Sweet

In a moonless sky, the clouds look nothing more than wisps of smoke. Barely formed. Flakes of snow suspend in the air like afterthoughts, not really heavy this year. Pansy had read an article about that but forgets at the moment exactly what it is. The uproar of the party floats in her periphery, but she persists on the railing and stares stubbornly into the sky, willing herself to disassociate. 

And now she remembers looking into that vast, dark nothingness when she was a child, counting the stars that seemed to sprout spontaneously. The more she counted, the more brightness split out from the stretch of that deep, astounding sky. In the patio of her mother’s summer villa, she had once wondered aloud if she was conjuring them from thin air.

“Perhaps,” her mother had allowed, smiling down at Pansy. With her jet black hair and sharp, almost feral green eyes, she was a beautiful, but alluring woman. You wouldn’t always expect kindness from her.

“Perhaps you are doing it all. The centre of the universe.”

The memory brought a smile for a fleeting moment, before she remembers what happened after. What always did. Something inconspicuous. The maid mismatching her mother’s towels, her father smelling of infidelity, a wine glass smashing on the floor. Nothing is ever perfect, every good thing ends and everyone always disappoints, is the motto of Cynthia Parkinson’s life.

Well, Pansy certainly does.

In a moment of astounding weakness, she’d gone to her mother for comfort. And what an idea that has been. The smile her mother had offered—the poor you, my dear sweet lamb , the world has made a mockery of you — seems shallower by the moment. Wasn’t there a sense of victory in how she asked if Pansy was coming back home? Her eyes glimmered and Pansy recoiled. It’s been disconcerting, climbing into the shallow pool of resentment her mother always seemed to be claiming for her grandmother.

Pansy shivers from the cold, snapping back to reality. She should have brought a coat to the roof, she should have gone home by now. She probably should not have decided to come to this party at all. The year may be new, but there’s nothing new to celebrate. She sighs as she remembers her meeting with Mrs. Goodwin; she’s back to square one.

“Hey,” a voice, familiar though it shouldn’t, be calls from the dark.

Pansy doesn’t turn back. Doesn’t pretend to not recognise. “Hi.”

The soft crunch of his steps are clearer now. Her heart buzzes, picks up speed in muted anxiety. She stretches her heels over the railings, her toes pointing at the ground like they did when she practiced ballet. Why is he here?

“Of all the balconies in all the world,” Harry Potter muses.

“What?”

“It’s, uh, from a movie.”

The footsteps halt. She can almost see him gaping in awkwardness, and can’t—for the love of her life—help but smile. “What’s a movie?”

“Oh. A movie. It’s—uh… a moving picture, with sounds and, and… a story, like a book, but—”

He stops at the sound of her laugh. It comes off pitchy, harsh, but still feels good to let out something. The footsteps, soft and unsure, come closer now. “But you know that.”

She shrugs. “My father used to take me to theaters when I was a kid.” She stops for a moment, tasting the words on her lips, chewy and bitter, “Took me to art houses too. He was… a patron of all kinds of, uh, creative ventures.”

“That’s lovely.” He’s silent for a moment as if he too is weighing the words. Then, a cough. “Great party, right?”

She didn’t approach him at the party. Somehow, the queer deflated feeling of last week resurfaced at the site of him tonight. Polished, shiny, exhaustively trying to be invisible at the corner of Draco’s apartment.

“It had its moments.”

“Oh, right .” And it’s another kind of smile she hears in his voice, light and teasing. Annihilating. “Like when Astoria Greengrass choked on her drink when Malfoy kissed Hermione?”

“Certainly. Although Weasley’s overly enthusiastic toast to the announcement was also endearing .”

He makes a pained noise. “Fuck. Yeah, that… that’s going to haunt me. Why did he have to announce it at a New Year’ s party?”

The question drops dead at impact. A jagged, tense silence makes it unfailingly obvious that they’re both smart enough to know the answer. Hermione wanted to pull off some of the heat from her best friend. She’d even invited Rita Skeeter so the tabloids would write about the unexpected couple for a change.

But Pansy only shakes her head, smiling tightly. “He can’t help being the centre of attention. It’s pathological.”

He chuckles at that, and the wine still buzzes enough inside her so she can believe in that. His laugh. Jagged and painful, yes, but still a reality. In a moment like skipping stones, Harry draws over to sit beside her, feet off the railings.

“What are you doing here, if it was such a nice party?” she asks.

“Too many people. Plus, some of the girls were trying to collect me, I think? For midnight? It was scary.”

“I doubt you have any luck to spare.”

“Excuse me?”

Pansy feels vaguely like she’s on the wrong end of gravity. “That’s what Blaise was announcing. They say it’s seven years of bad luck if you don’t kiss someone at midnight.”

“Ah.” He lets out a soft, surprised chuckle. 

“I think he was just eyeing Luna, to be honest.”

“Sure. But don’t they—er, usually make a toast? ”

“That, too.”

“I see.”

“Well, it must be flattering to have so many people want you.”

“ Scary , actually . Why are you here?”

He’s so close that some of his body heat is radiating on her. She can feel his palms beside hers, fingers spreading within an inch of her, even without looking. She can see him, too, within her periphery, the same dark leather jacket and jeans. His glasses, round and worn, reflect the lights from all the buildings surrounding them. Suddenly not aware of the chill of the night, Pansy feels ruinously lightheaded. She blurts out, “I just got sacked.”

“You were at Witch Weekly, no? What happened?”

She blinks, surprised that he knows. “Um, well…” You happened. I happened. She can’t bring herself to stare at him. “I did something… extremely unprofessional. It’s complicated.”

She cringes at her words. They sound as if—“I didn’t sleep with my superior or something.” Oh God.

“I didn’t think you did.”

Her cheeks warm up. “Yeah. Well, it’s OK, though. It gave me time to consider other career options. Like, the Prophet, or this healing degree at Mungo’s, or…” She ponders helplessly. Something else mother had mentioned. “Maybe I should get married and forgo my independence for materialistic comfort.”

She can’t tell if he’s chuckled, or was it the sound of other people? Other people, far more put together, happy with their life… not them.

“I mean, that’s always an option.”

“I see.”

The sound of the party floats up still, but it’s a distant thing, real only when Pansy thinks about it. And she can’t think of anything else right now but the capriciousness of fate. His hands, placed within an inch of hers against the railing. Her open hair brushes against her shoulder with every gust of wind, her dangle earrings make a sweet, stinging noise. She almost doesn’t realise how comfortable the silence is until he starts talking, hesitantly, words skipping beats to catch up with how short of air he sounds.

“You probably know. Everyone knows… Ginny has been cheating on me.”

He stumbles on before she can answer. “She told me before the newspapers caught it. The thing was on and off for a few weeks and… And we—well, I was thinking of having our wedding in February. It’s so fucking—” His voice catches. “I mean… fuck.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, well. Me too.”

Wordlessly, she puts her hand inside the pocket of her dress. Her fingers move against her keychains, a slip of greasy paper she found inside a fortune cookie, and a small, inconspicuous plastic wrap. A moment of hesitation before she pulls out both the candy and the paper. He stares at her palm for a moment, as if not recognising what they are. But then he takes them both. The papers he puts in his pocket without looking. The bright, deliciously yellow candy gleams in starlight before he takes it in his mouth, closing his eyes to savour the taste of butterbeer.

“What are you going to do?” Pansy asks softly.

“I don’t know.” He squeezes his eyes shut, the creases beside them look like crow’s feet. “I mean I respect her for telling me up front. It’s not like she only came out when it was too late. That means it’s possible to work it out, right?”

Pansy’s half-hearted assurance dies in her throat. It’s better, she couldn’t fake it anyway. 

“And I… I know I’m not easy to be with. Half the time I’m filled up with these dark and depressing things that leave no place for anything nice. It sucks out all the light, you know? I’m trying to say that… that I’m not easy to be with. I have these dreams and the healing magic does something to me that I… makes me dizzy I… I don’t always remember stuffs correctly, and I know that—”

“Don’t do that.” Her voice cracks, can he hear? “Don’t claw at yourself to fit in that narrative in your head.”

“Relationships are messy, Pansy. And, it is true, I’m always paranoid, I never stop. It’s like, like I carry all these dead things inside me I can’t let go of. It’s pathological.”

“Doesn’t mean you should be cheated.” She’s thought about nothing but this since she met Weasley. Even her preemptive sack didn’t stop this. But her articulation dies with his confession, now she’s only sure of one thing. “Just… doesn’t. You don’t deserve this, Harry.”

“Then what should I do?”

“I…” She pulls back. “Why are you asking me?”

His lips twitch. “It just feels like you’d know.”

For a moment, she can see the dent in his soul so clearly that she has to look away. For a dangerously selfish second, she considers sinking her fingers in it, in that soft and messy vulnerability. She could do what Weasley accused her of.

“And anyway, who can I tell? Ron, Hermione, the rest of the Weasleys, they all want what’s best for me, but they can’t separate Ginny from it all, and I can’t ask them to. I don’t really… I don’t really have anyone else.”

Pansy eyes the lights in the buildings laid out in front of them. The electrifying, mechanical charm of the city. She says, softly, “You want to forgive her. You want me to tell you to forgive her.”

“That transparent, huh?”

He says the word in quiet appreciation. Pansy would’ve felt ashamed if a stranger had understood her private dilemmas so concisely.

Because that is what they are, Pansy insists herself. Strangers . 

“I do love her. And I know she loves me. You can’t wash all that way so quickly, can you?”

“Would it have been better to not know? To not not go through with it all?”

A beat of silence. “I think I’d know on some level. In my bones. When she was telling me, it felt like I already did.”

She could pry him open, even more than he is now. But when he’s talking, that deep, serene sadness rings in his words. She can’t help the softness she feels for him. And she can’t look away, and it feels, like an impending doom, that the exact opposite is happening right now. He is the one prying her open. In the darkness, his hand finds hers.

“If you feel you can let this go, forgive her. But you can’t live your life wondering if she’d do it again.”

“I’d always do that. I already look for every bad thing happening,” he says. “I always feel… struck, like something’s coming for me. One wrong step and it all blows up. She said she didn’t feel seen. I… I see her. I look for her. I think about her. About keeping her safe and happy and I… isn’t that love?”

“People want different things from love.” Pansy hesitates. “What do you want?”

He blinks, surprised. His eyes, startlingly light, glaze for a moment. He opens his mouth, but before he can answer, they both notice the shift in the atmosphere. The curiously blunt silence. The world dropped dead.

They both realise it at the same time. 

“It’s midnight,” Harry says. 

A chorus rises from below. Ten, nine, eight.

“Oh.”

He stares at her, eyes wider. There is no hesitance blurring them right now. He tilts his face, just a little, and Pansy can almost hear his thoughts. Seven years of bad luck.

Seven, six, five.

The air is charged with wonder. Pansy moves closer. It’s the cumulation of everything he’s said, the dense, raw, acrid need she knows is clawing inside him. “Harry,” she whispers, not knowing what else to say.

“Pansy.”

Four, three, two.

She’s damned anyway.

ONE.

The world roars, but Pansy is too overwhelmed to listen. It’s Harry who leans in, the final, crucial step in the demise, and kisses her. Her heart stops, strikes, and shudders in her chest as she kisses him back, instantly, as if she can’t quite help herself. His hand lifts up to touch her cheek and she melts in him, the taste of her butterbeer candy on him, soft lips pressing in such sweetness that she can help gripping the rails, afraid she might fall. She can hear the cheering of other people, she can hear the sticky, sweet noise scratching from the pit of her stomach. His sharp, desperate, sudden moan vibrates in her mouth as she parts her lips. And it’s magic, their breaths swirling in the miniscule gaps between their faces. It’s senseless, heedless. Like lying punch drunk in the back of the Malfoy manor with her friends, wild and hopeless and happy.

I do love her. You can’t wash that all away.

The thought makes her jerk back. Harry gasps, mouth open. His hand in her hair and the moment still buzzes her. Pansy gathers all her willpower to say the next words.

“We shouldn’t.”

“Yes. Of course. I… Pansy, I want to…” He swallows, his breath smells like butterbeer. He tastes like butterbeer. “But I’m committed, I think. Still.”

“Yeah, you’re right.” And she’s upturned, damaged in her own overindulgent way, not right for him. And anyway—in some bleak, desperate way, doesn’t it feel right? 

“This is the way it’s meant to be,” she says, getting off the edge. Harry follows after her blindly. It’s not until they reach the middle of the roof that Pansy repeats in her head what she just said.

The bleak, desperate words like gusts of frozen air, then the silence entombing them in something great, significant, larger than the sum of them. They’re supposed to meet for these brief meetings and then run off to their lives. Leave this strange intensity behind. This can’t be real anyway.

He stares at her, and something tells her he knows. “I don’t know what’s meant to be anymore. I feel… this feels…”

She can sense him slipping back to this miasma. She can feel herself wanting to let him. “No,” she breathes out. “No, Harry—”

He blinks, pulled back. “I’m sorry. You’re beautiful and… I don’t know what I thought. I kissed you and now I shouldn’t—I can’t. It’s not fair. I don’t know…”

Pansy feels a sharp pang in her chest as she stares at him going dizzy, taking a step back. Still rambling, unraveling more and more through each syllable. She takes a step to him and hugs him before he can unravel any further. He leans in instantly, as if he was waiting for it, as if it’s the most natural thing. His head rests on her shoulder, lips barely grazing her neck.

“You’re going through a tough time,” Pansy whispers. “It’s okay, you know? You are okay.”

His lips move on her skin when he says, “I was lying. I don’t know if I can forgive her. I don’t know if I can love her again.”

Fighting the tightness in her throat, her chest, her stomach, Pansy whispers that it’s all right. Again and again till he nods with her. His hand slips from her shoulder to her waist, and it takes her a moment too long to feel the startling warmth of his body against hers again, contrasting the coolness of the air. Suddenly too conscious of herself, she stops stroking his hair and breathes in. His smell, mint and cigarettes and above it, compelling it, the candy she gave him. She can smell it on both of them. After hours, or maybe a hundred dusky nights, doesn’t let go. He cups her cheeks and makes her look up at him, eyes gleaming with a great, terrible longing she can’t pretend to unsee anymore.

“Thanks for saving me,” he whispers.

A nervous shiver runs down her spine. Does he know? “What?”

His eyes widen, as if suddenly alert, as if searching for the right words. “From seven years of bad luck,” he says finally.

“Ah.” She smiles nervously. Of course . “You know most people would say that you’ve been very lucky.”

He holds her gaze, compels it. “And what would you say? Have I been lucky?”

“No. Not at all.”

The moment stretches on. And Pansy thinks she can stay here for the rest of her life, immersed in the strange intensity, stare at the brunt of Weasley’s betrayal on the edge of his eyes. Before she can cave into it, she says, “You should go now. Get some sleep. You’ll know what to do in the morning.”

“And if I don’t?”

“Then you wait for the next morning. Rinse and repeat.”

He tilts back. Unsure, fazed in the moment. He nods. But before he can get away, Pansy clutches his hands. 

“And what should I do? Should I go back to…” What were her options? What was she doing? She forces herself to chuckle and it comes out in a pitch, grated and self-deprecating. “To… St. Mungo’s? Or—or maybe I should just listen to my mother. Forget my dreams of freedom and marry some rich old pureblood and arrange cupcake parties and—”

His eyes narrow for a split second before he catches on. “Oh no. No. You’re too big for that. You’ll be wasted in that life.”

She forces herself to smile. “How can you tell?”

“I just can.”

She can finally feel the night coming to an end. Bleakly and realistically. She can already see him leaving. He’ll leave first, broken down and stitched together. She’ll look back into the sky for a minute, letting the new year snow perch on her cheek, cool and cruel. Pansy will force herself back to reality. She will look back at the roof for one last time, at the pearly lights around her, take in the smell of fresh snow and all that is left of them, and leave for good.

“Goodnight, Potter,” she says with conviction. 

He squeezes her cheek for one last time before he lets go. Her cheeks blaze with cold. “Goodnight, Parkinson.”

His smell doesn’t leave her senses. Even when she finally climbs down, hugs Blaise, congratulates Draco and Granger. Harry Potter stays in the back of her mind as she walks heavily down the cobbled pavement. People are still celebrating, the sound of their harmless laughter swirling in the wind. She goes back to her apartment, changes her clothes and washes her face. When she stares in her bathroom mirror, the girl staring back at her has a lovelorn expression, deep and wistful. Pansy touches her lips, still tingling from the kiss, and smiles. And happy , she thinks almost defiantly. I am happy.

As she looks out from her window, the sky is dark and deep, dotted sparsely with stars. Pansy stares, filled with an interminable longing, and decides that she is in love with this world, even the parts that sting.