The Eye of the Storm
The restaurant is sophisticated enough, Pansy decides, for the time being. Cream draperies lazily drawn against the overarching windows are giving the illusion of the space being bigger than it is actually. There are a cozy few tables around them, all clustered apart in intimate, small sections. There’s no invading scent of someone else’s food, not like the places she’s more used to inhabiting now. It’s sophisticated, she decides. Pansy has been to hundreds of restaurants like this before—about half of them were for the same purpose. She’s bored out of her fucking life at this. Still, like a comically bad actress at an awful play, she acts out her part.
She sits seemingly comfortably with her back carefully arched. She’s made sure to sit at the side of the table where the sunlight would make an arch on her figure and the slope of her neck and shoulders and breasts would be purposefully graceful. She’s careful.
The man sitting in front of her—draped in expensive perfume and immaculately cut robes—is also careful. His clear brown eyes are fixed on her and he’s smiling, almost. Not quite. Pansy has never seen Adrian Pucey smile before. She doubts she’ll see it today.
“And there’s the matter of…” He dwindles on the next word, she can tell that he’s doing it for the theatrics rather than hesitance. He doesn’t strike her as a man of hesitance.
“Matter of what?”
He smiles politely. “Optics.”
“Optics?” she echoes the word. Not altogether embarrassed, but not very comfortable either. “Because of my father’s incarceration?”
“Because of your recent, very public affair with Harry Potter.”
Her heart thumps obnoxiously loud against her ribcage. So loud, she’s sure Adrian has heard it.
She knew it was coming, of course she did. And she has prepared herself, stilted, thawed, and blaséd on the tall mirror of her bedroom. She isn’t supposed to make any unwarranted comment or expressions with the mention of this very obvious comment. In the mirror, her expression was aloof, even slightly amiable. But now she tries her best to mask the surprise and smile carelessly.
“Not public.” Has he heard that her voice cracked?
“Quite a few pieces in the social pages.”
Yes, articles. Speculations, insinuations. Pictures of them eating ice-cream with him holding her hand in the middle of muggle London. It’s a good picture at least, Harry had said before throwing the newspaper in the fireplace. Pansy nodded at the fire, watching the flames lick up the words too slow. The title, a question: Chosen One… seriously? More on page five.
She hadn’t gone to page five. Not right away.
“It wasn’t public,” she tries again. “Not intentionally, anyway.”
“Well, it was quite serious, wouldn’t you say? He introduced you to his family.”
“It was six months ago. And the Weasleys’ are not technically his family.” Even as she lies, she can feel the hot shame grueling in her stomach. It was a ministry party, his promotion party. And Pansy had been lurking in their periphery, unsure about everything and all of herself, trying to look calmer than she felt, trying to let them see subtly that she had changed. It was Harry who—like all the other times—finally saved her. I want you to meet my family, he whispered in her ear before guiding her. The air changed when he introduced her, Molly Weasley’s blue eyes went still, painfully alarmed.
Pansy would still have convinced herself that it was alright, that this is how all meetings go, if not for—
“Still. That’s a history.”
“Is this an issue? Should I leave? Because I can’t change my past with Harry any more than you can change your present with the Wizengamot.”
This changes something in him. His eyes darken. For the first time in the day, he looks intrigued.
“I was nowhere near that lady when the curse was fired.”
“You have three witnesses swearing against you, you might want to change your statement. And anyway—” She flicks her hand. “You really should just consider accepting their plea bargain. You hurt three people, you really shouldn’t expect to get away unscathed.”
“I do expect to get away unscathed.”
“One of the victims was thirteen,” she says blankly. She stares at the half empty plate in front of her. “Come on, accept it. It’s not like you can pull up an insanity defense this far along the case.”
His eyes perk up. “That’s an option?”
Pansy looks the other way. “I heard they’re bringing their best team to fight this.”
“I heard he proposed.”
The people have suddenly stopped talking. Or is it her imagination? Hasn’t the world gone still, disastrously still, around her? This is the focus of all the gravity, her heart, beating frantically. This is the eye of the storm.
“He didn’t.”
“Oh,” he mumbles. “That’s a shame.”
Pansy stares at her plate. The smell of the shrimp is making her stomach lurch. She gulps down her disgust.
“You want to order something else? You’ve hardly eaten anything.”
“No, I don’t—no.” She can’t think of opening her mouth in front of him—his greedy, entitled fucking eyes.
“Why don’t you work it out for me?” His voice is casual enough, but Pansy has a feeling that he’s mapped this conversation since before he came here.
“You know why,” she says slowly. “I’m with the ministry. I can’t work against anything they’ve decided to prosecute.”
“What if you left the ministry?”
“To work on your case? Why would I do that?”
He shrugs. And Pansy could have laughed at—despite all the repartee—how anticlimactic it all was. How easily they’ve both led each other to this sentence. Like a carefully choreographed dance. Her mother was right. People are easy to lead. Ruinously, damningly easy.
She shakes her head. “You’re actually asking me to marry you.”
“Yes.”
“It’s our first date.”
“It’s enough. It all fits. Your name, my name. Your father’s Benz collection, my money.”
Pansy smiles politely, as if it doesn’t bother her. She twirls the flower-shaped charm of her bracelet.
“And you are attractive. I suppose I’m not bad either.”
Pansy let the clearly obvious chance to compliment him pass. “I am not going to leave my job.”
“Not even to help your husband?”
“Husband? You do move fast.”
“No point in waiting.”
“I’ve worked too hard to get where I am.”
He smiles. “Up for debate, then.”
Somehow she can’t disagree with him. Because she hears her mother's voice in her head saying that this is the perfect end to a successful courting. He tells you to leave your job and you agree to it. So she can't actually say that no, it isn’t up for debate. Neither is her supposed acceptance to his offer. She smiles instead of answering, letting the stale rejection hang in the air.
But it doesn’t bother him. It doesn’t make him stutter. He pretends that he hasn’t heard it at all.
“So how about we go back to my place? I have a great wine collection, we can talk some more. And if you’re willing to, we can…say”— he lowers bis voice in a coarse, leering way—“rip this pretty dress off of you.”
And she doesn’t mean to say it, she doesn’t. But the thought of it, him in his mansion, him with his entitled, leering eyes it enough to make her vomit. And the disgust for herself, that she’s allowed herself to be in this position, again, is even greater. It makes her skin crawl.
Somehow, she leans in and says, with the steely calmness of a blade, “You know something? I’d rather slit my wrists than do that.”
A howler waits for her when she finally reaches home. Marked with the all too familiar Parkinson emblem, her emblem. Pansy stares at the reflection of herself in the mirror—her immaculately done make-up, made up face is staring back in disgust. The howler is floating behind her menacingly, frothing at the seal. Pansy counts her seconds, and just as it burst, screeching out the unladylike and awfully familiar voice of her mother, she apparates.
She smells it before she sees it. The charred up fireplace, sweet, cloying smell of old newspapers, cherry, musk and cigarettes. Mint. His perfume. The blur from the apparition settles and she sees Harry Potter staring at her in soft surprise. He’s bending over the sprawled out files on his living room floor. That’s how he likes to work, Pansy knows. That’s how he likes to solve things—dismantling everything and stitching up pieces in the proper place. She used to wonder aloud if he liked doing the same thing to her too.
“You’re already perfect,” he answered simply. “I just want to see every part of you.”
He stands up now. And perhaps too surprised at seeing her, he doesn’t say anything. And she doesn’t let him ask the question. She walks over in a daze and kisses him hard.
He picks her up on cue. She feels gravity condense, for a moment, before they fall on the sofa. Their combined weight makes a blunt noise as she leans in and deepens the kiss, feeling his smile stretch broader and broader, until he’s chuckling. Pansy whines, breathing into him, clinging to him, pressing open mouthed kisses by the side of his mouth, his jaw, and down down, feeling his pulsepoint under her lips. Harry catches onto her desperation, of course he does, and leans down on the sofa, moves her legs so that she’s straddling him—having access to more of him. Pansy spreads her hands over his shoulder, greedily marking the dip of his elbows, his collarbones, the veins of his neck. His body is stunningly familiar—she can recognise it in darkness, sleeping, in drunkenness and sobriety. The heat of it, palpable and so inviting, twists something inside her, like so many times before. She breaks away from the daze and pulls at his t-shirt and Harry complies, he pulls it over his head and discards it on the floor.
A sharp and demanding meow startles the both of them before she could lean back in. Harry laughs—properly laughs, dimples drawn, the row of his brilliant teeth on full display—and looks over her shoulder. Pansy is still dizzy in the head to spare a glance at their cat. But the cat jumps over the couch and nudges at them persistently, eyes scrunched in need. Pansy drops her head on Harry’s shoulder. He has his arms around to steady her.
“Not now,” she says, gravelly, to the white ragamuffin. “I love you, but beat it, Snow.”
“She missed you,” Harry says, his voice deep and homely. He draws her face to him to look at her earnestly. “I missed you, too.”
“I stayed here two days ago.”
“Mhmm. Two days.” He kisses her jaw. “Exactly.” He kisses the side of her ear, the tip of her nose—each one more lingering than the other. When he finally tugs at her bottom lip with his thumb, her breaths are settling—more or less. He smells like how he always does—mint and cigarettes. Home. And the constancy of it—of him—through all the fascinating and excruciating inconsistencies of her rattles her.
“That’s a pretty dress.” His fingers trace the lavender silk on her shoulder. “You all dressed up for me?”
He says it nonchalantly enough, but Pansy flushes anyway. Something sharp and painful scratches at her chest. The thought of that damned restaurant makes her throat heavy like lead. The guilt makes her clutch him tighter.
“Yes,” she whispers. “For you. You can tear it off of me if you like.”
“Mhmm, no,” he hums, eyes on her. “I’d hate to ruin something so pretty.”
Her heart stutters. Beside them, Snow makes a piercing demand again, but she’s too busy kissing Harry again. Marking every stretch of naked skin with her lips—somehow the blinding guilt is making her lose her gravity. Her chest burns and she pulls him closer, closer till there’s no air between them, no space for secrets or lies. Pansy grinds on his length and the friction of his trousers on her panties is enough to make her gasp.
Harry lets her do as she pleases, returns her kisses, sneaks his one hand down to press against her wet panties and she shivers to his touch. He doesn’t ask anything. She knew he wouldn’t—because she’s familiar to him too. Familiar like secrets and shadows, like moonlight. She’s someone who comes and goes out of his life in the unholiest of hours. And he stays, always, he lets her.
“You’re stressed,” he mumbles. “Let me make you feel good.”
She nods and he pushes his fingers into her cunt. Pansy moans shamelessly, arms circling his shoulder, palm digging into his hair. She grinds on his hand as he pumps in and out of her, sending shots of electricity all over her. He moves up his other hand to squeeze her breast over her dress. Her ear is ringing, and through the rush of blood, she can just make out his gravelly encouragements.
“Yes, good girl. My girl. Come.”
He presses his thumb on her clit and she does—she comes almost silently. Her breath hitching and trembling, collapsing her weight over him. Bluntly, Pansy feels a bead of sweat roll over from her hairline. Harry is staring at her with familiar wide eyes and a satisfied smile. A little breathless, too, like her. Pansy shivers when he pulls out his fingers from her cunt and puts the whole glistening digits inside his mouth. She stares lazily as he licks it all up.
It takes her a while to get down from her high and ask him to take her up to his bedroom. And when she does, the smile that makes her heart squeeze desperately tight lights up his face. The thought comes to her mind again, for the thousandth time, unbidden, irrevocable. She loves him—everything about him. His desire and his smile and his hands. His eyes, forest green and alive. His heart. His heart.
How can she ever let go of him?