Archive of Our Own

“You do this all the time, don’t you?”

It comes out rather breathless, which is none of her concern. He doesn’t insult her by asking her to elaborate. She wouldn’t.

Loose strands of chestnut hair fall across his lenses to obscure his vision. He needs a haircut and a shave. Charms will rectify his appearance in the morning, and take away the devil-may-care shagginess she’s so fond of lately. She stops herself from running her fingers through it, though this isn’t the first time the thought flutters through her mind.

“I really don’t,” he smiles, taking another step until she’s securely pressed against the wall.

Close like this, invading every bit of her space, she can make out that faint appearance of cologne she knows she’s inhaled deeply in her weaker moments. He’s sweaty from the pub, fingers curious and fortified by ale. His Henley is unbuttoned, distracting enough to let the words replay over and over in her mind. She doesn’t want him to say anything he may regret, but she can’t stop herself from pushing for more.

“Liar,” she whispers. “You act like I haven’t seen you on a thousand pub nights. There isn’t a witch in a hundred metre radius that hasn’t offered this.”

His breath is hot on her ear. “There isn’t a witch in a hundred metre radius that compares to the one I have right here.”

A thigh quivers, a knee weakens, and before Pansy can stop herself, she’s biting back a whimper as his hand cups her jaw.

“Don’t fight it,” he pleads, green eyes sweeping back and forth over her face. “Not tonight.”

“Why shouldn’t I?”

“Being contrarian is so 1999, Pans.”

“Ha,” she huffs, struggling to release her chin, but only succeeding in pushing her hips deeper into his lean.

“You want this,” he answers. “We both want this.”

“Potter, you wouldn’t know–”

“It’s Harry.”

“I–”

“When I’m about to kiss you,” he smirks. “I’m Harry.”

His nose slots against hers, and she licks her lips.

“You’re Pansy.” It’s gentle, far more gentle than he has any right to be, and damn him for obliterating her will to pretend.

What she knows, what she’s been afraid to admit—especially aloud—is that she does feel like herself with him. Maybe she—

“Don’t you have a stag night to get back to?”

“At your insistence,” he shrugs. “Had it been my choice? I would have spent a night alone with my fiancé.”

“What happens next? I’m sure you’ll get sick of her,” she tests.

“Not likely,” he responds, leaning in again. “It’s alright. I won’t tell them.”

“What?” She asks, incensed by the chill running down her body. Weak from his hand running up her exposed thigh.

“That you’ve fallen for me. I won’t tell. Pans—”

Her name dies on his lips. They’re really quite busy.

One Year Earlier

“Pansy,” he gasps. “Fuck. I need—”

He doesn’t step, so much as he falls from the entrance of her Floo. Powder dusts up around his body obscuring her vantage point.

“I need your help.”

“Potter, what the bloody hell? Why didn’t you go to the hospital?” She’s off the sofa in one movement, a book discarded next to her, as the pages mesh together.

“You’re home,” he winces, grabbing his left side as his knees hit the floor.

She’s not the first thing to him. Bryn stands protectively over his body, her white fur stained with blood. His Auror robes are covered in it. Pansy can no longer tell where the Cŵn Annwn’s red ears begin and where they end.

“It’s alright, girl. I’ll be fine,” Harry whispers, and Pansy forces the beast aside as best she can to kneel down in front of him.

“She’s just—ouch—worried about me.”

He’s done this before, but Bryn has not acclimated to seeing him in pain yet. Pansy would like to think she has—she hasn’t.

“Yes, well, her concern for you is heartwarming. Tell me how you got this way.”

“Raid.” he squints, straining to push the glasses up his nose. They sit ajar on his face, but it looks like the movement to correct them would be too much for him. His voice is heavy and raw, and she does her best to run diagnostics as quickly as possible.

“I think I was hit with Pravicordius. Didn’t see the caster.”

If he’s right it's more serious than she hoped.

“Draco?”

“With Hermione at Mungo’s.”

Shaking her head, Pansy spells off his wand holster, and cuts a line down his black Henley to get access to his chest. “You’re a bloody idiot.”

“Quite literally.”

Next to her, Bryn growls softly, nuzzling her snout into Potter’s side. The hound finds the source of the curse before her spellwork.

“Good girl,” she praises. Potter smiles, and she wants to curse herself for seeing it, letting it pull her attention for even one second.

“You smile when cursed?”

“Often.”

“Pain?”

“Eight out of ten maybe,” he flinches, as Bryn’s snout pushes against a marred area of flesh already darkening with deep purple bruising.

“Maybe she’s sensing something—”

“She isn’t," she insists, pushing the implication from his mind.

The thought lingers in hers. Bryn’s been with her since Healer training in Wales. She’s seen Pansy through countless patient determinations, but it’s her prognostication for the more dire cases that worries Pansy now. Before the hound can signal again, she pushes her snout away forcefully, cupping the fur around her ears. “You’ve done brilliantly, darling, now let me save him, shall I?”

Bryn perches herself adjacent to Potter as Pansy gets to work.

She’s practised in this, but it’s different when someone she knows is on the table—someone she—a friend. Things that usually come second nature she begins to question, and the implications feel more dire.

“Ah, ah, ah,” he gasps. “That helped. Whatever that was. It helped.”

Bryn lets out a soft howl, and Potter laughs. “Told you she’d save me. She always does.”

“Idiotic,” she mumbles, letting her magic seep through his skin, and muscle, until she can feel it curl around the amorphous outlines of the curse. “How long does a hero complex last, hmm? A lifetime?”

“Maybe,” he grits, and she grabs his hand, pushing it against his skin as she works to cast the final steps.

“Keep pressure here,” she demands. She keeps her hand there to enforce it.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Don’t.”

After her heart rate slows, after she’s spelled away the majority of the blood from her fingers and her clothes, does she take a moment to assess him. He looks a fright, but that’s not unusual for Auror Potter. His shirt is unsalvageable, but she can ask one of the others to bring something through the Floo. She worries about sending him home to Grimmauld. He’s a grown wizard, he can take care of himself, and yet—

“Where do you plan to recover, hmm?”

Bryn gets up and trots over to Pansy’s bedroom, plopping herself in the doorframe.

“No,” she shakes her. Harry Potter can not recover in her bed. No.

“It’s where I’ll get the best care.”

Nine Months Earlier

“How do you figure it?”

“Well, Ronald, it’s simple. This isn’t something I require you to strategise. You’re seeing a complex problem, and I’m telling you, there is no such thing.”

“So he’s just alright with it?”

“With what?” she huffs.

“You being out with the blokes. Getting pissed with us, and what not?”

“Granger is here.”

“Mione and Malfoy are attached at the hip though, aren’t they? Try again, Parkinson.”

“Gods, you’re a traditionalist. I forget you’re Sacred 28 sometimes. It all comes together—on nights like this.” She points her drink at him, narrowing her eyes. “Adrian and I have been betrothed since Eighth Year.”

“Since Malfoy ditched you for a Gryffindor?”

“Well spotted,” she mocks, jutting out her lower lip in a formidable pout.

“He never gets jealous?”

“Jealous of what?”

“Of this,” Ronald huffs. “Me, Nott, Malfoy, Neville…Harry. He never asks to join us. Mad of him, by the way. He doesn’t rage when Harry falls asleep on your sofa. He just doesn’t care?”

“He cares,” she retorts. “In his own way. I don’t expect you to understand, Ronald.”

“You can call me Ron.”

“No, I don't think I will. Just because it makes you so angry, and your cheeks get red. See?” She sticks her finger into the flesh above his jaw. “Just there. Flushed to perfection.”

“You’re proving my point right now.”

“I don't see how.”

“You don’t see how?” he laughs. “Your hand is on my cheek.”

“I’m a Healer. My hand has touched every possible body part a wizard has.”

“Not at midnight. On pub night. Without your fiancé here.”

She sits up a little straighter, thinking through the haze for a moment. “Is this you asking me to stop? Did Daphne say something?”

“Nah, she knows you’re alright.”

Relaxing a bit, she shakes her head. “This is an incredible double standard. Why can Daph be alright with seeing my flirtations, and know that I am not going to act on them, but Adrian can’t? The implication is beyond sexist.”

She takes a long sip of her drink, ignoring the boisterous laughter to her right. That one cheerful voice she can pick out in any crowd, and he’s usually surrounded by them.

“You and I tease and fight. Who cares? Much better than the alternative.”

Ronald finishes his pint, placing it next to a full pour ready to be devoured next. “Daph adores you, and Adrian hates us. That’s the difference.”

“Adrian feels left out. The four of you are basically revered in the Auror department. Nott’s on his way to becoming section chief. Potter is being groomed to take over the whole show by Robards. You and Malfoy talk shop incessantly. You’re a lot for any outsider to handle. You do realise?”

“You, Mione, and Daphne keep up just fine.”

“Yes, well, we’re all incredibly quick-witted, aren’t we? Someone needs to lighten the mood.”

“With all your Mungo’s horror stories? Is that lightening the mood?”

“Daphne delivered a baby today.”

“She’s brilliant. The three of you are a force. Not the point,” Ronald huffs, waving a hand at Longbottom as he tries to signal the pair of them. “Pucey could come anytime.”

“He knows that.”

“He prefers other company?”

“I suppose he does.”

“That doesn’t always include you?”

“Am I being interrogated? This feels like I am, Ronald.”

“This isn’t an interrogation,” he smiles, patting her hand for the first time. “You say I’m your mate, so let me act like it.”

“My mate should buy me another round for having to endure this conversation,” she grits out. She’s not entirely exasperated by it, but it does cause long buried concerns to swirl up from the recesses of her mind.

“Sorry, one more thing and then I’m done.”

She glares at him.

“I swear it,” he smiles, hand pressed firmly against his chest.

“If you must.”

“It’s just,” he swallows, looking over her shoulder for a moment, and then refocusing on her. “He never seemed to care that Harry ended up convalescing at your flat for a week?”

There’s that laugh again. It mingles with the other four, but Pansy can always pick it out. It’s hard not to, she remembers the first morning he woke up after the curse incident. It’s nearly seared into her brain. Sunlight, and his laughter.

“This has been bothering you, hasn’t it?”

“Maybe—”

“Typical man behaviour, holding something in for months, and then springing it on me when you’re pissed on pub night.”

“Answer the question.”

“Adrian was at the Dublin branch of Gringotts that month. He wasn’t around to be with me anyway, so why would he care?”

“You’re doing this to piss me off I think.”

“Maybe,” she shrugs. Maybe she is.

Ronald disappears for a moment and Pansy is left with a table of empty glasses and her thoughts.

When he returns a minute later with another drink for her, she preens. “My prize for enduring your inquisition?”

He sits unmoving, narrowing his eyes, before a rare look of solemnity takes over. “You saved his life, Parkinson. You can have as many bloody drinks as you want.”

It’s heartfelt, and altogether too much for her to handle in the low light of the pub at half eleven. She could challenge him, deny it even. Instead she grabs up the cocktail greedily, and makes a show of it. Inside, she’s twisted up at the memories his words invoke. Raising her brow, she makes it two sips before finding another sense of comfort in the crowd. It isn’t difficult. Potter is already looking at her.

Six Months Earlier

“What’s the big emergency? Really, Parkinson,” Theodore exclaims, exiting the Floo, and flinging himself on the sofa. “After the war your dramatics are—oh shit. Pansy?”

Bryn makes herself known, sprawling herself across his lap, and he takes up a campaign to push the beast off his Auror robes.

“You know I love you, dearest, but white fur on black isn’t a good look.”

She rounds the corner, and she can see it all mirrored in his look. Hair an unmitigated disaster, bags under her eyes, she’s beyond unkempt. Theo gawks at her briefly before patting the seat next to him. “The others are on their way.”

“Oh, goodie.”

“Stop. Sit,” he insists. “Whatever this is, we'll help you.”

She huffs down, crossing her legs under each other, and falling against his shoulder. Bryn pushes her snout against Pansy’s hand until she’s forced to pet her eager head. The hound has seen her through several mental breakdowns—it’s the least she can do.

The Floo lights green, and Potter walks out, searching the room until he’s locked in on her.

Pansy can feel her resolve to hold this all inside slipping away. Her instinct to be mean comes out far easier than she intends.

“I asked for Draco.”

“Malfoy is stuck under a mountain of paperwork. You get me instead. What is this about?”

Maybe if she sits perfectly still, the two wizards with the lowest boredom tolerance will eventually find the papers she’s discarded under her kitchen cupboards. They’re strewn about quite haphazardly—she made no attempt to hide them.

“Just tell us Pansy,” Theodore insists.

“What if we didn’t talk?” she tries, looking up at him through her eyelashes. All her strength pulls into one coquettish smirk. “I’ll let you tell me any sordid sex story about Longbottom you want.”

He cocks an eyebrow, and nearly falls for it, but that would be so out of character for him, really.

“Are you ill?”

It’s nearly impossible for her not to roll her eyes at him.

“Give us something, darling,” he pleads, making eyes at Potter. “You’re just going to sit there all afternoon and make us guess?”

Maybe she is. Maybe in that time she can formulate some kind of plan that will keep the terror from rising up in her throat.

“I’m making tea,” Theodore announces, heading the opposite way to her well-stocked bar cart in the corner, and spelling the lids off her assorted vintages of Ogden’s. Bryn’s eyes go wide, and Pansy shushes her back into complacency.

“I’ll make the tea then,” Potter huffs, lasting about two minutes in her kitchen before he’s returning to thrust various scrolls in her face.

At least this time, the words on the parchment don’t immediately invite tears. Crying in front of them, him specifically, would be quite tiresome.

She takes to inspecting the pair of them. Theodore could fall out of bed put together, but Potter’s Auror robes look surprisingly tidy, meaning he probably languished at his desk all day. He pinches the flesh of his nose just below his glasses. It’s a shame, he’s always more relaxed when he’s been in the field, working off some of the energy that sticks to him incessantly until it’s cast off.

“That’s not tea,” she deadpans, acknowledging the scrolls.

“How long have you known this?” His hair falls into his eyes and she wants to push it back. How can anyone take this man seriously when his hair is constantly in his eyes?

“What’s going on?” Theodore shouts from his crouched position amongst the bottles.

“I really have no account to sulk. I am to be wed in six months time,” she shrugs, accepting the glass of cool amber liquid that Theodore passes to her.

“Give me that,” he insists, pulling the scroll from Potter’s hands.

For a moment, she thinks Potter may try and hug her. Thankfully, he stays rooted to the floor, narrow eyes oscillating between the two of them like he’s following an errant snitch.

“Boring, boring, boring,” Theodore prattles. “Oh, fuck. It’s—well—fuck.”

“What is it?” Potter asks.

“Good ol’ Tobias had a marriage clause for you in his will? What a darling daddy.”

“Don’t say daddy,” Potter cuts in, stealing the scroll back again. “What the bloody hell? How are you just hearing about this now?”

“Activated on my thirtieth birthday, apparently—”

“Which was five months ago,” Potter cuts in.

“The barristers have just found their arse from their elbow. Isn’t that kind of them?”

“What does Pucey say about all this?”

“What does Adrian say about all of this?” She finishes her finger of whiskey and thrusts the cup back into Theodore’s hand. “Funnily enough, I wondered that too. Last night, in fact. After receiving the owl from the solicitor's office of Magnus & Ignatius. I was so curious about his opinions on the matter, that I Floo’d directly to Dublin from the Gringotts branch in Diagon. Begged the goblins to let me use it.”

“Parkin—”

“Don’t interrupt, it’s getting good.”

Theodore passes back a refreshed tumbler, and she sips it.

“We always said we’d wait. My father wasn’t alive to push for it, and he was happy with his older brother shouldering the details for succession. We both had suitable allowances, a good salary. Why rush?”

“Right,” Theodore chimes in supportively “How did he react?”

“Surprised,” she says, dropping back down to the sofa for support, while the two Aurors look down at her. Maybe they’ve sussed out what she’s about to share, but she’s still having a hard time maintaining eye contact. With one of them in particular.

“Surprised that you’ll need to be married in six months?”

“Surprised that anyone thought to barge into his office while his secretary’s mouth was around his cock. Evidently, he’d given the request not to be disturbed.”

“Pansy—”

“Don’t. Do not pity me. I cannot stand to hear that right now.”

“Drink this,” Theodore orders, passing Potter a whiskey to stop the incoming barrage of questions forming at the tip of his inquisitive tongue.

“Stick to the facts, if that helps.”

“The allowance will stop if I’m not engaged in a fortnight. I’ll lose the entire trust in six months.” She smiles privately to herself. “Tobias has the last word. Fitting.”

“Neville or I will marry you, Pans. In a heartbeat.”

She holds out a hand to silence more of whatever that is. “Did I ask for solutions?”

“Not exactly,” Potter grumbles, exchanging a glance with his friend.

“You did summon us,” Theodore cuts in, “which means you’re not above asking for help. I know you don’t want to be alone with this.”

He’s right, but naturally she doesn’t want him to be.

“That’s it,” Theodore slams his empty tumbler on the side table. I’m going down to the corner place to get the truffle mushroom palmiers. Do you want the whipped goat cheese?”

She nods.

“Prawns or paté? Forget a main, we’re doing side dishes only tonight.”

“Get them both,” Potter insists, thrusting a pouch of what Pansy assumes are pounds into Theodore’s hand, following a look of insistence he wouldn’t think to question.

“Get changed while I’m gone,” Theodore shouts while putting on his loafers. “Bathe even? Maybe? For us?”

A paw sprawls protectively over her waist.

“Don’t argue.” Potter tuts. “Theo will make a stink about getting in with you when he gets back.”

She hears the pop of Theo’s disapparition, and lets out a prolonged breath.

“Fine,” she huffs, making her way to the ensuite. She peeks her head back from the doorframe. He stands some point between the side table and her bedroom door. Frozen, and approximating a level of nonchalance she knows he does not possess. Pursing her lips at him, and sighing, she relents. “You can read the rest of them if you want. I don’t actually mind.”

“I can wait for you to get back.”

She takes longer than she needs in the shower. At one point she contemplates becoming one with the Statuary marble. When her eyes close she replays Adrian’s face over and over. She may not have worshipped him, but they had an understanding. Yes, the distance was hard, but the sex was still adequate. She thought. Had Granger or Daphne inquired she would tell them both parties were more than satisfied with the confines of the betrothal. It was better than she had hoped for honestly, considering the matches her father could have made.

There was always a marriage contingency. That’s how Pureblood wills worked—she wasn’t a fucking idiot. She knew there must have been some measure in place to ensure she followed through. Tobias had died in Azkaban before he had the chance to explain it. It was sudden, but not entirely unexpected, and Pansy was left to pick up the pieces. Adrian had handled most of the business with her solicitors, and at the time, she had been beyond grateful.

It’s unclear to her now how much he knew. Obviously enough to make his dalliances discreet. He obviously wasn’t expecting her solicitors to enlighten her on her timeline. What a short wire she walked.

She towels off slowly, her limbs weighed down with anguish and exhaustion. The door to her bedroom is ajar, and she can hear the pitter patter of restless paws, and Potter whispering in the lounge.

I don’t think you two need to come tonight.

I know Mione, but it’s a lot, and unless she explicitly asks me to, I’m not going to bring up having more people here.

You know her, she’s wearing a brave face.

Neville is on assignment until Sunday.

Nott already has that covered. He’s out getting it right now.

Malfoy, I’ll stay with her all night.

I don’t mind.

I know.

Owl you both in the morning.

I love you too, Mione. Goodnight.

They do that now. Granger, Ronald, and Potter. They share their regard for each other constantly. It used to bother her, the way they flaunted their already indestructible friendship with useless platitudes. She cared for her friends a great deal, but you didn’t hear any of them spouting it constantly. Daphne was the one who finally explained it to her. The absence of true family, and how the three of them supported each other.

She pulls on a matching set of cashmere pyjamas, and charms her hair dry. Theodore was right, the shower erases the evidence of her prolonged tears, and her skin has some colour back in it.

When she finds Potter, he’s rummaging through her DVD collection. His outer robes are discarded by the door, along with his boots.

“Looking for any film in particular?”

“Oh, what? No,” he says, letting his eyes assess her for a moment. Once he sees she’s not worse off than when she left, his shoulders sink, and he drops the film back onto the shelf.

He takes a step toward her, and she tenses. She can’t take his pity, and prepares to turn on a heel at his next sentence if he so much as utters a compassionate appeal to her.

It’s staggering, but he reaches out for her hand faster than she can retract it. Next comes that smile. The one she is wholly unprepared for.

“I have an idea,” he says.

“No.”

Bryn attempts to push in between them and Potter bends down to scrunch her pert ears until they relax.

“You should hear me out.”

“I’d rather drink.”

He makes this face like he’s about to argue, like the energy in his body won’t let him stay quiet. She really needs him to. It’ll be impossible to hear anything he has to say, especially if it’s what she expects.

“I think—”

“Please don’t.”

He drops her hand. The energy shifts, but Pansy keeps her breathing steady. She has to. Even if she wants to cry—and she doesn’t—she doesn’t think she has any tears left.

After a moment, his jaw relaxes, and his eyes look at her kindly. It’s more than she deserves. Calmly, but resolute in a way that is perfectly Potter, he walks over to the bar cart and selects her most expensive vintage. A graduation present from Hogwarts she hasn’t been bothered to open. He spells the lid off wandlessly, and grins back at her until she cracks a smile for the first time in hours. Her defenses lower an imperceptible amount, but it’s something.

“I think we ought to get highly intoxicated.”

“You do?”

“Absolutely wankered,” he smiles.

“That’s all you have to say.”

A pause, and another smile, and she’s thankful it’s him here.

“That’s all I have to say, Parkinson.”

Three Months Earlier

“You drink too much.”

He scoffs. “How dare you. I drink the absolute correct amount.”

The parlour of Grimmauld is dim, but she can make out the gaslight street lamps through the fog outside the front windows.

The rest of their friends left hours ago, but they’re stuck mid argument about Remus Lupin, and he refuses to drop the conversation.

It’s not that she intended to instigate a fight, it’s just that sometimes when he yells his brows furrow enough to push his glasses down, and she enjoys seeing if she can persuade that level of agitation.

“I give up.”

“You give up?” She sits up, yanking the bottle from his grasped palm, and drinks right from the lid. If Phillipa Parkinson could see her now.

“He wasn't a wholly good man. Just like my father. Just like Sirius,” he slurs. Using the edge of the sofa, he props himself up. “I’m not a wholly good man.”

This isn’t what she intended to quarrel over.

“You have to imagine,” he insists, nodding along to himself. “Imagine what you would do for your friends. Anything.” He tips forward. “Anything? Right? Anything. So the three of them, they just, you have to understand how close they were. They were each other’s families. Lupin needed to get to me.”

She shakes her head, not willing to give up her position, but also the grown part of her yearns to understand it.

“Him coming to Hogwarts was reckless behaviour. Even you must admit that.”

“We’re all reckless,” Potter challenges, and Pansy can feel her chest warm a little.

In the kitchen, Kreacher rummages through cabinets making them a late night snack. Her request, and the elf was exceedingly happy to oblige.

“The room is a touch spinny,” she huffs. “Is it so terrible that we’re pissed again?”

“Why would that be bad?” His brows raise above his frames, and he laughs to himself.

It delights her, so of course she frowns at him.

“It’s a Tuesday.”

“Tuesdays are perfectly acceptable days for merriment.”

“You’re an enabler, Harry James Potter.”

“Hey,” he huffs. “You agreed to marry me.”

The spinning stops, the world becomes a little clearer.

She remembers the moment exactly. She was standing in Draco’s kitchen, surrounded by her friends all arguing about her state of affairs. Nearly two weeks to contemplate the reality, and it still hadn’t sunk in. Somehow, over the deluge of voices she heard his.

Marry me, Pansy

He took her hand, gave her lopsided grin, and how could she possibly say no?

Now it’s been two months of aggressively clutching the status quo. She isn’t afraid, thank you very much, but feelings are fucked, and what good are they in a marriage to begin with?

She threatens violence if it’s brought up, and between her hectic rotations at the hospital, him being called away on assignments, and a steady stream of pub nights with the Aurors, she’s been able to push it way down.

It’s months away.

Deny, deny, deny.

“We’re not meant to discuss it,” she replies.

“Well, I’m impatient,” he grins back. “Mione says it’s time to tell the Prophet. Make a formal announcement.”

“I’m not sure why that’s necessary. I’d prefer to keep it quiet.”

He sits up, knocking into her knees, and falling over the side of the sofa until his legs are nearly in her lap. She’s amused watching him make sense of his limbs, and righting himself.

“Are you capable of acting like an adult?”

“Some days,” he yawns. “I’d rather talk about why you’re hiding me.”

“I’m not hiding you,” she insists, setting the bottle on the floor, before one of them tips it over.

“You agreed—”

“I agreed to a friend’s proposal.”

“A friend?”

He has that lopsided smile again, the one she privately adores.

“You never call me a friend.”

It’s true, but she doesn’t attribute terms of endearment to most of them, so what would make Potter special?

“I’m not your friend. I’m not your fiancé,” he pouts. “I’m your—”

“A favour,” she reminds him. “An idiotic one at that. The witches you could have,” she sighs. “The Prophet will crucify me for taking you off the market. I’m mad you’re doing this, and I’m the one benefiting from it.”

“A favour?” he mimics, rolling the word around his mouth.

“A favourable arrangement,” she amends. “I get access to my full inheritance, you get a witch who will look the other way. You’ll have every freedom. Think of the witches that will throw themselves at you, and your wife won’t say a damned thing. Not many wizards in the whole of Britain can say that.”

“Hmmf.” He sinks lower on the sofa.

One Month Earlier

The feel of the sheets hit differently next to the scratchy fibres of her healer's robes. She’s tried endless times to charm them softer, but she suspects some bureaucrat has jinxed the uniform to keep them in an endless loop of discomfort.

The bed is warm, a pool of heat radiating off her pillow like a body has just vacated that space. She knows almost instantly that it has.

“I thought you were working a double?” Comes a slow sleepy drawl.

The words stick in her throat.

“Pansy? You okay?”

There’s a shift, more heat, and his hand rests tentatively on her shoulder.

“What happened?”

“I couldn’t—” The words are replaced with sobs. It’s impossible to hold them back. “She fought so hard—and I couldn’t—she didn’t—”

Tears stain the silk pillowcase, but his hands reach for her in the darkness, pulling her a bit closer. The heat is instant, relaxing her tense shoulders.

“Shhhh,” he coaxes. “It’s okay. You did everything you could.”

She and Hermione had worked tirelessly for four hours. For all the advancements magic provided, childbirth was still a tenuous endeavour in the magical world. There are risks; ones she’s spent her career attempting to mitigate—still—sometimes the spells fail. Miracles are not guaranteed, even by the tip of a wand.

“It’s okay. It’s okay, sweetheart.”

It’s not okay. This is never okay. Losing a patient is not an eventuality she’s prepared to accept—ever.

“I should have done more.”

“Listen to me, I know you did everything you could.”

“No—”

“Yes,” he says definitively. “Yes, I do, Pansy. Do you know how I know?”

She’s never been more thankful for the late hour. For the clarity that comes with the sobering hours just before sunrise, when you’re equally as exhausted and alert as you’ll ever be. Every nerve ending is maxed out on the adrenaline from the hospital, and his fingers running smooth circles on her back feels like an electric shock.

“You never gave up on me,” he whispers.

You are different, she wants to plead, but her mouth is sealed in grief.

“Shhh,” he repeats, though she’s not sure she can stop the soft hiccups of her tears.

Nestled into the crux of his chest, she can hear his heart beating. A rapid thud, thud, thud, she wills her own to match.

“Harry,” she whispers, saying it once in the darkness. She needs to feel the weight of it. Needs him to hear it.

“I’ll stay,” he says. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“The raid.” She remembers it through the haze, looking up briefly until her forehead hits the scruff of his chin.

“Not a scratch,” he shares. “I’m back in one piece.”

“Yes, but, you should be out celebrating.”

“No.” His arms wrap a little tighter around her frame. “I’m where I want to be.”

Night Before the Wedding

“Don’t you have a stag night to get back to?” She scans his face in the lamplight of the alley. She’s pressed so perfectly up against the pub’s outer wall. His, not hers. Her friends are still inside, probably minutes away from sending a Patronus.

“At your insistence,” he shrugs. “Had it been my choice? I would have spent a night alone with my fiancé.”

“What happens next? I’m sure you’ll get sick of her,” she tests.

“Not likely,” he responds, leaning in again.

Not likely, she repeats in her mind, thinking about the weeks they’ve slept side by side. Legs intertwining in the night, but separate by daylight. Just enough for her to deny it happened.

“It’s alright. I won’t tell them.”

“What?” She asks, incensed by the chill running down her body. Weak from his hand running up her exposed thigh.

He’s touched it more in five minutes than the whole of last year, and she can see why she avoids it. Fingers curl around the skin until her blood is rushing to the spot, making her feel faint.

“That you’ve fallen for me. I won’t tell, Pans—”

She could argue. She could, but she’s at the point where the lies taste sour in her mouth. This feeling, this steady control of him pushing her against the wall is setting something right inside of her.

Her name dies on his lips. They’re really quite busy. Less teasing than she imagined, Harry kisses her. Heavy on her lower lip, punishing. Taking what he needs, and she wants to give it to him.

“You’ll have to let your girlfriends know,” she gasps.

He shakes his head, hand heavy on her waist as he holds her still. “You’re still trying that?”

“What?”

“I don’t have any girlfriends, Pansy. What’s it going to take to make you understand it?”

“I told you we didn’t need to be monogamous.”

He buries his nose against the pulse point on her neck. “I didn’t listen.” The ruffled edges of her white slip dress are twisted up in his fingers.

The nebulous shape of stubbornness looms heavy on her mind as she bends into him.

Give in, give in, give in, her body pleads, but she can’t.

“You didn’t choose this.”

He rears back, neck craning to look her over. She can feel how dishevelled she must look. Cheeks flushed, make-up smeared over her lips where he kissed them senseless.

“You still don’t know? Witches are always going to flirt with me. Wizards too. I show up in every meeting, every pub night as Harry Potter, and I can’t change that. There are only so many people that I get to be myself with.”

Her breath catches, and she waits.

“You think I could be with anyone who didn’t want me for something more than my name?”

“I—”

“You think I would marry someone I didn’t love?”

“But—”

“Shhh,” he pleads, hand raking down her cheek as he calms her. “It’s you. It’s always been you, Pansy.”

Months and years whirl past her in an instant. Emotions she’s pushed down so effectively that the mere acknowledgement of their presence causes a small earthquake inside of her.

“Harry.” She looks up expectantly, feeling instantly rewarded by the dumb smile spreading across his face. One word, and her world shifts. He’s Harry. He’s been her Harry for longer than she could admit.

“There’s my girl. You ready to say it yet?”

Somewhere within two side-by-side pubs, their friends are no doubt settling bets, exchanging the promise of Galleons over the acknowledgment of feelings, and who kissed who first, who gave in. She can’t be bothered to care. Harry’s hands are on her neck, and he’s tilting her jaw so perfectly she wants to melt into him.

Kiss me, she thinks, but then she realises she can just reach up and take it. He’ll give her anything she asks for. It’s written all over his face.

“Let’s go home,” he begs. The instinct to protest is stifled as he captures her lips again. “Yours, mine, who cares. They’re both home to me. Where you are is home to me.”

The Wedding

“Sir—” the wizard’s voice drips with urgency. “Sir, please. You can’t just—”

Harry holds her in his arms, legs dangling over his forearms, as he pulls her against his chest. The magic siphons from both of them, lingering in a heavy wreath around their bodies. He’s wearing a Muggle suit. Impeccably tailored, and she’s quite certain it's the best he’s ever looked. She bites her lip. Her husband. She’s in vintage dress robes from her great-grandmother’s collection. The only thing worth salvaging from her estate. It never felt much like home. Not like this, not like him.

Her heels click together as he adjusts his grip. In the recent past, she may have protested such a gesture, but she doesn’t much want to. She lets him care for her in all the ways he wants to.

“Is there a law against holding my wife like this?”

“Well, no, but—”

“I’m Harry Potter.” His feet stay firm.

“Yes, sir.”

“Then I’ll be holding my wife like this.”

She hears Theodore snort.

The ceremony is blessedly short. Magic circles their fingers in a whirl until rings take up a permanent residence. Matching, picked by her from the Potter vaults. He pulls her into a kiss that rattles her control. Her knees would buckle, were she bearing any weight on them.

“Pansy,” he whispers, the word rings clear in her mind above the cheers and celebrations of their friends.

“Foolish man,” she laughs, smiling against his open mouth.

“You love me.”

I do, she thinks. I do. I do. I do.

“Take me home.” Their friends shoot bursts of magic into the air. The officiant grumbles, exiting from the back of the room.

“The party—” he laughs, admiring the display around them, but stopping short when he turns his head to look back at her.

It occurs to her how fantastic he looks, how perfect she feels in his arms, and it’s only the beginning. She’s never been happier they waited, never been more sure she’s ready to claim him completely.

“Take me.”

“Race ya to Malfoy Manor,” Ronald jeers, and Longbottom trips him, before taking the lead out the exit. Their friends recess out the double doors, but Harry takes a step back.

“Let’s be late,” she whispers.

“We may never arrive.”

“We will,” she urges. “After I’ve had my way with my husband.”

He grips her to his chest, and her arms snake around his neck, before he disapparates them from the room without another word.

“It’s vintage,” she huffs, as he drops her onto the bed, clawing at the delicate lace around her neckline.

“You torture me,” he sighs, head thudding against the bed. “You love to torture me.”

“Patience.” She backs away slowly, noticing a solid bit of light creeping through the dressings of her bedroom window. It’s nearly dusk, creating a soft glow across the floor. The flat is blessedly silent, Bryn is safely stashed at Grimmuald with Kreacher to look after her.

Planting herself within the beams of light, she feels a sort of cleansing, basking in the warmth of reddish-orange turning to blueish-violet. Nothing about this path has been straight, it’s bent and curved, and all the while led back to him. She smiles privately to herself. Not a boring love story—nothing unimaginative for Harry Potter.

Twilight threatens to mute her curves and she plucks the long gloves off her fingers one by one.

“Is this my present?” he asks, head now propped dutifully by his palm. His shoes have been discarded, and he’s laying languidly across her bedspread.

She responds by turning her back to him, letting the magic unfurl from her fingers as the buttons unclasp one by one, and the dress falls from her hips. Slowly, she steps out of the fabric. Covered only by heels and lace, she turns. If she had zero indication he stopped breathing some time ago, his weighted exhale gives him away.

“Beyond, Pans. Beyond my wildest dreams.”

She takes a step, and he sits up. “Wait.”

At this moment, she thinks she’ll do anything he asks. For the wizard that laughed, and cried, and took her on nights where she was wrung out from the hospital, and made her feel whole again. Never demanding anything more than her friendship. Never pushing her too fast. He redefined comfort for her again and again, and now she gets to experience this whole new side of him. The side that asks for what he wants from her.

His suit vanishes, and she pouts at the loss of it, as he rests his wand on her side table.

“I liked that one.”

“It’s in my closet at Grimmauld,” he laughs.

Her eyes linger over his physique. She’s seen it in a medical capacity more times than she can count, but never like this. Never on such licentious display for her eyes only. He trains four times a week. That was something she understood well enough in theory, but his biceps bulge, and she can follow the corded muscles down to his abdomen. Everything about him appears bigger with his clothes off, including his hands.

“Well then,” she tilts her head as he approaches her.

This is a wizard who can confidently wield an Expelliarmus against death, and barely break a sweat. His subtle confidence was made for this moment, and he looks about ready to devour her.

She lets herself scan down to his cock, now straining against his pants.

“All those nights,” he sighs, “all those dreams about turning over and touching you. Now, you’re all mine.”

“Y-yes.” Her voice is shaky as his fingers trail from her chin, down in between her breasts. They rest for a moment on the lace there, before he pulls her gently toward him.

“Now I know it’s for sure,” she says.

“Haven’t I told you?” he laughs, like she’s being the silliest witch he’s ever encountered. “It was always you. Even when you were off limits. Even when I knew I couldn’t have you. Even when I had to torture myself by lying next to you and listening to you sleep.”

He catches her next exhale with his lips, punctuating his next words with feather light kisses on her cheeks.

“Always.”

Kiss.

“You.”

Kiss.

She tips her neck so he can have access to whatever he wants, and before she can adjust to the new sensations, he’s spinning her in the air, and dropping her on the edge of the bed. Climbing the length of her, his fingers twine into the lace of her bra and knickers until they're pulled off, and discarded. Slow, steady exhales create gooseflesh along a pathway of skin. She can track everywhere he’s touched simply by the reaction her body makes. It feels incredible.

The foreplay is eons better than anything she’s done in the past, and she vanishes any thoughts of other wizards from her mind as his mouth reaches her cunt. She curses as his tongue swirls around her clit. He’s thorough, so unbelievably exhaustive, as he licks her from end to end in one long stripe until she’s gasping.

“You really are that good,” she hums, laughing to herself as he pushes a finger inside to rub against the wet mess he’s created. “Fuck, I always thought you were just lucky.”

“Very fucking lucky,” he says, pulling off his glasses, and throwing them behind her on the bed.

Her heart is beating so fast she can barely register when her thighs begin to shake. When the convulsions turn to pure ecstasy, she comes with his name on her lips. She can feel him smiling against her cunt, licking and kissing her open thighs as she comes down from her high.

“Oh gods,” she sighs, as his fingers play in the arousal, causing her hips to twitch when he rubs against her oversensitive clit. “I’m ready, bloody hell, I’m ready.”

“I want it to be good for you.”

“I have no doubts, Potter.”

“Back to Potter again?” He laughs, rising up on his knees until he’s leaning over her. The tip of his cock rubs against her clit, and she smashes her lips between her teeth to keep from keening. It’s not that fucking good, except it’s so fucking good, and she’s moments from begging her husband to fuck her.

He stops, gazing down at her, and she’s not sure how much he can see without his glasses. She’s never really seen him without them. It’s odd, but she realises she quite prefers it, and she reaches over to snatch them up, before pushing up with her flat palms against the sinking bed.

Aroused doesn’t even begin to cover how she’s feeling as he holds himself just outside of her entrance with one hand, and returns his glasses with the other.

“You going to say it?”

“Say what?” she says coyly, but she’s about to wrap her legs around his back and pull.

He responds by slotting himself up, and pushing just the tip inside of her. “You know what I want, Pansy.”

“Fuck me?” She gets to watch his Adam’s apple bob, his jaw tense.

“Not quite.”

“Fuck me…Harry,” she whispers, and she can barely get his name out before he’s sinking into her. His body weight pushes her back flush with the bed, and his fingers are digging into the side of her thighs. It’s quite possible she’ll have bruises tomorrow, and it thrills her.

“You’re so gorgeous, Pans,” he moans, thrusting into her as he speaks against her ear. Her hands travel through his ruffled hair, trailing down his back as she searches for purchase against his broad shoulders. “So perfect.”

“I’ve wanted this,” she admits, crying out as he fills her again and again.

“Why couldn’t you let yourself have me?” He pulls out of her before sinking back down at an agonising speed. “Fuck, we could have been—”

Every thrust is perfection and she thinks it’s punishment enough. Knowing she could have had this for months, and yet she’d ignored every single fibre of her being that screamed about how good it would be.

“I know,” she pleads, grabbing at his back muscles. “Gods, I know.”

“So fucking good,” he gasps, frantically starting to increase his speed, and she can feel her muscles start to clench around him. “My wife, all mine.”

It’s sudden, and unrelenting, and her nails dig into his skin as she comes. He follows with a short intake of breath, falling over the edge almost immediately after her.

She doesn’t mind the weight of him as he collapses against her before rolling slightly to his side. His arms envelop her, and he tilts her head until they’re kissing again. This time, everything is languid and a touch sloppy. Her mind feels blissfully foggy, and Pansy realises there is no way she could envision a wedding night so perfect.

The blue hazy wisps of an otter appear just as she nestles against his chest. Harry tucks her deeper into him as the swotty little thing starts to speak. “Hi, Hello, Mr. and Mrs. Potter? It’s your fucking wedding party. Any intention of showing up? Fashionably late was twenty minutes ago, and, ouch, Draco—” Harry’s laugh fills the room as the Patronus dissipates as swiftly as it appeared.

“Our friends are summoning us,” he laughs.

“I may be too boneless to move.” She presses her ear against his chest, sufficiently satisfied by the pace she finds there.

“That’s my doing.”

“Yes, husband. It is.”

She shivers as he curls up around her, letting her flop against the bed again.

“Fuck,” he sighs, licking her nipple into his mouth, and playing with the peaked ridge of it, before moving to the other. “I’ll never get over hearing that.”

“You already slept in my bed.” Her back arches as his hand clasps her neck, the pressure adding a delicious bit of stimulation, as he begins exploring again. She moans as his thumb rubs against her clit.

“Now I don’t have to pretend I want to leave it.”

“Harry, gods. That’s—oh—”

“You like that?”

She levels him a look before he’s laughing against her hips, mouth now traversing everywhere his hands have just touched. “We can be late.”

He’s already hard again, and she’s pitifully wet, as she rubs her legs together for a sense of friction. “Or we can stay home.”

Home, home, home. It echoes as he rises up to kiss her until he steals her breath.

“I just want to be where you are.”

Same, she thinks, pulling his mouth, and body flush to hers. Wherever you are, is home.