Martyr

Prompt: [Harry Pansy] Martyr
For nestacauldron

"But he's there! Potter's there! Someone grab him!"

The words had lingered since they had first fallen from Pansy's lips five years ago. They pushed against her shoulders and exerted their weight. Sometimes she fancied - from the way people often looked at her - that they were etched on her forehead, for the whole world to see.

Where once she would have been acerbic and snappish in the face of disapproval, Pansy became silent. None of her excuses mattered, not even to her. It didn't matter that she had been a schoolgirl. It didn't matter that she had been scared half out of her mind.

People hated her.

They hated her so much that they wanted to kill her for what she had done.

Of course Potter had an office. It would have been too much to expect his Saintly person to sit out in the open plan area with the rest of the recruits. And his side accused them of being unfairly arrogant. It was beyond belief and yet utterly - teeth crushingly - predictable at the same time. As far as Pansy knew, Potter hadn't even graduated from Auror training yet, and yet here he was, already enjoying the perks of being one of the blessed few, the Minister's darling, the poster boy of a revolution.

The irony of her distress wasn't lost on Pansy. She'd been part of the elite once. In a world that now seemed like a distant memory, she'd been at the pinnacle, a member of the untouchables, and then she had crashed back down to earth. Pansy had heard the expression about turning tables before; it had just never really settled into her mind that it implied everything would be upside down. Pansy had gone from being one of society's bright lights, a someone, to a complete persona non grata all in the space of a day. She didn't even have the fading mark on her arm to show for it.

After being pointed in the direction of Potter's undeserved office by a disinterested administrator, Pansy was delighted to find he wasn't there. After a few spectacularly shitty months, it felt as if the universe was finally granting her a small reprieve. Pansy wasn't naive enough to believe that she had managed to dodge the encounter entirely, but not having to do it today would have been agreeably wonderful and better than she could have hoped for.

But then, of course, it wasn't to be. The universe had stopped giving a shit about her and her discomfort after the final battle when she had tried to throw Potter over to the Dark Lord.

Potter strolled into his office just as Pansy had finally convinced Daphne they should go. Of course, he was wearing full tactical gear and looking ridiculously competent despite his annoyingly familiar messy hair and permanently askew glasses.

Damn him! Damn them all.

Pansy wanted to turn tail before she had to suffer through this, but Daphne's hand at her back remained firm, and it reminded her, if a reminder were needed, that fleeing wasn't an option.

"Parkinson, Greengrass," Potter greeted perfunctorily. "What can I do for you?"

Pansy pressed her mouth into a thin line. She was still reluctant, even though she had already lost. One could say she never really knew when to admit defeat. Daphne looked at her with one of those implacable expressions she got from time to time, and Pansy knew her friend had no intention of being swayed. With a world-weary sigh, Pansy reached into her elegant yet functional day bag and pulled out a stack of letters.

Maybe this would be easier with a prop? If the poisonous notes in her hands could be considered something so innocuous.

Potter raised a brow but took them when Pansy proffered and began tearing through the envelopes.

"I've been receiving letters."

She saw a flash of something in Potter's eyes, a sharp glint that was quickly muted. Pansy imagined he'd had some sarcastic response on the tip of his tongue, only to shut it down at the lost moment. Perhaps the Auror training was working after all? He'd certainly never managed to keep his mouth closed when they were at school together.

Potter opened the first envelope and dropped the stack onto his desk. His eyes skimmed the parchment and his brow furrowed. He reached for another, then another, then another. He was gobbling up the words that Pansy would have preferred no one else ever saw, least of all him. In less than a minute, Potter had pulled them from the envelopes and had them fanned out on the desk in front of him. The handwriting was all the same, though different quills and paper had been used for almost every note. The hand was mostly even, but on occasion, a word appeared that was darker than the rest - a symptom of the writer having pressed very hard against the paper. It was those words that had bothered Pansy the most, they were the ones she could still see when she closed her eyes, and she could see them now, poking out at her from under Potter's curious fingers.

She wanted to gather them all up and stuff them in her bag, but it was too late for that. Pansy saw Potter staring at the letters thoughtfully, and for the first time in their acquaintance, she wished he'd say something.

Nothing on the outside of the letters gave any indication of what they might contain. They all came in the same dull brown envelope with the same, presumably deliberately blocky, print of her name.

"How long?"

"About four months," Pansy replied with a shrug. It was five months, one week and three days since she had received her first letter.

"Is this all of them?"

Pansy considered the ones she had burnt at the beginning, back before she had realised this was serious, and the ones that were so hurtful she had sworn never to show them to a single soul.

"It's… most," she replied eventually, and Potter stared at her like he could tell her what she was hiding until she looked away.

Point to him, she conceded. Damn it! Pansy, sort yourself out.

"When did they start? Any triggers, anything that could help lead us to this person?"

Pansy hesitated.

"Around the first anniversary of the final battle," Daphne replied helpfully. Potter turned to look at her as if he had just remembered she was in the room.

He looked back down at the letters he had in front of him and flicked over a couple of pages. "Parkinson... these are..."

"Unpleasant?" she tried, shifting on her feet. Potter hadn't gestured towards a chair, and she was too uncomfortable to make use of one anyways.

"Unpleasant?" he parroted back, looking at her as if she'd said something crazy. "These are… some of these are fucking deranged. Why haven't you come in sooner?"

Daphne coughed out an 'I told you so' not entirely under her breath, and Pansy rolled her eyes. "Why do you think?"

Potter's eyes hardened. "You think because we had different coloured school ties, we wouldn't take this seriously?" Pansy said nothing. "I might be offended… if I didn't think I would likely have believed the same if the roles were reversed."

"It was a little more than different houses, Harry," Daphne replied softy. "But I think you know that. Anyway, I encouraged Pansy to come here today. We wanted to speak to you for obvious reasons."

Pansy felt her temper snap when Potter regarded her blankly. This was probably the first time she'd spoken to him without Granger present. Maybe he did need the swotty little know-it-all to think for him.

"The battle of Hogwarts," she prodded, hissing the words out through clenched teeth. "Me getting the first letter on the anniversary is obviously significant." Harry's brow furrowed as his eyes darkened. "I practically handed you over to him, didn't I? That's why I'm being targeted. Even Draco, the idiot that he is, didn't go that far."

Potter rubbed a hand over his jaw. "I don't... It's been a long time since I've thought about that."

"I'm sorry?" Pansy stuttered out.

"A lot happened," he replied with a shrug. "I remember you saying something about your friends and classmates not all having to die. I remember their faces. I try not to dwell on the details…. A lot happened."

Pansy didn't know whether to laugh or cry. She'd thought about it often enough, after the war, bumping into Potter and what they both might say. She'd been expecting ridicule, scorn, anger. Somehow him half forgetting that the biggest shame of her life had ever occurred was worse. It made her feel insignificant, even more so than she had in the last year. It was insufferable.

"We'll look into this," Potter assured her and Pansy ground her teeth.

"What, you're in charge now?"

"No," he spat back, and his eyes narrowed into slits. Pansy felt momentarily victorious, and it felt good to needle him again, even if she was purposefully deflating her own life raft to do so.

"What's all this then?" she sneered, gesturing at the office around her. "Not sure this is part of the standard package they offer to usual mortals."

Potter coloured but then sighed. "When I first started working here, people were coming up all day, wanting to ask me questions, have their picture taken, it was endless. A couple of reporters found their way into the ballpen in the first week, by the end of the first month there had been eleven separate security breaches. They put me in here eventually, it gives me the peace I need to get the work done."

"What a touching story," Pansy snarked. "I had no idea it had been so tough for you."

"And on that note, we'll be leaving," Daphne said, placing a hand on Pansy's arm in warning. "Come along Pansy. Thank you for your time, Auror Potter."

Before Pansy could say anything else, Daphne was frog-marching her back down to the atrium with the promise of a consoling glass of wine. Pansy didn't make any comment about it being eleven o'clock in the morning; she had no protests left to offer.

Pansy had left the Ministry feeling expectedly vulnerable and uncomfortably raw. She understood why Daphne had pushed so much; she was even grateful for her show support. Not that she said so out loud. Despite everything it seemed as if her oldest friend was right, Potter had seemed to engage with her 'case', if it could be called that. Yet, Pansy couldn't help wishing she had kept the whole thing to herself.

Until the newest letter arrived.

It was worse than the last had been, worse than all of them really. Pansy had always considered herself to have steely nerves and an unshakable resolve. She wasn't built to crumble. But the written words that had once again invaded her home were so much more than idle threats.

There was a confidence in the tone of the letters that ate away at her feeling of safety. After managing not more than three hours, pretending to relax and jumping at every noise, Pansy sent a message to Daphne. Her friend's reply was every bit as prompt as it was predictable.

Pansy, you need to contact Potter.
I love you, and I understand why you don't want to do this. But you have to.
If you don't tell him, I will.

If visiting Potter at the Ministry had been strange, having him come to her flat and knock on the door like an invited guest was bizarre in the extreme. He was wearing formal-ish robes this time and looking distantly uncomfortable in them.

"Wizengamot," he explained, noticing her assessing gaze, and Pansy hummed in place of a reply.

The idea of Potter being allowed in that sacred Chamber - no doubt casting his vote against all of them - should have made her angry. It would have made the girl she was at school furious. All she felt was a dim sensation of being impressed. Snidely, she wondered how Potter managed to make any decisions without Granger whispering the answers in his ear.

Pansy handed over the latest envelope with a degree of reluctance that was almost entirely overwhelmed by a sea of inevitability. Potter's fingers bit into the side of the paper as he read, and Pansy's brows rose. He had never been able to control his emotions. She imagined she could identify each word he read just by studying the twitches in his face.

She didn't allow herself to feel relieved when his jaw audibly clenched, though her shoulders sagged. He will listen, Daphne's voice echoed in her mind, and Pansy laced her fingers together.

"I need to take this back to the Ministry," Potter said gravely, and Pansy nodded. "While I'm here, do you have the others?"

Pansy masked any response with practised ease and walked over to a small cupboard next to her wine rack. From inside she produced a large stack of envelopes, easily twice the size of the ones she had handed over at the Ministry.

"When you said you had brought in most?" he asked with a glint in his eyes.

Pansy shrugged. "I had… forgotten about these." She didn't try all that hard to sound convincing. Potter was a terrible liar, but he could also spot one pretty effectively.

"I'll bet," Potter answered wryly. "Look, I know you're not… keen for news of this to spread, but it will be my recommendation when I go back to base that someone watches over your place."

"Okay," Pansy agreed, and then glared at Potter, daring him to say anything about her easy acceptance. He didn't. He merely placed the stack of parchment against his palm before seeing himself out.

Then, it was quiet again.

Pansy walked back over to the door and checked the wards. An hour later, she rechecked them.

The next day, Pansy left her house in a rush, she'd barely slept, and her morning routine was rushed due to her lethargy. It put her in a terrible mood; she hated rushing. A lady is never late, her mother would have said. Then again, her mother had never had a job to be late to.

As she was turning around after locking the door, Pansy noticed a man on the other side of the street. He was sitting on a worn looking bench with a newspaper between his hands. It wouldn't have given her pause, except nobody ever sat there. There were far more picturesque places to rest close by. Further up the road, just around a corner, there was a pretty little park that Pansy sometimes ventured towards at the weekends.

The man's impassive gaze met hers as Pansy walked down the stairs and he flicked his lapel, revealing a small pin with the Auror corps emblem. He nodded at her once and then when back to his paper.

Potter kept his promises then, Pansy thought to herself as she hot-footed it to work.

-/-/-/-

When she got home, there was a different man—this one she recognised from her brief time in the Ministry that week. Pansy had to admit he was doing an excellent job of blending in; she didn't think she would have noticed him at all if she hadn't known to look. She felt his eyes on her back as she came back up the stairs and she wondered if he were making a note of the time, reporting her comings and goings to anyone.

To Potter.

There was a small part of her that wanted to complain about the infringement on her privacy, but she didn't. She wouldn't.

Pansy closed the door on the guard and managed to cook herself something before having a shower and crawling into bed.

She slept better then she had in months. Better than she had in over five months.

Pansy laid by back on the couch that had regrettably been a style over comfort purchase. Her head collided with Blaise's chino clad thigh which he grumbled at, but Pansy was relaxed. She couldn't reach her wine from this distance, but as she couldn't drink it laying down, it was no great hardship.

"If I'm the... and believe me I hate to use this word... but if I'm the victim in all this, why does it feel like I'm the one being punished?"

"You're not," Daphne said patiently. "It's standard procedure. They just want you to draw up a list of your... enemies."

"Enemies sounds so..." Pansy said, flailing her arms around as she tried to think of the right words.

"Dramatic?" Blaise offered, getting annoyed with her arms and pushing them back down to her sides.

"Novel worthy?" Theo asked from his corner of the room. He didn't look up as he continued to flick through a magazine he had found on the counter. "Ergo, exactly accurate for our life?"

"Fine," Pansy conceded, though she wriggled and defensively crossed her arms over her chest. "Though I wish this 'standard procedure' came with a little more guidance. How am I supposed to know the difference between people who dislike me and those that wish me serious harm?"

"You don't have to," Daphne interjected again, ever calmly. "Just put everything down and leave it to the professionals."

"That's what we're calling Potter is it?" Draco sniped from near the coffee table. "Last I heard he's not even fully qualified yet."

Draco had been the least impressed of all her friends to learn about the letters and to find out how they had decided to deal with it. Draco and Daphne had been locked in a silent standoff for nearly a full minute when he first arrived, but in the end, Draco had dropped it. At least, he had stopped shouting about it. He made free with the snippy comments for the rest of the evening. Daphne, as ever, was unmoved by his disapproval. Draco dating her little sister gave her an endless supply of 'the upper hand', and despite her normally pleasant demeanour, Daphne was no more unwilling to ensure she got her way than the rest of them.

Daphne reached forward to top up their wine glasses. "He's a week away from full qualification, which means he can work on cases as long as he reports into a senior Auror."

"How do you even know that?" Pansy asked, lifting her head off Blaise's thigh and making the boy mutter above her about how she was 'always wriggling'.

"I make it my business to know," Daphne said with a snort. "I would hardly have recommended you go and see Potter without looking into him first!"

Pansy sighed and racked her brain to think back over the last few months. It had been surprisingly easy in the beginning to think up names of people that had made no secret of their hatred of her. But as the night continued and the list got longer and longer, Pansy began to feel a pang of... regret, maybe? Or at least, something like it. Barely twenty and she already had a list the length of a side of parchment, filled with the names of people who had either admitted to or otherwise made it clear that they disdained her.

When she'd been asked to pull it together, Pansy had decided that having the 'whole gang' over had seemed like a good idea. Though, Milly and Tracey were on holiday which left them with mainly the boys. She had thought that them being able to bicker and laugh like they always did would take her mind off her growing fear.

There had been two letters today.

Pansy had sent them to Potter along with an unrequested copy of her schedule. She had reasoned that the Aurors would know most of it by now, courtesy of the guards at her doors, but her reluctance for this whole thing was waning. While Potter wasn't exactly her choice of hero, she knew him well enough to appreciate both his tenacity and his unending quest for justice. He would find whoever it was, Pansy was sure of it.

The certainty of her faith in him scared her almost as much as the letters.

Xxxxx

The following day dawned unassumingly brightly. Pansy was in no mood to be grateful for it. She'd drunk far too much the night before and had not gotten into bed until far too late. The combined effect made her feel like she was carrying a fishbowl full of water above her eyes, and at the same time, she had a tongue so arid it stuck to the roof of her mouth.

The newest letter was waiting for her when she made it into the kitchen, only, when she opened it, Pansy discovered it wasn't a letter at all.

It was a picture of her. Pansy knew it was recent; she recognised the outfit she was wearing as the one she had put on a couple of days before. It was too zoomed in on her for Pansy to get a good sense of her surroundings, though she presumed it must have been near her office. She didn't go out much during the day even before she was receiving regular death threats.

The picture was in two pieces, like a preschool puzzle, and the cut had been made as a single slice, right over her throat.

Pansy pulled her winter coat over her silky pink pyjamas and headed to the door before she could talk herself out of it. The guard would be outside; she knew that. They would have a better idea of what to do. Only, it wasn't some unknown Auror doing their level best to blend into the surroundings.

It was Potter.

"Pansy?"

She was sure he'd never said her first name before, she was sure she would have remembered it sounding like that.

"Pansy... are you… are you okay?"

He'd grown a bit of a beard since she'd last seen him. A caustic remark formed in her mind and scampered along with her awareness to the tip of her tongue, but she never voiced it.

Pansy didn't have to get down the stairs, Potter raced up to meet her - jumping up the stone steps two at a time. He was saying something, but Pansy couldn't be sure what. She had the oddest sensation running through her body. Her ears were ringing, and she couldn't get her fingers to stop trembling.

Pansy sucked in a breath and pushed the photograph at Potter. He picked it up and then held each piece in one of his surprisingly large hands. When he looked up, his eyes were dark, and for the first time since she had met him, unreadable.

He placed a hand on her back, hesitantly, and steered her around until she was facing her front door. "Let's get you a cuppa, okay?"

"Will that help?" Pansy heard herself say, and Potter's fingers tightened against her spine.

"It will be better than standing outside while you're still in your night things."

"Oh... I… I put a coat on."

"I know Pansy. Nevermind, let's just go in okay?"

"Okay."

-/-/-/-

Potter stuck his head in the floo in the living room after he had sat Pansy down. He spoke to her in a tone Pansy wasn't sure she had ever heard from anyone before, people didn't usually approach her with kid gloves, but she appreciated it. Just for once, she didn't want to be tough or standoffish. She was tired and so fucking afraid she thought she might be able to hear her teeth chattering.

Potter had apologised for leaving her on her own when he'd left to go to the next room and had pushed a hot drink into her open fingers. When Pansy eventually tried it, she grimaced, whatever it was it was far too sweet for human consumption though, once the taste had drifted over her tongue she thought she could vaguely detect the afterburn of hard alcohol. Maybe Potter wasn't as old fashioned as she thought?

'You've had a shock,' Potter had said.

She certainly had. Nothing was making sense. Someone wanted her dead and Harry Potter, of all people, thought she was worth saving. Maybe it wasn't about her, but about him. His little band of misfits couldn't help themselves from picking up strays. But Pansy wasn't like that. Was she?

Potter bustled back in a little while later. Pansy hadn't moved.

"I've spoken to HQ. They're stepping up our work on this, but in the meantime, we think it would be best if you moved in with a friend for a while."

Pansy nodded.

"Do you have somewhere you can go?"

Pansy nodded.

"Okay," he said, taking a seat opposite her and filling up her kitchen with his persistent presence. "I'll wait here while you get your things."

Pansy rose from her seat on shaky legs and willed herself into her room to get sorted, but she stopped when she reached his chair.

"Potter, I… thank you".

"Don't mention it," he replied lightly with a wave of his hand. Pansy wanted to grab his airy gesture and pin his hand back down to the table.

Don't minimise it, don't minimise what you're doing for me.

"No, really, thank you," she pressed again, a hint of irritation leaking into her tone. She wasn't sure who she was angrier at; she was just angry. And hurt, and… lost.

Potter's eyes focused, and he held her gaze for the longest time. "You're welcome, Pansy."

That evening, Pansy was tucked up in bed next to Daphne. There was another guard outside the door, but it wasn't him that was making her feel safe. Her friend had a spare room, but neither of them had suggested it while they were getting ready for bed. They had brushed their teeth side by side, all elbows and small shoves and accusing the other of hogging the mirror, before they got into bed. Pansy moaned about Daphne's cold feet, and Daphne complained that Pansy laid like an octopus. It was familiar, like so many nights when they had dormed together at school.

Pansy had just settled herself into the covers after removing the headband that kept her fringe out of her night cream when Daphne rolled over. Even in the dim light of the room, Pansy could see she was staring.

"So," she began with false innocence. "Potter's looking fit."

Daphne bit her lip to hold back a grin, and Pansy tried not to roll her eyes. "Would we really call him fit?" she replied as disinterestedly as she could manage.

Potter had insisted on bringing her to Daphne's after she had packed up earlier. He'd carried her bag and kept up a constant stream of inane chatter so that she wouldn't start to spiral in the silence. It was all part of his job, as Pansy had told herself over a hundred times.

"You didn't like the beard?"

'I can't say I noticed," Pansy said lightly. Closing her eyes and lying through her teeth.

"You must have noticed the new robes though, right?"

Pansy had noticed the new uniform. Potter had apparently qualified as an Auror since she had last seen him. It felt odd that he hadn't mentioned it. Though, it would probably have been a weird time for him to do so. 'Sorry you're being stalked by a crazy person Pansy, but do you want to hear the latest amazing news about my amazing life?'

"I suppose," she conceded with a shrug Daphne couldn't see and wrapped the cover tighter around her neck.

"Hmmmmm, you suppose," Daphne said with a giggle and Pansy could feel herself flushing.

"Daphne?"

"Yes?"

"You're insufferable."

Daphne sighed. "You could do worse," she observed more seriously. "We could all do worse."

"Go to sleep," Pansy insisted, and Daphne grumbled, though a few minutes later she stopped wriggling, then went blessedly silent - leaving Pansy alone with all the thoughts she had been trying to put off for hours.

In some ways, Pansy was far less apprehensive on her next visit to the Ministry, in others she was far more so. At least she had been invited this time. But it was what she could have to face that had been playing on her mind.

"You ready for this?" Harry asked from his position at her elbow, and Pansy nodded. He'd come downstairs to wait for her in the atrium and had led her straight through the Ministry's warren of departments, up to some corridor she had never had the misfortune of being in before, where the interview rooms were located.

Pansy stared at the tea-coloured glass wall and nodded her head. Potter regarded her for a moment, probably seeing if she was going to change her mind before he turned and clicked a button. In an instant, the glass was transparent. Gone was the slightly seventies looking panel. In its place, a window into a room she wasn't sure she wanted to look at.

Pansy blinked.

The room beyond the glass was bigger than she had expected it to be. Her eyes darted around the corners of the ceilings, and then the floor, and then she made herself look at him.

There was a man there, sitting behind a table with nothing but a plastic cup on its surface. He was ramrod straight, dead in the centre of the room. Pansy could see the cuffs that had been placed at her feet. She knew he couldn't see her, and yet her blood still ran cold, even as her mind clouded with confusion.

The man was about ten years older than her, dressed in well-tailored, expensive robes and a haughty expression that locked at odds with his scruffy hair and sunken eyes.

His name clawed at the back of her mind… David… no… Hugh? No… Stephen, that was it, Stephen Penrith.

"You recognise him," Harry observed, and Pansy nodded. Now that she was looking at him, now that she knew he was, she couldn't look away.

"He met you at the beginning of last year," Harry said softly, and Pansy turned to him.

"At a party, I remember… I think… but we…" Pansy trailed off. She couldn't remember anything that would have led to all this. He'd brought her over a drink she thought, complimented her on a not very nice dress she had been wearing.

"He asked you out," Potter said, and Pansy's head quirked to the side. "Apparently you turned him down. He doesn't appear to have taken it well."

"Not well?" Pansy said, "He sent me six months of almost daily letters, promising me a violent end?"

"We don't think he was playing at a full deck to begin with," Harry said, brushing his hand up the back of his neck. "He has constructed this elaborate fantasy world about you and your relationship with him. He seems to believe, on some level at least, that he's the wronged party."

"But still, the reaction its-"

"Extreme," Harry replied, nodding his head. "Very. From what we understand the week after your interaction, he lost his job, the week after that, he had to move out of his flat. Somewhere, in his mind, he linked all of those things together. Linked them to you."

"So it wasn't," Pansy began, looking over at the man again. "It wasn't about what I said?"

"No," Harry said confidently, clearly. "He just thought that might be a weak point in your armour. He thought he was less likely to be suspected if he waited till the anniversary to send the note."

Pansy scoffed. The brittle sound echoed in the deserted hallway. "Hide himself amongst all of the other suspects you mean?"

"Pansy."

"Don't," she said harshly. "You saw the list."

"I did," he agreed. "But really, mine would be just as long. Granted, the names would be different but… you know… it would be the same."

Pansy thought of the battle, she thought of how none of this would ever really be the same again.

"Are you up for giving a statement, identifying him?" Potter asked, and Pansy dragged her eyes away from the glass. She felt herself getting her emotions in check as she followed Potter down the corridor, the further she was away from Stephen Penrith the more confident she would feel.

"Yes," she said firmly, in a voice that sounded more like herself than anything she had uttered over the last three weeks.

"Good," Harry replied with a nod before opening a door at the end of the corridor and showing her into another, much less intimidating room. He passed her some writing materials and pushed his hands into his pockets. "Maybe include the six months of letters you just admitted to rather than the four you tried to fob me off with at the start."

One of Pansy's eyebrows rose as she regarded Potter leaning against the wall opposite her. "You're quite infuriatingly competent, did you know that?"

He smirked at her. It looked different without the mean tint she was used to seeing in that expression.

"Do you think you could swing by the Three Broomsticks on Friday night?" he asked brightly. "I really would love you to tell Hermione you think that."

Pansy snorted and selected a quill from the awful selection the Ministry had to hand. She wished she had her own in her bag, but she hadn't thought to bring one when she'd got the floo call earlier.

"In all seriousness though," he began again when Pansy began filling out her personal information at the top of the form. "It would be… nice if you would come."

Pansy's fingers stilled. "Out… with you and your friends?"

"Yeah," Potter replied, sounding surer of himself now. "It's been nice, seeing you again, despite the circumstances."

Nice twice in a row, Pansy thought to herself. He's either nervous, or he's rubbish at this. Perhaps a little of both.

"Are you asking me out?" she challenged, leaning back in her chair and letting her shoulders relax. His stance broadened, and the corners of his lips quirked up. His gaze wasn't exactly appraising or assessing, but somewhere in between.

"No," he replied, smiling now. "Not yet, anyway. Thought you coming out when there were a few more of us might give us both a bit of a buffer."

"You know Potter, I never took you for a coward."

She was glad when his smile widened, pleased that he understood she was teasing, even if her tone hadn't changed at all. "I'm not," he contested. "but I've learned to be cautious over important things. Believe me, Pansy, when I'm asking you out, you'll know about it."

Pansy suppressed the shudder that ran up her spine and went back down to looking at her parchment. She'd forgotten how fun this could be. Daphne would be smug, of course, and Draco would be incandescent, but… it could be worth it.

"When you ask… 'll consider it… Harry."

He grinned at her. "Come find me when you are done. I'll have someone waiting outside."

Pansy nodded and watched the door close behind him. In the bowels of the Ministry, a place she had come to loathe, she felt safe and… desirable, for the first time in a long time.

Potter kept his promises; the thought made her smile.

A/N: Another little snippet. I hope you are all keeping well!