Disclaimer: I by no means own any of the characters, names, or places used herein, all of these are copyright the dear J.K. Rowling. Rated M for language, suggestive content, and possible future naughtiness.

A/N: Edited 01/07/16 to fix minor spelling/grammar mistakes.

Chapter Two

He stood up, and picked up their glasses, the bottle of scotch and tumbler of martini. He deftly put them on the serving tray that the blonde waitress handed him without his asking and balanced them on one hand. "Shall we?" He indicated a hallway leading to a heavy wood door.

Pansy nodded. "Sure, why not live a little?" She stood, and tugged down on her dress where it had ridden up while sitting, smoothing any wrinkles out of the soft fabric.. She picked up her purse and tucked it under her arm, and started walking. Unconsciously, her gait became a slow strut as she walked ahead of him to the door. When they reached it, she looked demurely over her shoulder at him. He reached over with his wand and waved the door open, then held it for her. Behind the door was a small office and a spiral metal staircase. "Up the stairs. I promise I won't sneak a look up your dress," he chuckled.

"As if you could stop yourself, Potter. I have fantastic legs." She started up the staircase, her contrariness causing her to climb quickly. She stepped off the top step to another door, which opened in response to a word from below her. She stepped through the door and stopped. The entire upper floor of the building stretched out in front of her, an austere but tastefully decorated, open plan flat. A kitchen made up the area to her left, in front of her was a small dining table with chairs, and beyond that was a couple of chairs and a sofa, all distressed leather. A translucent glass wall framed one corner, the only wall she could see inside the apartment. Everything was done in dark wood colors with occasional bright splotches of color. A vase here, a painting on the wall here, silver trim glinting in the soft light...

"I AM carrying our drinks, you know," Harry spoke from behind her, snapping her out of the spell she'd found herself in. She quickly stepped away from the door and he walked through and set the tray on the bar by the kitchen. "My humble abode," he said, bowing and sweeping an arm around. He blushed slightly. "Sorry for any mess. I haven't really had much time to clean lately." He flicked his wand at a dark area off to the right, and she caught a glimpse of a sock as it disappeared into a closet.

"You live here?" she said, incredulous. "I guess you didn't go off to live the life of the lush after all. Nice place….bit sparse, but that...actually suits you, I think." She almost, but not quite stumbled over the words.

"Thanks," he said as he walked into the kitchen and opened the fridge. He started pulling out various ingredients, laying them out in a row on the counter. He reached into a cabinet and pulled out a stack of small bowls, laying them out in a row also. "What are you doing?" she asked. "Cooking," he responded. "Do you like Asian food?" She nodded mutely. Harry Potter, the Golden Boy, was cooking. And not with magic, she realized, as he finished washing off vegetables and pulled out a very sharp-looking chef's knife. She watched, fascinated as he quickly and efficiently chopped and diced things, sliding the chopped pieces off the knife blade into the small bowls. She blinked, shook herself out of the daze, again, what on earth was getting to her like this? She grabbed her glass and took a deep pull from it, then refilled it from the tumbler and sat down on a stool to watch Harry cook.

"Cook this dish often, do you?" She asked, since he had no recipe book open. "Nope, first time!" he said as he deftly peeled some prawns and flicked the tails into a trash bin with the tip of his knife. He stopped, and looked up. "Do you...are you allergic to anything? Shellfish, peanuts?" She shook her head again, not sure she could find the voice to talk right now. She had come here with a purpose, but now she was confused. She pulled her purse up to the counter by her and pulled her phone out. She sent another text, getting an almost immediate response. She sent her own reply, hitting the buttons on the screen a little forcefully, then caught Harry looking at her. She felt a flush creep up her neck and turned the phone off and tossed it in her bag. "There. No more interruptions, promise. But...why are you doing this? And why do you live over a crappy Muggle bar?"

"He lives upstairs over the bar. Nice flat. We're talking. I'll update you when I can." She sent. The response came back and she knew Ron had sent it, not Hermione. "OI YOU SLUTTHERIN you better not be shagging him! We're coming in!" She responded quickly, "NO. One, I am not. Two, I told you, SOMETHING IS NOT RIGHT HERE. Let me find out what's going on. Turning phone off. STAY IN THE HOTEL."

Harry shrugged as he went back to preparing the ingredients. "I like to cook. It focuses me and it's nice to create something, instead of destroying it. And I actually enjoy cooking by hand much more than by magic. It helps settle me. I do as little magic as possible nowadays. As for this 'crappy Muggle bar', I'm sure you can find better ways to insult me. I worked hard on that place." He turned away from her, and grabbed a pan. Setting it on the stove and flicking the knob to light the gas, he missed her mouth dropping open. She quickly closed it, as looking like a fish was not becoming. "Wait, you OWN the bar?"

Harry nodded. "Entire building, actually." He added some oil to the pan and swirled it around. "Bar downstairs on this side, other side is a small hotel. The bar's kitchen serves food for both the bar and the hotel's room service." He looked over at her astounded face and grinned. It was the first full smile she had seen on her face since she'd found him at the bar. It was honest and open.

"No, no Pansy," she thought to herself, "you are NOT going to fall for Harry Freakin' Potter. No matter how cute that smile is. Or that he can cook. Or that he owns a BUILDING and serves top shelf liquor. No no no."

Harry began tossing ingredients into the pan. The sizzling sounds jerked her out of her thoughts, only for her to lose herself in his motions. First into the pan went the onions and carrots, and he expertly flipped them up and around in the pan. The motion of the pan never stopped as he continued to add different things over the next few minutes. Amazing aromas started tickling at her nose, ginger and onion and something spicy she couldn't quite identify. The aromas began to fuse together into something she knew, before even trying it, was going to be the best meal she'd ever tasted. And she wasn't sure how she felt about that. "Parkinson, grab some plates from the cabinet over there?" Harry asked. "Parkinson?"

"This is not the Harry I came here to find. He's supposed to be possessed or or Imperiused or a captive somewhere, not living a happy bachelor life over a bar in a building he owns. What in Merlin's name is going on here?" So lost in her thought and watching him cook she didn't hear him call her name several times.

"PANSY!" the shout of her name brought her back out of her mental tangent again. That was more times in the last hour than she'd gotten lost in thought over the last year. But Harry was looking at her concernedly. "Where'd you go? Geeze, Pansy, if you don't want to get some plates that's fine, but this is going to burn."

She blushed again, "Sorry, I was lost in thought."

Wait, had he called her Pansy? He never called her Pansy.

"Where are the plates?" Harry pointed, and she walked over and pulled two from the cabinet, setting them down on bar. "Silverware?" she asked.

"Top drawer just to your right, there," he indicated with a hip as he turned from the stove with the pan full of their dinner, and dished it out on the plates, then set the pan back on an unused burner. Carefully checking that the stove was off, he turned and picked up the plates, carrying them over to the dining table. Pansy followed with silverware and napkins she'd found on the counter, and Harry brought their drinks over. "Sit, enjoy," he said, as he followed his own advice.

Pansy looked down at the plate of colorful food. It smelled incredible, and she just knew it was going to taste even better. She almost didn't want to eat it in case she was wrong. Or more so in case she was right. She looked at him carefully, and then took a careful bite. She held it in her mouth for a minute as she chewed, and then swallowed. "Merlin's left nut, Harry! This is amazing!" He blushed, and grinned, and she realized she'd just called him Harry, not Potter.

This was so not going how she intended it. But, all the same, she was starting to feel ok about that.

She made short work of the food, and as she scraped up the last bits of sauce with the last piece of prawn, she stopped, and looked at him. "Wait. When did you make a sauce?" He just grinned back at her. Harry stood, picked up their plates and carried them into the kitchen, placing them in the sink. He refilled their glasses and walked over to the couch. He took his wand out and waved it at the fireplace, and sat down as the flames rose up and crackled.

She stood from her chair and looked around the apartment again. Everything was still the same, but the more she looked, the more insight she had into the man that Harry Potter had become. She had to admit to herself, this is not what she had expected to find. She realized he had taken her glass to the couch with him, so she tugged her dress down again and walked over. She stumbled a bit as she stepped onto the thick rug that formed the sitting area, so she leaned on the end of the couch, lifting first one foot, then the other, slipping off the high heels and set them down on the floor along with her purse. She walked over and stood in front of the fireplace to let the warmth sink into her skin, and her attention was caught by something on the mantlepiece. Robbed of the height advantage the heels gave her, she stood on her tiptoes to see what it was.

"This rug has to be worth a thousand pounds," she thought. "The furniture is high quality too, but he doesn't have much expensive art and he's certainly not wearing expensive clothes. For all that I know he's rich, he's obviously careful about what he spends the money on.

"It's a piece of the basilisk's jaw, from the chamber of secrets at Hogwarts," Harry said, as he appraised her slender form outlined by the firelight. He didn't know why, but his former enemy had intrigued him tonight. She had been alternately dismissive and engaging, and he wasn't sure what she was up to. "About five and a half feet," the smartass part of his brain said. He smiled. He wasn't as tall as most wizards were, so he did tend to gravitate for the shorter girls lately.

"Stop staring at my ass, Potter," she said, feeling his gaze on her. "I mean, I don't blame you. I have a spectacular ass." She spun on her tiptoes and then sank down gracefully onto her heels. "I have a spectacular EVERYthing, but now that you're caught, you can stop looking."

She wanted him to look at her, she realized.

He smirked at her and took a sip of his scotch. He let his gaze fall on the fire and lost himself in thought. "Potter?" she asked, and he looked up at her and shook his head. "Thoughts," he responded. "Just thoughts. You showing up tonight brought some things out I'd been hiding."

She strolled over to the sofa languidly, and pulling one leg up underneath her, dropped onto the cushion next to him. Her glass in one hand, she shifted so she was facing him, and pulled her other hand up to support her head as she looked at him in the firelight. "Do tell, I love a good dirty secret." He snorted a laugh.

How did that awkward , scruffy haired teenage boy turn out so bloody handsome and thoughtful?

"No dirty secrets. Just…" he sighed, and turned to look at her. "Why are you here, Pansy? You clearly knew I was here. Why were you, of all people, looking for me?"

"Who says I was looking for you, Potter? I came into the bar tonight to drink copious amounts of liquor and have my way with some fit dunderhead that I could throw out later, doesn't that make more sense?" she said, noticing the twitch when she said his last name.

His eyes caught hers, and in the firelight they seemed to dance. "Then why are you up here with me? Because I'm not a dunderhead, and you're clearly not having your way with me."

Pansy blushed. Harry blinked. She actually BLUSHED. Up her neck and full onto her cheeks, her alabaster skin turning a shade of red that could not be blamed on the fire. "No….no you are not a dunderhead, Potter. Annoying, arrogant, but not a dunderhead."

"BLUSHING? I'm actually BLUSHING for Harry Potter? Great. I'm done for now." Admitting it to herself didn't make it any easier.

She took a sip of her drink and tossed her hair to the side. "Full of himself, thinking he can bring the nice lady up to his pad over the bar, get her drunk and have HIS way with HER, hmm? Sorry, Potter."

"Totally going to let you."

"Totally not going to happen."