dransy college au
Draco says “I love you,” and she responds “You’re really fucking drunk right now,” and he says “I suppose,” then pukes unceremoniously into the toilet.
All in all, it’s a pretty typical Friday night.
Pansy can’t feel her knees anymore, kneeling there for what she’s sure has been two hours on the tiles of Draco’s stupidly ginormous studio apartment. She has a bowl of ice chips in her hand, and it’s dripping all over her satin mini-dress, creating blooming blots of dark pink that are so cold they pierce through to her thighs.
It’s Christmas, and they hadn’t gone home this year. Home was too far away for her, and increasingly difficult for him, and so instead of joining in on the usual festivities, they’d decided to get obnoxiously dressed up, grab a Grey Goose, and take shots in turn.
Draco resurfaces from the toilet bowl with eyes starting to turn blurry and red from the force of his coughing. “Fuck this.”
“Lightweight,” Pansy says, then pulls one of the fluffier towels on his bathroom shelf as a makeshift seat.
She flips him off as he glares at her, “You won’t be done until at least 4.”
***
“Why are you always at mine?” He asks one night over dinner, takeaway from the Chinese restaurant that makes Pansy ache for her mother’s cooking. It’s not accusatory, just blunt in the way that they are with each other. And she is always over - after class, after kickboxing, after every horrific encounter with a fuckboy. She likes his apartment. It’s somewhere where her half-truths are actually understood.
“There’s something off about my housemates,” She says after she shreds a scallion pancake into twenty flaky little pieces, “Do you mind?”
Draco glances at her from the corner of his eye. Sharp. Disconcertingly observant. “No.”
“Does your girl mind?”
Draco mulls this over with a bite of chicken, and says, finally, “Don’t think so.”
Pansy pops the last bite of food on her plate into her mouth, before snapping the take-out container shut. “I should go.”
“Pans-”
“No, really,” Pansy says, gripping her sweating Diet Coke and slinging her workout bag over her shoulder, “I’d like to keep on this one’s good side, if you don’t mind.”
“Don’t be fucking silly.” Draco says, leaning back on his couch and throwing his hands up exasperatedly, “
“Ask her if she minds, then.” She challenges him, and he hesitates before reaching for his phone.
He types out something quick, dramatically presses send, then raises an eyebrow at her. “There. Happy? Will you stay and finish the rest of the dumplings?”
“What’d she respond?”
Draco groans. “Does it matter? You’re my best friend. She knows that.”
“What’d she respond, dipshit?” She kicks his shin, because he’s being a brat, and she can see the text notification pop up on his home screen.
“Does it matter?”
“ Draco .”
“Alright,” he acquiesces, a rare enough feat, and flashes his phone screen in her face. She’s a quick enough reader to see the response in vein with every other one, the not really and the i get it but .
“That’s my cue to go,” Pansy says, contemplating the grease on the plastic container before dumping it into the trash. “I do not want to be in this position again. Remember when I almost got my teeth knocked out?”
“But now you’re taking kickboxing,” Draco whines, petulant.
“And this one still terrifies me.” Pansy says, already slipping her feet into her Adidas. “See you tomorrow.”
***
There’s nothing in Boston, no life worthy of bringing back to Daphne, who spends 75% of her time being an art hoe at Parsons, and the rest of it getting white girl wasted. Greg’s out at culinary school, baking - like, croissants, or some shit, and Millicent is out wasting her stepfather’s money in California. God knows where Blaise is on his nine-month cruise anymore.
She has all of them in her palm in their Whatsapp group but the physicality of friendship, of reaching over and smacking one of them gently on the shoulder, is missing.
That’s why, she tells herself, she and Draco cling to each other so hard. It’s been this way since they were kids - distinct memories of tantrums when their families parted for the evening.
Sometimes she wonders what would’ve happened if they’d chosen different cities, if they hadn’t been so hard-up on going somewhere elite , and hadn’t both wrote and rewrote their common apps and pulled all the strings possible to get into Harvard.
“I called your brother,” Draco says the next morning when he’s handing her an Advil and a Hydroflask of water while she’s still hiding amidst her covers.
“What?”
“He’s coming up today.”
“What?” She repeats, stupid. Sullen. “Why would you do that? Why would you even - how do you have his number ?”
“Pans,” Draco sighs, and she sucks in hard through her teeth.
“No,” she turns her head up towards the ceiling, “I’m not gonna talk to him.”
“He sure as hell isn’t flying up here to spend time with me ,” Draco grumbles, sinking down on the duvet besides her, “Unless you want me to hang out with him. I’m sure he’d love that.”
She tosses one of her throw pillows at his head. “Why did you have to call him?”
“Pans,” Draco says, “Calm down.”
“I am calm.”
“No, you’re vibrating out of your skin.”
“You always - you always make these fucking choices that you think are good for me ,” She says and her voice is low and hissing and really, really bitchy right now, but she can’t help it because he’s got her cornered.
“It’s my birthday,” she says over the phone when he picks up.
“Yeah. Yeah, I know.”
“And I don’t have plans.”
“Aren’t your housemates around?”
That’s the part that she hates the most about him - how he knows her so well he can pick out the slivers of lies she embeds into the truth, flay the whole thing, break it wide open so he can see the ugliest, softest part of her.
“Yeah, they are,” Pansy says, and lets the rest of her answer hang in the air, before he sighs - used to this, a little pitying, a little apologetic.
His voice is odd and warped and Pansy’s not sure if it’s the heat or if it’s because blood is rushing to her ears. “Open it for me.”
“Calm your fucking tits, Draco,” she says, and she uses her nail to tear at the seam of the envelope.
There, in neat Times New Roman, are the words Dear Mr. Malfoy , and Congratulations on your acceptance , on Johns Hopkins letterhead.
“You got in,” she says calmly, though her heart is beating double-time. “Bitch, you got in .”
Draco narrows his eyes. “You’re lying.”
She throws the letter at his face.
“Oh,” he says after skimming it over, which isn’t gloating and isn’t glee, which means it’s very out of line for Draco.
Daphne meets her at Port Authority in big oversized sunglasses and Doc Martens and the teeniest sundress Pansy has ever seen. She engulfs Pansy in a hug, so hard that her sunglasses slip and clack into Pansy’s own and the force of it bends Pansy in half. It’s a fierce hug - it takes all of it in her not to cry on the spot.
“I’ve missed you so, so, so much,” Daphne squeals.
Pansy swallows. “Me too. You have no idea.”
“You seem upset,” Daphne says as she cuts into her avocado toast, “What’s going on?”
Pansy inhales. “Nothing. Why do you always think something’s going on?”
“Something’s always going on with you.” Daphne says sagely, like she’s wise beyond her years even though Pansy knows she still believes in all the superstitions, throws salt over her shoulders, and runs away from black cats.
“Okay, so you’re in love with him.”
“I hate it,” Pansy says into dark, head tipped back towards the ceiling. She lets the words bounce out and out and out -
“It could be worse,” Daphne says, reining her in, and Pansy feels the delicate touch of a pinky curled around her own. It feels like slumber parties when they were in middle school, when she and Millicent and Pansy would sit around and try to french braid each other’s hair and demolish a family size bag of Doritos in one hour. “He could know.”
“Small silver lining, Daph,” Pansy sighs, but she guesses Daphne has a point.
Draco throws one last party while Lucius and Narcissa are parading around the south of Italy, and it’s glitzy and glamorous and there’s body glitter sticking to her chest, glowing and golden. The buzz of content from white-wine sangria makes her head spin. She rests her chin on Daphne’s shoulder as Daphne flirts with Greg and thinks oh interesting.
“Daph is flirting with Greg,” Pansy announces when she enters Draco’s room, door bouncing off its hinges, “Fifty bucks it happens. A hundred that she’s been planning this since last summer.”
Draco shuts the door behind her, looks down his nose in a way that makes her want to shrink away. “Greg’ll be happy about that.”
“Will he?”
“Mm,” Draco hums, pushing her shoulder lightly so she’ll settle into his desk chair. “You’re very drunk.”
“You’re not,” She returns, as he resumes moving about his bedroom. He’s doing something regarding folding up his socks into neat little rectangles. There’s a precision there that she’ll miss watching, his meticulousness amidst all his mess.
“I didn’t feel like drinking.” He says, which makes her snort because that’s never the case.
“It’s your party.”
Draco doesn’t respond. He folds the last pair of socks and puts them to rest in the corner of his luggage, zips it up slow.
“That’s what we do, right?” Pansy says, “We’re best friends. We take care of each other.”
Draco nods; he’s biting the inside of his mouth - Pansy can tell from the slant of his jaw - and fiddling with the edges of the rug under his bed.
“Now - feel like most of the time, now, you’re taking care of me,” Pansy laughs, head spinning, room spinning, unaware that her voice is catching in her throat.
“Yeah,” Draco says quietly, and then he looks up at her. His eyes are a melancholy shade of gray, like a sidewalk faded over the years, like a thunderstorm holding its breath. “You gonna be okay?”
She says "Yes, I think so," lying through her teeth so convincingly she's sure even he can't see through it.