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Part Three | Burn with Me

41. Home

Never in her life had Pansy clung to anything with as much intensity as she did that small elf, as Winky apparated the pair from a dreary Diagon Alley, to whatever unknown location it was that they were now crouched in.

One brief opening of her tear-filled eyes, before clamping her lids shut once more informed her of one thing: they weren't at Hogwarts.

A thundering of what Pansy could only assume was footsteps approached the duo, but Pansy felt very little desire to find out whom they happened to belong to, or indeed why they were here, wherever here happened to be.

Several cries broke the silence only previously filled by Pansy's ragged breathing.

"Thank fuck!"

"Oh, my gosh! Is she-"

"Pans!"

Vaguely, Pansy was dimly able to place three names to each of the three voices, although she wondered, as the reality seemed entirely impossible, if she happened to be hallucinating.

The voices continued to speak in a mixed babble, until a smooth, achingly familiar male tone broke through, louder than the others.

"Where did you find her?" Blaise

"Hogsmeade," the small elf Pansy was still clinging to squeaked.

"Oh, Pansy," it was closer this time, whispered through a sob and accompanied by a soft graze of fingertips on Pansy's shoulder. The feeling, Pansy knew, logically, shouldn't have made her chest constrict and cause bile to rise in her throat, but that's exactly what the slight touch of Daphne's hand had done. Daphne

The third, somewhat strangled as though spoken through a constricting sea of emotion, Pansy heard begin to ask, "Was that sick fuck-" Theo

"No," Winky interrupted.

For a moment that may have been one minute or thirty no one spoke, the silence only broken when a shuffling of feet somewhere behind her began to move, and Pansy felt Winky shift slightly, guiding – but not forcing, her to sit up slightly.

She had questions, numerous. How on earth were she and Winky now with Daphne, Theo and Blaise? Where was Draco? Where was-

Pansy swallowed, not knowing where she wished to scream, or never utter another word.

Between them, Winky and Daphne discussed, their voices low, manoeuvring Pansy to a nearby bed. Pansy didn't object when the two slowly helped her to her feet. Involuntarily, Pansy flinched whenever an unexpected hand touched a part of her she wasn't expecting.

Will it always be this way? The wondering was a bleak one.

It was only once she was sitting on the bedcovers, did Pansy find any desire to examine her surroundings. A small bedroom met her eyes, modestly decorated and sparsely furnished, lit by a soft candlelight. The room, she supposed, would have been comfortable enough, for anyone whose circumstances didn't involve vivid recollections of Rabastan-

"How did you know where they were?" Pansy blurted, her eyes darting to meet Winky's, desperate, albeit fruitlessly, to interrupt her own thoughts.

"Winky went to the meeting place, Miss…and found clues, placed by Miss Daphne, yes she did. Then Winky returned first to Hogwarts, and then to Hogsmeade, in the hope that Miss Pansy would return to the place she left from," the elf blinked, her large, round eyes suddenly brimming with tears, "and she did."

"But," Neville's unconscious form swam in front of Pansy's mind's eye, "Neville, I can't-"

"Winky has left Mr Draco instructions on how to move Mr Neville, as safely as Winky knows how. They ought to be arriving here, oh – any moment now."

At Winky's last word, as though on a timer, a crack was heard from some other location in whatever house they were currently occupying.

All at once Pansy gasped – has Draco managed it? She heard Theo and Blaise collectively roar, Daphne jumped a good foot in the air, her left palm clamped to her mouth and Winky, smiling softly to no one in particular, muttered, "Winky always knows, oh yes she does."

Winky stood and begun to move towards the door, although hesitantly. Daphne, after a brief glance from Pansy, did not move.

"Y-you should-"

"No," Daphne replied simply, "I should be here with you."

At Daphne's words, Winky bowed her small head once, and left. Left to where Pansy ought to, and yet somehow, she seemed unable to so much as rise from the bed.

"I should…" Pansy trailed off, feebly.

"No, you shouldn't do anything."

"But…Neville…"

"You'll know everything soon enough."

"I should still," Pansy let out a breath that emerged as a strangled gasp, "but I can't move!" She cried the words with an energy she hadn't known she possessed. "Daphne, I don't…"

"It's okay."

Pansy didn't reply, her chest hurting as it heaved, the tops of her arms did too, where her own fingernails were digging in as she tried, entirely unsuccessfully, to hug her own pain away.

Somehow, in that moment, she needed the pain. Pansy had once been told that hope is stronger than pain, but she had none of that, and so creating her own pain was, for now, all that was keeping that which he inflicted at bay. Because Daphne, as kind as she was, was wrong.

It wasn't okay.

Pansy didn't know if it would ever be okay again.

And so, perhaps selfishly, perhaps wrongly, perhaps needlessly, she stayed on the bed, neither she nor Daphne speaking, the only noises heard were a few dim voices from somewhere unknown beyond the door. They had moved, Pansy gathered, considering the lowered volume she could now hear the muffled sounds, to another room within whatever house they were in.

It wasn't long, or perhaps it was – Pansy didn't know, until the bedroom door did open, and a strained – too strained, face, framed with hair cooler than ice, appeared.

His eyes, so grey Pansy often wondered if they were created from a thunderstorm, were harsh, but altogether softened as they sought her own out. Green met grey and familiarity met nothing they'd ever known or dealt with before.

He crossed the room in a few long strides and, unlike before, Pansy, managing now to stand – just, didn't want to shy away from the touch, and embraced his waiting chest with everything she had.

I'm sorry

"I'm so-"

I'm sorry

"Don't you dare finish that sentence."

She couldn't have, despite wanting to.

Since she'd left Rabastan, real tears hadn't seemed able to form. Ragged, dry sobs of nothingness had, and her chest had felt close to collapse, but now, she cried in a way she hadn't in years.

It lasted longer than she would have hoped, but shorter than she would, truth be told, have needed, had Rabastan's actions been the only Death Eater attack Pansy currently had to worry about.

"How is he?" she gasped the words through strangled cries.

"He's okay, Winky is seeing to him now, he shouldn't have been side-along-d in his condition at all, but Winky found a potion that stabilised him enough for me to do it."

For the first time, it hit her how much she didn't know. "How did Winky, I forbade-"

"Yeah," Draco began, stepping away from Pansy just enough to guide her, and himself, back onto the bed. Realising that at some point Blaise had re-entered the room, enabling him, along with Daphne – whose position hadn't changed, to hear Draco's tale. "It wasn't Winky that told me anything, not straight away, but it didn't take much guesswork what was going on once I learned that Raba- Lestrange knew about you and Longbottom."

His words felt like a dagger of ice through her stomach. The only person that could have informed Draco that was the last person, except for perhaps Rabastan himself, that Pansy wished to see.

Theo's absence was suddenly altogether deafening. "Please, tell me she's not here."

It didn't take long, all things considered, to fill Daphne and Blaise in on the chain of events, beginning with Millicent's confession, leading to Rabastan's note and Pansy's departure from the castle. As it turned out, Millicent had, indeed, sought out Draco afterwards and explained everything, which, according to the blond wizard had been all he'd needed to jigsaw the pieces of the, in his words, flimsy lie, that Winky had told him. Though he assured Pansy that he would absolutely not blame the House Flf for doing so given that Pansy had ordered Winky to not say anything, and despite understanding Pansy's own reasoning, was entirely pissed off to high heavens at her for going to meet her attacker.

Once Draco had established that Pansy had gone, he and Winky had set their own plan in motion, Winky assuring Draco that she would be the one to find Pansy – despite Draco's insistence that he go, since Neville would be apparated better, in his comatose and now even more drugged, state, with a larger being than a house elf.

"Had you not been here when we arrived," Draco stated, an almost growl-like sound present within his words, "I'd have been going to tear the bastard a new one."

Thankfully, of course, Pansy and Winky had arrived after the latter deciphered Daphne's hints left around the initial rendezvous point they'd decided on what felt like forever ago and had instructed Theo and Blaise – who Pansy could scarcely remember leaving the room, let along the building, to go exactly there and meet Draco, and, Pansy had swallowed dryly, Millicent – whose apparent help in the situation was not, in any way, welcome or comforting news to Pansy's ears, to keep Neville stable as they returned to wherever the hell the currently were.

"Wait, this still doesn't explain why you couldn't meet us-" Pansy met Blaise's deep, dark eyes, his brow was furrowed in a mixture of what was probably confusion and concern as he spoke. Pansy held her hand, palm facing out, as she rose from the bed.

"Draco can fill you in on anything else," she turned to the wizard in question, "I need to see him."

Draco promptly nodded. "Two doors along." Pansy felt his fingertips gently squeeze her upper arm. She tried to ignore the rise of bile in her throat and her body's impulse to wrench herself from him, despite knowing it should have been a comforting gesture. "I'm so fucking glad you're alright."

"Me too," Pansy replied flatly, not at all believing the words as she tried not to wince again, this time at the constant pain that was still radiating from her stomach. At some point, she was sure, although she couldn't pinpoint when, Winky and Daphne had placed healing charms over what she was certain must be the absolute wreck of where her face used to be, the rest of her he had hurt, however, remained raw and still very much painful.

Clearly, Draco didn't miss the grimace that had accompanied the twinges of pain. "And once we're settled, err," he glanced around, "here, you're going take as many potions as your boyfriend has."

Pansy opened her mouth, but Draco, with a stern look, forced her to close it again.

"Don't fucking argue."

And, despite it being so unlike her, she didn't.

Neville had been placed, just as Draco had informed her, a further, similar bedroom. Pansy entered, keeping her footsteps as soft as she could, her eyes trailing over his still form.

"He's okay," Winky's small voice ventured from somewhere to Pansy's left.

Pansy's line of sight was reserved solely for Neville. Outwardly, she managed only a brief nod to acknowledge Winky's words. Inwardly, they were possibly all that would keep her sane.

As she approached the bed, she was dimly aware of Winky arranging what sounded like several potion bottles, and then light footsteps before the door clicked closed. Swallowing, not knowing whether to be grateful that for the first time Rabastan's leering expression was not at the forefront of her mind, what was there instead was Neville's battered and bruised, yet still – to Pansy - beautiful face.

She considered a nearby chair for a fraction of a second before knowing she had to stay closer to him, and so positioned herself as gently as she could next to him on the bed, her fingertips finding their way to brush the side of his cheek.

How long she stayed, she didn't know, she wasn't disturbed until a soft knock on the door broke her already broken thoughts, bringing her into the very-painful present and away from a place not too long ago, although that might have been a lifetime before, where Neville had taken her to the greenhouse.

"Are you going to fuck me?"

"No, I'm going to make love to you."

"You're going to love it."

The last words weren't welcome in her reminiscing, and yet there they were, and Pansy didn't know how to get rid of them, perhaps she never would.

"Pans?"

Pansy turned her head to face her best friend. "Hi, Daph."

Gesturing to the tray she held, Daphne took two steps forward.

"I'm not hungry," Pansy said, blunter than she had intended.

Daphne smiled. "I know, and I know you're going to say you don't want it, but," she lowered her voice to little more than a whisper, "Winky scares me a bit and so I'm going to need you to at least try a little, okay?"

Managing no more than a watery smile, Pansy, the pad of her thumb absentmindedly running over Neville's wrist, replied, "I'll try."

"That's all I'm asking."

"Daph?"

"Yeah?"

It was easier that she'd anticipated, voicing the thought aloud. "I don't know what to do."

"You don't have to do anything, not now. Not while you're here, we've put so many wards around the place. Here, at least, you're safe."

"I don't even know where here is."

Daphne's smile was kind as her eyes moved back and forth between Pansy and Neville. "For now, it's home."