A/N: THANK YOU ALL again so much for reading and reviewing! This is the last chapter of back story, which takes us up to the original one shot. The epilogue has been written and will be posted soon!

I

"You should add me to your wards," Harry exhaled as he lay panting next to Pansy on her bed, backs flat and touching arm to arm.

"Why the fuck would I do that?" Pansy said as she looked over at him with a raised eyebrow.

"So I don't have to wait on your steps in the rain next time, like some poor lost puppy," Harry replied innocently.

"It's not like the rain messed up your fur at all," she told him, threading her fingers into his locks.

"Hey!" he said, twisting carefully on his side to face her.

"Besides, who says I want you waiting for me, anyway? And," she cut off, pulling his head toward hers to kiss him, tongue swirling around his. "Next time might be sooner than you think," she said as she broke away to rise up and straddle his thighs.

II

The crowd crushed forward toward the stage and Pansy was swept up in the wave of movement, separating her from her friends. Purple and gold lights flashed around the room, slashing across faces and arms and backs as the sounds of the magically amplified Weird Sisters jettisoned around the large room. It had been a while since Pansy had been at a concert and she was ecstatically absorbing the energy, moving her body in time to the beat, loving losing herself in the heat of the bodies pressing together.

The stage lights darkened for a few brief moments as the song ended and Pansy felt someone grab ahold of her arm to lead her away from the front of the stage. Callused fingertips dug into her arm and the familiar spicy and sweet smell of their owner calmed the spike of anger she felt at being moved. In its place remained a curious mix of annoyance and desire.

Harry led her to the shadows in the back corner of the venue. As he pressed his body against hers into the wall, she could hear him casting a notice-me-not charm and Muffliato before moving his lips to her neck.

"You look amazing out there," he said into her ear, tongue tracing the shell before teasing the lobe until Pansy moaned breathily in response.

Her hands were under the seam of his t-shirt, scratching scarlet nails over the back made muscular by countless hours of dueling, until she threaded her fingers through the loops of his muggle jeans to grind his hips into hers.

"I didn't even see you," she told him, losing herself in the sensation of hands creeping under the hem of her skirt, up the sides of her thighs and around to cup her bare arse under the leather.

"Here or somewhere else?" he exhaled before claiming her lips with his.

Their kiss took on a life of its own, clashing tongues and wandering hands and the grind of crotch against straddled thigh.

Pansy broke away, looking up into Harry's eyes. "Your place is closer," punctuating her words by running her tongue across his bottom lip. "And I really need to fuck you. Let's go."

III

"So who's your date?" Harry asked, emerging from the shadowed entrance to the balcony at Malfoy Manor where Pansy stood alone in the moonlight. The bright moon over the gardens below provided a quiet vista, contrasting to the bright colors and loud sounds of the charity ball inside.

"Why do you care?" Pansy asked without turning to face him.

"I don't," Harry replied. "Didn't recognize him, is all," he said out to the lawn, each of them avoiding the other's gaze.

"Right," she said, pulling the cigarette she held loosely up to her lips, her exhale propelling the smoke out into the moonlight. "Ginevra looks lovely tonight, if you don't mind how her hair clashes with everything. I'm sure you're enjoying yourself."

A breeze ruffled the flowing sheer layers of the train of Pansy's gown around her stilettos, catching Harry's attention and he shifted to lean his back against the stone rail of the balcony. "You know she's engaged to Oliver now. I'm only escorting her while he's training the Spanish national team in Barcelona for the month."

"Uh-huh. You tell that to her tits?" Pansy took another drag.

This isn't me, she thought.

A smirk bloomed across Harry's lips. Reaching over, he plucked the cigarette from her fingers and took a deep drag of his own before dropping the butt on the marble and crushing it with the ball of his foot. His eyes met Pansy's for the first time that evening and he stepped closer and closer until he had fully invaded her space.

He raised his hands and ghosted his fingertips through the soft waves of black hair longer than he remembered it being, down over her bare shoulders and along the deep plunge of the front of her dress.

"Hmmm," Harry hummed in her ear as his thumbs drifted over the exposed sides of her breasts. "Better be careful, love, or I'll start to think you're jealous."

"Fuck off, Harry," she shot out.

"Fuck off or fuck you?" Harry said as his lips followed the trails blazed by his fingertips.

"Marco will be looking for me, you arse," she said, but the vitriol of her statement was lost in the way her neck fell open to his lips.

"Marco, is it?" Harry asked, teeth joining lips in staining her neck with his attention.

Pansy sighed as her fingers reached into the front of Harry's dress robes, tracing his cock through the fabric of his trousers, as his lips and fingers continued to tease her chest.

"He's just some creep from the continent my mother set me up with, in hopes of marrying me off," she admitted, unhooking his belt and unfastening his trousers, releasing his pulsing cock into the night air. She stepped back from Harry and turned to grip the balcony rail, first sweeping the skirt of her dress apart at one of the high slits, revealing her arse to him. Heels positioning her at just the right height for him to enter her at a perfect angle, she gasped and pushed back into him as he did. Hands dug into her hips as his pistoned at a delicious pace.

"And you," she gasped, "you're just the guy I fuck."

IV

She wrote and rewrote the note five times before attaching it to McQueen's leg and sending him on his way. Maybe someday she would regret getting such an unusual looking owl, all reds and browns and golds, but she really hadn't been able to help herself. She watched the handsome creature disappear into the dark of the night sky.

She decided to distract herself from waiting for a reply by going through her closet. She pulled dresses and blouses and skirts and robes from hangers and inspected them with a critical eye, tossing those that no longer suited in a pile on her floor. It felt a little like shedding old skin.

She returned a black dress she'd never worn to her closet as she heard a tapping on her bedroom window. She opened it to let in McQueen, nuzzling him as she removed the note from his leg.

And I'll scratch it. Come over, the scrawl said.

Leaving the discarded clothes scattered on the floor of her room, Pansy stopped by her bathroom. She glanced at the blush of her oversized sweater, falling artfully off of her shoulder, and ran her fingers through her hair, but did not meet her eyes in the glass. She didn't want to see what was in the eyes of the woman who would be gazing back at her.

She pulled on her boots, adjusted her thigh-high knit socks and thought of the top of the stairs outside of Grimmauld Place to apparate.

Pansy wasn't sure if it was the rush of apparating or the anticipation of what she hoped was coming, but her stomach thrummed as she stood at the edge of the orange glow of the street lamps, waiting for her knock to be answered. Impatient, she reached up to knock again but her fist missed the door as it opened.

"Hey," Harry said, pulling the door open further to grant Pansy entry. "Cute," he smirked as his eyes followed her exposed shoulder to the hem of her sweater grazing the bare skin of her thighs above her socks. He grabbed her hand leading her down the dark hallway. "I've got a fire in the drawing room."

"Decided to finally burn the old dump down?" she joked. The shadows overtook the muscles of his bare back as she followed him, muggle jeans worn in places and hanging low from his hips. She noticed his feet were bare and she liked it.

Harry ignored her and she followed him into the drawing room, which was dark except for the flickering light of the fire at the other end of the room. An empty snifter and a thin book sat on a tray on the floor near the hearth, and a thick blanket covered the antique rug. "Having a romantic evening to yourself?" Pansy asked him.

"Just reading," he told her, and pulled her down on the blanket beside him. "Turns out I like to when I don't have to do it for school. The night is getting more interesting as it goes on, though." He unzipped her boots and pulled them off, setting them beside the blanket, before toying with the hem of her sweater. "So you have an itch?" he asked, his voice husky and breathy by her ear.

Her, "yes" came out in a near-pant. She would have been barely able to stand the way she sounded had she been listening, thinking, but she wasn't listening or thinking. The roar of her heart over the fire drowned out everything except for the man in front of her and she decided to drown in him for the moment, at least. His fingers found her, wet and ready for him already, and he teased her, drawing gasps and delighted moans.

"Why are you so fucking good at this?" she whimpered. He pulled the sweater over her head, leaving her in her thigh high socks, before moving to pull off his jeans.

"I'm glad you think so," he whispered as he entered her. "Oh, Merlin, Pansy." Lips and fingers flicked at her nipples as she ground her hips into his.

"Harder...faster...more, Harry, more," she begged until he obliged her, over and over until they crested into oblivion.

When the sweat cooled their skin, he pulled her in close and threaded his legs through hers. "Don't go yet," he yawned. "Just a few more minutes," as his fingers traced a pattern along her hips and back.

This isn't me, her brain tried to scream, but she was overcome and quickly fell asleep.

V

Three a.m. and the fire had died in front of them. Harry's breathing was even and smooth, and she delicately twisted away. The moon offered slight light from the windows as she found her sweater and picked up her boots.

Stay.

Fucking go.

Stay.

Fucking get out of here as soon as possible.

He hadn't told her to leave. But she didn't know what would happen if she stayed and did not think she was at all ready to find out. She carried her shoes through the dark hallway, back to the main door, and slipped out as quietly as she could. Six stairs in the cool night and she was apparating home, without a second look to the window where a bare chested figure looked around the heavy curtains flanking the sides of the window to watch her leave.

VI

The tapping on the window of Pansy's flat distracted her from her study of the History of the Wizengamot. Ugh, this must be what it feels like to be Granger, she thought to herself. She placed a scrap of parchment in her place and sighed in the direction of her cooled cup of tea. Early evening was an odd time to receive an owl, and Pansy frowned as she unlocked her window. A Ministry owl flew in, holding out its leg impatiently so she could detach the small roll of parchment. It threw McQueen a look as he sat on his perch, picked up a treat from the bowl on the sill as it departed her window and she was left to read her mail.

The scratchy scrawl indicated the author as much as the vague signature of, '-H.'

There was a raid today. We lost Johnson. I need you. I'll be by soon.

Moments later, Pansy felt Harry enter her wards. Her door opened and he stood in the entry, dirty and subdued, with a bandage crossing his forehead.

"Harry! Are you okay? What happened?" she exclaimed, rushing towards him, adrenaline leaving a pit of dread and worry in her stomach, only slightly tempered by the relief at seeing him basically unharmed.

This isn't me.

"Ambush," he said, crossing the threshold and pushing the door closed behind him. Pansy met him and began pulling Harry's tattered auror robes from his shoulders, dropping them behind him on the floor. He started to tremble. Pansy gathered him into her arms and held tight as trembles turned to shakes, the uninjured side of Harry's forehead pressed tightly into the crook of her neck.

Yes.

No, this isn't me.

Yes, the war raged inside of her.

"I shouldn't dump this on you," he said into her throat.

"Don't worry about it. I was just reading," she said, as she pulled him into her bedroom and towards the bathroom.

"Reading? Are you feeling okay?" he said as a small smile danced across his lips. Their eyes met in the vanity mirror as she went about gathering towels from the cupboard.

"I see the head injury has improved your sense of humor as well as your hair," she mocked. A flick of her wand and the spray of the shower began, and Pansy made quick work of removing Harry's other clothes. "How bad is it? Can you safely get it wet?" she asked, running her fingers near the bandage on his forehead.

"Just a scratch, really. I got in the way of a stray splicing hex, but it should be mostly healed by now," he told her. "You can take it off," he said, and Pansy carefully pulled away the bandage.

"You're right, not too bad," she told him, inspecting the scratch remaining, "and that's good, because the nest you call hair is absolutely filthy, just perfect for small rodents to call home, I'd think."

"Very funny," he told her. "Not even a head injury can keep you from insulting my hair," he said, stepping into her shower. She watched through the gradually fogging glass as the water ran in dirty rivulets down his body.

"Can you wash my back?" he asked suggestively. "With my injury, I'm worried I'll collapse under the strain."

"Oh, yes, I'm so worried about you falling down in my shower," she said, but pulled Malfoy's old quidditch shirt over her head anyway.

Harry brushed away the fog from the glass. "Knickers? You actually own knickers?" he said as he eyed her, standing topless in the steamy bathroom, arse covered in lacy black knickers. "Seriously? Maybe I really did hurt my head."

"Shut up, you arse. You don't know everything about me," she said as she made a show of dragging them down seductively past hips and legs. "Time to get you clean, if that's even possible, so we can fuck away your awful day." And she entered the steamy glass enclosure and got to work.

VII

Pansy braced herself on the wall outside the Ministry of Magic. She folded her arms to distract her hands, which longed to hold a cigarette, to put it to her lips.

She didn't smoke anymore.

She'd come outside for air, a moment of peace. The ceremony swearing her in as the newest member of the Wizengamot had gone well. No one had protested, which relieved the uncharacteristic voice in her head that had been quietly nagging her for several days.

Her arms were bare and the early spring day was cool and she drifted further from the side of the building into the sun. She looked good, she knew, in an Alexander McQueen dress that suited her, a structured dress that twisted a starched business collar and structure with edgy lace and embroidery and fun.

She felt good, too, confident and ready to take on the new challenge of her position. She'd been reading and studying; opinions formed and positions taken, she was ready. Pansy anticipated the feeling of proving so many people wrong about what she was accomplishing, of proving herself right.

As she found herself slowly wandering the streets around the Ministry, she thought of the one person who she was starting to believe she didn't need to prove anything to, though that new nagging voice told her that maybe that was wishful thinking. Harry had come, ostensibly to represent the Auror department at the ceremony, but Pansy wondered if he had really come for her.

He'd grasped her hand in the reception line, as she stood next to the Chief of the Wizengamot, and called her by name, her first name, not her last name, deviating from their normal public custom. He'd congratulated her, gripped her hand in his, fingers twisting against her palm in a private message undetectable by those around them. With a quick drop of his head near her ear, had murmured that he was so proud of her. That she looked so beautiful. "Time to kick some arse," was his parting statement to her, spoken louder for the benefit of those around them.

Pansy felt she didn't know how to read him anymore. She knew that she was feeling things, feeling things she wasn't sure she ever wanted to feel. It was hard enough recognizing those feelings in herself and she had started to worry she was projecting all of her longing for something more than regular fucking and irregular friendship onto Harry, giving her hope.

Oh, but the thought of admitting her feelings, the thought of losing him, made Pansy's feet beat down on the pavement faster. Easier and better to give into her mother's grossly inappropriate matchmaking, she thought, than destroy her heart, though the voice again wondered if the former would get her to the latter anyway.

This isn't me.

She desperately wanted to smoke.

But she still didn't.

Pansy turned the corner and realized she wasn't far from where she'd started, and went to head back inside the Ministry, to her new office. She had meetings, and new work to begin, and a heart she felt desperately determined to protect.

This just isn't me.

VIII

Pansy paced outside of Auror Headquarters at the Ministry. She had spent the better part of the afternoon meeting with the Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot in her chambers, and the better part of the evening organizing her new office. The corridors were dark at the late hour, though lights shown from within the Auror offices, and Pansy warred with herself over entering.

She knew Harry was likely inside, finalizing paperwork or just avoiding the empty, rattling dark expanse of Grimmauld Place. She wanted to enter, grab his hand, and pull him out for late takeaway eaten in bed. She longed to wrap herself in him, to release the pressure that had been building in her as she took on these new responsibilities, to do the same for him as he planned mission after mission.

Pausing before the door, she held out a hand to grasp the knob, but stopped. Footsteps echoed from within and she backed away from the door, movements as swift and as nonchalant as she could make them. The glass handle twisted, followed by the appearance of a redhead in Auror robes.

"Oi, Parkinson. Here to turn yourself in?" Ron asked with a smirk.

"Fuck off, Weasel," Pansy said with a pivot of her smart heels. "The last one of us to be drunk and disorderly was you. I saw you out last weekend. Who knew Granger could screech that piercingly? Well, apart from you, I suppose. Or did you? Oh, Merlin, I bet you didn't."

Ron flushed furiously. "Fuck off, Pansy."

"The pleasure's all mine, as always," she retorted as she walked away.

Maybe tomorrow.

This isn't me.

Maybe tomorrow.