Drabble Day: Prompt 20 - BONUS ROUND
I'm sure you've figured out the theme by now...
Hinkypunk
Anything written for this prompt will earn 2 BOB points! Please do not record these bonus points anywhere - I will collect them separately :)
Remember, Chatzy is here!
Hinkypunk
Anything written for this prompt will earn 2 BOB points! Please do not record these bonus points anywhere - I will collect them separately :)
Remember, Chatzy is here!
Only, well, there is.
He’s waiting on an indecisive schoolboy when she gets in, explaining the ins and outs of something he’s called the Billywig Bristle, promising it’s frowned on at Hogwarts but not illegal, and she supposes she could pop back out, go get her lunch as intended.
Instead, she waits. Fights the flutter of excitement in her belly when he looks her way, reins herself in enough to nod back at his acknowledgement. She refuses to let herself get all wound up at his little smile, the shy hint of one that crosses his lips whenever he knows she’s around. It means nothing, it is just a look.
Probably he makes it to every adult woman who ventures in. Probably…
And then he’s there, coming towards her while his schoolboy customer scowls contemplatively at the bit of blue in his hands. Her Weasley’s still smiling slightly but it turns full-blown impish grin as he nears.
“Back again, are we?” She hears it cost him to say the whole thing on his own but she’s said she can’t understand him when he doesn’t, so he tries. He doesn’t always, sometimes he forgets, and when it’s clear enough what he means, she doesn’t mention it, only there’s no point deliberately letting herself misunderstand him, either.
It’s a fine line with him, and she’s not wholly sure why she bothers, only the look in his eyes when she does is…Well. She’s not coming back every day all week for the pranks.
“I am, yeah,” she says, worries at her lip and wonders what she’ll say if he asks. She’s not just stocked up on pranks lately, she’s out of need for them, just plain out of plausible excuses to give. She knows it’s stupid, coming in when she can only make an idiot of herself by doing it, but she can’t stay away.
His brows knit as he thinks that over. His eyes are soft and lovely and worried. “If they’re being that terrible, might be time to rethink your friends.”
She blinks at him, blurts a nervous, breathy laugh. Merlin, she is getting more ridiculous by the moment here, she needs to cut her losses already and just leave.
“No, it’s not them. Not this time. It’s -” She has no way to explain Draco or Blaise that won’t make them all sound half-cracked at best and she has no desire at all to let him think she’s cracked at all. And for someone so used to covering her tracks logically, she’s finding it very hard to think while he’s around. Then inspiration strikes, and maybe she’ll regret it later but just now, this is what she has. “It’s my family, actually. My deeply disturbed pillock brothers.”
He’s gone so alert now, her nameless, Earless Weasley, and he’s all lit up by the challenge. “Yeah? As it happens, pillock brothers are my specialty.”
The way he smiles makes her toes curl. It’s dear and boyish and trouble, precisely what she’s been led to expect of this shop, and it makes her want to blow off work this afternoon just to watch him at it.
“Well then, I’m in good hands, aren’t I?” It’s such a cliched line, so true all the same. She feels like she is, anyway, as much as she ever lets herself be, and if he digs up something terrible to inflict on her brothers, all the better.
He only just grins at her and waves her in toward the back.
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She thinks there’ll be more waiting while he tucks his box away but there isn’t. Instead, he flicks his wand at the door to set the bell charm on it and tips his head towards his storeroom.
“Put a few things aside,” he says when she hesitates. “In case you came back.”
He looks so sweetly hopeful about it, she can’t help but follow. Still, she’s slow about it, and he looks worried that she is.
“You don’t have to,” he says quickly, as though there’s some chance she’s taken offense. “I can bring it all up here, if you’d rather. Just, don’t like bringing new things out here until they’re ready to be put out.”
“No, it’s fine. We’re going to your storeroom, then?” She can’t say what it is about him, but something makes her want to set him at ease. Makes her want to coax him out of his shell. He’s wickedly funny and bloody brilliant at it but he’s quiet, too, tentative in a way that says he’s still sort of feeling his way through the world, and she’s picked up enough idle speculation poking around the gossip mill at work to guess what that’s about.
“Our-my workshop, actually. If that’s all right?”
“Sounds lovely,” she says, and means it, though she has absolutely no clue what she’s going to find.
The shop floor of Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes is a mad blend of colour and sound and tricks, things going off at random and bouts of chaos swelling and fading without warning. There’s every reason to think the workshop downstairs will be more of the same, but it isn’t. It’s rather orderly, actually, bits of knick-knacks clustered over the desktop but everything clearly in its place.
“Have to be tidy about it,” he says over his shoulder as he sets his delivery down. She wonders if he can read her mind or if he’s just used to the question coming up. “Lab accidents aren’t funny.”
She shakes her head. Imagines him going through any of the things she’s heard about from Draco and winces at the thought. “Mr. Green Hands is in potions, actually. Trust me, I’ve been converted.”
He nods agreeably, then busies himself with digging out a box.
“What sorts of things were you thinking? For your brother, I mean? Because I’ve done most of these for your mates and I’m not sure what sort of effects you’re aiming for. Or if there’s any difference at all, really.”
“Oh, anything.” Merlin, that’s terrible. If she’s going to lie to the man just to spend time with him, the least she can do is be convincing at it. “My brothers are fuck-awful, so.”
“Really? That’s sad.”
“I’ve always thought so, but there’s nothing I can do about it.”
By then, he’s got the box out on the table and he’s set protective spells over the rest of his work. He nods again, looks something between sad and sympathetic, and starts digging through his box of things as though he’s avoiding her just then.
She has the distinct impression he’s bothered. Upset, maybe. She’s not quite sure why, just knows she can’t let it stand. “It’s all right,” she says. “They’ve been fuck-awful my whole life. It’s not like it’s new. And anyway, now I’ve got proper help repaying them for it, so hopefully they’ll think twice, right?”
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Nothing awful, though, nothing she’d actually send her brothers, because for Draco and Blaise, she mostly wants a laugh. She enjoys all his demonstrations, watches him light up and slip into himself as he goes, and the longer she watches him, the less she wants to think about her lunch ending soon.
She doesn’t want to leave, is the thing. Doesn’t want this side of him to disappear on her again.
He’s showing her the desk set that plays Quidditch - another thing for Draco, she’s sure - when he stops mid-sentence and frowns thoughtfully at her. “No good, is it?”
“What? Oh, no, it is! That’s brilliant, Earless. I’ll take all of them, if you don’t mind?” She wants to cringe at herself, since obviously he doesn’t mind. He’s selling them to her, that’s why she’s even down here, why would the shopkeeper mind making a sale?
Still, it seems he does. “Not what you’re after, though, is it?” He looks over the batch of tricks he’s laid out for her with a dismissive scrutiny she doesn’t understand. “They’re all well enough, I suppose, but they aren’t right for fuck-awful, are they?”
“It’s all right, though,” Pansy says, too quickly for her own peace of mind. “Too good for my brothers, maybe, but they’re spot-on for my friends.”
Her smile feels tentative, as uncertain as he seems, but it’s so much easier when he half-smiles back. “How are you even real?”
She rolls her eyes. “Well, when a witch and a wizard love each other very much,” she parrots, recites the fable as she’s heard it because it’s so much easier than telling it as she knows it, two miserable creatures married despite all sense and reason, raising up a small herd of fuck-awful children who can’t escape them fast enough.
His smile’s delightful, his grin’s infectious, but his laugh is Firewhisky on a cold night, tea and solitude Sunday mornings and a long, deep kiss from someone she likes.
Oh, she’s in so much trouble here. The worst of it is, she doesn’t even care. While she’s here, she can’t think of anywhere she’d rather be, and when she isn’t, she can’t remember why she’s decided not to say anything, why she’s letting someone so skittish lead the way.
He looks away from here, glances down at the box and gets a bit wide-eyed at what he sees here, which makes her curious enough to steal a peek. There’s a small white disc not much larger than a Snitch - Draco’s certainly shoved enough of those at her over the years - all on its own and while she has no clue what it is or why it’s there, she’d jump at anything to hear him talk again.
“What’s that?”
“Er, nothing. Just something I’ve been working on in my spare time. Not sure it’s ready yet, though.”
“What does it do?”
He’s gone shy again, adorably bashful. She’s never wanted to kiss someone so much in her life, and she would be if she was sure it wouldn’t make him run. He’s an odd one, her Earless, and much as she enjoys it, she’s not quite sure how to read him like that yet. “Not much, really. It only just hovers.”
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He bobs a nod. “Yeah, like a hinkypunk? Sets off to find the thing you want most, the thing you can’t have, and sort of hovers over it.” His mouth twists regretfully. “Not sure it’s working right, though. Meant it to be a sort of finder-Remembrall sort of thing, but it just keeps dropping dead on me when I test it.”
“Show me?”
He needs to think that over for a moment but when he nods, she lets herself breathe again. “Right, so you hold it like this, just flat in your palm with your fingers curled, and you think of what it is you’re missing, and when you uncurl your fingers, it should be off.”
She lets him put the thing in her hand and curl her fingers, takes more heart than she probably should at how warm his hand is, how good his touch feels. “Is that all? Just think of something and let it go? I don’t have to say anything?”
“No, it should work just fine without words or extra spells or anything. Of course, if it worked, I’d be-”
And then she lets her fist ease and the thing whips across the room to hit him in the chest. He catches it before it falls but she can tell he’s not paying attention, really, that it’s been pure reflex she hasn’t smashed his invention accidentally.
He’s watching her again, something hot and hopeful in his eyes, something serious and lovely. “Really, Pants?” He looks almost disappointed. “Really?”
She’s never quite sure how she knows he’s teasing, because she’s torn between mortified and dread that she’s broken it or hit him with it or both, but she hears herself say carefully, “Sorry. Got away from me.”
“Yeah, they do that. It’s just -” and then he’s clutching it in a fist at mid-chest, watching her as he releases it, and when it wings her way, she doesn’t even have time to react before it’s pinging off her sleeve, faltering down to her elbow before it jerks up to hover off her ear.
There is no way her lunch is still on but she wouldn’t leave this room for all of Gringotts, not with him still staring at her like he is. And when he offers to take her out somewhere - anywhere, he says, coffee or lunch or a drink or whatever - and they find themselves at Fortescue’s for ice cream when by rights, she should be back at work, well, these things happen, don’t they?
And when Draco asks later how she can be so sure so quickly, when Blaise asks if she’s gone mad, all Pansy can think to do is send them both Hinkypucks of their own.
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