Portrait of a Blinking Idiot
“It’s a terrible idea. When this entire venture comes back to bite you in your idiotic arse remember that I told you not to do this. Repeatedly.”
“Pansy…”
“Don’t Pansy me, Zabini. You know that borrowing money from a lender like Percy Weasley is beyond foolish. He loathes you.” Taking a deep breath, Pansy attempted to speak sense into her best friend. “If Daphne loves you, she won’t care that the Ministry might never release your family funds.”
“She doesn’t, but her father does. It can’t be helped, Pansy.” Blaise flung himself dramatically onto her settee, one arm over his eyes. “Besides, it’s done. I signed Weasley’s magical contract this morning. It’s fine though; I’m sure my Muggle investment in crypto currency will work out.”
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Please Pansy, help me. Failed investments, dire need, pound of flesh…Blah, blah, blah.
Gods, she’d known this was how it would go. And again, Pansy was expected to fix things. Her own life was dull as fuck, which gave her all the time in the world to bail out her friends. Just once it would be nice to have someone fix things for her.
Stopping outside the window to Weasley’s office, she did a final wardrobe check. Pencil skirt: tight but not too tight. Hose: sheer, no runs. Hair: perfectly fluffed.
Plastering a smile on her face, Pansy stepped into the room where Weasley was sitting at a desk, looking through a large stack of papers.
“No.”
“I…what?” She’d envisioned various ways this first moment would go, but none of them included Weasley refusing to look at her and dismissing her before she even spoke.
“I can guess why you are here, Ms. Parkinson. The answer is no.” He kept making notes on the parchment in front of him, not even giving her a cursory glance. “Zabini signed the contract and now he’s going to pay. Rules must be followed, etc.”
Pansy blanched. “Wait, you’re not actually going to demand a…pound of his…flesh?”
Weasley finally looked up, a disgusted expression on his face.
“Of course not. I’m not one of you lot. He’ll work on one of my properties in Siberia or something.”
Dismissing her with a wave, Percy returned to his papers.
Pansy was at a complete loss for words. There were two things she loathed. One was judgment by people who didn’t know her, the other was feeling at a disadvantage. Weasley was hitting both.
“That’s…rude.” Why was she so damned tongue-tied? This wasn’t her. But there was something about Percy Weasley that was turning her into the blithering idiot she’d assumed him to be.
Percy looked up again, making Pansy blush. Now in his early forties, he still had a head full of red hair. She was fairly certain his horn-rimmed glasses were the exact same he’d worn in school. But his shoulders and his confidence seemed to have broadened together, making him look…different.
He slowly rose and stepped out from behind his desk, towering over her.
Pansy backed up a step, the office walls suddenly feeling strangely close.
“Rude?” He moved closer and she couldn’t remember how to breathe. She hadn’t known that was something one could forget.
Weasley was now close enough that Pansy could see the many freckles bridging his nose. Later, she blamed those freckles for what she did next; they were so unserious and somewhat endearing—in complete opposition to Percy’s prickly demeanor.
Trailing a finger from one freckle to the next, she stood on her toes and pressed her lips to his.
“How about this. We follow the rules, but trade one pound of flesh for another. Metaphorically, of course.” Stepping back, she winked at him, vindication spreading through her that this time he was the speechless one.
Slowly, Percy nodded, blue eyes sparkling.
“I’ll let Zabini know.” He took her hand and kissed it, making her blush again.
As Pansy walked out into the sunshine again, part of her she wondered if they’d been set up by her meddling friend, but she found that she didn’t really mind. Somehow Blaise, portrait of a blinking idiot that he was, was the reason her life was now looking much more interesting.