Title: Stalking Harry Potter 2/4
Author's Name: Empath Apathique
Author's Note: I'd like to make a special than you to everyone who reviewed this story and took the effort to place it on their story alert list--it's nice to see that some people are as interested in Harry/Pansy as moi. Here is the second chapter of SHP, however I must warn that the third chapter will not be out until sometime next week at the earliest. While it is already written, I'm taking the time to uncode it and edit it, and chapter 3, I'm sad to say, needs a lot of work. In my opinion, at least. This story is also archieved on the pphpficexchange community on LJ. It was written for the first Harry/Pansy exchange, and if anyone gets impatient for an update, you can always go there to find the story. It is award winning as well. It picked up two awards in the exchange, which I am very proud out.
Anyway, onto part 2.
- - - - - - - -
Harry Potter had a way with women.
It was very odd, considering he'd only had one girlfriend his entire life, and he couldn't have possibly had enough experience with Ginny Weasley to make him as smooth as he was. But Potter was smooth. He'd been the perfect gentleman, opening every door and carrying out behaviors she'd previously thought would be eternally beyond his notice. He handled her expertly, appeasing her feminine sensibilities and effortlessly redirecting less desirable responses, such as anger. Eyes had followed the pair as soon as they'd left the second-hand robe shop together, whispering as they watched them, unabashed. A sweaty film had clinged to Pansy's palms at the attention; her throat had dried up and she'd felt so anxious, helpless, that she hadn't been able to stop her angry reaction. But Harry Potter had demonstrated his unbelievable way with her then yet again, had managed to calm her rising ire with a hand on her wrist and a cool expression as he'd said, "whoa, hunny bunny, let's chill out."
He hadn't actually said that to her—he wasn't that bloody smooth—but Pansy fancied that his eyes had. And Potter's eyes spoke to her, man. They spoke so much they sang. He'd completely cooled her meltdown, and if Potter wasn't considered a smooth operator for that, then hell, no one should be.
Of course, even though Potter had technically only had one girlfriend, according to Granger, he'd gotten warm and fuzzy with Cho Chang during fifth year, and Pansy figured that the experience with the Ravenclaw girl had given him some added insight into the female psyche. She'd been an older woman, after all. But then there was Potter's relationship with her, which was far more mature and romantic that whatever he'd shared with Cho the Ho. Pansy had gotten two kisses; Cho had only gotten one.
Also, this thing Potter had with Pansy was serious—so serious that he'd pursued it even though he was still in a relationship with Ginny Weasley. Or hadn't pursued it; it was more like he'd been walking down the road and had been bombarded by tomatoes repeatedly. He hadn't gone looking for tomatoes, but he was getting them—in the face.
But Pansy reckoned that Potter liked tomatoes, as he'd continued along the same route regardless of the number of tomatoes making his face home base. Interacting with Pansy had taught the man a lot, too. Potter was a completely different man now than he'd been when Pansy had first started dealing with him more than a year ago, and given that Potter and Apple Head had been together for a few years by then, Potter had changed all he would for the girl. Any changes that had come about in the last year had been because of Pansy, and she'd hex anyone who said different.
But that was all said and done now, wasn't it? Because she was over Potter and Potter was still stuck on Ginny Weasley and no matter how much Pansy hated that Potter couldn't see that Girl Weasley was absolutely wrong for him, she wouldn't go there. Because whatever she and Potter had was through.
She was only having lunch with him. She ignored the fact that the thought alone had the ability to make her swoon.
Currently, the two were standing inside the entryway of small café that had "Thelma & Melvin's" emblazoned on the bright red awning. It was less crowded than the other establishments on the street, and though it was small, it had a sunny, homey feel to it that Pansy supposed made up for its lack of space. She was hit with a pang of memory as she looked around the café, though she couldn't quite place when she'd been here before, and figured she was probably confusing the place with an eatery she frequented a few streets over. The two were fairly similar.
Thelma & Melvin's only had a handful of tables, each topped with the typical essentials for a low-key meal. There were only a few patrons seated for lunch, spread out and working as they ate. Pansy got the impression that Thelma & Melvin's was the kind of place you only went to if you actually knew Thelma and Melvin. Everyone there appeared to be regulars, which definitely said something about Potter's connection to the place.
A cheery blonde—and busty—waitress greeted the duo as soon as the door closed. Her expression brightened to astronomical proportions when she saw the messy-haired man at Pansy's side.
"Mr. Potter!" she squealed. "What a pleasant surprise!"
Pansy resisted the urge to make a gagging noise. Another Potter fangirl. Joy.
Potter smiled at the girl, and Pansy thought she saw a bit of the 'Ooo, I Think I'm Sexy' look on his face. She scowled.
"How are you, Ruby?" he greeted cordially. The girl practically went squee, and Pansy made a note to tell Potter to stop dazzling his groupies when she was with him, because it made her want to retch.
"I've been just fine, Mr. Potter," she answered, beaming. "Have you been well? You haven't stopped by in so long—we thought you may have taken ill."
He shook his head. "Just busy, is all. I've hardly seen much of anyone, lately." He looked at Pansy and smiled. "How long has it been, Pansy? Three months?"
Pansy nodded, a little taken aback at being addressed. Then she scowled, a little peeved at Potter for bringing her into a conversation in which he was so openly being fangirled.
However, the remark had caused Ruby the Boobalicious Waitress to notice her, and Pansy watched as the initial cheeriness left her face. "Pardon me," she said in a more professional tone, looking back at Potter. "I don't mean to hold you up, sir. Would you like your usual seat for you and your…" She glanced at Pansy again, and the dark-haired woman fought the urge to give Boobie Ruby a dirty gesture. "…companion?"
Potter nodded and smiled. If he was aware of what was going on between the two women, he didn't let on.
"Right this way, then." Boobie Ruby grabbed two menus from her station and then led the pair through the nearly empty restaurant to a table in the farthest corner of the place, facing the open window.
Pansy sent Potter a look when he pulled out her chair. His manners made the girl inside of her practically die with elation. Merlin, this man was so bloody smooth. She wondered where he'd learned his good manners, thinking it certainly couldn't have been at home, or whatever Potter preferred to called his cupboard under the stairs at Privet Drive. If his Muggle relatives hadn't shown him where to buy his underwear, then they certainly wouldn't have taken the time to teach him how to treat a lady. It had probably been Granger's influence, she thought, and she smiled at him as she sat. And yeah, his manners made her happy, but the smile was more for Boobie Ruby's displeasure. The blonde looked as if she'd just taken a long, hard suck on a lemon.
"Your menus," she said, tersely handing she and Potter the large laminated booklets after the man had taken his seat. "I'll be with you shortly."
"Thank you, Ruby," Potter said.
She gave him a very tight smile, then left.
Pansy grinned. "Oh, she's a little ray of sunshine, isn't she?"
Potter sighed, and Pansy knew right then that he'd been completely aware of she and Boobie Ruby's little tiff. "Ruby's a nice girl," he said. "You shouldn't rile her up like that."
"She riled herself up," Pansy replied. "She's probably had her sights set on you for awhile. It won't do if you're bringing another woman here."
"She's a nice girl," he repeated.
"Of course she is. I saw the set she had on her. What does Granger call them…?" She looked thoughtful for a moment, then snapped her fingers and proclaimed, "Hindenburgs!" as if it were the answer to world peace.
Potter looked at her in disbelief. "Hermione does not call them that."
Pansy scowled, leveling the man with a glare. "Have you ever talked to Granger about breasts?"
"No, but—"
"Well, then, how would you know what Granger calls them?"
For the first time that day, he faltered. "You're lying," he said after a moment.
"I don't need to." She picked up her menu and opened it, ending the conversation. She pretended to peruse the thing, surreptitiously glancing at him from over it. He looked irritated, but he had picked up his menu as well. Score one for the home team. Pansy smiled and began to read the menu in earnest.
It seemed Thelma & Melvin's had a lot to offer, and considering she hadn't eaten breakfast, many of the items on the menu sounded appealing. With the way her stomach felt, she could probably eat a whole rack of lamb by herself. She could eat like a monster when she skipped a meal. She glanced up from the menu and at her lunch date, who was studying his own menu in turn. She frowned. She couldn't actually eat now. She was having lunch with Harry Potter, and she'd die before he saw her indulge her fat girl tendencies.
She'd have a cranberry spinach salad with unsweetened iced tea and aw hell, her stomach began to gurgle painfully in protest. Her stomach wanted lamb and a jacket potato and sparkling lemonade sweetened with two sugars and maybe—maybe—a salad on the side. She was reminded of her previous resolution to put Potter out of her mind, but told herself that she didn't even believe the whole 'I don't like Potter, no I do not' thing when she was alone. How on earth was she supposed to convince herself of it now that she was sitting right across from him, and had just been reminded of how utterly smooth he was?
She looked at the spinach salad again. But she was hungry!
Bugger it all, Potter was supposed to be a real kind of guy anyway. And if he was real kind of guy, he certainly wouldn't mind a real kind of girl, who ate real food, right?
She closed her menu; she'd have the lamb and the potato and the salad. And the lemonade. Maybe some dessert. She looked across the table at her companion, her stomach growling in anticipation.
"Made up your mind?" he asked, not bothering to look up from his menu.
Pansy nodded. "I'm not as remarkably indecisive as you are, Potter."
"What do you know of my indecisiveness, Parkinson?"
"I saw you in the second-hand robe store today," she said offhandedly, looking down at her nails. She was due for a manicure soon. "You couldn't make a decision if it slapped you in the face."
He looked up at her then, a crooked grin on his lips. "You were watching me?"
His smile caused her heart to skip a beat, and she looked down at her menu, blushing. Then she realized her slipup, and called herself seven kinds of stupid for having such loose lips. What kind of stalker was she, anyway?
An incredibly bad one, apparently.
In Pansy's defense, she didn't normally do things like this. Not to say that she'd never stalked anyone before, because she had—and frequently—while she was at Hogwarts. Draco had always been a slippery lot, and back then, Pansy had made it her business to monitor her man and who he was seeing, lest he fall in with some unsavory girl and she fancy herself with an infatuation. Draco Malfoy had been hers, and back then, she'd have borrowed, cheated, and killed to make sure everyone knew it.
But even though she could've taught Stalking 101 at Hogwarts, Pansy liked to think that she'd grown up quite a bit from the silliness that had possessed her in her teenage years. She had been locked up in Malfoy Manor for far too long, and she refused to waste any more of her life not doing exactly what she wanted to do. Time, especially hers, was precious,. It wasn't like she had to stalk Draco Malfoy anymore, anyway. The wanker had finally learned to keep the cat in the bag, so to speak. Besides, he was Hermione Granger's problem now.
Her situation with Potter was nothing like the one she'd been in with Draco in the past; however, she at least wished she still had some of her Super Stalker Skills to aid her now. Constantly telling on herself was pathetic.
Pansy fought the urge to sigh.
"I wasn't watching you," she corrected, trying very hard to keep her voice neutral as she attempted to salvage the situation. "I just happened to see you while I was shopping."
"And you watched me."
"No, I saw you—"
"And watched me." He turned back to his menu, effectively dismissing her as she'd done to him before.
"Don't say it like that," she whined. "It sounds bad when you say it like that."
"It's the same thing," he said.
"No, it's not. To say it like that makes it seem as if I were stalking you or something."
He raised his brows in question.
"Oh, as if."
He chuckled. "It was a joke, Pansy."
"It wasn't funny." She humphed for good measure.
"Why would you think so?" he said, looking at her. "It was about you."
He sounded very pleased with himself, and Pansy felt her insides squirm and turn in on themselves. She glared at him. "Merlin, has anyone told you what a complete and utter arse you are?"
"Sorry, not since I saw Draco yesterday."
He continued going through his menu, and Pansy huffed aloud, utterly annoyed at having her own trick being thrown back in her face. "Well, let me reiterate: Potter, you are an arse. An arsehole."
"That's nice," he said dismissively.
She was struck with the urge to hurl the saltshaker at his head. "You make me sick."
"You shouldn't tell lies at the dinner table, Pansy."
"This isn't my dinner table, Potter, and I don't follow those silly Muggle phrases you seem to fancy, anyway."
He looked back down at his menu and didn't respond.
There was silence for a few moments, and Pansy began to look around the small café once again. She suddenly remembered why it was familiar now: she'd come here a week or so ago, after her interview at the Daily Prophet. She'd been tired and kind of pissy, because she was pretty sure she'd completely blown the thing, and all she'd really wanted was a cuppa and a few biscuits before she buried herself in her bed and stayed there for a week.
The owner, however, had refused Pansy service, giving the now familiar excuse of her establishment not serving the likes of her. She should've just turned around and left, but she'd been tired and out of it and had just wanted a cup of tea. And she was tired of it, the whole leaving restaurants constantly and having to find somewhere else to go because someone there thought she wasn't good enough to be in their presence. Her money was just as good as anyone else's, and if she wanted a cup of tea and could pay for a cup of tea she should very well get her cup of tea. Pansy had told the portly woman—Thelma, dear, evil, fat Thelma—so, and had received a very colorful response. She'd told Pansy that she didn't rightly care where she got her tea, but she wasn't getting it from her shop, and that, as far as she was concerned, Pansy's money wasn't just as good as anyone else's, and she'd have to take it to someone who thought it was. She'd told her to get out of her shop before she notified the authorities.
Pansy had been so angry that she'd hardly been able to see straight, and she'd left the café and Apparated home straight away, not in the state of mind to put herself through more abuse at the hands of prejudiced shop owners for a cup of tea. She'd put on the kettle to make her own damn tea, and she'd been so angry that she'd started to cry. She'd spent the following hour on the kitchen floor crying her eyes out, and repeating over and over that she only wanted tea—just a cup of tea.
It hadn't been Pansy's finest hour, but she found it completely ironic that Potter had taken her here of all places, when dear Thelma had made it so blatantly obvious that she'd never serve Pansy Parkinson in her café. Potter didn't know that, but still. He was a regular here though; he saw absolutely nothing wrong with bringing her there. Heck, he probably brought Ginny Weasley there, too.
The thought left a decidedly bad taste in Pansy's mouth. Thelma probably loved Ginny Weasley, and Pansy hated how everyone liked her just because she was making it with Harry Potter. They didn't know a thing about the woman, and Pansy liked to tell herself that Ginny Weasley was probably a right bitch, and that no one should like her at all. It made her feel better. Sometimes.
But this place… Pansy looked around again. There was a decidedly lonely feel to the café; it wasn't the kind of place young couples went for a date. Wouldn't Potter be more inclined to take Ginny Weasley somewhere brighter, more commercial? Something to appeal to her giggling girl sensibilities?
Of course he would. Potter would do anything in his power to make sure Ginny Weasley was absolutely happy, because that was the kind of guy he was. Doting and all that, but Pansy likened it to Potter being pretty damn whipped. In a few years, when he and his precious little redhead were settled down and happy, he'd probably take care of the laundry and the cooking as well.
"How are things with the future Mrs. Potter?" she asked suddenly. She called herself seven kinds of stupid for asking such a loaded question, but told herself that she was a big girl, and could handle whatever answer Potter would give. It was a lie, of course, but Pansy was used to lying to herself when it came to Harry Potter. It was nothing new.
Potter looked up at her quickly then back down at his menu. His cheeks were pink, and he looked thoroughly uncomfortable. "Complicated," he said quietly. "Very, very complicated."
Pansy grinned. "How complicated?" she asked. She sounded far too happy with this news, and she told herself that she needed to cool it, lest he ask her why she was so happy he was breaking up with his long-term girlfriend. Which would open up a completely different can of worms, and while Pansy was of the mind that there were things between she and Potter that hadn't been said and certainly needed to be, she'd like to have a meal first. As she'd said, she hadn't eaten breakfast. She couldn't very well yell at the man on an empty stomach. "Potter?"
"Complicated enough," he replied vaguely.
Pansy rolled her eyes. "You'll have to be more specific than that. Things are always complicated."
He looked at her then, and Pansy couldn't identify the look in his eyes. "I suppose they are."
She rolled her eyes again. She wouldn't be getting anywhere with the man on this topic, and she resolved to push all thoughts of a domesticated Potter out of her mind. He didn't seem like the type to know his way around a kitchen anyway; his future bride would certainly be doing the cooking in the Potter household.
Pansy frowned, wondering where exactly the Potter household was now. Voldemort had burned Grimmauld Place to the ground after Mundungus Fletcher had betrayed its location, though Potter had only resided there when planning attacks and doing work for the Order. Officially, he'd been employed at the Ministry of Magic as an Auror, and while both the Ministry and the Order had had the same goals during the way, it had been well known that the two groups had their own way of going about things.
During the war, Potter had left strategy meetings at work only to return to them at home. Everyone and their Aunt Sue had been residing in Grimmauld Place back then, and because Potter was loony and there was too much stuff in that broken head of his for him to deal with so many people at one time, he had moved out. Pansy had thought that was funny, considering it was his house and he could've rightly told everyone else to piss off. But Potter was Potter, and he was too nice to do anything like that to people he liked. He had gotten a flat in the heart of London not long after the war began.
Only, Potter had neglected to renew his lease on the place a few weeks ago, and a new family was currently moving in. And no, she hadn't been stalking him when she'd found out about this. Potter had stopped by her home while she was out, and Pansy had gone to his flat to repay this visit, her shortest skirt snug on her hips, only to find a young Muggle family moving in. And if Grimmauld Place was gone and he no longer owned his flat, then Harry Potter was homeless.
And that made absolutely no sense at all. He'd saved the entire bloody country; he couldn't be homeless. Pansy had asked around, but no one knew where Potter was living now. Her current purpose in life was to discover exactly where that was, hence the stalking. And she knew she should really just mind her business, as where Harry Potter lived had nothing to do with Pansy at all, but Pansy liked to tell herself that Potter had brought her into this situation when he'd visited her. He'd had a perfectly good cover for being there, of course—official Auror business and all that—but his excuse was shit. Because no Auror hand delivered a summons to appear before the Wizengamot personally. There were owls for that.
But, two weeks ago to the day, Potter had left his cluttered little desk at the Ministry and gone all the way to her family's summer home in Brighton to do so. And beyond wondering how on earth he knew where she was staying—he was so keeping tabs on her—Pansy had known without a doubt that his visit had nothing to do with the summons he'd dropped off. Her family's home in Brighton was connected directly to that of her neighbors, and Pansy had gone outside to ask the woman who lived to her right if she'd seen her visitor that afternoon. Mrs. Claiborne was a old witch who spent nearly all of her days sitting on her front porch, and Pansy had been sure that, if anyone had seen Potter, it would've been her.
She'd been right. "Dearest," Mrs. Claiborne had said, "the boy sat by your door and waited a whole hour for your return."
Pansy's heart had stopped.
"He came around three days last week as well."
And that was why she was stalking him. More than simply trying to discover where the dirty wanker lived, he'd gone to see her. No man would visit her four separate times if he didn't want something specific from her, and Pansy was set on figuring out what. She'd been digging around for the past two weeks, however she was still as clueless as she'd been before. Granger hadn't been any help, but the woman was far too busy frolicking through the countryside with hubby-to-be Draco to keep tabs on her errant friend. All she'd known was that Potter had planned to be in Diagon Alley on Tuesday—today—for an afternoon meeting. It was how Pansy had known where Potter would be to follow him. And even though she was currently sitting across from him and could very well ask him where he was living, there was a distance between them that she didn't quite know how to breach.
In a sense, Pansy longed for the days that she'd been held in captivity. Back then, all she'd needed to do was ask her question in their weekly letter and he'd tell her, his honesty a given. There was no room to lie to each other while planning her and Granger's escape, and that honesty had miraculously been extended to things that weren't related to the plan. Even now, Pansy couldn't quite say why they had begun to talk about things on a personal level, but they had. It was how Pansy had learned that Potter had a flat in London to begin with.
She could've asked him in person as well, as he'd made a habit of visiting every few weeks, his animagus owl form swooping right through the window, to drop off books and other small objects they needed to disable to wards. Potter had studied hard to become an animagus, and he started visiting five months after their correspondence began, about a year since she'd been imprisoned in the manor. When they hadn't been arguing about nothing or planning the escape, they'd talked, the same honesty present in their letters extending to their direct encounters.
Lucius' wards had only prohibited Pansy from leaving the manor, so anyone could get in, especially owls delivering letters; or, in Potter's case, items that would help she and Granger escape.
He'd been able to take her bracelet one night and return it the very next day, a brand spanking new portkey. Pansy had been hard-pressed to let Potter take something of so much personal value to her. But he'd been insistent that the portkey be something she kept with her at all times; they couldn't take the chance of it being lost or misplaced. Pansy had finally relented and, for three months prior to their escape, had walked around with a portkey just waiting to be activated fastened to her wrist.
Lucius Malfoy was so stupid.
Only, Lucius hadn't been nearly as stupid as Pansy and Granger had wished he was. The wards he had placed on the wing of the manor where the two women lived had taken Granger nearly a year to figure out how to disable. And regardless of all they'd planned and figured out and had gotten away with, Lucius had suspected that the two of them had been plotting something for months, and had been ready when she and Granger had made their move to disable the wards. They'd nearly died. The bracelet had saved their lives.
Pansy looked down at her wrist, looking for the missing bracelet once again. There was that familiar sinking sensation, but she studiously ignored it, looking at her lunch date instead.
"You surprise me, Potter," she said, flipping over the menu and looking at the alcohol selection. As nostalgic as she was this afternoon, she'd be needing a stiff drink very, very soon.
"How so?"
"I imagined you'd take me to The Leaky Cauldron."
He shrugged, still studying his menu. "I didn't want to leave Diagon Alley."
Her brows raised in question. "Why not?" she asked. The awkwardness was just beginning to alleviate, but Pansy wasn't going to allow the opportunity to discover exactly what she wanted to know pass her by. She wasn't that silly. After all, she had the guise of friendly curiosity on her side. He wouldn't suspect she was stalking him at all.
"I have an appointment at three. Don't want to be late."
"It's hardly a trek from The Leaky Cauldron to Diagon Alley, Potter."
"Why don't you let me worry about what is or isn't a trek for me," he said, "while you worry about what you're ordering?"
Pansy hmphed, crossing her arms over her chest as she said, "Well, you're being rather rude."
"The Cornish pasty here is rather good," he told her.
"I already know what I'm ordering," she said huffily.
Potter shrugged. "Suit yourself."
The pair settled into silence again. Pansy found herself reaching for the missing bracelet again, and she wondered why she was so preoccupied with it today. But she was sitting across from Potter, and he'd broken it, and she supposed that explained it all.
She hadn't found out about its destruction until a few weeks after the war, during Potter's last visit to her room while she was in St. Mungo's. Lucius hadn't taken well to her and Granger disproving the whole 'Malfoy Manor is inescapable thing', and had blown a hole in her chest as a result. And no, she wasn't exaggerating. Lucius' attack had broken her sternum, cracked three ribs and punctured both of her lungs with one blow. It had been meant to kill her, and it had been by the grace of God and Hermione Granger that she'd survived. She'd woken up days later in St. Mungo's, her father standing over with a teary expression and a dreadful ache between her breasts. She'd have the scar to remind her of the ordeal for the rest of her life.
Potter had only visited her a few times that she could remember, though her father had told her that he'd sat by her bed quite often when she'd first been brought in. The thought made her smile even now. His visits had become less frequent as Pansy had become more conscious of her surroundings. Things had quickly become awkward between the two of them, neither truly knowing what to say with Pansy's father hovering just beyond the door and asking awkward questions when Potter left.
Boy Wonder had stuck around long enough to tell her that the war was over. He and most of the Order had stormed Malfoy Manor directly after her escape. However, Voldemort hadn't been too happy to discover that the home of his number one groupie was being destroyed, and he'd shown up at the scene as well, which had ultimately led to the final battle breaking out right then and there in the Malfoys' front parlor. Narcissa, had the dear woman still been alive, would've died from the sheer outrage of it all.
Potter had used her bracelet to gain access to the manor. In the final battle with Voldemort, it had been crushed, and the one thing that had unfailingly reminded her of her mother was lost forever.
It was another thing to blame him for—on top of all the other shit she shoved on him—and despite the bracelet's sentimental value, Pansy wasn't nearly as angry with Potter about its destruction as she thought she should have been. In reality, she wasn't angry with him at all, just sad. So sad she couldn't spare the energy to be angry.
"Do you like tomato and mozzarella?"
Pansy blinked, looking up in Potter's eyes as her previous thoughts began to fade. "Pardon?"
"Tomato and mozzarella salad. Do you like it?"
"I don't know," she said quietly, her mind still in a haze from her recollections. "Should I?"
Potter nodded. "You should." He smiled at her. "Wanna split one with me?"
Red blossomed on Pansy's cheeks, and she looked down at the table, mumbling, "sure" in response.
Potter grinned and Pansy scowled at him, because he so knew what he did to her and he took pleasure it reducing her into a babbling bundle of girl. He was probably trying to make her into one of his groupies or something. Then he could have her throwing herself at his feet and begging for his kisses when he took time off from snogging Ginny Weasley.
And Potter could just forget about that, because Pansy Parkinson was nobody's other girl, and she'd absolutely die before she was second to a redhead disaster like Ginevra Weasley.
She glared at his profile as he waved his hand in the air and gestured for Boobie Ruby. She felt that familiar anger creep up in her again. She'd been so busy being dazzled by his smoothness that she hadn't been able to think straight, let alone remember why it was such a bad thing to be dazzled by him. Harry Potter was a smarmy bastard and she'd do well to never forget it, lest she get her heart trampled on all over again by the non-feeling pillock. And now she completely remembered why she was done with Harry Potter.
Pansy would be the first to admit that something had transpired between her and the worthless man during the war. They'd argued and fought—and Merlin knew that they'd nearly driven each other to commit murder on multiple occasions—however, Pansy likened their explosive tendencies to the unnatural amount of sexual tension between the two of them. Because she was hot and holy hell, he was hot, and hot people kind of just gravitated to each other. And to a bed.
Much against her will, Pansy had started to like him. She hadn't wanted to admit it—sweet Circe, she'd fought the infatuation tooth in nail—but it was hard not to like the only man who'd ever really given a damn about you and your life and who you were beyond all the rubbish people attached to your name. To most of the world, Pansy Parkinson stood for nothing but a shameless Slytherin slag who was doing Draco and half of Voldemort's army. Of course, it wasn't true, but people were always willing to put their faith in what was easiest to believe. Merlin knew it was easier to believe that Pansy was all of those horrid things, because if she wasn't, the general public would have to rewrite their opinions about everybody, and no one would see in black and white as they had before.
Everyone believed those things about her. Even Potter had, once upon a time when their relationship had existed through angry retorts penned in the secret letters they'd sent back and forth during the war. He was Harry Potter, and apparently the air up there on the pedestal the whole bloody world placed him on had gotten to him, because he'd been the most self-righteous, judgmental tosser Pansy had ever met in all her life. No one called him on it, because a war had been going on and Potter had been stressed, and Hagrid would have shaved his legs and donned a purple tutu if anyone had actually told Potter that he was a right bastard and didn't know shit.
Because he didn't. Potter didn't know shit. Not about people. Sure, he could plan strategies to hunt down Death Eaters and vanquish big bad dark lords. But Potter had nothing but dust in his head when it came to figuring out who a person was and how they'd gotten that way, and he'd let the opinions of other people fill his head as a result.
Everyone was judgmental, but Potter thought he was simply stating facts when he told you exactly how you were without knowing you one bit. True, people often had an uncanny ability to be able to hit the nail right on the first time they met you, simply because they didn't know you and only called it as they saw it, which was usually how it was. But the fact remained that they didn't know you, and all those 'truths' they spouted described nothing you on the surface, colored by the preexisting opinions they'd already brought into the situation.
Potter had already had his mind made up about the kind of person Pansy Parkinson was before he had even truly met her, and even though he'd been in close quarters with Blaise and Draco, there was no changing his mind. And she was loud and whiney and didn't have a clue, but Potter hadn't had an open mind when it came to her at all. Pansy had given the man a piece—or two—of her mind because of it.
But they'd moved beyond that. Potter had seen the big bright error of his ways, and Pansy had grown up. And Potter had liked her, because Pansy wouldn't take his shit or treat him like a glass fucking doll that would break if anyone stared too bloody long. Pansy was nothing like the simpering trollop he had at home. Though, now that Pansy thought about it, Potter hadn't even had her at home with him; Girl Weasley had spent the war sleeping in her own cold bed at Grimmauld Place while Potter luxuriated on the silk sheets Pansy had sent to his flat in Hyde Park. The sheets had been a joke about Potter's lack of taste, but he had used them. He'd told her that he had, and Pansy had believed him, because she liked him and she trusted him and she believed almost every word that left the man's pretty pink lips. And Pansy was different, and bad, and he wasn't even supposed to go there with her but he had and he'd liked it and he'd liked her.
And it was bad, man. Because Potter had this thing with touching her skin, and it could be for something completely ordinary like moving her hand out of the way when they were looking at a map, or his fingers brushing hers when their hands got too close, and it'd been like magic. She would swear even now that she'd felt the magic in his blood leap out of his skin and dance with hers whenever his skin touched hers. And she'd known he'd felt it, because afterwards his hands would shake. And he'd run his fingers through his hair to hide it but there was no hiding it, because she had beenthere and she had felt it and she hadn't let him run away. And it was so incredibly fucked to think about it now that she was sitting across from him, watching him smile at the waitress who probably wanted him more than she'd ever wanted anything in her life. Because she'd tasted his lips, felt the heat of his hands on her skin as she'd delighted in the way the magic they created made their blood buzz in their veins and filled their very cores with the most forbidden heat. The heat would build and build until it exploded with spectacular sensuous abandon, leaving them in awe of the beauty they could make and in want of exploring the phenomena further.
And they hadn't had sex. That's how Pansy had known it was something; kisses weren't supposed to feel that way. Besides, if she could feel that way from simply snogging the man, the sex was bound to make her explode.
They certainly hadn't meant for it to happen. Pansy had liked Potter but had felt even then that Potter was too much of a mess for her to get involved with him, what with his long-term girlfriend and suffocating hero status. She wasn't the kind of girl for Harry Potter, and he wasn't the kind of man for her, and she'd known that they both would prefer to avoid the drama of a messy entanglement. Potter would have to end his other entanglement anyway, which would be a disaster, because what man in his right mind would leave Ginny Weasley for Pansy Parkinson? For shame! It wouldn't be done. But she hadn't been able to stop herself from telling him that there was something there, and that she couldn't ignore it. She'd told herself that it was just a kiss and nothing would come of it, but it'd happened again. She'd wanted to stop it then—nip the infatuation in the bud and be done with it forever. However, Potter hadn't been quite so willing to let go. He'd told her to pretend that things weren't so bad, that there was just him and her and them, and it was okay—even if only for an hour at a time. Pansy had devoured his words as if she'd needed them to survive, and when they'd progressed to laying in her bed and holding each other for as long as they possibly could, Pansy had known that they were done, that there was nothing she could do because it had happened and it was going to be messy.
The few moments she'd had with him after the war in St. Mungo's had been awkward because of the overwhelming amount of things left unsaid between them. The air was heavy with it, words of adoration and forever clawing at Pansy's throat and threatening to suffocate her because she'd kept them in. There were so many things to say that she hadn't known what to choose. He'd looked equally lost, and she'd let him walk away from her. It wasn't until days afterwards that she'd known what she had to say, but Potter had been shutting everyone out then, hardly leaving his apartment as he recuperated from the stresses of the war by himself. He wouldn't see anyone then, not Granger or the Weasleys, and Pansy had been certain that, were he not seeing people he'd known for years, he certainly wouldn't see her. She'd decided to wait, bide her time until he was ready to come out into the public again and act like a normal human being. She'd thought the Order of Merlin ceremony would be her chance. She'd been wrong.
Boobie Ruby cleared her throat, and Pansy snapped out of her recollections to find the curious gaze of both Potter and Boobie focused on her face. She smiled. "What can I get you, miss?"
Pansy glared, feeling slightly satisfied with herself at the slightly fearful look that came over the girl's face. "If you don't want anything—" she started.
"I do," Pansy said harshly. She pointed to the meal she was ordering on the menu, her glare intensifying when Boobie looked at her expectantly.
Boobie looked at Potter, who shrugged, then down at the menu. "The lamb and potato special?" she asked meekly.
"Isn't that what it says?"
Boobie nodded rapidly, writing it hurriedly on her notepad before rushing away.
She turned to find Potter staring at her, and she ignored the questioning look he had in his eyes. "She didn't ask me what I'd like to drink," she said, raising her hand to call the poor girl back.
Potter grabbed her wrist before she could do so, his long, callused fingers enclosing around her wrist as if it were manacle. Her body reacted when he touched her, and she could feel the same heat she remembered beginning to burn in her chest. She glared at him. "What?"
"What's wrong?"
Pansy rolled her eyes. Merlin, this man was stupid. He was so bloody stupid. Hadn't he known anything? Hadn't he known how she felt? Pansy looked away from his eyes, focusing instead on where his hand held her wrist in a vice grip. "Dearest Ruby didn't ask me for my drink order, is what's wrong," she said. She tried to wrench her hand away from him, but he wouldn't let go. Pansy was emotional, but she knew better than to believe that she could pull away from Harry Potter. "Let go."
"Leave Ruby alone. You've terrorized her enough."
"It's hardly my fault she's dreadful at her job," she said.
He rolled his eyes. "No one will ever be good enough for you, Pansy."
The woman opened her mouth to respond, however she suddenly felt as if her was talking about something far different from wait staff. "Good help is impossible to find," she said.
Potter was silent for a moment then said, "That's my point."
"Oh, sod off," she told him.
"Merlin, Pansy," he said, annoyance creeping into his tone. "Why the hell are you so bloody hostile?"
"I was born this way," she stated, allowing his annoyance to fuel her own. It was easy to be hostile and angry with someone when they were treating you the same way, and she glared at Potter for good measure—to make sure that he kept the irritation coming. She wanted to be angry with him and didn't rightly care if he became angry with her in the process. Because she was angry. "You can hardly fault me for it if I just came out this way. That's how some people are. Bad seeds and all that, you know?"
"You were perfectly fine before," he reasoned.
"Forgive me, but you're unabashed flirting with your precious 'gem' Ruby has vanquished any good mood I'd managed to muster for the occasion. But don't look so down, Potter. Now you have the real me, as beautiful and bitchy as the day I was born."
He rolled his eyes. "I wasn't flirting with her."
"Of course not, Potter," she replied. "You don't flirt."
"What?"
"You don't flirt," she repeated. "The girls have made it so easy for you nowadays that all you need to do is look at them and they're thrusting their breasts in your face and dropping their knickers at your feet." She glared at him. "It's nauseating."
"You have no idea what you're talking about."
"Oh, Potter, Potter, Potter—"
"Stop calling me 'Potter'!"
She started at his exclamation, though quickly regained her cool and sent him a dry look. "What shall I call you, then? Mr. Potter?"
"Harry," he said, exasperated.
"God, no."
He sighed. "Pansy, we've known each other for —"
"Oh, don't you dare give me that speech," she said quickly, cutting him off. "Granger gives me that speech, and it only works when I'm highly intoxicated and in a slightly good mood. But you—" She stared at him for a long moment. He was still annoyed, but his expression was open. She sighed. "You are Potter. You will always be Potter. End of story."
He didn't look pleased with her response. "I don't think you want me to be anything else."
"Of course not," she replied, though once again she got the impression that he was talking about something completely different from the matter at hand. And she hated that toying around, that he inserted snippets of a conversation they had yet to have into this one, making her choose her words carefully so they could apply to both situations. He thought he was smart. He seemed to have forgotten how utterly willing she was to go there and just say it. "Do you want me to be anything else?"
"I call you Pansy, don't I?"
Pansy rolled her eyes. He'd ignored her question completely. "You could call me the Queen of bloody England for all I care right now, Potter."
"You're not making sense."
"Well, you're not saying what you mean."
There was a pause. "Why won't you call me Harry?" he asked.
She frowned. Merlin, she hadn't known he was this serious about the name thing. She looked at him curiously. "Why do you want me to?"
He didn't respond immediately, and Pansy totally grilled him, almost as if she was trying to read the answer in his eyes. "Because we're friends," he finally said. His words were slow and precise, as if he'd taken the time to make sure they were exactly what he wanted to say.
Pansy scoffed. "Is that what they call people like us now?"
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Oh, don't play coy, Potter," she said. He could play dumb so well. So well that, were she a stupider girl, she would totally buy it. If she were nicer, she'd probably let him get away with it. But Pansy Parkinson was neither stupid nor nice, and Potter was shit out of luck. "You know exactly what I mean."
He rolled his eyes. "Sorry, I don't speak your kind of 'vague'."
"Oh, so you snog all of your friends, not just me?"
"What?"
"Don't look so shocked," she told him calmly. "What conclusion was I supposed to draw? Because the only way I could only be your friend is if you snog all of them. Not to mention where you fancied putting your hands when—"
"Pansy!"
"Do you touch Weasley that way too?" she asked. "I know he's got different equipment but—" She stopped abruptly, noticing the green tinge to his cheeks. "I'm sorry, Potter. Was that supposed to be a secret?"
"That's revolting, Pansy," he told her. "Ron and I are friends—nothing more."
"But I'm your friend too, right? You touch me like that. Why not Won-Won?"
"Bloody hell, what's wrong with you, Parkinson?"
"Nothing's wrong with me," she said simply. "I'm fine." Fucked-up, insecure, neurotic, and emotional; Potter made her as fine as ever.
"I can't believe you'd say such a thing about me."
"Really?" she said dryly. "Why ever not?"
"You've first-hand experience with my…" He paused, searching for a word, "…masculine proclivities."
Pansy threw her head back and laughed.
"I'm serious!" he said.
She continued to laugh, choking out a strained, "I know."
"You're impossible," he said finally.
"Oh, lighten up," she rejoined. "Masculine proclivities? That was hilarious!"
"I was attempting to be abstract!" he said. "We're in a public setting, and I hardly want everyone in this place to know that I fancied grabbing your—"
There was a pointed ahem from across the room. Pansy and Potter looked at each other, then turned to the direction the interruption had come from. They found an older wizard staring back, a book on his table and his food pushed to the side as he gave the pair a patient look.
Potter hurriedly turned his head, a bright red blush staining his cheeks. Pansy smiled at the man; he tipped his head in her direction and went back to his book.
"I can't believe he heard me," Potter whispered.
"Well, you weren't exactly using your 'inside voice'."
"Still! I almost said—" He broke off abruptly, looking around the café to see if anyone else was staring, "…well, that out loud."
"You did," she agreed, annoyingly cheerful. "You're a bad man, Harry Potter. A bad, bad man."
"How can you be so nonchalant about this?" he asked, flabbergasted. "I thought you cared about what people thought of you…"
Pansy scowled at him, wondering if she should express her displeasure at his blatant crack at her vanity. "I do care," she told him huffily. "I've simply stopped caring about what these people think."
"These people?" he repeated, puzzled.
She smiled depreciatingly. "Potter, there is nothing you can possibly say to make the people in London think less of me."
"What do you mean?"
"Oh, wake up and smell the post-war era, Potter. No one likes me or my family, and they're making sure we know it."
"How?" He didn't sound pleased to hear what she was saying, and Pansy was struck with how foreboding his voice was.
"You're aware of how bad my father's company is doing. No one will do business with him because of what the public thinks it knows about his involvement in the war. I can't shop where I want or dine where I like because shop owners don't want the likes of me in their shops."
"They ask you to leave."
"They tell me to. I've even had problems with this fine establishment." She waved her hand emphatically. "The dear owner wouldn't even allow me to have a cup of tea here."
"Thelma?"
"Yes, Thelma. The woman threatened to call an Auror and everything if I didn't leave."
Potter sighed and looked away from her. "I didn't know things were like that for you."
"They're like that for a lot of people."
He started to contradict her, but Pansy barreled on, telling him that he should've said exactly where he used to put his hands. Boobie Ruby would've heard and told his whole fan club, and even though it was a piece of cake for Potter to hit it and quit it now, he'd have them lined up outside his door after that. Potter told her to grow up, and begged to have his groupies left out of the conversation.
Pansy grinned. "If I started calling you 'Harry,' there'd be no telling me apart from them."
He let out a short, sardonic laugh. "You're definitely not a groupie, Pansy."
"That's what people will think when they see us eating lunch together—that you asked out one of your groupies."
"Why can't they think that you're my friend?" he asked.
Pansy snorted. "Nice boys like you don't have bad girls such as myself as friends."
"I know bad girls," he said. He sounded like a four-year-old telling mummy that he was a big boy and could shower by himself. Pansy smiled.
"Humor me," she said.
"Fine." He paused for a moment, then said, "Marietta Edgecombe."
"Marietta who?"
"Marietta Edgecombe," he repeated. "She was a year above us, in Ravenclaw, and she betrayed that the DA's meeting place was in the Room of Requirement to Umbridge."
Pansy blinked. "Are you serious?"
"What?" he said. "Isn't that bad?"
She rolled eyes in exasperation. "You're ridiculous!"
"Okay, fine," he huffed. He thought for a moment, then snapped her fingers and exclaimed, "The Patils!"
The Patils had opened a 'men's club' somewhere in Dover after they'd all graduated Hogwarts. Only, it wasn't a 'men's club.' It was a brothel, and everyone knew it. The Ministry simply couldn't get the evidence to file charges against them. Padma had been in Ravenclaw, after all.
"Fine," Pansy said. "Give me another."
"But I just gave you two."
"That's hardly enough evidence to prove that you know 'bad girls'," she told him. "You only know two."
"Two requires a plural," he countered.
Pansy shook her head dismissively, tapping her finger on the table. "More."
Potter crossed his arms and looked at her stubbornly. "No," he said.
Pansy grinned "You don't know anymore, do you?"
"Not anymore sluts."
Pansy grinned. "Potter, I daresay that was rude."
"What do you want from me?"
"Exactly what you said you were going to give me: a list of all the bad girls you know."
"But bad isn't the same for you and me. What I think is bad, you think is child's play."
"Says something about your categorization skills, doesn't?"
"No," he countered, "it says something about yours. I don't think you're bad."
"Really?" she said. "Why ever not?"
"Because you're not. You're whiney and a bit of a shrew, and you can be a bit… mischievous—" She laughed. "—and have a tendency to mock people, but—"
"I don't think I can take anymore, Potter," she said, cutting him off.
"But I'm getting to the good part."
"There is no good part."
He opened his mouth to say argue however soon shut it, choosing instead to frown. "Fine," he said, "you aren't good."
"I'm not."
"Fine."
"You said that already."
"So what?" He frowned.
There were silent for a moment.
"You're upset," she said.
"I'm not."
Pansy rolled her eyes. "God, Potter, you're such a girl."
"Shove off."
"You act like Granger," she remarked.
"Yeah, well, you act like Malfoy."
"I don't act like Draco," she said incredulously. "You do."
"What?"
She leaned back in her seat, eying him nonchalantly from across the table. "I'll be the first to say," she said, "that Draco's a changed man from the boy I dated in Hogwarts, and he doesn't engage in the same romantic behavior anymore, however I find myself thinking that you may have acquired it when he gave it up."
"And what's this behavior?"
She smiled wanly. "You both cheat on your girlfriends."
- - - - - - - - -