Chapter 2
Pansy was standing at the entrance of their tent, with a hot mug of tea between her hands trying to get some warmth on that cold day. She scanned her surroundings with her eyes, all the trees naked and adorned with white snow as the weak sunlight barely penetrated through their branches. Pansy spotted Harry sitting at the base of a big oak, wrapped in a thick blanket and staring sadly at something he was holding between his fingers. He looked desolated, just as everything around him, and she couldn't blame him. He had no news from his friends for almost a month now and the night before they had gone to Godric's Hollow, visited his parent's grave and barely made it out of there alive, getting nothing more than Harry's broken wand. How was he supposed to save the wizarding world if he had only one person at his side and no wand?
A cold chill made her shiver as a cold breeze fluttered around her when she walked in his direction and sat next to him. She noticed that he was holding a picture of his parents as he covered her with the blanket as well, making her snuggle closer to him.
Pansy had woken up hours later after their first kiss feeling Harry's arms around her and his morning glory pressed against her back, luckily he was still asleep when she managed to disentangle herself from his body. In the following weeks, they haven't talked about the kiss or about the evident feelings they had for each other, but they had seemed to get into a silent agreement that from that moment they were more relaxed and comfortable with each other's proximity and touches.
"I used to play with toy soldiers when I was little, now I feel like I've turned into one" - said Harry in a whisper while Pansy rested her head on his shoulder- "I've never asked to be part of this war, I could just escape, leave all this behind and go to a forgotten country, live like a muggle… - he looked down at the picture again- but I know my parents died fighting for something, and I'm gonna do whatever it takes to not let their deaths be in vain, even if I don't have a wand"
"They are proud of you, no matter what you do"- she said, wondering if her own parents ever felt proud of her, she knew that right now, after escaping Hogwarts and abandoning their cause, they probably weren't- "and you can use my wand until we found you a new one"
"Why are you still here?" - Harry asked, looking at her curiously, like if she wasn't even real, after a moment of silence.
She asked herself the same question every day, she knew she was free to go, she could have left once she was healed, but she didn't belong anywhere now, she had no place or anyone to run to. At least here, with Harry, she felt like she wasn't alone in all this as they kept each other company - "I don't know, I have nothing else to do"- she replied nonchalantly, making him chuckle.
"You surely can think of better things to do than to spend Christmas day with Harry Potter, freezing in a forest" - he said as he stood up and put the picture back in his mokeskin pouch, offering his hand to her.
"I'm sure you're familiar with the feeling that life can change in the blink of an eye" - let out Pansy grabbing his hand, not letting it go and caressing the little scar that had remained from his incident. She stood in front of him, looking at his face, noticing the shadow of his beard that was starting to grow again - "so it's not so crazy to think that spending Christmas day with Harry Potter sounds like the best plan" - she added with a warm smile that he returned.
They hadn't talked about their feelings and attraction, but there were little moments like that, those small sparks that made everything around them seem so distant and unimportant, but the sparks were always gone before they ignited a fire that neither Pansy or Harry knew how to put out.
Except for that day, maybe it was the Christmas spirit or maybe it was the cold that after a moment of laugh had pulled them together under the blankets of her bunk bed. Unlike Harry, it wasn't Pansy's first time, she had lost her virginity to Draco last year. But in that moment, under Harry's bright and intense stare and too drunk with his kisses, Pansy wished she hadn't done it before. Because Harry kissed her with hunger and need, and although he was too nervous and his hands were too clumsy, he still made love to her with a tenderness that she thought was impossible to feel.
Harry rested at peace with her warm body between his arms, her creamy and smooth skin against his roughed and scarred one. He might as well die in the next hours, days, months or years, but he was going to die happy, knowing how Pansy's soft touch felt, knowing that she loved him the same way he loved her.
But their little bubble of peace and love didn't last long. That very same night as Pansy was keeping watch while Harry was sleeping, she thought she heard Ron and Hermione's voices. After their previous encounter with the snatchers, Harry had told her to not go beyond their wards perimeter without telling him, but if she went back now, she was going to loose track of the voices and as much as she liked to think that she was being a great support for Harry, she knew how badly he needed his friends at his side to succeed in this war. So with bravery she didn't know she possessed, she went to investigate.
Soon enough Pansy realised she had made a stupid mistake as she began to hear steps, cracking branches and voices that weren't like Ron and Hermione's all around her. She had learnt to feel like a little bunny being surrounded by it's predators when she was at Hogwarts under the Carrows' reign, and she had promised herself not to be like that again, but now as four men approached her, all Pansy could do was scream at the top of her lungs.
Raw screams filled with terror pierced through the woods, breaking it's quietness and waking Harry, his first instinct was to grab his wand but it wasn't there, and as he ran blindly towards Pansy's screams he didn't stop to consider the fact that he was disarmed.
When he arrived he saw Ron and Hermione dueling against two snatchers, a third one lied unconscious on the floor and a fourth man was on top of a shrieking Pansy, manhandling her. The man was so focused on trying to remove Pansy's clothes while she kicked him, that he didn't see Harry's fist coming at him.
By the time Harry stopped beating the snatcher, the man was unconscious, his knuckles were bleeding and Pansy and Hermione were erasing the memories of the other three.
"C'mon we don't have much time" - said a shivering Ron to him, and for the first time Harry took in his friend's appearance, he was drenched and holding the gryffindor's sword on one hand.
Setting camp in a new and safer place in the middle of the night wasn't easy, but they managed, and after the wards were settled and Pansy gave some pepperup potion to Ron and healed Harry's hand again, the three Gryffindor friends destroyed the horcrux.
"Are you okay?"- asked Harry for the third time, taking Pansy outside for some privacy when they've returned- "did he hurt you?"
"I'm fine, you didn't give him time to do anything" - replied Pansy quietly - "Thanks"
"If you would have warned me, nothing of this would have happened" - let out Harry with a sigh.
"So all this was my fault, that's what you're trying to say?" - asked Pansy frowning with incredulity at the absurdity of his words- "I was almost raped, but it was my fault?"
"No, all I'm saying is that it could have been avoided, I told you to stay inside the perimeter" - he replied annoyed- "but no, why would you listen to me? I'm nothing but a stupid Gryffindor, right?"
"You're stupid if you think I went out there only for a walk"- yelled Pansy at him- "I heard Weasley and Granger voices, I didn't think there was a risk with finding them and bringing your friends back to you"
"You can't go out there alone in the middle of the night when we have death eaters and snatchers right behind us"- Harry frowned and raised his voice, there was an intensity in his eyes that burned Pansy- "It was one single rule to follow"
"I don't have to do what tou tell me to do" - spitted out Pansy through gritted teeth, their faces were only inches away from each other and both were emanating so much magic around them, it was almost palpable.
"Yes you do, you're my…"- the words almost slipped out of him. His what? He asked himself, his girlfriend? His possible future? His last hope? but he couldn't admit those things to her, no matter how much he wanted it, so he quickly fixed his mistake- "You're here with me now, and if you want to live you're going to follow my rules whether you like it or not" - Harry said authoritatively looking down at her.
"No, you know what? I don't like it not even one little bit of it, but that doesn't matter to you because you don't care about what I think or feel"- she yelled pushing Harry away, making him stumble- "I don't have to stay here with you now that your friends are back, am I?"- Pansy asked following him as he took some steps back, she was hurt and afraid but hell if she was going to let him see it- "You will no longer need me to warm your bed, right?"
She could see his chest going up and down fast, matching his heavy breathing as he grabbed her shoulders and she tried to push him again- "don't touch me you stupid bloody bastard"
"You have to stop speaking to me that way" he yelled at her face exasperated, giving her a slight shake.
His friends gave them a curious look from the entrance of the tent when they heard all the yelling and Hermione frowned at the way he was treating Pansy.
Harry slowly took his hands off of her and Pansy could see the horror and hurt in his eyes as he put some distance between them, leaning against a tree taking a deep breath as he tried to calm himself.
"I ran after you with no wand and my empty hands not knowing what I was going to find" - Harry admitted with a choked voice, sliding down the tree until he was sitting on the floor- "I was having a dream where you were lost and I couldn't find you and I woke up hearing your screams"- he said softly with his head down- "I'm scared… scared of not being able to protect you, scared of more people that I love dying because of me"
Pansy kneeled in front of him. When the three gryffindors returned to the tent and Harry took her outside, she thought he was going to kick her out of their little camp when the reality was that he had fallen in love with her. This boy who was stupid and stubborn enough not to run from a fight, when he had the weight of the wizarding world on his shoulders and a maniac dark lord asking for his head. This boy who despite all that, all that he cared about in that moment was that nothing bad happened to her.
"I'm sorry" - she whispered, caressing his cheek, feeling awful for having thought so poorly of his feelings for her- "please forgive me"
"There's nothing to forgive, in any case you should forgive me" - he replied looking at her, resting his forehead against hers - "I've said horrible things that I didn't meant because I was frightened and angry with everything"
"I forgive you, I was frightened too"- Pansy said hugging him and the truth was that she would have forgiven anything from him because, just like Harry, she was now sure that she had fallen in love with him too.
The sun began to rise slowly in the sky, the dim sun rays opening it's way through the dark, making the scary shapes of the forest disappear while everything got it's vibrant colors back. Harry sat outside the tent keeping watch, everything was quiet and a calmness surrounded him, he felt for a few minutes as if there was no one else but him in the world.
"So, Parkinson uh?"- asked Hermione in her usual knowing tone, sitting next to him and Harry smiled realising how much he had missed his friends.
"Yes"- He replied, looking at the sun going higher in the sky.
"Are you sure it's the right thing?"- Hermione didn't sound mad or as if she was accusing him, just worried, and he could hear the questions behind the question. Are you sure the middle of a war is the right moment? What about Ginny? A slytherin? What if she betrays us?
"For the last couple of years, I just wanted to do what was right and sometimes I'm not quite sure what that right thing is anymore Hermione" - he sighed tired - "but this thing with Pansy… I've been asking myself if maybe it was only the fact that we've been spending the last weeks with no other companions but ourselves, but after what had happened yesterday… I'm sure that what I feel for her is the kind of love I've never felt before, not even for Ginny"
He kept telling himself as he went to sleep and snuggled next to Pansy, that it didn't matter that she was the slytherin bitch, with a tongue more venomous than a snake, because he would do anything for this beautiful girl that once used to have a pug face, because she was the one that was there giving him hope and something to fight for and hold onto every time he had doubts and felt like giving up.