

"Confession?" she snorts. "I'm just trying so hard not to make it obvious that I'm in it for your money."

"Or my fame."

"Your stupid, handsome face."

"My great, gigantic co—"

He doesn't get to finish it, because Pansy starts laughing too hard. He scrunches his nose, thoroughly happy with himself. And the sight of him like this, eyes pushed closer, slightly narrowed without his glasses, lips pulling in that adoring half smirk only illuminated by the sparking stars above, she can't help filling the gap between their faces, laughing, kissing, melting.

She is unsure how the next part happens. Harry wraps his arm around her waist, she clutches onto his shoulders. He settles on his back, she lifts her legs to straddle him. Hands bracketing his face as she leans in for a long, lingering kiss.

When she pulls away, the remnants of the smile still present, he tells her he loves her too.

She can't help the next thing coming out of her mouth, unmistakably like a confession.

"I'm not on the charm."

Harry raises his eyebrows. His eyes are confused only for a moment before they widen. Pansy's breath hitches from the sudden sharpness. The sweet, tangy pang his expression brings. She sits up straighter almost the same time he grips her a little tighter.

"How long?" he rasps.

Her spine melts. She rests her hand on his chest for leverage. "Two days."

"You mean we haven't—?"

She shakes her head.

They've been busy for a few days, with a number of consistent raids at illegal shops and her doing double shifts. Under her, Harry goes peculiarly still. The side of his face, the side she can see in the scarcity of light, is as immovable as the rest of him. But she sees his eyes, raking all over her, still apprehensive. Still searching.

The look on his face on Scorpius's christening was wistful, hopeful, aching. She remembers the softness raking the lines of his face when she held the baby. She remembers how his jaw tightened when she cupped his face and promised, in the silence of their bedroom, that it will be them soon.

He hadn't asked how soon.

He just nodded.

He waited . Sat in her chamber in silence as she tested both of them. Only kissed her forehead when she said, blushing, that they were perfect. Fertile. Ready.

His silence now unnerves her even worse. She feels her heart hammering inside her chest. She blurts out more confession to make it rest.

"I think I'll take a year off, or two, if we need to. After that I thought—you know, I'll take her… him… I mean. I'll take the baby with me to work. No more than three days a week, though, I don't think it'll be suitable for the baby if they spend more than that time in the hospital. The rest…" She pursed her lips, sitting entirely straight now, pelvis just on top of his groin. " Your workplace is impossible. So I think it'll be a good idea to bring Kreacher back from Hogwarts. He's a little weird, but he loves you. He is family. So."

Harry is borderline immobile at this point. As if chieseld from a stone. This fuels her to speak more rapidly, more flushed. "I'm sure Molly will be happy to keep the baby… but I don't want to pressure her for more than a day a week, not with all the little Weasleys around. God bless Bill and Ronald. I—uh, I think Narcissa might be of help. She can look after ours along with Scorpius. And if Narcissa chips in, my mother will definitely want to help. So we'll need Kreacher with her. Just to hover around, you know. Ditty is too docile with— ow!"

Pansy squeals embarrassingly loud, her breath almost hitched on her throat as she feels gravity fail her when Harry—that tosser —flips her around. Unexpectedly. Hurriedly. As his face hovers over her, eyes wide, hair tousled, she gasps as he looks just as breathless as her.

"Oh, shit!" He cups her face, eyes scanning her face. "Are you okay, baby? Are you hurt? Did I hurt you?"

"No, you dolt." She huffs. "I was… surprised."

"I'm sorry." He kisses her face, her nose, her forehead. "I was so overwhelmed, love."

She chuckles awkwardly. Harry dips down to kiss her throat, his breath hot and fanning over her skin. "You should hear about my pregnancy routine. I'm planning to keep you around for all the gory details. You know I'll go through some substantial hormonal changes. My boobs might sag and I think I'll definitely become cranky. There's going to be vomiting, and water in the feet, and—"

"I'll stay for it all." He settles a little on top of her, his weight pressing sweetly. She has this memorised, too. His weight. The smell of mint and cigarettes and that ointment he has to lather for skin protection during raids. She prepares it for him, pine and rosemary. "You know me. I'll take two years of paternity leave if I have to. They'll want to let me go but… you know, I'm me . I'll misuse my celebrity status and take longer leaves than you."

Pansy bites down her lower lip, staring. There's a soft buzzing across her stomach, trailing from the hollow of her pelvis to her sternum. The trickling, electrifying intensity and it feels like excitement as settles on her chest and she wraps her arms around his shoulders, spreads her legs to pull him closer with more intent, with more suggestiveness.

"Promise?"

"Promise."

There is a horrible, dark gash running from the side of his right shoulder to his throat, its shape like a half moon. She trails it with her index, absentmindedly remembering the day he got this. Her strangled cries on Ron's shoulder when they didn't let her operate on him. She was too unstable. She remembers hating him, she remembers screaming that she'd never forgive him if he died. This is a new kind of danger you invite to your mind when you love someone. You can't stop thinking about everything flipping out and going wrong. Sometimes she thinks that love and fear of death comes hand to hand. She's never been more in love, she's never been more afraid. "You tell me something now," she whispers to counteract her thoughts. "Something you've planned about our future."

The sky above them shimmers. "You know the basics. Quidditch, amusement parks and trips to Diagon Alley."

Pansy nods. She wants more. She needs more to fight this wretched fear of abandonment, she needs to convince herself it will be worth everything.

"I have this… another scene playing inside my head," Harry continues, his voice trembling. It's barely perceptible, but oh she knows. "We are arguing on the living room sofa and he is playing on the floor with his massive collection of toys."

"Why are we arguing?"

"I dunno—something stupid. Maybe because you haven't told me your creepy coworker was flirting with you."

"That would probably be because you'd do something irresponsibly rash."

"You're my wife ."

"Your wife who can take care of herself. And anyway, we're probably arguing about how you jump headfirst into any danger without so much of a second thought and now that you have a son along with a wife , it's your duty to—"

She's stopped again by his kiss. She chuckles into it, but he doesn't. He is intense and melting into her and his tongue slips past her lips and his hands are on her hair and it's good, it's so good. She gasps when they pull apart.

"Okay. Okay. We're arguing, we're mad and we are nearly hissing because we don't want to scare him. But kids are perceptive, right? He gets that we're angry and he's trying to divert us. But it's just making things worse. We're at the height of it all and you have that snappy, dejected look on your face and I'm nearing to burst a vein and he—when he sees no other recluse—screams for our attention. And we snap our head, angry, and ready to yell but then—" his voice drops down. "But then I see him, eyes welling up, and I… I stare at you to find you already reaching out to him… and suddenly we can't remember what we were fighting about, why it seemed important. Suddenly there's so much love we can't see beyond it. And you scoop him up and I pull you both in and—that's all. That's all, baby."

She traces her fingertips along his jaw. "That's lovely. I'd… I'd like that."

She would. And now she grips him tighter to pull him in. Instinctively, like a memory, twist her legs around his so they touch where it feels necessary. Feels like a necessity. She's bare underneath the soft cotton nightdress, and there's a thrill in knowing how he likes that, how she likes to dress a certain way so he can undress her a certain way. Pansy lets out a surprised, disdainful huff when Harry pushes her hands aside and makes them rest on the side of face. Her hips buck to meet his, but he resists that, too. He's leaving kisses when she huffs again, whispering. Whispering.

"Shh. Baby, baby, I will make love to you. I'll make love to you so good." As if he wants to prove he'll make good on his promise, he leaves the grip on her wrist to run his hands along the curves of her body. Stopping at the hollow of her pelvis, dips his finger just on the edge of her cunt. She moans. But he doesn't linger. He moves his hand, cups her breast momentarily, before holding her face, tilting it so he can whisper directly to her ear what he's going to do to her, how many times he'll repeat that His voice is low and raspy and… dirty . Brimming with intent. He promises more. She bucks her hips. He promises more. "We'll take it slow. We'll make it last. I just need to look at you first."

He kisses her throat one last time before pulling back, staring straight in her eyes. Saying, insisting, "You saved me."

He shifts to mimic something close to lovemaking. Soft thrusts to meet their hips, he moves her so he'll have better access. Pansy can't speak for a moment. The hot, needy pull, the intensity in his eyes a reflection of hers. She has held him in contempt in anger in annoyance in adoration in tenderness in love. In Love with the capital L and heart-eyes and honeysuckle dreams of a future where all is well. She knows him by his weight when he comes back to the side of his bed and by the absence when he leaves in the morning. She knows him by the blurred mist he leaves in their bathroom mirror and the collection of torn parchments— Had bagel for lunch, it was bad. Ron's a pain in the ass. I miss you. I love you —in her drawer that he sends her to her workplace everyday to let her know he is thinking of her.

There's a fear of death that creeps in when you love someone. But there's the exhilarating, nauseating life as well. Burning her, engulfing her "You saved me, too."

There is a visceral persistence to her knowledge of him. Staring at his familiar green eyes, there's an undeniable stretch of memory that makes her trust that it'll always be there.

He traces his hand along her face. "We'll be fine. We'll be so good at this."

The sky above them shimmers. They melt.

"I know."


i've started another full hansy fic named "heartstrings". if you want, definitely give it a go! it's set in their eight year and is going to feature a plethora of overused clichés like bad decisions, near kisses and drunken confessions. so. yep.

hope you're having a good day. better than mine. mentally, i am spent to my limit.