Cheating fic, part two
This should have been posted ages ago. This is part two in the cheating series. But in this ficlet Draco isn't the one who cheats. Pansy-Pov. Don't worry, it's strictly slash. I actually really love this one. It's not DH compatible and the references to transgendered individuals come from the mouth of a bitter man. Although I am curious about how it would work in the magical world; recreation of the self is interesting in all forms. Many thanks to
dm_p and ms_laughs_a_lot for their kind words. I found them very encouraging.
I have another H/D to post and Bella-centric but I think this is my last serious dive into H/D fic and the fandom. The curiosity just isn't there for me anymore. I loved this fandom though- so many nights of fiction and comments and laughter and tears (becuase I'm a sentimental reader). And I love the fic I've been able to write in the fandom- I don't think that's cocky; I appreciate where it's taken me mentally. If there's one thing I'd like to look at, it's how much of the person becomes the spell- how intertwined personality and magic become.
Alas that isn't this fic. This is a fun (for me) thought on being betrayed and still wanting, on friends picking up the pieces and watching others change. Enjoy. (Ps. I love feedback)
Wishing and dreaming and praying and hoping
“I lean down to kiss him and I’m this far away when some bastard I don’t even know is tapping me on the shoulder, looking all stiff. Like a right idiot, saying, ‘Are you sure this is the way you want to go?’ And then I realize it’s Longbottom…ugly as ever.” His voice trails off, momentarily amused.
“ I feel like there needs to be a public service announcement. Do you know how many people came up to be me, saying ‘Don’t do it!’ Don’t cheat on him! Isn’t that a joke.” His voice turns bitter and low at the end, the frantic energy that had pushed him from song to song and body to body, had kept he curling his hips and dipping, stroking fingers along his chest, thumbing his neck, tossing his hair and rubbing against the rotating figures behind him now burning away. He runs a hand over his pale face, fingers pressing against the sweaty skin and eyes growing red with fatigue. “Are these…bags?” he asks her, a soft finger spooning beneath his eyes.
He says it as if bags was a foreign word; concept only she would be familiar with. As she adjusts the lines of her crumpled cotton dress, she can see why. Her eye has caught the mirror and the image of frazzled hair stays with her; dark tufts sticking into the air as if they were beaded with pieces of metal and some invisible magnet were hovering above. There is the smudged trail of mascara mixing with the darkening brown circles beneath her eyes. The pug nose, now red and fatter and somehow worse after a night of drinking, the plump mouth turned down.
It is the unhappy turn of her mouth that gets her- her saving feature reduced to miserable lines by one more night of movement and grasping hands and the circling word Potter forced upon her. She presses firm hands against her hips, the flesh soft and fuller in her palms than it had been the last year. She must look like an atrocity in this red dress.
She remembers January; a stranger's warm hands pushing the silk down as she moaned, head pressed against the cool wall, the electro beats, chatter and screams rising like a symphony around her. A thumb brushing beads of sweat from her thigh as she mounted their hip, painted toes curling.
Tonight her feet are swollen, nails short and practical, red gloss fading like last year’s glamour. A slow ache rises in her chest as Draco leans against her kitchen counter, his forehead pressed against cool marble surface.
“Draco,” she starts, voice husky and miserable. “This must end.”
His eyes are wide with surprise when he looks up at her. He seems eleven again; eyes endearing and soft and unsharpened. The little boy he sometimes was. She toys with the image; remembering why she allowed herself to be pulled-hand slapping his-out of her door for the tenth day in a row.
“Pansy,” he says, voice now low and cool and comforting, as if he might slink over to her and press his fingers against her forehead, as if he might crawl into the chair beside her to wrap his arms around her back, head pressed against her shoulders till her neck grows wet with his tears and then the room hangs in his silence, as he had down the first night.
“Pansy dear, the night is over. We have gone,” his arms spread, world-weary, “we have seen, and-” His fingers take on that peculiar way of curling that accompanies any point he makes, the way that so clearly marks him as playing for the other team, “-and, we have left…”
He pauses, eyebrow quirking till she gives in and manipulates her hands into a mediocre drumroll, “Un-” He pauses for effect and she has the oddest thought; that he has never looked less like his father. Who was cool and pompous and immaculate and quickened her pulse and made her voice catch in fear. Who she held in awe. And eventually, disdain.
Who must have despised Draco for all he lacked, for being so utterly obvious, almost ‘classless.’ Draco who could hold onto grudges and cling to them like hope. She knows what comes after this; she’s heard this rant as they walked slowly away from the club. His shoulders hunched as he let the words fall; low and childish and sneering. “All under the thrall of precious Potter… ‘
“-undefiled.”
“All for the benefit of Potter of course,” He sinks into the chair beside her now, mouth twisting nastily, sleepy. “Who-” the pout has returned. She had worked him out of the pout four days ago. She groans as her head falls against the table. “is paying no such consideration to me. Pansy do you think-” the vodka is slowing his words, their endings curling and pleading.
“Do you think, He, was thinking about me when he saw- what’ her name?”
“His name Draco.”
“Her, him. She-male is what it is. Illusion. A sleek façade used to lure men in. See, what a woman, sorry- MAN, like that does, is, is really a cleverly designed glamour to-” She eases his arm over her shoulder, lifting his unsteady body from the chair and begins the slow nightly walk to the living room.
“Potter-” His voice is rough now. As if parched. Rough and hoarse and cracking and she’d like to ignore the tone. Draco, she wants to say, you would have disappointed yourself.
She wants to talk about curses and threats and the slow sure removal of all Potter’s wandering bits. And she wants to talk about cunning and stealth and the healthy bit of suspicion. And she wants to shake him and slap him and let him know it was his fault. To be so hurt now, when there were rumors. Had been rumors for the better part of a year.
She wants to stand in front of him, incredulous, yelling “Didn’t you see? Didn’t you bloody well see this coming. Come on Draco!” And they can have a murderous row where he snatches her lamp up and throws it against the mantle, and she leaps onto his back to stop him from wreaking the carefully put together living room. And in the end they’ll both sit on the floor, eyeing the overturned sofas, faces red with exertion, breathing heavily and maybe, maybe things would be normal again.
Because Draco likes tantrums and fighting and revenge. And he does not abide excuses. And neither does she.
“Maybe it wasn’t his fault. He's never known what’s good for him,” he mumbles, head lowering to the soft fat cushions, body curling against the sofa. She presses her finger against his lips as he starts to go on. His mouth stills. A quick kiss to the cheek, slow pat on the shoulder, and then she stands as his hand covers his eyes. The sun is rising. The shadows in the room are moving away slowly as the light infiltrates, first pale and then it will grow brighter until the whole room is lit and bare.
She draws the thick curtains into her fists and yanks them closed. Pads away to the stairs and glances back at him as she begins to climb up.
He’s sitting now. Back hunched over, face grim and sharp from this angle, his hands moving quickly. Fingers spinning something again and again. She doesn’t have to catch a glimpse of silver to know it’s the ring. His fingers slow to a soft stroke.
He misses him, she knows. And she doesn’t know what to say. Marriage is about fidelity and honesty and commitment. She’d heard that somewhere. And with Potter it was about the quiet slipping on of bans, the sudden appearance of a silver ring, and minimal fuss.
“What’s this for?” she’d asked when she first saw it. Sitting in a bar of Slytherins, watching that slow sure smile play across his lips as he touched it. Shed waited for a story about the Malfoy chest, unimaginable wealth or some old legend in his lineage that he’s now declaring as true. But he glanced at it, drink in his other hand, and said only “Potter.” She’d exchanged a glance with Blaise and they’d waited.
Because Potter may be a lot of things but Draco should always know that marriage is about control and power and who can do what at any given time. And love comes in stages with consuming passion and slow distrust. All restrictions are guidelines to be enforced. And rings are just trinkets to those too weak to keep promises.
She walks up the stairs. She has work in two hours and if she can rest for ninety uninterrupted minutes before she begins this cycle of fight and party and drunken sad confessions, she will be grateful.
The thoughts keep circling as she lies against the bed. Draco had Potter and lost Potter. And Potter still has Draco and Draco doesn’t even have himself. When the Quibbler’d asked him three years ago, ‘Who made you who you are today,’ he had looked at the interviewer with that slow smile, so deadly it was beautiful, and spoke in that low voice that reminded you of the cut against his throat, trailing down his chest, the ones that edged up his back and decorated his knuckles and where they all originated; in that voice that spoke of bravery, and said “Myself.”
Forever cocky.
Potter had echoed her sentiment in the next day’s paper. And of course, the brawl, that first furious exchange of words, had ensued, and then the coverage, and finally the meetings, and the sightings and Draco’s smug smile returning. And now this.
If you asked Draco that today, which someone will, it’s inevitable--Once the news gets out and the papers want to write some horrible trash about “Draco Malfoy: Starting Over, A New Faith” where they go on about his childhood and those cold years in Slytherin and the war and then the latest failure-meet-feat, Harry Potter, and how he’s moving on from here. The question will come and he’ll…well, maybe he won’t tell the truth, but who knows anymore. Certainly not her. What Pansy does know is that the answer will be quite different. And she can see clearly whose name would fit in place of his own.
But, she thinks sleepily, barely registering her own words, hasn’t Harry Potter always made Draco Malfoy who he was. First villain, then hero, lover, husband, man scorned. And now the last stage she never thought she’d see, one she hopes passes soon enough-victim. Hopeful, waiting. She knows he’s holding that ring hoping Potter will come home. And wanting to forgive him when he does.
A Gryffindor might say that hope is the last thing to die. But she knows that under the surface, there's the rage. Waiting and hoping for fires of its own. Blood-burning, plan-provoking, Draco Malfoy trademark rage. And she can’t wait. They’ll burn the skies down. Tomorrow. When something better comes.
dm_p and ms_laughs_a_lot for their kind words. I found them very encouraging.
I have another H/D to post and Bella-centric but I think this is my last serious dive into H/D fic and the fandom. The curiosity just isn't there for me anymore. I loved this fandom though- so many nights of fiction and comments and laughter and tears (becuase I'm a sentimental reader). And I love the fic I've been able to write in the fandom- I don't think that's cocky; I appreciate where it's taken me mentally. If there's one thing I'd like to look at, it's how much of the person becomes the spell- how intertwined personality and magic become.
Alas that isn't this fic. This is a fun (for me) thought on being betrayed and still wanting, on friends picking up the pieces and watching others change. Enjoy. (Ps. I love feedback)
Wishing and dreaming and praying and hoping
“I lean down to kiss him and I’m this far away when some bastard I don’t even know is tapping me on the shoulder, looking all stiff. Like a right idiot, saying, ‘Are you sure this is the way you want to go?’ And then I realize it’s Longbottom…ugly as ever.” His voice trails off, momentarily amused.
“ I feel like there needs to be a public service announcement. Do you know how many people came up to be me, saying ‘Don’t do it!’ Don’t cheat on him! Isn’t that a joke.” His voice turns bitter and low at the end, the frantic energy that had pushed him from song to song and body to body, had kept he curling his hips and dipping, stroking fingers along his chest, thumbing his neck, tossing his hair and rubbing against the rotating figures behind him now burning away. He runs a hand over his pale face, fingers pressing against the sweaty skin and eyes growing red with fatigue. “Are these…bags?” he asks her, a soft finger spooning beneath his eyes.
He says it as if bags was a foreign word; concept only she would be familiar with. As she adjusts the lines of her crumpled cotton dress, she can see why. Her eye has caught the mirror and the image of frazzled hair stays with her; dark tufts sticking into the air as if they were beaded with pieces of metal and some invisible magnet were hovering above. There is the smudged trail of mascara mixing with the darkening brown circles beneath her eyes. The pug nose, now red and fatter and somehow worse after a night of drinking, the plump mouth turned down.
It is the unhappy turn of her mouth that gets her- her saving feature reduced to miserable lines by one more night of movement and grasping hands and the circling word Potter forced upon her. She presses firm hands against her hips, the flesh soft and fuller in her palms than it had been the last year. She must look like an atrocity in this red dress.
She remembers January; a stranger's warm hands pushing the silk down as she moaned, head pressed against the cool wall, the electro beats, chatter and screams rising like a symphony around her. A thumb brushing beads of sweat from her thigh as she mounted their hip, painted toes curling.
Tonight her feet are swollen, nails short and practical, red gloss fading like last year’s glamour. A slow ache rises in her chest as Draco leans against her kitchen counter, his forehead pressed against cool marble surface.
“Draco,” she starts, voice husky and miserable. “This must end.”
His eyes are wide with surprise when he looks up at her. He seems eleven again; eyes endearing and soft and unsharpened. The little boy he sometimes was. She toys with the image; remembering why she allowed herself to be pulled-hand slapping his-out of her door for the tenth day in a row.
“Pansy,” he says, voice now low and cool and comforting, as if he might slink over to her and press his fingers against her forehead, as if he might crawl into the chair beside her to wrap his arms around her back, head pressed against her shoulders till her neck grows wet with his tears and then the room hangs in his silence, as he had down the first night.
“Pansy dear, the night is over. We have gone,” his arms spread, world-weary, “we have seen, and-” His fingers take on that peculiar way of curling that accompanies any point he makes, the way that so clearly marks him as playing for the other team, “-and, we have left…”
He pauses, eyebrow quirking till she gives in and manipulates her hands into a mediocre drumroll, “Un-” He pauses for effect and she has the oddest thought; that he has never looked less like his father. Who was cool and pompous and immaculate and quickened her pulse and made her voice catch in fear. Who she held in awe. And eventually, disdain.
Who must have despised Draco for all he lacked, for being so utterly obvious, almost ‘classless.’ Draco who could hold onto grudges and cling to them like hope. She knows what comes after this; she’s heard this rant as they walked slowly away from the club. His shoulders hunched as he let the words fall; low and childish and sneering. “All under the thrall of precious Potter… ‘
“-undefiled.”
“All for the benefit of Potter of course,” He sinks into the chair beside her now, mouth twisting nastily, sleepy. “Who-” the pout has returned. She had worked him out of the pout four days ago. She groans as her head falls against the table. “is paying no such consideration to me. Pansy do you think-” the vodka is slowing his words, their endings curling and pleading.
“Do you think, He, was thinking about me when he saw- what’ her name?”
“His name Draco.”
“Her, him. She-male is what it is. Illusion. A sleek façade used to lure men in. See, what a woman, sorry- MAN, like that does, is, is really a cleverly designed glamour to-” She eases his arm over her shoulder, lifting his unsteady body from the chair and begins the slow nightly walk to the living room.
“Potter-” His voice is rough now. As if parched. Rough and hoarse and cracking and she’d like to ignore the tone. Draco, she wants to say, you would have disappointed yourself.
She wants to talk about curses and threats and the slow sure removal of all Potter’s wandering bits. And she wants to talk about cunning and stealth and the healthy bit of suspicion. And she wants to shake him and slap him and let him know it was his fault. To be so hurt now, when there were rumors. Had been rumors for the better part of a year.
She wants to stand in front of him, incredulous, yelling “Didn’t you see? Didn’t you bloody well see this coming. Come on Draco!” And they can have a murderous row where he snatches her lamp up and throws it against the mantle, and she leaps onto his back to stop him from wreaking the carefully put together living room. And in the end they’ll both sit on the floor, eyeing the overturned sofas, faces red with exertion, breathing heavily and maybe, maybe things would be normal again.
Because Draco likes tantrums and fighting and revenge. And he does not abide excuses. And neither does she.
“Maybe it wasn’t his fault. He's never known what’s good for him,” he mumbles, head lowering to the soft fat cushions, body curling against the sofa. She presses her finger against his lips as he starts to go on. His mouth stills. A quick kiss to the cheek, slow pat on the shoulder, and then she stands as his hand covers his eyes. The sun is rising. The shadows in the room are moving away slowly as the light infiltrates, first pale and then it will grow brighter until the whole room is lit and bare.
She draws the thick curtains into her fists and yanks them closed. Pads away to the stairs and glances back at him as she begins to climb up.
He’s sitting now. Back hunched over, face grim and sharp from this angle, his hands moving quickly. Fingers spinning something again and again. She doesn’t have to catch a glimpse of silver to know it’s the ring. His fingers slow to a soft stroke.
He misses him, she knows. And she doesn’t know what to say. Marriage is about fidelity and honesty and commitment. She’d heard that somewhere. And with Potter it was about the quiet slipping on of bans, the sudden appearance of a silver ring, and minimal fuss.
“What’s this for?” she’d asked when she first saw it. Sitting in a bar of Slytherins, watching that slow sure smile play across his lips as he touched it. Shed waited for a story about the Malfoy chest, unimaginable wealth or some old legend in his lineage that he’s now declaring as true. But he glanced at it, drink in his other hand, and said only “Potter.” She’d exchanged a glance with Blaise and they’d waited.
Because Potter may be a lot of things but Draco should always know that marriage is about control and power and who can do what at any given time. And love comes in stages with consuming passion and slow distrust. All restrictions are guidelines to be enforced. And rings are just trinkets to those too weak to keep promises.
She walks up the stairs. She has work in two hours and if she can rest for ninety uninterrupted minutes before she begins this cycle of fight and party and drunken sad confessions, she will be grateful.
The thoughts keep circling as she lies against the bed. Draco had Potter and lost Potter. And Potter still has Draco and Draco doesn’t even have himself. When the Quibbler’d asked him three years ago, ‘Who made you who you are today,’ he had looked at the interviewer with that slow smile, so deadly it was beautiful, and spoke in that low voice that reminded you of the cut against his throat, trailing down his chest, the ones that edged up his back and decorated his knuckles and where they all originated; in that voice that spoke of bravery, and said “Myself.”
Forever cocky.
Potter had echoed her sentiment in the next day’s paper. And of course, the brawl, that first furious exchange of words, had ensued, and then the coverage, and finally the meetings, and the sightings and Draco’s smug smile returning. And now this.
If you asked Draco that today, which someone will, it’s inevitable--Once the news gets out and the papers want to write some horrible trash about “Draco Malfoy: Starting Over, A New Faith” where they go on about his childhood and those cold years in Slytherin and the war and then the latest failure-meet-feat, Harry Potter, and how he’s moving on from here. The question will come and he’ll…well, maybe he won’t tell the truth, but who knows anymore. Certainly not her. What Pansy does know is that the answer will be quite different. And she can see clearly whose name would fit in place of his own.
But, she thinks sleepily, barely registering her own words, hasn’t Harry Potter always made Draco Malfoy who he was. First villain, then hero, lover, husband, man scorned. And now the last stage she never thought she’d see, one she hopes passes soon enough-victim. Hopeful, waiting. She knows he’s holding that ring hoping Potter will come home. And wanting to forgive him when he does.
A Gryffindor might say that hope is the last thing to die. But she knows that under the surface, there's the rage. Waiting and hoping for fires of its own. Blood-burning, plan-provoking, Draco Malfoy trademark rage. And she can’t wait. They’ll burn the skies down. Tomorrow. When something better comes.