Challenge One: Red Voting!
Time to Vote!
Please read the voting rules:
1. Do not vote for yourself and do not ask others to vote for you.
2. All LDWS participants are REQUIRED to vote.
3. Vote for one MOST and one LEAST favorite drabble.
4. Please vote for the NUMBER of the drabble, not the name of it.
5. Voting will close Friday at 11:59pm EST
6. Please remember the prompts when voting: "He liked to observe emotions; they were like red lanterns strung along the dark unknown of another's personality, marking vulnerable points."
AND/OR
Results will be posted Saturday. Have fun!
1.
Author: scarysnapey
Title: Make Believe
Words: 392
Rating: G
Warnings: None
Pansy likes the white walls. She likes the windows because they’re enchanted to make the weather seem sunny, even when she can hear the pitter-patter of rain on the panes. She likes the smooth tile floor and the plain white sheets. She even likes the ordinary white nightgown that the nurses have her wear.
She likes the pile of Ron’s things in the corner of the room, and she likes the fact that he comes to her every night and curls up in the bed beside her. She likes how he still loves her. But mostly, Pansy likes how St. Mungo’s is safe.
They’re out there, and she knows it. She saw what they did to Draco. It was in the Daily Prophet, which the nurses always leave around because they don’t think she can read it. But she can, and she saw the pictures of Draco’s coffin and his sobbing mother and the Dark Mark in the sky above his home. Voldemort is gone, Death Eaters are everywhere, and Pansy knows that that there is a price for switching sides. She knows that Draco has paid it, and she knows that she is next.
Or, she would be.
---
When Ron comes in, Pansy gives him her biggest loopy smile.
“Ronald!” she giggles, clapping her hands like a child. He smiles, but it hurts him to look at her. It hurts him to see her.
“Hey, Pansy. How was your day?” he manages, but the words come out strangled and his voice sounds hoarse.
“Ronald!” she cries again. Her smile slips, just the tiniest fraction of an inch, but he sits down on the bed and pretends not to notice.
“I love you, Pansy,” he whispers, leaning down and looking her straight in the eyes until she has to shrink away. Ron feels his heart breaking, slowly but surely, as day after day goes by where she doesn’t realize how well he knows her.
She’s all secrets and games, but Ron’s known from the first moment that he visited her in St. Mungo’s. He’s known from the first moment that he looked her in the eye and saw the sanguine face of fear staring right back at him.
Someday she’ll tell him everything, he knows she will, and he knows that he’ll pretend that he wasn’t in on it all along.
2.
Author: leigh_adams
Title: Desert Rose
Words: 383
Rating: G
Warnings: None
The marketplace in central Casablanca was bustling with activity. Vendors, tourists, and locals alike mingled, their voices rising in a mix of Spanish, French, and Arabic that was as colorful as the jilbāb worn by the Islamic women.
Blue eyes tracked the movements of a woman as she moved through the crowds, sidestepping children and animals as she meandered through the stalls. This was not the first time Ron had been sent to track a person under the Ministry’s scrutiny, but it was his first following this particular one.
The desert climate suited Pansy Parkinson, he noted. The pale skin of her face had colored slightly with the sun, and the red ḥijāb she wore framed the tendrils of black hair that peaked out from beneath the colorful cloth. It was a shame she had it covered, but he did not need to see it to remember the way the silken strands felt beneath his fingers.
She wasn’t supposed to be here. Leaving the country without notification was a violation of her parole, and she knew that. But his former lover delighted in thumbing her nose at the Ministry, so here he was, trekking across Morocco after her.
Atlas Shrugged lay open on his lap, but the words on the page remained unread. He preferred to watch her barter with the vendors. This was not the Pansy Parkinson whose face had been plastered all over the Daily Prophet after her trial had concluded, with her icy blue eyes and immaculate façade.
No, this Pansy’s face was alive with emotions as she spoke with a spice vendor in a mixture of flawless French and broken Arabic. She reminded him of his Pansy, who let her emotions rush through her eyes when they were together.
The woman handed Pansy a small ma’amoul, and Ron was unable to keep the memories at bay when she took a bite, eyes closing in pleasure. He’d seen that look on her face before, when she’d shared his bed.
Taking a sip of his Turkish coffee, Ron watched her hand the woman a silver coin and leave, fading into the crowd. Lips twitching, he set the cup down and turned his attention to his book.
His orders didn’t say when he had to return her to British soil, after all.
3.
Author: siriusisbest
Title: Observations
Words: 314
Rating: PG
Warnings: None.
He didn’t know why, but every morning when he’d pass her desk or sometimes even pass her herself in the hall’s at the Ministry of Magic, and he’d study her.
He noticed that on good days she curled her shiny black hair and on bad days she’d leave it the way it was, shoulder length with a natural wave or two. He noticed, how she pushed her chin out and stood straight when she was proud with herself and how she flattened her robes or twisted her hair when she was nervous.
He found, every bit, intriguing.
Her appearance wasn’t the only the noticed however.
He knew she hated talk-back or snide remarks and he knew she had a mouth that could put a sailor to shame. He knew she loved being told she’d done well and he knew she thrived on complements. Whether it was on her looks, or her work, it didn’t matter. As long as she knew she aw appreciated and wanted.
From all of his observations he knew deep inside the beautiful pureblood, she was insecure, and afraid. Insecure of her work and her appearance and afraid of not being wanted or needed.
On those occasions where she was insecure he wanted to hug her and assure her that everything would be alright. And when she did well on a work project he wanted to tell her she’d done a job well done - even if she didn’t want to hear it from the likes of him.
He also realized things of himself, he realized how he hated the way Malfoy looked at her, and the way Zabini talked to her, and the way Nott touched her.
He noticed that whenever he was around her, he was red.
Red was the color of love, color of passion, color of danger.
To Ronald Weasley, red was the color of Pansy Parkinson.
4.
Author: swimnsail
Title: Favorite Color
Words: 232
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Mild suggestive themes.
“Hang on, you're wearing a red dress?” Ron asked incredulously.
“That would be correct, Weasley. Congratulations on getting your colors right.” She smiled sweetly at him before turning back to the mirror.
“Let me re-phrase that,” he said carefully, knowing how emotional she could get over her clothing. “I absolutely love the dress, and I love the color of it.” He trailed off, noting the dangerous glint that was becoming more prominent in her eyes.
“Yes?” She asked dangerously.
Ah, screw it. “Have you seen the color of my hair?” He asked carefully.
“No, I've managed to successfully avoid it in the three years we've been dating,” she said sarcastically.
“It's red!” He gestured helplessly.
“Do we really need to go through naming colors again? You're going to have to tell me the problem right now Weasley, before we have a real problem.” She folded her arms across her chest and glared at him.
“Do you remember what my favorite color is?”
“No,” she said sarcastically. “Again, dating for three years, how would I possibly know that?”
Ron groaned. She knew that whenever he saw her in red he was putty in her hands. And tonight was the Ministry Ball. It definitely wasn't going to be a good place to be losing his head. “You're going to be the death of me,” he groaned.
She smiled sweetly at him in the mirror.
5.
Author: cassie_black12
Title: What Big Teeth You Have
Words: 300
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: None
"I can't believe you're making me wear this." Ron sank onto the bed, a sullen expression marring his boyish features.
"Make is such a strong word," Pansy chided from within the bathroom.
"What else d'you call no sex for a week?"
Pansy peered around the door, giving Ron a tantalising glimpse of bare shoulder. "Persuasion."
"I look stupid," he muttered, tugging at the thick fur now covering his entire body. "Like Professor Lupin on a full moon."
Pansy emerged from the bathroom in a cloud of perfume. As she crossed the room slowly, Ron's eyes tracked her every movement. She came to a halt in front of him, one hand absently toying with a lock of his hair while the other reached down to pet the giant wolf's head in his lap.
"I used to have quite a crush on him," she murmured.
"Really?"
"Really." Pansy eased her dressing gown off her shoulders and Ron swallowed thickly. The red satin of her corset clung to her like a second skin, emphasising every delicious curve. He trailed one hand up her thigh, a look of awe on his face.
A small smile curved the edge of Pansy's lips as she slid a sheer red cloak over her shoulders and carefully settled the hood on her neatly coiffed locks. She bent down to retrieve her basket off the floor - Ron licked his lips as the slit of her skirt flashed a healthy amount of thigh.
Pansy caught the predatory gleam in his eyes. "Easy tiger," she teased.
"Thought I was meant to be a wolf?"
Pansy grinned. "That you are," she said, settling the fake head into place. She ran her fingertip over the large canine teeth. "And if you're a really good boy tonight, you might just get to eat me."
6.
Author: persephone33
Title: Crimson
Words: 405
Rating: PG
Warnings: None
Ron had learned how to size people up pretty quickly over the years. He'd found if he watched closely enough, he could see people's personalities display themselves in actual, visible colors. He wasn't sure if it was a real talent, if it was only his inherent magic manifesting, or if the entire business was all in his imagination. In any case, Ron found it dead useful, nonetheless.
Everyone he met was a different hue. Harry was a calm, strong blue. Kingsley was a pure white. Hermione was a rich goldenrod. McMillan was pink, oddly enough.
Ron tried hard not to think about that one.
When Pansy Parkinson was admitted to the Aurors, Ron thought it odd he couldn't see her color clearly. For months, she'd only showed him glimpses of her personality. Pansy barely reacted when he'd openly refused to be paired with her. She merely lifted a perfectly sculpted brow when their superior insisted that his strategic planning prowess and her superior knowledge of curses were needed for a particular case.
It was only after he'd pushed her a bit too far that he'd decided Pansy Parkinson's color was most definitely and without a doubt, a deep, pulsating scarlet.
He'd started by insulting her upbringing, raced past her selfishness and questionable moral compass to verbally attack her personal capacity to have any emotion at all. That seemed to be her breaking point; within a split second, he found himself on his back, the breath leaving his lungs in a rush, with her wand pointed handily at his throat. It was that he saw it; her loss of control showed everything. The color bloomed around her like drops of blood in water, dancing around in swirling patterns, the color a rich, dark red visible only to him.
Pansy sheathed her wand and sat up, not moving from her scandalous position atop him and purred, "Don't presume you know anything about anything, Weasley."
After that, Ron made it his life's mission to see her swirling droplets of color at every given opportunity. Seeing Pansy's vulnerability only made him want to know her more. With every splash of red that he was fortunate enough to catch a glimpse of, he was drawn closer. Ron was hypnotized by her mystery, compelled by her sensual beauty and hopelessly intrigued by the hidden depths of her very person. The crimson was an inescapable magnet, absolutely impossible for him to resist.
7.
Author: bendleshnitz1
Title: The Observer
Words: 397
Rating: PG-13 (for slight sexual implications)
Warnings: None.
Another Saturday night, another whiskey in his hand. Same bar, same table. Ron watches Pansy from a far, dark corner of the dimly lighted place.
She talks to a blonde bloke, sipping at her drink every time he says something.
He is boring.
*
The next week, the same table awaits him. Ron smiles to himself as Pansy pushes her long hair behind her ear for the hundredth time that night.
Her dark locks fall in uncharacteristic curls down her back, the product of the humidity outside.
She feels uncomfortable.
*
The following Saturday, he observes her again. The muscles in his shoulders tense as Pansy giggles and touches a man's arm.
She pretends not to catch him looking down her low-cut blouse.
She wants to fuck him.
*
The whiskey doesn't burn his throat anymore. It’s a routine, just like observing her. Ron feels himself relax for the first time in a week when he sees Pansy's last conquest is nowhere in sight.
She's wearing her grey sweater and a short skirt.
There's something bothering her.
*
Another weekend finds him in the same place, but there are no signs of Pansy in the pub. Ron waits and waits, but the girl he's been observing for months hasn't shown up.
A sense of loss invades him.
He misses her.
*
The next Saturday, there is already someone at his table when he arrives at the pub. Pansy looks at him intently with two whiskeys on the table. Ron sits in front of her, his curiosity greater than the fear of her discovering him.
"You've been watching me, Weasley."
Straight to the point. Of course, she's wearing her red dress today. She is determined.
"I've been reading you," he says shortly, his blue eyes burning into her hazel ones.
"Is that so?" she asks, lifting her chin just so, a move almost imperceptible to anyone but him. "Would you tell me what you read?"
Ron leans across the table. The scant distance between their faces makes her painted lips all the more inviting.
"You're just as vulnerable as I am… as any of us. But you like to pretend that's not true."
Her cold laugh rings in his ears. The sound is supposed to be denigrating, but only confirms his theory.
"You think you know everything, Weasley."
"I don't. I just know you," he whispers before kissing her firmly on the lips.
8.
Author: akashathekitty
Title: Red is her Colour
Words: 399
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: None
She swirled and twirled on the dance floor, a flurry of red where there used to be pink. Pink’s a girl’s colour, she’d said. I’m a woman now. Red is my colour. It suits me better.
No doubt that she was a woman inside out. Ron watched her as she was completely lost to the music, oblivious to her dance partner, caught in her own mindless passion. She was strong, accomplished, passionate-but today someone had managed to pierce her armour, to make it around her defences, and she was now nothing but a wounded animal, bleeding all over the dance floor as her flimsy red robes billowed around her.
Draco’s getting married. To my best friend’s little sister! she had said, her tears threatening to spill.
Ron looked away. There was a bitter taste in his mouth that he couldn’t swallow, and a heaviness in his chest that couldn’t be made to go away. She shouldn’t care if Malfoy was getting married. She should be over him by now! The fact that she wasn’t... it was too telling. He couldn’t stay any longer. He turned away, intent on going home.
Hermione appeared in front of him, looking worried. “Don’t do anything rash,” she said. “Don’t let jealousy cloud your judgement. We all have baggage.”
Jealousy? Ron looked back at Pansy, a bright red spot in a sea of muted pastels. She made the rest of the world look washed out and dull. She was passion. She was life. This red haze he was feeling coursing through his body was not some irrational, happiness-robbing emotion. It was her, creeping into his system, taking it over, and telling him... he should’ve been someone else. He couldn’t make her happy. “It’s fine,” he said and left. He knew Hermione didn’t believe him, but it was still easier to lie.
He hadn’t been home long before Pansy suddenly appeared at his door, angry and flushed, as always running red hot with emotion. He loved the way her eyes sparked at him. It made him feel like she cared. “Never do that again! Never leave me behind.” was all she said.
“What’s the point?” he quietly asked. “Why torment me when you’d rather be with him?”
At that, she merely smiled and reached up to touch his hair. “I told you. I’m a woman now. Red is my colour. It suits me better.”
9.
Author: kate0404
Title: Something Akin to Attentive
Words: 393
Rating: PG
Warnings: None
Ron had never been exceptionally observant. There were multiple documented cases, in fact, showing that he was so far from perceptive, it was downright unnatural. Hermione - who had been the one to suffer the most from his lack of attention over the years - had even procured the book Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince to prove it. Inside there was hardly any mention of Harry’s year with the Advanced Potion Making book, but Ron’s short-lived relationship with Lavender and Hermione’s feelings on Ron’s lack of awareness were detailed perfectly, if not much too descriptively. Ron was certain the book had been tampered with, considering the title, but Hermione told him that was neither here nor there.
However, there was something about her that made him something akin to attentive.
He didn’t know what had caused him to start watching her, but if someone had asked him how she liked her tea (piping hot, with a smidge of milk), where she liked to shop for dress robes (Madam Malkin’s, because it was familiar and reminded her of home), or when she did her grocery shopping (every Saturday around 2 PM), he’d answer without missing a beat. After all, as an Auror he should be observant enough to pick up ones daily habits, yes?
But it wasn’t just the little things he’d noticed. He had watched her enough, without even realizing he was doing it, to pick up the little things, as well.
For instance, when she was feeling tired, she walked with a slight limp, favoring her left leg. He’d learned that when she was young, she had fallen off a broom, breaking her leg in two places. It obviously still bothered her; though, she rarely let people see it.
Or when she was having a bad day, there was a long crease in her forehead that became over pronounced. Ron had noticed it the first time he witnessed her fighting with her mum.
His favorite, though, was when she was happy. When Pansy Parkinson smiled - really smiled -a small dimple appeared in her right cheek and her eyes twinkled. He wasn’t sure many people had ever looked past her (adorable) pug-like nose to notice it, but Ron had.
He’d observed it the first time he’d run into her and, very ineloquently and Ron-like, asked her to dinner.
Maybe he was observant after all.
10.
Author: roses_at_sunset
Title: Transparent
Words: 346
Rating: G
Warnings: None
Ron never knows what Pansy is thinking. She was a Slytherin after all, and for good reason: she is an accomplished liar. She hides her thoughts well, but what she has never been able to hide from him are her feelings. Anger, grief, joy - they all crackle like static in the air around her.
Ron finds it useful most of the time. He can deal with her temper, as long as he knows that she is angry; he can fix things with flowers, even if he doesn't always understand for exactly what it is that he is making amends.
This morning though, he finds himself wishing that she were not so transparent. He wishes that he could take at face value her glib dismissal of the announcement she has just read heralding Draco Malfoy's marriage as she pushes both the Daily Prophet and her toast away from her, unwanted and uneaten.
He wishes more than anything, as he sips his tea in silence, barely noticing that it has grown cold on the counter as he has busied himself pretending not to watch her, that he could believe her sigh is merely nostalgia not heartache and that she means it when she says that it makes no odds to her, that she has found the better man, but he can't.
Ron understands that your first love stays with you, he does; Hermione will always have a piece of him in some small way, but he has moved on and it does not trouble him that she has too. He is happy for Hermione as a friend that she has found happiness elsewhere, as has he, and he knows that is how it should be. The part of them both that belonged to each other is a part of the past.
He desperately wants to believe Pansy has moved on too, that her love for him is enough, but he isn't sure, even as he toys with the wedding ring on his finger, twisting it around and around as he watches her walk away from her abandoned breakfast.
___________________________
Poll Ron/Pansy LDWS