"...to youuuuuu!"
Pansy blew out her birthday candles and offered her friends a tight smile to say that she wasn't entirely ungrateful for the effort they put in on her birthday this year. She had been extremely against acknowledging that she added another year to her age but Hermione Granger--sorry, Malfoy, insisted that it was important for her to celebrate herself even in the littlest of ways. Pansy had no qualms with Draco's wife but Merlin bless her little heart, the witch could be pushy. Still, she explicitly said a small, intimate gathering and if she extracted her memories right now, she could shove the Malfoys' faces in the pensieve to show them the exact moment she says this.
But Draco Malfoy never did anything small and, by the time she realized what his interpretation of a small and intimate event was, it was already too late.
"This is small and intimate," the blonde argues with her.
"In what world does a small and intimate gathering include six ice sculptures of winged horses and eighty fucking guests?" The Slytherin witch was losing her mind at how out of touch Draco could be sometimes.
"It's less than a hundred guests and I didn't even get the full set of twelve ice sculptures!" Draco says defensively. At this point Pansy lets out a strangled sound of frustration before walking away from the Slytherin blonde.
Pansy takes this time to duck out of the crowd's grasp while their attention was somewhere else and slips away to the Parkinson gardens where she sits herself at the bottom of the stairs so that anyone who looks outside wouldn't see her at first glance. She sips her champagne that all but lost most of its bubbles.
A year had passed since that fateful night that she finally had the courage to up and leave Adrian but she didn't seem anywhere near close to feeling normal again. She had allowed herself a month to grieve which she followed by months of just throwing herself back to work and drowning her demons with timecards and numbers.
"That's not healthy," Hermione Granger would tell her, "You can't just sweep this under the rug and pretend it isn't happening"
She was probably right of course--as she usually was, but Pansy was too stubborn to acknowledge how badly Adrian had wounded her. Name one witch that does want to admit that her husband didn't love her for the past five years when she thought he did. He's made a fool out of her and she didn't want to give him the satisfaction of seeing her lick her wounds while he went on with his life as if nothing had happened.
She worked as an assistant for her father. Hadrian Parkinson forced her to work for the family company to 'keep her in line' as if it was her fault as to why her marriage fell apart. The fact that he was blaming her for her failed marriage should tell one enough on what a massive bastard her father was.
That was another thing that depressed her to no end. The antiquated pureblood traditions and values that her father and his generation seemed to keep alive. Sure, there was a time that she believed in those things but she didn't think her father would support those traditions over his own daughter who had just been broken and humiliated by her husband.
Divorce was almost entirely unheard of in Pureblood societies. Their marriages are business transactions rather than actual relationships. The old crones of her father's circle never failed to tell her how she failed to be a proper pureblood wife as she was supposed to take care and nourish their union. It was also a proper pureblood wife's duty to be patient and forgiving to her husband. Pansy mouthed off and asked what a proper pureblood husband was supposed to do then. She was only met with disapproving clucks and noses in the air.
Pansy couldn't believe she was saying it, but she never hated being a pureblood more. Her Aunt Myrna even went as far as telling her that she probably wasn't satisfying him in their marital bed and that it was her fault that he went out looking for someone else to warm it. So much for having strong women role models in her family. With all due respect--and there is very little respect to be had, her Aunt Myrna can go fuck herself.
She wondered how she could have gotten Adrian so wrong. She blamed all those stories about princesses and prince charmings and love that her mother would tell her at night. It made her believe in romance and happy ever afters. In her defense, Adrian was wonderful at the beginning--he had to be to have charmed her, she convinces herself. He doted on her and made her feel special and Pansy, like a fool, fell in love. She should've seen it coming. Adrian was a Pucey, which meant he was another pureblood with pureblood ideologies. She should have known that this wasn't love for him. But she was hopeful that theirs was one for the books, that she'd have the romance she'd been dreaming of.
Reality was a bitch of course and instead of happily ever afters what she got was a growing pile of divorce proceedings and disappointment. Pansy was well and ready to just sign away their marriage on Adrian's terms, just wanting let go and put him behind her. But Adrian had to do the fucker thing and announce his engagement to another witch just six months after she left him. She couldn't even function let alone feel anything past her pain and he was going off getting engaged to someone else. If that wasn't just the biggest fuck you. Pansy just about broke every window in the Parkinson manor that day. Her mother scolded her to keep her temper--and magic, in control. Well, fuck you too, Pansy says as she ripped out the contract he had handed to her. She makes the decision then to bleed him out for everything he's got.
The funny thing was, she would have let him walk away quietly with his demands. She was just emotionally vulnerable enough to give up without a fight. All he had to do was be a decent fucking person. In the end, he didn't deserve her mercy. Now, she couldn't let him go on with his life thinking that he could get away with what he did--messing with a Parkinson no less! She had to teach him consequences.
"I'm guessing this was not the birthday you were hoping for," someone says as they sit beside her. Pansy glances at her new companion. She watches Harry Potter settles himself down, holding two glasses of champagne. He gives her one as he sips the other. Pansy waves her hand and vanished her emptied one back to the kitchens.
"Unless your gift is Adrian's head on a silver plate, then no, it is not," She tells him.
"Mmm, I don't think we're at that point of our friendship where I would go to Azkaban or wizard hell for you," he grins at her.
Somewhere between him finding her in Draco's doorsteps and him finding her here, she had developed a soft spot for the Gryffindor war hero.. Sure she had been in contact with him multiple times in the past, increasingly so when Draco and Hermione had gotten married, but it wasn't anything beyond saying hello or talking about the weather or some other bullshit drivel the two of them could think of. In truth, she barely ever spoke to him unless they accidentally found themselves in close enough proximity. So when she shows up on Draco's doorstep and sees him, yes, sure it wasn't like she expected him to toss her out in the rain, but she also hadn't expected her to react the way he did.
She didn't expect him to hold her for as long as he did, or lead her in the house and dry her up from being soaked in the cold London rain. Nor did she expect him to tuck her into the guest bedroom and hold her hand until Draco came home to take over. No, she didn't expect that from him at all. It confused her to no end, until Draco finally explains it her.
"Because he's actually a decent person unlike us degenarates," Draco tell her, "Saint fucking Potter, remember?" But this time the Slytherin blonde didn't say it with irony like he usually had.
Whatever inspired him to treat her like a real friend that night, she was immensely grateful. It certainly helped her warm up to him during the year. The fact the she and Potter even found a friendship after that floored her. She hadn't expected him to stick around during the hell she was going through the past year. The few handful times she'd bump into him at Draco's house gave them an opportunity to speak to each other beyond simple pleasantries. She had found that he was quite easy to talk to.
She also found that she actively preferred to hang out with him. Not only was he one of the few people in Pansy's life who still wasn't married or has kids or is in a happy, stable relationship, he was also the only one who seemed to spare her from the toxic positivity people seem defaulted to when they spoke to her. He made her feel normal instead of a social anomaly.
Draco and Hermione were great, but Pansy third-wheeling the couple, and being around their wonderful, enviable relationship while hers was self-destructing spectacularly didn't exactly make for ideal company at the moment.
"Potter you wound me. I thought our friendship was better than that," Pansy feigns insult before she eyes the crowd in the manor disdainfully, "If one more person offers me pity, I'm going to scream. How am I supposed to move on if they keep trying to shove it up my face every few minutes,"
Harry shrugs, "Scream anyway, that'll show them."
"I think they've had enough theatrics out of me," Pansy laughs before throwing her head up to look at the sky, "Fuck birthdays, I hate getting old,"
"You're only 28," he reminds her how dramatic she's being.
"Exactly. Old," Pansy says as she blows a stray hair out of her face, "28 divorcé, living back with her parents, working a desk job for her father--I might as well carve loser on my forehead at this point."
"As much as I would love to see that," Harry laughs, "I'd advise against it"
"You are such an ass," she laughs with him as she downs the last of her champagne and vanishes it away, "Not to mention, that growing fear that I might actually die alone. I went out on a blind date that Daphne set up last month, and I don't know if it's because I'm less of an idiot now, but fuck that date was depressing. If that date is any indication of what's in store for me, my future looks bleak."
"Don't lose hope yet, you haven't even met the real weirdos out there," Harry shudders as he remembers his own run-ins with post-long term relationship dating, "I still have nightmares about the dates I've been on after...you know, the whole Ginny thing. This one girl, seemed lovely enough--nice laugh, nice smile, you know, just nice. Turns out she has a shrine of me in her closet. I would have preferred it if she just turned out to be a serial killer to be honest. At least that knew how to deal with"
Pansy eyes the war hero curiously. The whole Ginny thing, and yes that was a whole thing that the entire wizarding world tuned into. Pansy never pried but when he occasionally brings it up, she listens. So she was a gossip at heart, sue her. She's been trying to piece it together in her head if only to satisfy her curiosity.
Two years after they graduated Hogwarts, Harry Potter and Ginevra Weasley get engaged--or so the Prophet says. The wedding was to happen that same year and Harry being who he was, was getting more media coverage than he would have liked. So they day comes, and the flowers, the band and the guests all arrive. The entourage is all lined up, the officiant in place, and Harry was waiting for his bride at the end of the aisle. Except, Ginny Weasley never comes. Only one frantic Molly Weasley bursts through the door to tell her that the bride wasn't going to come.
Pansy even remembers feeling sorry for him at that time. The media shitstorm that ensued afterwards was a bloodbath. They had all been less than tactful reporting about his failed wedding and they even went as far as to unearthing details of his sordid past just to try to make the story more grab worthy from the stands. He quits being an auror two years after that--as announced yet again by the Prophet, then he just disappears from public eye. Gossip columns from the Witch Weekly tried to keep the story alive but without the actual war hero to supply them with more fuel, the news about him just sputters out.
"Hey Potter, I know it's been seven years already since the, er, whole Weasley thing, as you put it--," Pansy says carefully
"I love how I told you that there is a woman out there with a shrine of me in her closet, and the Ginny thing is what you choose to hear" he shakes his head at her.
She slaps his shoulder with the back of her hand as they share another laugh, "Be seriously. I have a serious question"
"Fine what's your serious question?" He humors her.
Pansy settles down and takes a deep breath, "I just want to know, since it's been so long. Does it get better?,"
The question catches Harry off-guard and his face falls, his eyes moving towards the glass in his hands. He taps it with his index finger for a while as he thinks of an answer. He looks at her again when he speaks, "It does get better, I can actually honestly say that," then he swallows, "But it will never be the same again. Things...fade"
Pansy stares back at him, she doesn't know why she was holding her breath. She thinks it was because she just preparing herself for what her future might hold for her. She lets her breath out slowly after what seemed like ages, "Will it still hurt as much?"
"No," he finally says after a long time, "But it will linger, for a long time if not forever. Just an unexplainable dull ache inside of you. And you'll learn to live with it because...well, you have to. That's just part of being alive, I guess"
Pansy shoulders sag as Harry tells her these things and she gives him a pained look, "Potter. That is literally the most depressing fucking thing I have ever heard,"
Behind them a burst of laughter and cheering grabs their attention and the two look back at the same time. Draco had wiped cake frosting on Hermione's face and was now kissing away the icing on her lips. The crows hoots and whistles while Hermione laughs and tries to push off her husband.
"Those two disgust me," Pansy says dryly with no hint of malice in her voice, "The audacity really, on my own birthday party"
"How dare they rub their perfect relationship on us," Harry nods with agreement and the two burst out laughing, relieved at the distraction their friends offered.
When Harry sobers up he says, "I honestly thought those two wouldn't last because you know, he's Draco Malfoy and she's Hermione Granger."
Pansy snorts, "Like water and oil"
"Joke's on us right?" Then he sighs, "Merlin, I got a lot of things wrong"
"We both did, didn't we?" Pansy says amusedly. After a beat she waves her hand and produces another glass of wine in her hand, "Here's to getting shit wrong, Potter"
The war hero brighten up and brings up his glass as well, "And to eventually getting them right,"
Their glasses clink together and Pansy hoped that would be enough to ring some good luck into her year.
A/N: Okay so I actually already know the ending to this fic. When I wrote this/thought it up, I had the beginning and the end. I have no idea what the middle has in store. Hopefully the more I write this fic, the closer I get to writing the last chapter to my other fic (so close yet so far).