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Part Three | Burn with Me

46. Always Remember Us This Way

It took more of her resolve than she cared to admit for Pansy to walk into the bedroom she and Neville shared the following morning. She knew what it would mean, and that was her admitting to Neville - and most likely Theo as well, that she had been in the wrong the previous day.

Admitting she was in the wrong was not something Pansy particularly relished.

Neither, however, was the sight, or smell, of what greeted her on the other side of the bedroom door.

Littered around the small room was an abundance of empty beer cans and various types of food packaging, including a large pizza box balancing vicariously on the nearby vanity. Wrinkling her nose, mostly at the - clearly spilled at some point - strong scent of beer in the air, Pansy nudged a corner of the pizza box open with one finger.

Taking one of the few remaining slices of now cold pizza, Pansy turned her attention to the bed, her eyebrows shooting skywards at what greeted her. Evidently, Neville, Theo and from the one foot she could see poking out from the floor behind the bed, Blaise, had clearly enjoyed a similar night to the one Pansy, Daphne and Millicent had.

Both Theo and Neville were lying, mostly spread-eagle, atop the bed, both their mouths wide open and - Pansy snorted, a snore that would have been loud for a bear was echoing rhythmically from Theo.

Leaning her behind against the edge of the dressing table, Pansy crossed one ankle over the other and nibbled at the slice of pizza, observing the boys and deliberating on her next move when the clearing of a throat form the direction of the door demanded her attention.

"Pans?"

Pansy studied him, his whiter than white blond head and somehow paler still face. Frowning, Pansy, after casting one last glance at the bed and its occupants, crossed the room.

"Hey, you alright?"

Draco's eyes were bloodshot and ringed with purple and Pansy realised with something that lurched in her chest that he looked possibly worse than she had ever seen him.

He didn't directly answer her question, though the answer - given his appearance, seemed startlingly obvious. "Do you fancy a walk?"

"Yeah, alright. Give me five minutes to get dressed."

"I'll be downstairs," Draco replied. "Thanks, Pansy."

She shot him the faintest of smiles. "See you in a minute."

At first they walked in silence, the sounds of the river beside them providing a backing track of sorts. After around twenty minutes and around half a mile, Draco finally spoke.

"I'm scared, Pans."

She didn't have to ask what of.

"Me too."

They utilised a nearby log as a makeshift bench, and Pansy watched - though barely saw, the fast flowing water.

"If, for whatever reason, I don't see you," Pansy swallowed as she realised he was fighting with whether to say the word again, "I don't want you to remember me this way."

His words were all it took to break her, and were she in any other frame of mind she'd have thanked him for the silencing charm she heard him mutter around them - not that there was anyone, that she knew of anyway, nearby. Her sobs seemed louder somehow when not contained to one room, they ricocheted off nearby trees and echoed from the steady current of the river.

He graciously waited until she had somewhat calmed.

"I'm sorry," Pansy snivelled as she felt his arm around her shoulders. "This is your breakdown, I'm being very selfish."

He let out the smallest of snorts. "You are a bit."

Nuding him softly in the ribs, Pansy sniffed as she tried to compose herself. "Carry on."

"I'm-" Draco's voice cracked. "I'm broken, Pansy. Utterly fucking broken."

All at once, a hundred images flashed past her mind's eye. Draco drinking whisky until he couldn't see; Draco's stony expression after casting the Imperius charm on the Carrows; an even stonier one when, the year before, he had cast it upon Madam Rosmerta from the Three Broomsticks; Draco holding her after Rabastan's attack. Draco raving after Granger punched him; gloating after Potter punched him and ended up banned from Quidditch; smiling the specific half-smile only Pansy could identify as true happiness whenever he flew for Slytherin. The time he vomited half-way through telling her about the first time he and Theo got really drunk; the time he and Pansy vomited together after the first time he got her really drunk. The time he was truly and utterly bested by a pack of exploding snap and the time they snuck out of the castle that Saturday night and stayed out by the lake all night and the time they vowed to never let the failings of a romance between them change any part of how much they meant to each other. Times they'd yelled, times they'd laughed and every time she had to pick up all the pieces of him that fell apart on a weekly basis during the previous year.

She'd held him throughout that year, just as he had held her, and pulled her and got her through this one. Neville had been, very much so, her sun, he had been a beacon lighting her a path through her darkness. But Draco, her Draco, had been, just as he always had been, her stars.

So often it felt, to Pansy, that the whole of Hogwarts thought they knew Draco. Pansy knew that it was only she who truly did.

"Me too," Pansy replied.

"I'm not going back," Draco admitted the words Pansy already knew aloud, "to the house I mean. I can't face it."

Nodding, Pansy felt further tears slid down her cheeks as his arm leave her shoulders, and his hand grasp hers. Nothing she said, as much as she wanted to, would make him not go back to Hogwarts and return to the Manor for the Easter holidays. "I guessed as much."

Pansy couldn't remember a time she had wanted to let go of him less.

He drew away from her, just enough to grasp both her shoulders. The grey stormy skies that surrounded his pupils bored into her own eyes. "All I wanted was to get you to safety, to get you out."

"I know," Pansy said with a sniff, "and you did."

"I'm sorry I didn't protect you enough."

"You did."

"No, I didn't. And I'm sorry."

"You have nothing to be sorry about."

He didn't believe her, that much was plain to see, but he clearly saw little advantage in arguing. Instead, his reply was simple; "I love you."

"I love you, too."

"I can't believe I'm saying this, but look after Longbottom."

She half cried, half laughed into his chest. "I will."

"Look after all of them for me."

"I'll try."

"And don't worry about me."

"What on Earth gave you the impression I would be worried about you, Draco Malfoy?" she replied, crying tears she couldn't have stopped if she'd tried against his chest.

I'm broken, Pansy. Utterly fucking broken.

Her eyes hadn't left the point he'd apparated away from, and she could still feel the touch of his hands in hers. There were a thousand risks, not just with Draco slipping back into the school he hadn't attended in the past three months - relying entirely on the majority of students wanting to be nowhere near him, and the fact that the two Death Eaters in charge were instructed, by Draco's own curse, to act as though everything was normal. That hopefully Crabbe and Goyle were too stupid and caught up in themselves to understand his absence was something they really ought to report Voldemort's way, and Severus Snape hopefully not deciding to actually act like something of the headmaster he was supposed to be.

Merlin, Pansy caught her breath, it was risky. So, so risky. And there was nothing Pansy could do to make it less so.

Pansy had never felt more broken.

Broken, perhaps they both were, perhaps they always had been. And despite his words, despite his spoken request that she didn't remember him that way, Pansy knew she would go against his wishes. This way, as imperfect and vulnerable and just as messed up as the world it was, was the way she wanted to remember them.

She didn't know how long she remained there. By the river, simply being, even when her tears had long since disappeared, leaving a hollow emptiness of nothing in their place, or perhaps in Draco's place, she still didn't move from the spot she'd said goodbye to him.

Her indication of how long it might have been, as in a pretty large amount of time, came in the form of her name, shouted, by a not too far away Neville.

"PANSY?! PANSY! ARE YOU OUT HERE?!"

For the first time since September, Pansy found herself not wanting to see Neville Longbottom.

Because seeing Neville meant, truly meant, in Pansy's mind anyway, that Draco had really gone - and Pansy knew he wasn't coming back. Not here, anyway.

And Pansy wasn't ready for Draco to really be gone.

His absence already felt like a kick to the gut and a stab in the heart. Draco wasn't just gone, but his fate was now consumed by uncertainty, and even more danger than ever before. And the reality that none of them could change that weighed on her heavier than almost anything else.

"PANSY?! DRACO?!"

Neville's shout was louder now, and Pansy stood up as she turned to face the direction of Neville's voice. and hugged her arms around herself, wishing she could still put the apology she knew she owed Theo at the top of her problems for the morning.

"Ne-Neville?"

He appeared around the nearby bend only a second or two after she had spoken his name.

His face, rife with concern, altogether softened as he surveyed her. He didn't speak until he was in front of her and his arms were wrapping around her shoulders.

"He's gone, hasn't he?"

Pansy couldn't find it within herself to speak a response, instead she nodded against his chest.

"He'll be okay."

"I-I'm not so sure."

He kissed the top of her head and held her tighter, but didn't argue her words.

"I don't know for sure," Pansy swallowed, entirely unsure whether saying her greatest fear out loud changed anything. It definitely made it entirely more real, that much she was sure of, "if I'll ever see him again."

Despite knowing it was her duty, if nothing else, to inform the others of Draco's departure, Pansy did so with a heavy heart.

Her news was met with a stunned silence that lingered in the air so thick Pansy was certain it was something she could have reached for and touched.

It was Theo who spoke first. "He's really gone?"

Pansy nodded her head, not quite meeting Theo's eyes. "I think it was easier for him this way."

Daphne was wearing the same expression Pansy would expect a deer to make when faced with a particularly bright Lumos, her large blue eyes wide and fearful. "What if...what if we never see him again…"

It wasn't a question.

She found apologising to Theo for the previous day surprisingly easy, catching him once they had decided to have some much-needed lunch, despite noone being particularly hungry.

"You have nothing to be sorry about," Theo replied, unknowingly mimicking Pansy's own words from earlier in the day.

"Yeah, I do. I hexed you in the chest."

He pulled her into a tight hug. "Love you, Pans."

"Love you, too."

"I said I'd go to the village with Blaise," Theo said, "we need more firewood, do you want to come, or…?"

Pansy shook her head. "No thanks."

He gave her a small nod and gave Neville - who had only just appeared, a manly pat on the shoulder as he walked past.

"Hey."

"Hey," she replied softly, grateful for the way he pulled her against him, and for the way he, once again, encased her with his arms.

"You okay?"

Pansy shook her head. "No, I don't think I am."

"Want to go to bed?"

"I'm not sure I'm really in the mood-"

"Not for that!"

"Oh," Pansy replied, hating herself for being the tiniest bit disappointed. "To be honest I could probably use the stress relief." She wasn't sure whether she was joking or not.

Neville released her from the hug, took her hand in his own and led her from the kitchen. "Well, I mean, I'm hardly opposed, but it seems an insensitive offer."

It didn't take them long to arrive in the bedroom, and Pansy was pleased to see that Neville had, at least, tidied away the remains of his impromptu boy's night. Winky was currently making the bed.

"How is Miss?"

"Shit, Winky, how are you?"

"Winky didn't want him to go, no she didn't. Tried to talk him out of it last night, oh yes she did. But would he listen?"

Once upon a time it would have been a surprise to Pansy to hear Draco had confided in a House Elf before any other.

Though, she supposed, once upon a time many things would have surprised her that didn't now.

"He isn't the biggest fan of listening to others," Pansy remarked sadly.

"That he isn't, Miss Pansy." Winky's voice was full of sorrow. "That he isn't. Winky will clean the downstairs now, oh yes she will."

"You don't have to, Winky," Pansy offered, feeling obliged, "if you want to sack the rest of the day off that'd be fine."

Winky bowed, no trace of her trademark sass present. "Winky is happier to serve, Miss Pansy."

Both Pansy and Neville watched the small elf leave the room, the door closing softly behind her.

"Did Daphne and Mills go with the boys?" Pansy asked as she busied herself removing her boots.

Neville followed suit. "I think they were all planning on heading down, yeah."

"Oh, that's good then."

"Hmm?"

Pansy quickly deposited her jeans onto the floor and climbed under the covers, a myriad of too many emotions and feelings swimming in her mind.

"I want you to fuck me so hard I forget how sad and scared and helpless I feel."

Neville's eyebrows rose but he didn't speak. Instead, his eyes refusing to leave Pansy's, he reached to the bottom of his shirt. In one swift movement he lifted the garment, discarding it easily on the floor.

A few steps was all it took for him to close the gap that had been between Neville and where Pansy was in the bed, and his lips met hers in the whirlwind that was his fire and her ice.

"I love you," Neville gasped between kisses, his lips trailing down her neck, and - once her top was pulled over her head, down over her shoulders.

Pansy, her nails digging, possibly painfully, into the sides of Neville's neck, gasped as his kisses began to involve small bites and his own fingertips gripped her just as tight as she did he.

"Always," she began, her words struggling to even begin, " she said, in a stark contradiction to what Draco had said to her earlier, "remember us this way."

It was several hours later when Pansy and Neville emerged from their bedroom, hand in hand, and headed downstairs. At some point the others had returned and were seated in their usual spots within the living room. Draco's chair was, of course, empty - so incredibly empty. In the same way a silence can deafen you, its emptiness felt somehow overpowering.

"Well," Theo began, "look who it is."

Neither Pansy nor Neville replied as they took their usual position at the end of one of the couches, at their silence Theo continued his tirade.

"Now, you never know when it'll come in handy, even in a fight," Theo seemed to be imitating Neville for some unknown reason. Pansy narrowed her eyes, sincerely hoping Theo made any kind of point. "They're useful to practise whenever you can," he continued, his arms flailing as he accentuated his words, "SILENCING CHARMS!"

Oh

Theo's issue became embarrassingly clear.

"Really bloody useful, that's what you," a scowling Theo jabbed an index finger in Neville's general direction, "told us. Practise them whenever you can, you said."

Pansy could practically feel the heat emanating from Neville's cheeks.

"I did say that," Neville said, his voice low and steady. Pansy, on the other hand, was having a hard time - especially considering she could see Daphne practically stuffing her entire fist in her mouth to quell her laughter, keeping a straight face.

"Hallelujah!" Theo cried, "he remembers!"

"We-uh, we're sorry," Neville offered feebly.

"Oh, they're sorry! That makes it okay, never mind the fact our ears were all bleeding not twenty minutes ago!"

It seemed Daphne, Millicent and Blaise could hold in their laughter any longer, and the three burst into combined hysterics. Pansy found herself joining in whilst Neville buried his face in his hands and Theo continued his rant.

"If I ever hear the words Harder, Neville, Harder! Ever again Pansy, I swear!"

The evening rolled easily into the night, and before long each couple began to wonder aloud about whether to retire to bed.

"Now, Pansy and Neville," Theo began.

"If you say one more thing," Pansy snapped, "we will never use a silencing charm again!"

Theo snorted. "Fair enough, come on Mills."

"Remember your silencing charm," Pansy muttered childishly.

"We're going to have the loudest sex you've ever heard after this afternoon, Parkinson." Theo reached his hand outwards, for Millicent's, and turned briefly to face Draco's chair. "Good luck, mate. You're going to need it," he said to the empty seat and their best friend, who was to travel home the following day, very much alone.

Neville, in turn, raised his almost empty glass. "To Draco."

Theo, and then Blaise, nodded, the atmosphere suddenly far more solemn again.

"To Draco," the six said as one. "To Draco!"