Voting Post For Week #160
It's Voting Time!
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5. Please remember the prompt must when voting: A Picture Prompt
Results will be posted on Friday. Have fun!
1.
Author:fluffyfrolicker
Feedback: yes, please
Title: Maybe
Words: 326
Rating: R
Warnings: vague sex.
She stares and stares and stares through the window.
Which is all kinds of ridiculous, since she's not the sort of woman to wait for a man, for any man, no thank you Sir. Also, it only serves to make the waiting seem longer.
("I don't like waiting", she tells him, straight up and to the point when she first talks to him, and 4 minutes and 12 seconds later his hands go up her skirt.)
("Good boy", she whispers then, kisses his shoulder lightly then leaves. She doesn't see it, but she still knows he's watching her walk away. He owls her the next day, immediately, and she's surprised that his letter makes her smile.)
They always meet in her house (castle, manor) and never leave her bedroom.
(He looks young in her bed, this boy, her boy, naked and beautiful and young, as he pours himself some Firewhiskey.
"You're barely allowed to drink that", she comments, but he looks at her, won't move his eyes away from hers. And then he sticks out his tongue and he pulls her down onto him and whispers "You're going to shout my name soon", and then she does.)
She turns to pour herself more wine (he's the only one that drinks the stronger alcohol from her stash) but now he's here and he's pouring wine for her and she thinks that maybe she could love him.
"Oh sorry, did you wait for a long time?" he asks her, a smile playing on his face.
"It's fine", she just says.
She kisses him, then, in a lazy, slow way, the way lovers get when things are not so new anymore, and it's not all about quick hook ups, but something else as well, sometimes she still doesn't say out loud.
"I might be happy, just like this", she says later. He nods and falls asleep in her bed.
(He hogs the covers later. But that's not the point.)
2.
Author:oakstone730
Feedback: Yes
Title: One Last Night
Words: 615
Rating: light R
Warnings: None
A flicker of movement had her half off the seat before she recognized the Muggle postman on his route. She slowly lowered herself back onto the window seat. It had been foolish to cut things so closely but she’d never thought that it would come down to race against the time.
There. She held her breath as she saw the familiar cloaked figure making his way down the street. She raced to the door and out onto the doorstep, heedless of the rain that soaked through her white jumper.
“Where have you been?” she snarled as she thrust the bag of galleons into his left hand whilst grabbing the small envelope from his right hand.
“There were complications,” he said simply. “Be glad for what you have there, I can’t promise there will be any more where that came from.”
“What?” She looked from the envelope to his shrouded eyes and angrily spat out, “I’ve paid you well. Why can’t you deliver more?”
“The source is gone. Haven’t you been reading the Prophet? I’ve used the last of my sources and haven’t found any more.”
She looked in disbelief from the envelope to him, “How many?” she asked, afraid of the answer.
“Just one, and be glad for that.” Without waiting for a reply he turned and walked away.
She stood in the doorway and carefully opened the envelope. There it was, spellotaped to the paper. One precious hair. There was no time left to worry that it wasn’t more.
Wasting no more time she apparated into the bedroom. With a steady hand she picked up the flask and carefully dropped the hair into the potion. Closing the lid and swirling it gently she refused to think how long this potion would last. One night. She could make it last until morning.
Shaking her head, she simply refused to accept that this could be the last night. Slowly she undressed, vanishing her clothes so there would be no sign of them.
Sitting on the bed, she lifted the flask to her lips and swallowed half of it. Her body writhed in agony at the familiar transformation. Breathless, she stared up at the canopy. It was done. And just in time as she heard the floo flare in the sitting room down below.
She lay back against the red silk sheets and stretched to get accustomed to the new form her body had taken. It was worth it, she thought. To risk everything to have just one more night. She would find another source. This was not the last night, she thought determinedly as she heard the steps racing up the stairs.
There was a pause and she forced the smile upon her face as she saw the blond appear in the doorway.
“Oh, Merlin. You are here. I’d heard-- the Prophet said that you’d left the country,” Draco said, as he walked slowly into the room, as if he couldn’t believe that Potter was really lying naked before him.
Pansy forced the loopy Potteresque smile upon her face as she reached languorously down and grabbed his--her cock, “Why would you believe a rag-sheet like the Prophet when you have me to prove it and everyone else wrong?”
She gave a catlike purr as Draco pulled her to him and kissed her.
3.
Author:bluemermaid
Feedback: yes
Title: Lying in the Snow
Words: 327
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: None
Pansy leaned against the wall and placed her arms up on the window sill, her mind wandering as she stared out into the snow. Swirls of white crystals blew up against the glass, then flew away as the wind took them elsewhere. She'd always liked the snow; it meant death and rebirth, the cleansing of the world. Somewhere all the darkness lay buried beneath the pristine white ice, dying for to wash away with the thaw. Pansy needed her own darkness to die and leave her; she wondered if she could be wiped as clean as the snow, if she only ventured out into it. If she lay upon that soft cold winter, would it smother her and bring her back anew?
"Come back to bed," he called to her, voice groggy with sleep, and Pansy turned away from that alluring blankness, her eyes narrowing as she looked upon him there in her bed. "It's fucking cold out there. Come be warm here with me."
Pansy went to him reluctantly, slipping under the warm blankets and allowing him to pull her close, their bodies flush together. "Love you," he murmured, already drifting back off into sleep, and leaving Pansy wide awake and wondering.
She'd come so far after the war, trying to forget the things she'd seen, things she'd done. She'd come so far, and yet she was still as black as ever, deep down inside her heart. She had to be, to allow this man to lie beside her, murmuring his lying love as he fell asleep with his arms around her.
Ron Weasley didn't really love her. He loved his Granger girl, and he was set to marry Hermione in three months' time. Pansy wasn't invited to the wedding; she wondered if it would snow. If it did, she would go and lie in it. Maybe that would make her feel better about falling in love with another woman's fiance.
She didn't think so, though.
4.
Author:birdsofshore
Feedback: Yes
Title: Surrender, in its Place
Words: 599
Rating: PG
Warnings: None
"At fifteen life had taught me undeniably that surrender, in its place, was as honorable as resistance, especially if one had no choice." - Maya Angelou
Pansy sighed, and her breath misted the window in front of her, obscuring the view of the Quidditch pitch below. Harry leant forward impatiently and rubbed a patch clear with his sleeve.
"Are you sure, Parkinson? I mean, honestly?"
"Of course I'm sure. Who else knows him as well as I? Who's heard all his grubby little secrets, since we were brats, in knee socks and short robes?"
"But- he has actually mentioned me, has he? You're positive?"
"As if I hear talk of much else," murmured Pansy. "Yes, Potter, I'm quite positive."
"And- he's definitely- I mean, he likes blokes?"
"Gracious, they said you were slow on the uptake, but I never dreamt it would be this hard. Yes, dear Potter, Draco is one hundred per cent bent. He's been pursuing the contents of other people's trousers since 1994."
Harry's breath came harder as he bent to look out again, his eyes fixed on the slender, agile figure who was currently owning the sky with his broomstick.
"Christ," Harry said, as if forgetting Pansy was standing there. "I've dreamed... but I never thought...."
Pansy's expression remained beautifully blank as she watched Draco make a sudden turn, maneouvring his broom against the wind, his hair blowing around his face in a flutter of gold. She turned her attention to her perfect pink and white nails, as if bored. "Dear me, you Gryffindors do take an age to get going, don't you? I thought you were meant to be full of vim and vigour. The practice is nearly over. He'll be coming off the pitch all sweaty and... fired up soon. And here you stand, letting the grass grow under your feet."
Harry seemed to gain momentum suddenly. He glanced once more at the game in progress. Draco's broom swooped, then gained height again, his face rapt with concentration. Harry swallowed hard.
"Right. Thanks, Parkinson." He darted impulsively towards the door, then paused abruptly. "Why- why did you tell me this, now? We've never exactly been... good friends, you and me."
Pansy lifted one shoulder elegantly. "I just want him to be happy, of course. It's not like I could care less about you, Boy Wonder." Her lips formed a smile, but her eyes remained cold. Harry seemed unsure whether to take this as a joke. After a moment, he shrugged and ran off again.
Pansy's face was as smooth and expressionless as the pane of glass before her. She rested her forehead against its cool expanse for a minute, closing her eyes to shut out the sight of the game.
A wild cheering broke out on the other side of the window and Pansy's eyes opened to see Draco's exhilarated face among a tangle of players, his team mates flying to congratulate him as he held the Snitch high. She spotted Harry's mop of black hair, bobbing along to join the faces in the crowd.
"I never did say sorry for offering to hand you over to Voldemort, Potter. Not a situation commonly dealt with in the etiquette books. "Please accept my sincerest apologies for trying to let the Dark Lord murder you." She smiled to herself. "There's no protocol for that."
"Perhaps this will do, as an apology. Voldemort's gone. Instead, I'll surrender Draco... to you."
Draco was flushed and laughing, sitting back on his broom in mid air. Harry gazed at him, as if looking at something holy.
"If I can't have him, you might as well, Potter. I know you'll take care of him." Pansy rubbed one finger almost tenderly along the glass, before turning away.
5.
Author:l3petitemort
Feedback: sure
Title: Down to the Ash
Words: 433
Rating: PG13
Warnings: language, mild sexual themes?
They fight. A lot.
He throws shit, his Irish temper flaring up like his bad knee - one does often lead to the other, he'll sometimes admit later in a moment of introspective repentance - and she draws her wand, threatening to hex him with something straight out of Amycus Carrow's wet dreams, and they break dishes and tear photographs to shreds and he swears and she screams and the door slams and the apartment rattles like a bag of bones, the hollow skeleton of whatever piss-poorly designed thing they've been trying to build.
They fight.
When Seamus leaves - and it's always him, oddly enough; his stand-and-fight crumbled like the castle walls after The War - he Apparates to a Muggle pub down the street from his childhood home (he knows Pansy wouldn't be caught there, dead or alive) and stands outside, burning a pack of cigarettes down to their filters and stubbing the ash out on the brick. This ritual of destruction - their home, their relationship, himself - is calming. It loosens the knots that climb his spine and make his muscles ache. It focuses the rage that leaks out from his scars like blood.
It gets old, though, and stale, and the fire burns down to the ash of regret. He imagines Pansy's small body in spasms of sobs -- her vulnerability is as fierce as her fury -- and all of the knots pull tight again. Tighter than before. So tight they cut off his air, and he leans his forehead against the side of the building, squeezes his eyes shut, and tries not to choke.
By the time he Apparates back, she's Reparo'd most of the damage, and her tears have frozen into icy silence. She sits at the window and doesn't look up when he comes in, just stares into nothing with her jaw set firm, the mechanisms of resentment churning behind her carefully-blank expression.
He slinks off to bed like he's the snake, retreats into the darkness, and takes a heavy swig of his Draught of Dreamless Sleep.
When he wakes - heavy, groggy from the potion, but blissfully numb - she's there with him, her body woven through his in a complicated tangle.
Seamus sighs. He rubs circles into the pale expanse of her naked back, traces the angle of her cheekbone, kisses the top of her head. "Morning, love," he whispers, his voice rough with the hour. Pansy presses herself against him. She moans, the sound riding the edge of sex and despair, and hides her face from the light against his ribs.
6.
Author:bendleshnitz1
Feedback: Okay
Title: White Christmas
Words: 494
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: None.
“It’s snowing,” Pansy said with her arms perched on the windowsill.
Harry watched her, studying her backside, trying to figure out what she was really trying to say. They had just had a quite nasty fight. He wanted to spend Christmas with the Weasleys but she refused to spend a holiday with some “strangers” because it was already a gigantic effort of her part to be “forced to eat at that hole once a month”.
She didn’t understand how much the Weasleys meant to Harry; that they were his family even if they weren’t related by blood. Her snide remarks and condescending insults infuriated him to no end. No matter how much she had proved her change of heart, the Slytherin in her kept crawling back out. Especially when Harry’s friends and family were concerned.
When it was just the two of them, they could ignore who the other was, and just focus on the people they were now. No longer the enemies they were at Hogwarts, but the lovers who discovered were more alike than anyone would have thought. However, the relations from their pasts were an unpleasant reminder of the complete opposites they once were.
Pansy sighed softly. If the room hadn’t been that quiet, Harry could have never heard it; but the heavy silence that invade the room once the screaming ended could be cut with a knife. The white, tight-fitted sweater she was wearing couldn’t disguise the tension on her shoulders.
Was her casual comment another one of her usual tactics of acting as if nothing had happened? Or was she just casually trying to start conversation so they could talk calmly about the subject at hand?
“Is it?” Harry said sternly.
“Yes. I think this will be a white Christmas. Last year it hadn’t snowed enough before the holidays, remember?”
“Aham.”
Pansy heaved a long sigh and turned around, resting her elbows on the windowsill. The bright light from outside hit her back and made her black hair shine. She looked beautiful. Harry found himself speechless for a second. He couldn’t be mad at her for too long. It took her little to nothing to remind him why he loved her so much.
“I’m sorry, all right? Don’t act so cold. I‘m the bitch in this relationship after all.”
Harry frowned instantly. “Don’t call yourself that.”
A soft smile appeared on her face and Harry felt a sudden urge to kiss her. To his fortune, Pansy started walking towards him.
“I was just hoping we could spend Christmas together.” She reached the edge of the couch he was sitting on. “Just the two of us.” Her knees supported her weight as she straddled him. His hands instantly went to her waist as his eyes focused on hers. “Celebrating.” She pecked him on the lips. “Naked,” Pansy whispered sensually against his lips.
“I’ll let Mrs. Weasley know we’re not going then,” Harry said, bringing her closer and kissing her deeply.
7.
Author:omi_ohmy
Feedback: Yes
Title: The Start of Something Beautiful
Words: 596
Rating: PG
Warnings: None
Pansy stroked the sleeve of her cardigan, bored, as she looked out of the window. Outside Draco sat by the recently blasted remnants of a tree, white-faced as he watched Potter storm off.
“Would you like some tea, Pansy?”
“Darling, you know that I don’t really care for tea.” Pansy turned and was met by the sight of Hermione Granger, eyes bright and hair still wild about her face from the wind and the cold outside.
“Oh yes, I forgot that you don’t really eat. Or drink.” Granger frowned.
“No, no,” said Pansy, waving her hand dismissively. “Of course I eat. And there’s always coffee.”
“Is it ever a little… limiting, being a walking stereotype?”
“What, highly strung, busy professional?” Pansy, lighting her cigarette with the only bit of wandless magic she had ever mastered. “Not really, no. How is mousy geek working for you?”
Granger’s hand went to her hair, but she pulled it down almost straight away. She smoothed out her skirt. “Fine, thanks. Now that we’ve traded pleasantries, maybe we should say what’s really on our minds.”
Pansy took a long drag from her cigarette. She closed her eyes as she exhaled a cloud of smoke. Granger didn’t move, her gaze fixed on Pansy.
“Your friend is a fool.”
“Yours isn’t much better.” They looked each other up and down, as if about to start flinging hexes. Instead, Pansy brought her cigarette to her lips again.
“You’re right: he’s an idiot.” She affected a whining voice. “‘Potter is stupid, Potter has stupid hair, Potter has the manners of a troll’. It never stops.” Pansy smiled, a slow lazy curve of the lips, at Granger’s affronted look. “Oh, that’s just how Draco, poor darling, talks. Although Potter’s hair is stupid.”
“Well, I suppose that all I ever hear about is what a git Malfoy is, how he’s rude, stuck-up, and a bit too fit for his own good.” Granger shook her head. “How can they not see that they like each other? Sometimes I think that a really tricky locking spell, and an hour or two-“
“Locking spell? Do you know many?” Pansy arched a finely tweezed eyebrow. A fiery glow spread across Granger’s face almost instantly, and Pansy’s eyebrows climbed higher. “My, my, Granger, maybe there is more to you than meets the eye.”
“I-“ Granger made a visible effort to control herself, biting her lip in the process. She looked at Pansy, her eyes brave with defiance. “There are some things I want to make sure get done properly,” There was a silence. “And please call me Hermione. We’re not children in school anymore.”
“No, we’re not,” said Pansy. Her eyes travelled over Gra- Hermione with a spark of interest which hadn’t been there before. Pansy stubbed out her cigarette without looking at it.
Hermione hesitated for a moment, then cast a freshening charm, and the sour odour of smoke disappeared from the room. Pansy stared at her.
“Some would consider that rude, you know.”
Hermione shrugged. “It stinks. Besides, smoking will give you terrible wrinkles.”
Pansy blinked. “You-“ she shook her head. “You’re not what I expected at all.”
“Strangely, I know what you mean. It’s… refreshing, being able to be this honest.” Hermione smiled. “I think I like it.”
“Me too,” Pansy said, and she smiled back, no longer bored. “Much as those two idiots outside annoy me, I think there are far more interesting things in the world to occupy oneself with,” she said, and she leant forward. “Now tell me more about these locking spells….”
oooOOOooo
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Poll SHD Week 160:Pansy/Gryff whovote=
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1. Do not vote for yourself and do not ask others to vote for you.
2. If you entered the challenge, you are required to vote.
3. Please vote for a MOST and SECOND favorite drabble. If you do not fill out the entire poll, your vote will not be counted.
4. Please vote for the NUMBER of the drabble, not the name of it. Just makes it easier on the mod :)
5. Please remember the prompt must when voting: A Picture Prompt
Results will be posted on Friday. Have fun!
1.
Author:fluffyfrolicker
Feedback: yes, please
Title: Maybe
Words: 326
Rating: R
Warnings: vague sex.
She stares and stares and stares through the window.
Which is all kinds of ridiculous, since she's not the sort of woman to wait for a man, for any man, no thank you Sir. Also, it only serves to make the waiting seem longer.
("I don't like waiting", she tells him, straight up and to the point when she first talks to him, and 4 minutes and 12 seconds later his hands go up her skirt.)
("Good boy", she whispers then, kisses his shoulder lightly then leaves. She doesn't see it, but she still knows he's watching her walk away. He owls her the next day, immediately, and she's surprised that his letter makes her smile.)
They always meet in her house (castle, manor) and never leave her bedroom.
(He looks young in her bed, this boy, her boy, naked and beautiful and young, as he pours himself some Firewhiskey.
"You're barely allowed to drink that", she comments, but he looks at her, won't move his eyes away from hers. And then he sticks out his tongue and he pulls her down onto him and whispers "You're going to shout my name soon", and then she does.)
She turns to pour herself more wine (he's the only one that drinks the stronger alcohol from her stash) but now he's here and he's pouring wine for her and she thinks that maybe she could love him.
"Oh sorry, did you wait for a long time?" he asks her, a smile playing on his face.
"It's fine", she just says.
She kisses him, then, in a lazy, slow way, the way lovers get when things are not so new anymore, and it's not all about quick hook ups, but something else as well, sometimes she still doesn't say out loud.
"I might be happy, just like this", she says later. He nods and falls asleep in her bed.
(He hogs the covers later. But that's not the point.)
2.
Author:oakstone730
Feedback: Yes
Title: One Last Night
Words: 615
Rating: light R
Warnings: None
A flicker of movement had her half off the seat before she recognized the Muggle postman on his route. She slowly lowered herself back onto the window seat. It had been foolish to cut things so closely but she’d never thought that it would come down to race against the time.
There. She held her breath as she saw the familiar cloaked figure making his way down the street. She raced to the door and out onto the doorstep, heedless of the rain that soaked through her white jumper.
“Where have you been?” she snarled as she thrust the bag of galleons into his left hand whilst grabbing the small envelope from his right hand.
“There were complications,” he said simply. “Be glad for what you have there, I can’t promise there will be any more where that came from.”
“What?” She looked from the envelope to his shrouded eyes and angrily spat out, “I’ve paid you well. Why can’t you deliver more?”
“The source is gone. Haven’t you been reading the Prophet? I’ve used the last of my sources and haven’t found any more.”
She looked in disbelief from the envelope to him, “How many?” she asked, afraid of the answer.
“Just one, and be glad for that.” Without waiting for a reply he turned and walked away.
She stood in the doorway and carefully opened the envelope. There it was, spellotaped to the paper. One precious hair. There was no time left to worry that it wasn’t more.
Wasting no more time she apparated into the bedroom. With a steady hand she picked up the flask and carefully dropped the hair into the potion. Closing the lid and swirling it gently she refused to think how long this potion would last. One night. She could make it last until morning.
Shaking her head, she simply refused to accept that this could be the last night. Slowly she undressed, vanishing her clothes so there would be no sign of them.
Sitting on the bed, she lifted the flask to her lips and swallowed half of it. Her body writhed in agony at the familiar transformation. Breathless, she stared up at the canopy. It was done. And just in time as she heard the floo flare in the sitting room down below.
She lay back against the red silk sheets and stretched to get accustomed to the new form her body had taken. It was worth it, she thought. To risk everything to have just one more night. She would find another source. This was not the last night, she thought determinedly as she heard the steps racing up the stairs.
There was a pause and she forced the smile upon her face as she saw the blond appear in the doorway.
“Oh, Merlin. You are here. I’d heard-- the Prophet said that you’d left the country,” Draco said, as he walked slowly into the room, as if he couldn’t believe that Potter was really lying naked before him.
Pansy forced the loopy Potteresque smile upon her face as she reached languorously down and grabbed his--her cock, “Why would you believe a rag-sheet like the Prophet when you have me to prove it and everyone else wrong?”
She gave a catlike purr as Draco pulled her to him and kissed her.
3.
Author:bluemermaid
Feedback: yes
Title: Lying in the Snow
Words: 327
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: None
Pansy leaned against the wall and placed her arms up on the window sill, her mind wandering as she stared out into the snow. Swirls of white crystals blew up against the glass, then flew away as the wind took them elsewhere. She'd always liked the snow; it meant death and rebirth, the cleansing of the world. Somewhere all the darkness lay buried beneath the pristine white ice, dying for to wash away with the thaw. Pansy needed her own darkness to die and leave her; she wondered if she could be wiped as clean as the snow, if she only ventured out into it. If she lay upon that soft cold winter, would it smother her and bring her back anew?
"Come back to bed," he called to her, voice groggy with sleep, and Pansy turned away from that alluring blankness, her eyes narrowing as she looked upon him there in her bed. "It's fucking cold out there. Come be warm here with me."
Pansy went to him reluctantly, slipping under the warm blankets and allowing him to pull her close, their bodies flush together. "Love you," he murmured, already drifting back off into sleep, and leaving Pansy wide awake and wondering.
She'd come so far after the war, trying to forget the things she'd seen, things she'd done. She'd come so far, and yet she was still as black as ever, deep down inside her heart. She had to be, to allow this man to lie beside her, murmuring his lying love as he fell asleep with his arms around her.
Ron Weasley didn't really love her. He loved his Granger girl, and he was set to marry Hermione in three months' time. Pansy wasn't invited to the wedding; she wondered if it would snow. If it did, she would go and lie in it. Maybe that would make her feel better about falling in love with another woman's fiance.
She didn't think so, though.
4.
Author:birdsofshore
Feedback: Yes
Title: Surrender, in its Place
Words: 599
Rating: PG
Warnings: None
"At fifteen life had taught me undeniably that surrender, in its place, was as honorable as resistance, especially if one had no choice." - Maya Angelou
Pansy sighed, and her breath misted the window in front of her, obscuring the view of the Quidditch pitch below. Harry leant forward impatiently and rubbed a patch clear with his sleeve.
"Are you sure, Parkinson? I mean, honestly?"
"Of course I'm sure. Who else knows him as well as I? Who's heard all his grubby little secrets, since we were brats, in knee socks and short robes?"
"But- he has actually mentioned me, has he? You're positive?"
"As if I hear talk of much else," murmured Pansy. "Yes, Potter, I'm quite positive."
"And- he's definitely- I mean, he likes blokes?"
"Gracious, they said you were slow on the uptake, but I never dreamt it would be this hard. Yes, dear Potter, Draco is one hundred per cent bent. He's been pursuing the contents of other people's trousers since 1994."
Harry's breath came harder as he bent to look out again, his eyes fixed on the slender, agile figure who was currently owning the sky with his broomstick.
"Christ," Harry said, as if forgetting Pansy was standing there. "I've dreamed... but I never thought...."
Pansy's expression remained beautifully blank as she watched Draco make a sudden turn, maneouvring his broom against the wind, his hair blowing around his face in a flutter of gold. She turned her attention to her perfect pink and white nails, as if bored. "Dear me, you Gryffindors do take an age to get going, don't you? I thought you were meant to be full of vim and vigour. The practice is nearly over. He'll be coming off the pitch all sweaty and... fired up soon. And here you stand, letting the grass grow under your feet."
Harry seemed to gain momentum suddenly. He glanced once more at the game in progress. Draco's broom swooped, then gained height again, his face rapt with concentration. Harry swallowed hard.
"Right. Thanks, Parkinson." He darted impulsively towards the door, then paused abruptly. "Why- why did you tell me this, now? We've never exactly been... good friends, you and me."
Pansy lifted one shoulder elegantly. "I just want him to be happy, of course. It's not like I could care less about you, Boy Wonder." Her lips formed a smile, but her eyes remained cold. Harry seemed unsure whether to take this as a joke. After a moment, he shrugged and ran off again.
Pansy's face was as smooth and expressionless as the pane of glass before her. She rested her forehead against its cool expanse for a minute, closing her eyes to shut out the sight of the game.
A wild cheering broke out on the other side of the window and Pansy's eyes opened to see Draco's exhilarated face among a tangle of players, his team mates flying to congratulate him as he held the Snitch high. She spotted Harry's mop of black hair, bobbing along to join the faces in the crowd.
"I never did say sorry for offering to hand you over to Voldemort, Potter. Not a situation commonly dealt with in the etiquette books. "Please accept my sincerest apologies for trying to let the Dark Lord murder you." She smiled to herself. "There's no protocol for that."
"Perhaps this will do, as an apology. Voldemort's gone. Instead, I'll surrender Draco... to you."
Draco was flushed and laughing, sitting back on his broom in mid air. Harry gazed at him, as if looking at something holy.
"If I can't have him, you might as well, Potter. I know you'll take care of him." Pansy rubbed one finger almost tenderly along the glass, before turning away.
5.
Author:l3petitemort
Feedback: sure
Title: Down to the Ash
Words: 433
Rating: PG13
Warnings: language, mild sexual themes?
They fight. A lot.
He throws shit, his Irish temper flaring up like his bad knee - one does often lead to the other, he'll sometimes admit later in a moment of introspective repentance - and she draws her wand, threatening to hex him with something straight out of Amycus Carrow's wet dreams, and they break dishes and tear photographs to shreds and he swears and she screams and the door slams and the apartment rattles like a bag of bones, the hollow skeleton of whatever piss-poorly designed thing they've been trying to build.
They fight.
When Seamus leaves - and it's always him, oddly enough; his stand-and-fight crumbled like the castle walls after The War - he Apparates to a Muggle pub down the street from his childhood home (he knows Pansy wouldn't be caught there, dead or alive) and stands outside, burning a pack of cigarettes down to their filters and stubbing the ash out on the brick. This ritual of destruction - their home, their relationship, himself - is calming. It loosens the knots that climb his spine and make his muscles ache. It focuses the rage that leaks out from his scars like blood.
It gets old, though, and stale, and the fire burns down to the ash of regret. He imagines Pansy's small body in spasms of sobs -- her vulnerability is as fierce as her fury -- and all of the knots pull tight again. Tighter than before. So tight they cut off his air, and he leans his forehead against the side of the building, squeezes his eyes shut, and tries not to choke.
By the time he Apparates back, she's Reparo'd most of the damage, and her tears have frozen into icy silence. She sits at the window and doesn't look up when he comes in, just stares into nothing with her jaw set firm, the mechanisms of resentment churning behind her carefully-blank expression.
He slinks off to bed like he's the snake, retreats into the darkness, and takes a heavy swig of his Draught of Dreamless Sleep.
When he wakes - heavy, groggy from the potion, but blissfully numb - she's there with him, her body woven through his in a complicated tangle.
Seamus sighs. He rubs circles into the pale expanse of her naked back, traces the angle of her cheekbone, kisses the top of her head. "Morning, love," he whispers, his voice rough with the hour. Pansy presses herself against him. She moans, the sound riding the edge of sex and despair, and hides her face from the light against his ribs.
6.
Author:bendleshnitz1
Feedback: Okay
Title: White Christmas
Words: 494
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: None.
“It’s snowing,” Pansy said with her arms perched on the windowsill.
Harry watched her, studying her backside, trying to figure out what she was really trying to say. They had just had a quite nasty fight. He wanted to spend Christmas with the Weasleys but she refused to spend a holiday with some “strangers” because it was already a gigantic effort of her part to be “forced to eat at that hole once a month”.
She didn’t understand how much the Weasleys meant to Harry; that they were his family even if they weren’t related by blood. Her snide remarks and condescending insults infuriated him to no end. No matter how much she had proved her change of heart, the Slytherin in her kept crawling back out. Especially when Harry’s friends and family were concerned.
When it was just the two of them, they could ignore who the other was, and just focus on the people they were now. No longer the enemies they were at Hogwarts, but the lovers who discovered were more alike than anyone would have thought. However, the relations from their pasts were an unpleasant reminder of the complete opposites they once were.
Pansy sighed softly. If the room hadn’t been that quiet, Harry could have never heard it; but the heavy silence that invade the room once the screaming ended could be cut with a knife. The white, tight-fitted sweater she was wearing couldn’t disguise the tension on her shoulders.
Was her casual comment another one of her usual tactics of acting as if nothing had happened? Or was she just casually trying to start conversation so they could talk calmly about the subject at hand?
“Is it?” Harry said sternly.
“Yes. I think this will be a white Christmas. Last year it hadn’t snowed enough before the holidays, remember?”
“Aham.”
Pansy heaved a long sigh and turned around, resting her elbows on the windowsill. The bright light from outside hit her back and made her black hair shine. She looked beautiful. Harry found himself speechless for a second. He couldn’t be mad at her for too long. It took her little to nothing to remind him why he loved her so much.
“I’m sorry, all right? Don’t act so cold. I‘m the bitch in this relationship after all.”
Harry frowned instantly. “Don’t call yourself that.”
A soft smile appeared on her face and Harry felt a sudden urge to kiss her. To his fortune, Pansy started walking towards him.
“I was just hoping we could spend Christmas together.” She reached the edge of the couch he was sitting on. “Just the two of us.” Her knees supported her weight as she straddled him. His hands instantly went to her waist as his eyes focused on hers. “Celebrating.” She pecked him on the lips. “Naked,” Pansy whispered sensually against his lips.
“I’ll let Mrs. Weasley know we’re not going then,” Harry said, bringing her closer and kissing her deeply.
7.
Author:omi_ohmy
Feedback: Yes
Title: The Start of Something Beautiful
Words: 596
Rating: PG
Warnings: None
Pansy stroked the sleeve of her cardigan, bored, as she looked out of the window. Outside Draco sat by the recently blasted remnants of a tree, white-faced as he watched Potter storm off.
“Would you like some tea, Pansy?”
“Darling, you know that I don’t really care for tea.” Pansy turned and was met by the sight of Hermione Granger, eyes bright and hair still wild about her face from the wind and the cold outside.
“Oh yes, I forgot that you don’t really eat. Or drink.” Granger frowned.
“No, no,” said Pansy, waving her hand dismissively. “Of course I eat. And there’s always coffee.”
“Is it ever a little… limiting, being a walking stereotype?”
“What, highly strung, busy professional?” Pansy, lighting her cigarette with the only bit of wandless magic she had ever mastered. “Not really, no. How is mousy geek working for you?”
Granger’s hand went to her hair, but she pulled it down almost straight away. She smoothed out her skirt. “Fine, thanks. Now that we’ve traded pleasantries, maybe we should say what’s really on our minds.”
Pansy took a long drag from her cigarette. She closed her eyes as she exhaled a cloud of smoke. Granger didn’t move, her gaze fixed on Pansy.
“Your friend is a fool.”
“Yours isn’t much better.” They looked each other up and down, as if about to start flinging hexes. Instead, Pansy brought her cigarette to her lips again.
“You’re right: he’s an idiot.” She affected a whining voice. “‘Potter is stupid, Potter has stupid hair, Potter has the manners of a troll’. It never stops.” Pansy smiled, a slow lazy curve of the lips, at Granger’s affronted look. “Oh, that’s just how Draco, poor darling, talks. Although Potter’s hair is stupid.”
“Well, I suppose that all I ever hear about is what a git Malfoy is, how he’s rude, stuck-up, and a bit too fit for his own good.” Granger shook her head. “How can they not see that they like each other? Sometimes I think that a really tricky locking spell, and an hour or two-“
“Locking spell? Do you know many?” Pansy arched a finely tweezed eyebrow. A fiery glow spread across Granger’s face almost instantly, and Pansy’s eyebrows climbed higher. “My, my, Granger, maybe there is more to you than meets the eye.”
“I-“ Granger made a visible effort to control herself, biting her lip in the process. She looked at Pansy, her eyes brave with defiance. “There are some things I want to make sure get done properly,” There was a silence. “And please call me Hermione. We’re not children in school anymore.”
“No, we’re not,” said Pansy. Her eyes travelled over Gra- Hermione with a spark of interest which hadn’t been there before. Pansy stubbed out her cigarette without looking at it.
Hermione hesitated for a moment, then cast a freshening charm, and the sour odour of smoke disappeared from the room. Pansy stared at her.
“Some would consider that rude, you know.”
Hermione shrugged. “It stinks. Besides, smoking will give you terrible wrinkles.”
Pansy blinked. “You-“ she shook her head. “You’re not what I expected at all.”
“Strangely, I know what you mean. It’s… refreshing, being able to be this honest.” Hermione smiled. “I think I like it.”
“Me too,” Pansy said, and she smiled back, no longer bored. “Much as those two idiots outside annoy me, I think there are far more interesting things in the world to occupy oneself with,” she said, and she leant forward. “Now tell me more about these locking spells….”
oooOOOooo
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