Sweet

She wakes up with a soft, dull headache. For a moment she doesn’t open her eyes, as if still trying to get a glimpse of the colors, to hear some of those clatters she’d become accustomed to. It was a sweet scene, a roof, a party, the back of a bar, all juxtaposing together to make something else entirely. Beside her, Harry shifts closer with a soft groan. Her back is pressed against his chest. Everything comes into consciousness. They slept on the sofa in her living room, the TV is buzzing with an incurious hum. It's a Wednesday morning and she’s so comfortably warm. It’s something out of a dream. Pansy opens her eyes into the light. 

“I was dreaming,” she mutters absentmindedly.

Harry Potter pulls her closer. It’s an altered reality, and he smells like butterbeer and peach as he nuzzles into her neck. “A good dream?”

She nods, looking over at her living room.

“Good,” he whispers. She feels his smile as he kisses her hair.

The TV’s gone static, flashing a gritty, black and white screen. There are leftover brownies on the coffee table in front of her, the curtains on the side of the room float from the wind; she forgot to close her windows last night. She supposes she’d feel colder if they weren’t sleeping so entwined. The flannel of his shirt is moving against her bare back. Her leg is twisted around his, his one hand draped over her stomach, the night shift too thin for the warmth. His other one is under her head, a spare pillow. Pansy gives into her impulse to reach for his hand before twisting on her side to face him.

“Good morning.”

“Hmm.” Harry leans in, smiling, and kisses her cheek. Tracing the tip of her nose, her hair, the side of her forehead where she’s deceptively light this morning. “Good morning.”

“Sleep well?”

“Perfect. Halfway through the movie, actually.”

“I know.” She chuckles. Up close she can appreciate the tan lines on his face, more pronounced, handsome. The crescent shaped dip on the side of his cheek, more deeper when he smiles. She can appreciate the look on his face as he scans her face, as if he hasn’t seen her before.

“I meant to ask last night…” He licks his bottom lip as he points his finger to her chest. Her heart thumps, inadvertently ricocheting to all the things he could have meant to ask. All the things she would have agreed to. The tip of his index feels red hot and burning, some of the fire catches to her cheeks.

“What’s this?”

Pansy blinks. It takes her a second too long to realise he’s pointing to the scar on her chest, the age-old, nearly but never faded scar.

“A riding accident. I fell face first.”

“From a broom?”

“From my pony.” She scans his amused smile and adds, “I had six.”

His lips curve in a surprised smirk. “I thought you hated animals.”

“Why would you— oh.” She rolls her eyes. “Because I hated Hagrid’s class?”

He shrugs, still smiling as he brushes her hair off her face.

“Maybe it had something to do with him finding literal ferals and asking us to pet them.”

Harry laughs fondly. “He just thought they all needed love.”

“Well, then. Maybe I shouldn’t blame him. When I was seven,” she says, “I loved horses. And toads, and kneazles, and anything that wasn’t human.”

“Did you?”

“Wanted to work at a zoo for a while.”

“I can’t seem to wrap my mind around it.”

“You didn’t know me when I was seven,” she says.

“You know what? I really wish I did.”

There it is again. That static, strangely charged air of wistfulness hovering around them. Last night, she remembers trudging through those narrow memory lanes, trying to find pieces that matched. You said you liked movies. Didn’t you love pumpkin pies? I hated Transfiguration. I actually tried to become an Animagus. What was the name of the band that played at the Yule Ball? Do you even remember seeing me at the ball? I do, I do.

Soft and wispy and light, like two ghosts trying to become real.

“What were you like when you were seven?” she asks softly.

“I don’t know.” His fingers tap on her scar. “I was too busy surviving. Every day, all through the day I used to wonder what I’d be getting for lunch, and after lunch I started to think about dinner—stale bread and butter or… something else, something Dudley didn’t like. Or if my clothes were tearing up at places, or…. Sometimes I think my life really started when Hagrid came to visit me. Before that I was… not really a person.” A chuckle, soft and wispy and self-deprecating. “I’m sorry. This is a total wreck, I mean—”

“Don’t do that,” her voice comes out sharp and stinging. “Don’t apologise. I wish I knew you when you were seven, too.”

They scramble up together, shifting to sit straighter. His hands wrap around her waist still as she straddles him, fingers tracing along the sliver of bare skin between her top and the hem of her trousers. “It’s just… I usually wait for the third date before I spill all those… trauma.”

“So this is a date?”

He shrugs. “I should hope so.”

“How much of last night do you remember?”

He blinks. Funny. Last night she felt they had all the time in the world. Now suddenly everything's on real time again, slipping fast and chaotic, sliding through the space between them.

“I… I remember us dancing. And I remember we kissed. We didn’t sleep together, I don’t think. We were—too drunk, maybe. I don’t… fully.” He chuckles awkwardly. “I have no idea why we were watching Casablanca. But you… you invited me here. I’m certain of that. Don’t you—?”

“No, I do. I do.” She shakes her head. Time slips into a crucial crease. “But I also remember that you said you were looking for me.” She had assumed that he was just saying that, but now—with that look on his face— “Was it real, or…?” 

“It was real. I was looking for you. I was supposed to stay over the weekend, but I needed to see you.”

“Why?”

At once his eyes cleared. As if he could feel the time too, all that precious time. “Ginny told me.”

Her heart hammers. Anxiously, as if she’s been caught in a lie. He pretends not to notice it.

“Yeah, we… we met up at the hotel. She was there for her match. And we were going through all that reminiscing and you know—why it didn’t work out, why it won’t ever—whatever. And she told me about you.” He leans in, eyes bright. “You tried to cover up the news of her cheating. And I realised… that’s why you lost your job at the Witch Weekly.”

She tries to smile. “Didn’t matter, though. They published it anyway.”

“It mattered the world to me, Pansy.” He holds her face, makes her look at him. “It meant the world to me.”

“You’re welcome.”

“You should’ve told me.”

“I know.”

“It went off like a siren in my head. That’s why I had to see you. I went to the office, but they said you were at the engagement party and then…”

“I’m not getting married,” she blurts out, feeling strangely out of breath. “Theo and I… we’re not. It was Daphne’s engagement, pre-engagement —”

He laughs, breaking her dizzy trail of thoughts. Without a word he finds her hand to trace over her fingers. Ringless. “Pansy, I think I realised that pretty early on.”

Her cheeks flush in embarrassment. “I could’ve just taken the ring off.”

“You could’ve, yes. But you didn’t.”

She nods, her ears ringing in defiance. The top three buttons of his shirt are undone, there is a trace of faded scar marks. She might have touched him last night, all those places. She might have left a mark of her too. “I thought… I thought you were with Weasley. I figured you’d gotten back together. And I wanted to—I don’t know—have leverage so I wouldn’t feel… pathetic. It sounds juvenile. I know. I’m petty like this.”

When she looks up, he’s closer. With a familiar, wild intensity in his eyes. She’s certain she’s seen this look even though it doesn’t make sense. “You didn’t need to do that,” he says, “Pansy.”

And suddenly he’s holding her face, her hands are in his hair. The proximity is electrifying and a wild, wild swirling rises from her stomach and disrupts any coherent thought she might have had. “I don’t love Ginny. You don’t need leverage. Not for this.”

Pansy nods, she can’t think of anything else to do. She can’t see anything but him, the blazing, iridescent boy of her dreams. Her heart hammers in her chest.

Harry leans in with that knowing, preposterous smile that makes her feel he knows everything about her. She can already feel the kiss, she can feel everything that’s about to come.

Pansy squints in dismay, trying to make some sense of what’s happening in front of her. The wedding planner’s running around, checking the outlandish supply of orchids and tulips and gardenias. The room smells sweet because of it, a little dusky, steaming with the smell of the wedding. The lavish, velvety drapes covering the ballroom seem to blend in with the people waltzing on the dance floor. With Daphne and Blaise in the centre. Daphne has insisted that they should rehearsal the entire thing, and Pansy’s pretty sure she’s going through the post wedding-blues stage as of now.

Someone taps her on the shoulder. “Hey, gorgeous.”

She turns to find Theodore settling in the chair next to her.

“You’re late,” she says.

“I’ll apologise later.” He runs his hand through his wavy hair. “Or maybe not. Have you seen the seating arrangements? They’re preposterous. She’s having me sit with your parents.”

Pansy smiles, looking back at the dancing couple. “Well… pa is probably not coming, and everyone knows you’re the only one my mother actually likes.”

“Didn’t seem to like me when we were at school.”

“Because we were together then.”

Momentarily, like an impulse, she can taste the weary past tense on the back of her throat. In lieu of an answer, there’s a jagged silence. Pansy waits in regret, the sound of La Vie en rose and the rising sweetness from the flowers clogging their space. It’s only after the song ends that Theo speaks.

“Wanna dance?”

And how can she refuse?

She ignores Daphne’s confused, exaggerated cough when they take the floor. They stand stiffly for a moment as the next song starts—Que je t'aime—before blending in, moving closer, with his hands light as feather on her waist and hers on his shoulder. She looks up and there’s a smile on him, and it breaks her heart.

“I saw Potter at the party last night,” he says softly.

“Yes.”

“You went home with him.”

“I did.”

“Hmm. I guess I expected that. Can’t say I’m not hurt, though.”

It makes her somewhat dizzy, how in sync they are. “Well, You and Astoria—”

“Don’t.” He sighs. “Let’s not do that, gorgeous. Astoria is great. She’s nice. And I… I’m going to Paris.”

Her feet stutter, but he doesn’t let her stop. “Theo, what?”

“It’s about time. I’ve settled all my business, considered my future prospects. I don’t want to stay here anymore.”

His words reverberate in her head. She knows she should explain some of it, part of it to him. Ask forgiveness, show defiance or shame. Any of it. All of it. Something to mask all this… this worn out predicament of them.

“He said it was fate,” she says quietly. The word he actually said felt more preposterous, buzzing like a spell between her lips. She doesn’t say it out loud, hoards it like a secret.

It’s kismet, Pansy. What chance did we have against it?

“And you’re afraid he actually might be right.”

She smiles, the answer simmering inside her. “What’s fate, anyway?”

“Mistakes. Chances. Happenstance, merely.” She twirls before winding back to him, his hand sneaks up to steady her back. “I mean, would you have fallen for him if I’d never left? You probably wouldn’t have been so panicked that night. If I were there you might have not been in the great hall at all. We might’ve run away together. We—”

“We could’ve been killed. We could have gone mad, or broken up anyway.”

He talks as if he hasn’t heard her. “Or if I had come after the war. Before you met on New Year’s, before you kissed. Maybe you wouldn’t feel the force of fate quite so… persistently.”

“Why didn’t you?” She catches Astoria on the side of the floor, watching them. But the music doesn’t stop and neither do they. “Why didn’t you come back?”

“I wanted to. But I was so ashamed. For leaving all of this. I didn’t feel I had the right to come back and deal with the aftermath of what the war did to you.”

“I told you before. You don’t have to feel ashamed for having a sane parent.”

“I know. I do.” His eyes flit to all the other people on the dance floor. He leans in, eyes on something else. “Potter’s here.”

“I didn’t know,” she says, surprised, looking back to find him there, awkwardly stuffing his hands inside his robes. He hasn’t noticed her yet, electrified by the sudden rush of memories of this morning.

Theo feels the shift in her. He lets her go with a sudden, stifling laugh.

“It’s okay. You should go. He looks miserable .”

She turns back. “I’m going to miss you terribly,” her voice quivers off on the last syllable. “Terribly.”

“So will I.” The blue in his eyes gleam, half mischief, half regret. “Don’t worry too much about breaking my heart though. I broke yours first.”

The song ends. Almost as suddenly and sharply as she feels the past slipping away. They stop in unison and Pansy knows in her heart that it’s the end of them now. The dreaded the damned the truly irreversible end.

Harry smiles when he sees her, and his face is opened up in relief. He’s not wearing the clothes he left her apartment in. No, he’s dressed for the occasion, dark robes with scarlet stripes. As she reaches closer, his face alight, she can almost feel the heat of his eyes. 

“You’re… beautiful,” he says softly.

Pansy smiles back, never quite able to help herself. It’s new. It’s exciting. Annihilating. The reality of them. They’re close enough for her to fix his hair. She swipes her hand through his hair and sees in blunt amusement as it lies flat again, messy.

He shakes his head, blushing. “Is this awkward? Daphne invited me.”

“No, it isn’t. I just… I didn’t know.” 

“Yeah, I…” He chuckles. “I’m dizzy. Is this normal?”

“No.”

“Thought so.” And then they’re kissing. And she’s melting into his smell, the warmth of his breath. It feels preposterously sweet. Almost like she could get everything she ever wished for. She can’t remember if she felt like this before, lightheaded, as if the world around was just a blurry screen. It’s a thousand fluorescent blips all condensed together for one, long, bright summer.

“I brought you something,” he whispers when they break apart. His palm shifts over hers, and she only has to feel the crinkle of the plastic wrapper to know what it is.

“It’s that peach flavour I loved,” he says, almost abashed. 

Pansy stares at the bright orange candy. Kismet, he’d said, tracing the lines of her face like a child. I think this was due, don’t you? Us?

She wants to ask if he saw her that day, more than a decade ago. If that one sole peach had made his day better, if it had made him smile. Why didn’t he ever say anything?

“I thought they’d run out of it,” she says, looking up at his face is sometimes like looking straight at the sun.

“Oh no.” Harry smiles, and she can tell that he’s relieved, even more than he was before. “I mean, they did. And I missed it for so long, Pansy. But now it’s here. We’re not running out of peaches for a long, long time.”

It has a strange, almost unearthly sense of inevitability. She doesn’t know what is going to happen, not exactly, but an oddly crippling feeling— right at the pit of her stomach—tells her that it would have happened anyway. Whatever that’s happening to her would have happened if she had taken a hundred different steps, lived through different mistakes and resentments and words she never said. They’d still be here, surrounded by flowers and music, him looking at her as if she’s the only real thing in the world. Maybe she is, and this is the fantasy she tried so hard to scrub off her mind.

She stares at the sun, and there is the same sort of electricity between them, the kind that stays between two people in love. Even when they aren’t touching, they are.

Blip. It’s here.