Chapter Text
Pansy had long since made peace with her fate when she found him. Concrete had hardened over cracks, plastering her together and lithifying her all the same.
She noticed his hands first. Scars exposed, winding across his fingers in warning. They tapped idly against his glass, sweat beading down its side and disappearing into the worn wood underneath the amber liquid.
“Parkinson.” He nodded in her direction.
“Potter,” she answered in kind.
He brought the glass to his mouth and she couldn’t help but notice the thin, jagged line bisecting the edge of his top lip.
“You’ve been adding to the collection, I see.” Her lips curled, wry and feline.
“Mm, snagged on a tripward busting into Rookwood’s hideout last week, but at least I finally caught the bastard.” The scar spread wide as he smiled.
“Keep going it alone and you’ll end up as gnarled as Mad-Eye.”
“Cursebreakers just slow me down.”
“Ah yes, why disable a system when you can bust through it and blow yourself apart in the process. You know you won’t be able to keep on saving the world when you’re dead, you brute.”
He chuckled, the low sound rumbling through to her bones.
“Are you offering, then?”
“Only if you think you can keep up.”
Pansy’s Ministry-issued Portkey buzzing on her bedside table and yanking her across the country in the middle of the night with no warning was nothing new. But landing next to a messy-haired wizard, crouched in tall seagrass just beyond the boundary of a derelict shack, was.
She quickly waved her wand, revealing the series of wards guarding the scrawny structure. Releasing a sharp cackle, she flicked her wrist.
“What do you think, Parkinson? Can you handle this?” Harry’s emerald eyes glinted at her through the moonlight.
Crossing her arms over her silk pyjamas she levelled him a superior look. “Already did.” Satisfaction simmered through her as she watched him confirm her work with a diagnostic spell of his own and then charge ahead into the unknown. Her job was done but something kept her rooted in that spot as she watched colourful bursts of light flashing through the slats of the house, each one causing her pulse to stutter. It wasn’t until she saw him emerge, muscled shoulders heaving with effort but otherwise unharmed, that she shook herself from her reverie and disappeared into the night with a snap.
Night after night, he called. She always answered, staying until he had completed his mission but leaving before he could see her waiting there. One night, she must have been too exhausted to exit in time as she watched him finish off every banshee in an ancient grove. Because she let him catch her, just another dark creature on the long list of his conquests.
He tramped toward her, his heavy footsteps padded by the lush forest floor. Silence but for the soft thwack of cardboard against skin as he loosened a carton in his palm, the click of a mundane lighter as he set fire to the cigarette placed lazily between his lips. Right under the now mostly faded scar, but Pansy knew if she touched that spot, she’d find the skin raised subtly.
“Enjoy the show?” Harry mumbled gruffly around the cigarette.
She didn’t answer with anything more than a soft harumph that earned her a smoky chuckle.
“Didn’t feel the need to jump in when three banshees were keening their head off at me?”
“Clearly you had it covered.” She waved around at the serene woods. “Though I do have some notes.”
“Oh yeah? Like what?”
“Just a little charm to permanently remove a larynx. Gives you more time to cast banishment incantations since they can break through a Silencio,” she said lightly.
“That’s a charm alright.” He laughed out a puff of smoke, tobacco mixing with the woodsy air. “Well next time, feel free to join in.”
“Maybe if you didn’t summon me in the middle of the night, I’d be in better fighting form,” Pansy retorted. “You know most wizards try to get me into bed, not out of it.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” he winked. She disapparated before he could see the rosy flush climb up the porcelain peaks of her cheeks.
The next time her Portkey buzzed, the sun had just begun to creep towards the horizon. She bade goodbye to her friends, but they waved her off, used to her sporadic comings and goings.
When she landed behind an abandoned warehouse in Shoreditch, Potter was nowhere to be found. No wayward curls she wanted to push into place, broad shoulders blocking her view, or dexterous hands channelling dangerous magic. There was just the burning smell of sulphur and lights flashing too quickly to be anything pleasant. Without taking time for any diagnostics, Pansy rushed forward, launching herself through a broken window and into the action. And there she found who she was looking for, his flannel shirt slashed into tatters as he kneeled, bound on the floor in front of a dozen baddies.
Pansy’s aim was precise, each curse flying effortlessly through the smoggy air and hitting her targets squarely in the chest. They fell like a line of dominoes. Well, if dominoes writhed on the floor as their vital organs withered away in a searing pain.
”Shit.” She heard Harry wheeze when she was finished.
The vast room was silent other than the click of her stilettos across the concrete floor as she strolled towards him.
“What is this, Potter? I don’t see any curses here that need my attention.”
“None other than the ones you just cast.”
“Aren’t there other aurors you can call for backup?” she cocked her hands on her hips, the silk of her dress soft against her fingers.
“Not any that can do that,” Harry confessed, his eyes wide and honest as he looked up at her.
She sliced her wand through the air and he hissed as the ropes shackling him disintegrated. But he didn’t rise to his feet. Instead, his hands wrapped around her calves, thumbs rubbing appreciatively at the straps of her heels. He held her in wonder as he moved his hands slowly up her legs as if each inch of skin was a new discovery. Stopping just below her thighs, he looked up at her with a silent question she already understood. She nodded, singular and curt, as she gave herself over to him.
He gave himself back to her, his wicked mouth tender against her skin, praise given in the form of sweet caresses and gentle exploration. Her fingers got lost in his curls, the strands much softer than she expected. Pansy pulled against him as he pushed further and further. Searching, like he craved her every depth. Foraging until he found her, until he knew her. And then drinking her in like nothing else would ever satiate him.
“You still never gave me an answer,” Pansy said once she collected herself. “Why did you call me?”
“Because, I need you, Pansy.” Harry smiled against the sensitive skin of her neck, but by then, his scar had healed completely, leaving nothing but the smooth kiss of his lips. “I need you,” he whispered again.
She’d bartered with herself enough times that she was certain she could keep her feelings in check. It was just work, and then it was just sex, and then it was just dinner. The nights spent together were simply for practicality’s sake. Everything could be explained away, minimised and boxed up until it was compact enough to handle.
But it had been a particularly hard day with a series of complex wards she thought she’d never see the end of. And as she lay on his couch, leather worn by the shape of their bodies, her head in his lap and a fire crackling at their feet as they recounted the whole affair, he asked if there was any curse she couldn’t break.
Her heart fractured, its molten lava burning her oesophagus. Her voice cracked as she said, “Just one.”
Pansy should have seen it coming, should have been prepared. But she thought it would be bombastic, a glorious smiting. Instead it was quiet, three words bubbling into the air as if they carried no weight.
“I love you,” he laughed over breakfast one morning, eyes sparkling over a mug she’d chipped months before.
“You can’t,” she answered as if it was obvious.
“How could I not?” He looked at her as if she was spectacular. Like all her flaws were strengths.
And she told him everything — about Luna and the lake, the blackness encasing her heart, Neville’s blind optimism, Draco’s rejection, her parents’ contempt. About the crone that she tracked down and the trade she learned her mother made for a wish granted. But never once did he look away or loosen his grip around her fingers.
“I’ve never put much stake in prophecies,” Harry said simply, green eyes unblinking.
“Just because they could never loved you doesn’t mean you can’t be loved. All that is is a reflection of them, the choices they made in how they decided to treat you. That doesn’t mean you’re unlovable. You, Pansy Parkinson, will never be unlovable.”
He pulled her onto his lap, holding her forehead to his as he continued. “You’re whip-smart and you put everyone else before yourself. You’re cunning but you’re fair. You’re deviously funny and can take it just as you can dish it. You’re far kinder than you ever give yourself credit for and the only person I can imagine tolerating day in and day out. I’ve never needed anyone my whole life, not really. Not the way I need you. You make me whole, Pansy, because I love you.”
She waited for the lighting, for the house to crumble, for an earthquake to swallow them whole. But the birds kept chirping as the morning light streamed steadily through the windows.
“I love you too,” she whispered almost silent. And then she kissed him, finally knowing she was safe.