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hpkinkfestTitle: The Hit
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rzzmg
Prompt Number: H22 byscarletladyy
Kink Showcased: Stripping (Implied)
Rating: PG-13
Pairing(s): Harry Potter/Pansy Parkinson
Summary: Seven years ago, Pansy fell hard for the one man in the world she never should have - Harry Potter. When Ron Weasley walks through her door today and hires her to perform at Harry’s stag party, it’s simply too much money to pass up. Doing this gig, however, means a confrontation with the man who’d broken her heart seven years earlier…
Warnings/Content Notes: References to stripping for money, implied prostitution, implied drinking/drug addictions in the past, implied abuse in the past, explicit profanity, misunderstandings, drama & angst, romance, happy ending (fluffy-ish)
Word Count: ~3K
Author's Notes: I wanted to write something fluffy and sweet for this fest. I hope this meets with your approval,scarletladyy! Thank you again to the amazing Mods for putting this fest on – always love it, and your organizational skills are something to be in awe of, seriously!!! To my fantabulous beta, “ladysashi”, you are a shining star in my sky and I truly appreciate all of your help – especially with the modern slang, and to my brainstorming team of ‘Wronskiiifeint” and “nambupambu”, thank you so much for your invaluable, insightful advise! This story wouldn’t have been possible without you three cheering me on and keeping me on track. THANK YOU!
The sliding door shuts behind her and Pansy shivers.
She knows what’s coming next. It’s inevitable, like the hit that takes you down, puts you on your knees, driven by the hand you’ve trusted the most.
This is going to suck.
“Did you enjoy that?”
Self-righteous prick.
He’s the one who got the lap dance from her, after all.
Tilting her head back, she exhales a dusty ball of cinder-scented smoke towards the stars, imagining it the dying breath of a great and lonely dragon. “Less than you did, I assure you,” she tells him, adjusting her mother’s limp ermine wrap around her shoulders. The thing is soiled by years of desperation and French perfume, but ironically, it’s warm enough for London in the springtime. “Playing your whore has never been my ideal way to spend a Friday night, Potter.”
He snorts in disbelief. “As I recall, you were the one who demanded no strings, so quit the martyr shit. And besides, you liked all that sneaking around and sex in risky places. It got you off.”
You liked it too, you bloody hypocrite. It hid your dirty secrets.
She tries not to be so wounded by his contempt. After all, nearly seven years stands between what they’d been and what they are now…
Seven atrophied years filled with deadened dreams.
"Pity parties are for petunias, not pansies."
Goddamn, but her bitch of a mother had always been right.
Furthermore, Pansy’s hardly the love-starved, pathetic mess she’d been back then, after the war. Now she’s just a poisoned wasteland, empty of caring, filled with thorns. Years of inuring herself to men to get the weekend gigs done has made her a bitch, too, it seems.
So, no, she won’t be hurt by Harry’s crudity. She’s survived worse.
“Sod off, Mister High-and-Mighty Saviour.” Flicking her still-lit ciggie over the balcony’s rail, condemning herself to the rest of this soul-sucking palaver without its calming influence, she prepares for the final bout against her ex…whatever he’d been to her for those few months so long ago. First decent shag? Convenient fuck toy in dark corners? Fickle lover? “I was contracted to do this shindig, and I have to say, I was ace at it. You certainly got hard. Congrats, everything’s still in working order. I’m sure the Ginger Princess will be relieved.”
Feeling properly girded to face him at last with the sour reminder of why she’d lost everything seven years ago still on her tongue she turns around now and faces the opposition.
“But this conversation right here? Not part of the deal. Bugger off.”
His fists at his side go all white-knuckled and tight.
“Who hired you?” he demands.
Oh, if only he knew…
~.~.~.~.~
Holy balls on a bull, what was she going to do?
Staring at the Weasel King in front of her, his face red with a combination of embarrassment and eagerness, Pansy felt trapped.
She couldn’t afford not to take his offer.
If she did, she’d never live it down.
“Well?” he asked, leaning forward in his seat, an unexpected hunger appearing in his eyes as they roamed over her. “Will you do it?”
She glanced sideways at Daphne, Millie, and Tracey where they sat across the room on another of the large Sitting Room’s sofas. All three of them had that same, stupid ‘deer caught in the wandlight’ look on their faces, and yet she noted how each of them cast furtive, greedy glances at the bulging sack of galleons sitting in the centre of the tea table between her and their guest. Weasley had thrown it down there earlier when he’d made his proposal to buy their services for an upcoming stag night.
Not just any stag night, though.
It was Harry Potter’s special event.
“How did you hear about us?” she asked instead, curious as to how one of her childhood rivals had found her and her house. Only someone with one of her business cards could have done so, which meant Ronald Weasley had been recommended by one of their other clients.
If that rat-fink, Zabini, had put him up to this for a laugh at her expense…
“Macmillan.”
Ah. The accountant.
Well, at least he’d been a decent man—one of the few she’d ever encountered in this job.
Weasley reached into his inner robes and Pansy’s wand was in her hand in a flash and pointed straight at his freckled nose.
The man paused long enough to assess the threat, and for the first time, Pansy could see the Auror he’d become as an adult within his expression. His eyes grew calculating and hard.
Slowly, she lowered her arm, embarrassed by her jumpiness.
“Sorry…reflex.”
Weasley’s expression softened with understanding. The war had really fucked with them all. In her case, the mistrust went deeper, though. Five years of abuse at the hands of violent, sick men before she’d dug her way out of the pit she’d sunk into after Potter had…
No, she wouldn’t think of the day he’d walked away from her. Never again.
And anyway, she would not be sharing any of her personal history with the likes of a Weasley, so it hardly mattered what he thought of her skittishness, really. All that should matter to him was that she ran the tightest, classiest escort agency in the business. Her girls were all clean, attractive, well-groomed, and their ability to perform in a variety of social functions was guaranteed, thanks to their childhood years being dedicated to etiquette, singing, and dance lessons, as enforced by their pure-blood mams. Furthermore, she had personally seen to it that they were all skilled in the erotic arts by hiring some of the best male escorts in Rome and Paris to teach them the ropes, literally.
She and her girls could serve whatever needs their clients had for entertainment purposes…whether it be done at a palatial manor house in the country for a formal dinner party or at some place as uncivilized as a London hotel run by a Squib for something as low-brow as a stag party.
They could do this.
They had to. Rent was coming up again soon.
Withdrawing one of his business cards from his pocket, Weasley passed it off to her. “Take the job, Parkinson. I’ll pay you triple, if you want. All I care about is sending Harry’s bachelorhood off with a bang, and you’re said to be the best. I want that for him. I want you for him.”
“And the others?” she asked, indicating her friends across the room. “How many women in total, and which services-?”
“Hell, for triple that-” He indicated the bag on the table with a nod of his head. “-the whole house should suffice. ‘Til dawn. Just companionship, some dancing, talking. We’ll have music, drinks, and food. It’ll be safe, promise. Anything in private between consenting adults is theirs to hash out, though. I’m not paying for that.”
He glanced down at her, and there was something slightly devious in his expression that reminded Pansy of a lion considering how best to take down its prey. Right then and there, she understood what Weasley’s only interest in this game was: to see her groveling at Potter’s feet for the slight she’d given him during the Final Battle. Her attempt to betray Harry to save everyone else’s skin was one slight the ginger side-kick, apparently, was never going to forgive.
“You’re the important piece on the board, though,” he told her. “I want you there. You give him a good show, get and keep his interest. S’all that matters to me.”
Climbing to his feet, he walked out without a backward glance, leaving the bag of galleons behind. Pansy knew the gesture for what it was: a show of good faith, coupled with his assurance that she’d accept his proposal.
“Well, ladies, it seems we’ve booked the hottest show of the century,” she said, scooping up the bag and keeping a firm hold on Weasley’s card. “Let’s make it unforgettable for the ‘Saviour of the Wizarding World’, shall we?”
Inside, she took the sharp hit of Potter’s forthcoming marriage straight to the heart…and to her surprise, the bloody thing kept beating anyway.
~.~.~.~.~
Scoffing in Potter’s general direction is spiteful, but it makes Pansy feel good.
“Why do you care who hired me to entertain you? You worried my employer might not be as discrete about this little meet-and-greet between us, lover boy? Afraid the She-Weasel might hear something you don’t want her knowing about tonight?”
“No.”
Two letters, one syllable, a single word, a complete sentence, and a wealth of implication is carried in his simple response.
What enormous power a simple negative has between two people.
She waves him off, refusing to read too much into his ‘eloquent’ answer, knowing that road would lead only to madness. “Well, regardless, this time, I’m the one walking away.” Her painted lips twist in a mocking tribute to the bitter memories, specifically their ending. “Your karma or mine? I can’t seem to decide.”
She moves for the sliding partition.
Harry says nothing, but he also refuses to budge. And one head-to-toe sweep tells her she can forget moving him. The last seven years of chasing down Death Eater escapees has apparently given him Erumpent-sized thighs, Manticore-rounded arms, and Centaur-ridged abs. He’s a beast, everywhere.
Her dramatic exit is thwarted by a case of greater mass…and a massive arousal.
To her horror, that tell-tale bulge in his jeans still has to power to captivate her, too. The longer she stares at it, the more she recalls in vivid detail how it looks, tastes, feels. Her old obsession rises to the surface, tips the scales, and suddenly she’s wondering how much better in bed he is now that he’s apparently grown into his cock. He’d had some decent dick control back when he’d been nineteen, but at twenty-six, surely by now he’s learned how to make that monster last and how to use it effectively to hit a girl’s sweet spot every time.
Correction: how to make Miss Quidditch Jockey scream the high notes while riding the golden broom.
Turning away, she focuses on the noises and lights coming from the other side of the glass partition. Faces flash by—Longbottom, Finnigan, Thomas, Finch-Fletchley, several red-headed Weasleys whose names she doesn’t care to know. Some of her girls are dancing with the men, others already negotiating private services later with swaying hips and fluttering eyelashes. The stag party is in full swing, and no one’s paying them any attention outside.
Bastards are probably all snickering behind their hands, assuming Potter’s arranging a farewell-to-bachelorhood style bang with her right there on the hotel balcony.
She regrets now having taken Ronald Weasley’s offer to perform at tonight’s stag-do for his best mate. She knew when she’d taken the man’s bag of galleons what he’d been all about: getting her on her knees for Potter in revenge for her attempting to sell the man out to Voldemort. Sadistic asshat.
The last laugh was on him, though: she’d willingly dropped to all fours for Harry years before, and the kind of begging that had gone on then had little to do with asking forgiveness.
She indicates that he needs to move his arse out of her way now. “It’s cold out here, so if you don’t mind.”
“What the hell is wrong with you, Parkinson?” he suddenly demands, running a hand through his hair, mussing it in much the same way she’d always done. “What Slytherin mind games are playing now? I never know with you.”
Incredulous, she stares up at him like he’s got four heads, instead of four eyes.
“Excuse me?”
He growls a dragon-like warning. “Is your hearing as bad as your memory, now, too? You take your clothes off for me in there, and come on to me like your drink’s been spiked with a Lust Potion. Then, the second the music stops, you’re up and getting dressed and dodging me again.”
Pansy laughs, and even to her ears, it sounds a bit Bellatrix Lestrange-y. Who can blame her, though? Five minutes in Potter’s presence and all her hard-fought resentment is back and burning through her brain like Fiendfyre, rattling her lips loose like a Hufflepuff on too many pain potions.
“It’s your fucking stag party, Potter! What part of ‘hired stripper’ don’t you get?”
He goes very still.
“Wait, you think-”
But she’s on a roll now, and nothing’s stopping this train from barreling out of the station and jumping track. Too many years of abuse, of repression has made her a volcano of spite and she’s boiling over.
“You think taking this job was on the top of my things to do in this lifetime?” she screams at him. “Like I just randomly accepted such demeaning work, because I’m some bored sophisticate rebelling against my dead, disgraced parents?” She points to the group on the other side of the sliding glass door. “You think stripping down in a room full of men I knew back in school, who hated me then and who laugh at how far I’ve fallen now, was a cake-walk for me? You think it was easy for me to dance for you, knowing on Sunday you’re marrying the girl you went back to seven years ago after walking out my door?” She stamped her heeled foot and snarled at him. “Here’s the news flash, Harry James Potter: no, none of it was easy and this wasn’t my idea of a fun Friday night!”
“Pansy-”
“And here’s the real kicker,” she says, gripping her chest with that same dooming sense of inevitability that she’s become so familiar with over the years. This time is going to hurt, too. “I know it’s my fault. I told you to go and you did. We were both too broken after the war, but the world wouldn’t leave us alone for five fucking minutes to figure any of it out. They hounded you and harassed me, to the point where we were sneaking around, lying to everyone. We were drinking too much, doing potions to dull the memories, using sex as a way out of the darkness… I know you thought it wasn’t right, I know it was killing you to be so…so…Slytherin. And I loved you too much to keep destroying you with my pain.” She glances up at him and feels the curtain fall away, feels the arrow take its mark. “But you’re Gryffindor. I didn’t think… I didn’t expect... You weren’t supposed to give up! You never did before, but you did! You gave me up so easily, and you went back to her, that freckly, tomboyish ginger!”
She takes the hit, square and with full impact, and nearly drops from it.
Harry looks down at her with the kind of boyish, dawning, soft understanding that melts female hearts. “Pans, I never went back to Ginny,” he tells her. “I never really got over you either. It’s why my life is nothing but work.”
Her jaw drops, giving her an instant and acute case of TMJ.
“After we broke up, I threw myself into my job at the Ministry, capturing Death Eaters and Snatchers—the people who had terrified you during the war. I thought that if they were gone, maybe you could finally find some peace. Maybe then someday…you and me…”
Oh, well, that explains why he’s so buff.
…And while her ex-lover was out saving the world for her, what the hell has she been doing?
"Why, you’ve been throwing yourself a nice pity party, Pansy!"
Fucking bitch! Always right!
“Pansy, listen to me,” Harry tells her, gently tucking a loose strand of dark hair back behind her ear. “This isn’t my stag party. It’s Ron’s.”
It takes a moment, but then...it clicks.
“You’ve got to be joking!” she groans, understanding that she’s totally made another mess of things by assuming all wrong thing, again. She throws herself at the glass window, and cupping her hands around her eyes to block out the city lights to see better through it, she notes Daphne and Millie and Tracey…all her best girls are congregated around the Weasel King in the centre of the room, tearing up the dance floor with him. “He…he…he said it was for you! That he wanted me for you, tonight. To kiss off your bachelorhood.”
Harry laughs and shakes his head. “That idiot,” he says rather fondly.
With a sigh, he turns to her and takes her in his arms.
Too confounded to know what to think or how to feel, Pansy does not put up a fight for once. Besides, Potter is warm and it is rather cold outside.
“Pans, I’m not seeing anyone. Technically, I am a bachelor.”
She turns to look back through the glass at Weasley.
“That bloody lion-weasel outsmarted me!”
“Technically, he outsmarted us both,” Harry says, cupping her jaw and forcing her to look at him. “He is a champion chess player on the circuit, though. It’s why Hermione’s marrying him, after all.” His thumb rubs over her bottom lip then and Pansy’s sure he’s smudging the colour. Oddly, she doesn’t seem to care, not when he’s looking at her mouth as if he hungrily wants to ruin its perfection in other ways. “Well, for that and his generosity. Giving me a present, when he’s the one getting married… Typical Ron.”
“Y-you have some nice friends,” she whispers as he dips his head to kiss her.
“They're the best,” Potter agrees as he captures her lips in a kiss that steals Pansy’s breath.
She takes the hit this time, and although it’s not without fear, it isn’t the devastating blow she’s expected.
In fact, this time, it feels like Cupid’s arrow has finally hit its mark.
~FIN~
Author:
rzzmgPrompt Number: H22 by
scarletladyyKink Showcased: Stripping (Implied)
Rating: PG-13
Pairing(s): Harry Potter/Pansy Parkinson
Summary: Seven years ago, Pansy fell hard for the one man in the world she never should have - Harry Potter. When Ron Weasley walks through her door today and hires her to perform at Harry’s stag party, it’s simply too much money to pass up. Doing this gig, however, means a confrontation with the man who’d broken her heart seven years earlier…
Warnings/Content Notes: References to stripping for money, implied prostitution, implied drinking/drug addictions in the past, implied abuse in the past, explicit profanity, misunderstandings, drama & angst, romance, happy ending (fluffy-ish)
Word Count: ~3K
Author's Notes: I wanted to write something fluffy and sweet for this fest. I hope this meets with your approval,
scarletladyy! Thank you again to the amazing Mods for putting this fest on – always love it, and your organizational skills are something to be in awe of, seriously!!! To my fantabulous beta, “ladysashi”, you are a shining star in my sky and I truly appreciate all of your help – especially with the modern slang, and to my brainstorming team of ‘Wronskiiifeint” and “nambupambu”, thank you so much for your invaluable, insightful advise! This story wouldn’t have been possible without you three cheering me on and keeping me on track. THANK YOU!The sliding door shuts behind her and Pansy shivers.
She knows what’s coming next. It’s inevitable, like the hit that takes you down, puts you on your knees, driven by the hand you’ve trusted the most.
This is going to suck.
“Did you enjoy that?”
Self-righteous prick.
He’s the one who got the lap dance from her, after all.
Tilting her head back, she exhales a dusty ball of cinder-scented smoke towards the stars, imagining it the dying breath of a great and lonely dragon. “Less than you did, I assure you,” she tells him, adjusting her mother’s limp ermine wrap around her shoulders. The thing is soiled by years of desperation and French perfume, but ironically, it’s warm enough for London in the springtime. “Playing your whore has never been my ideal way to spend a Friday night, Potter.”
He snorts in disbelief. “As I recall, you were the one who demanded no strings, so quit the martyr shit. And besides, you liked all that sneaking around and sex in risky places. It got you off.”
You liked it too, you bloody hypocrite. It hid your dirty secrets.
She tries not to be so wounded by his contempt. After all, nearly seven years stands between what they’d been and what they are now…
Seven atrophied years filled with deadened dreams.
"Pity parties are for petunias, not pansies."
Goddamn, but her bitch of a mother had always been right.
Furthermore, Pansy’s hardly the love-starved, pathetic mess she’d been back then, after the war. Now she’s just a poisoned wasteland, empty of caring, filled with thorns. Years of inuring herself to men to get the weekend gigs done has made her a bitch, too, it seems.
So, no, she won’t be hurt by Harry’s crudity. She’s survived worse.
“Sod off, Mister High-and-Mighty Saviour.” Flicking her still-lit ciggie over the balcony’s rail, condemning herself to the rest of this soul-sucking palaver without its calming influence, she prepares for the final bout against her ex…whatever he’d been to her for those few months so long ago. First decent shag? Convenient fuck toy in dark corners? Fickle lover? “I was contracted to do this shindig, and I have to say, I was ace at it. You certainly got hard. Congrats, everything’s still in working order. I’m sure the Ginger Princess will be relieved.”
Feeling properly girded to face him at last with the sour reminder of why she’d lost everything seven years ago still on her tongue she turns around now and faces the opposition.
“But this conversation right here? Not part of the deal. Bugger off.”
His fists at his side go all white-knuckled and tight.
“Who hired you?” he demands.
Oh, if only he knew…
~.~.~.~.~
Holy balls on a bull, what was she going to do?
Staring at the Weasel King in front of her, his face red with a combination of embarrassment and eagerness, Pansy felt trapped.
She couldn’t afford not to take his offer.
If she did, she’d never live it down.
“Well?” he asked, leaning forward in his seat, an unexpected hunger appearing in his eyes as they roamed over her. “Will you do it?”
She glanced sideways at Daphne, Millie, and Tracey where they sat across the room on another of the large Sitting Room’s sofas. All three of them had that same, stupid ‘deer caught in the wandlight’ look on their faces, and yet she noted how each of them cast furtive, greedy glances at the bulging sack of galleons sitting in the centre of the tea table between her and their guest. Weasley had thrown it down there earlier when he’d made his proposal to buy their services for an upcoming stag night.
Not just any stag night, though.
It was Harry Potter’s special event.
“How did you hear about us?” she asked instead, curious as to how one of her childhood rivals had found her and her house. Only someone with one of her business cards could have done so, which meant Ronald Weasley had been recommended by one of their other clients.
If that rat-fink, Zabini, had put him up to this for a laugh at her expense…
“Macmillan.”
Ah. The accountant.
Well, at least he’d been a decent man—one of the few she’d ever encountered in this job.
Weasley reached into his inner robes and Pansy’s wand was in her hand in a flash and pointed straight at his freckled nose.
The man paused long enough to assess the threat, and for the first time, Pansy could see the Auror he’d become as an adult within his expression. His eyes grew calculating and hard.
Slowly, she lowered her arm, embarrassed by her jumpiness.
“Sorry…reflex.”
Weasley’s expression softened with understanding. The war had really fucked with them all. In her case, the mistrust went deeper, though. Five years of abuse at the hands of violent, sick men before she’d dug her way out of the pit she’d sunk into after Potter had…
No, she wouldn’t think of the day he’d walked away from her. Never again.
And anyway, she would not be sharing any of her personal history with the likes of a Weasley, so it hardly mattered what he thought of her skittishness, really. All that should matter to him was that she ran the tightest, classiest escort agency in the business. Her girls were all clean, attractive, well-groomed, and their ability to perform in a variety of social functions was guaranteed, thanks to their childhood years being dedicated to etiquette, singing, and dance lessons, as enforced by their pure-blood mams. Furthermore, she had personally seen to it that they were all skilled in the erotic arts by hiring some of the best male escorts in Rome and Paris to teach them the ropes, literally.
She and her girls could serve whatever needs their clients had for entertainment purposes…whether it be done at a palatial manor house in the country for a formal dinner party or at some place as uncivilized as a London hotel run by a Squib for something as low-brow as a stag party.
They could do this.
They had to. Rent was coming up again soon.
Withdrawing one of his business cards from his pocket, Weasley passed it off to her. “Take the job, Parkinson. I’ll pay you triple, if you want. All I care about is sending Harry’s bachelorhood off with a bang, and you’re said to be the best. I want that for him. I want you for him.”
“And the others?” she asked, indicating her friends across the room. “How many women in total, and which services-?”
“Hell, for triple that-” He indicated the bag on the table with a nod of his head. “-the whole house should suffice. ‘Til dawn. Just companionship, some dancing, talking. We’ll have music, drinks, and food. It’ll be safe, promise. Anything in private between consenting adults is theirs to hash out, though. I’m not paying for that.”
He glanced down at her, and there was something slightly devious in his expression that reminded Pansy of a lion considering how best to take down its prey. Right then and there, she understood what Weasley’s only interest in this game was: to see her groveling at Potter’s feet for the slight she’d given him during the Final Battle. Her attempt to betray Harry to save everyone else’s skin was one slight the ginger side-kick, apparently, was never going to forgive.
“You’re the important piece on the board, though,” he told her. “I want you there. You give him a good show, get and keep his interest. S’all that matters to me.”
Climbing to his feet, he walked out without a backward glance, leaving the bag of galleons behind. Pansy knew the gesture for what it was: a show of good faith, coupled with his assurance that she’d accept his proposal.
“Well, ladies, it seems we’ve booked the hottest show of the century,” she said, scooping up the bag and keeping a firm hold on Weasley’s card. “Let’s make it unforgettable for the ‘Saviour of the Wizarding World’, shall we?”
Inside, she took the sharp hit of Potter’s forthcoming marriage straight to the heart…and to her surprise, the bloody thing kept beating anyway.
~.~.~.~.~
Scoffing in Potter’s general direction is spiteful, but it makes Pansy feel good.
“Why do you care who hired me to entertain you? You worried my employer might not be as discrete about this little meet-and-greet between us, lover boy? Afraid the She-Weasel might hear something you don’t want her knowing about tonight?”
“No.”
Two letters, one syllable, a single word, a complete sentence, and a wealth of implication is carried in his simple response.
What enormous power a simple negative has between two people.
She waves him off, refusing to read too much into his ‘eloquent’ answer, knowing that road would lead only to madness. “Well, regardless, this time, I’m the one walking away.” Her painted lips twist in a mocking tribute to the bitter memories, specifically their ending. “Your karma or mine? I can’t seem to decide.”
She moves for the sliding partition.
Harry says nothing, but he also refuses to budge. And one head-to-toe sweep tells her she can forget moving him. The last seven years of chasing down Death Eater escapees has apparently given him Erumpent-sized thighs, Manticore-rounded arms, and Centaur-ridged abs. He’s a beast, everywhere.
Her dramatic exit is thwarted by a case of greater mass…and a massive arousal.
To her horror, that tell-tale bulge in his jeans still has to power to captivate her, too. The longer she stares at it, the more she recalls in vivid detail how it looks, tastes, feels. Her old obsession rises to the surface, tips the scales, and suddenly she’s wondering how much better in bed he is now that he’s apparently grown into his cock. He’d had some decent dick control back when he’d been nineteen, but at twenty-six, surely by now he’s learned how to make that monster last and how to use it effectively to hit a girl’s sweet spot every time.
Correction: how to make Miss Quidditch Jockey scream the high notes while riding the golden broom.
Turning away, she focuses on the noises and lights coming from the other side of the glass partition. Faces flash by—Longbottom, Finnigan, Thomas, Finch-Fletchley, several red-headed Weasleys whose names she doesn’t care to know. Some of her girls are dancing with the men, others already negotiating private services later with swaying hips and fluttering eyelashes. The stag party is in full swing, and no one’s paying them any attention outside.
Bastards are probably all snickering behind their hands, assuming Potter’s arranging a farewell-to-bachelorhood style bang with her right there on the hotel balcony.
She regrets now having taken Ronald Weasley’s offer to perform at tonight’s stag-do for his best mate. She knew when she’d taken the man’s bag of galleons what he’d been all about: getting her on her knees for Potter in revenge for her attempting to sell the man out to Voldemort. Sadistic asshat.
The last laugh was on him, though: she’d willingly dropped to all fours for Harry years before, and the kind of begging that had gone on then had little to do with asking forgiveness.
She indicates that he needs to move his arse out of her way now. “It’s cold out here, so if you don’t mind.”
“What the hell is wrong with you, Parkinson?” he suddenly demands, running a hand through his hair, mussing it in much the same way she’d always done. “What Slytherin mind games are playing now? I never know with you.”
Incredulous, she stares up at him like he’s got four heads, instead of four eyes.
“Excuse me?”
He growls a dragon-like warning. “Is your hearing as bad as your memory, now, too? You take your clothes off for me in there, and come on to me like your drink’s been spiked with a Lust Potion. Then, the second the music stops, you’re up and getting dressed and dodging me again.”
Pansy laughs, and even to her ears, it sounds a bit Bellatrix Lestrange-y. Who can blame her, though? Five minutes in Potter’s presence and all her hard-fought resentment is back and burning through her brain like Fiendfyre, rattling her lips loose like a Hufflepuff on too many pain potions.
“It’s your fucking stag party, Potter! What part of ‘hired stripper’ don’t you get?”
He goes very still.
“Wait, you think-”
But she’s on a roll now, and nothing’s stopping this train from barreling out of the station and jumping track. Too many years of abuse, of repression has made her a volcano of spite and she’s boiling over.
“You think taking this job was on the top of my things to do in this lifetime?” she screams at him. “Like I just randomly accepted such demeaning work, because I’m some bored sophisticate rebelling against my dead, disgraced parents?” She points to the group on the other side of the sliding glass door. “You think stripping down in a room full of men I knew back in school, who hated me then and who laugh at how far I’ve fallen now, was a cake-walk for me? You think it was easy for me to dance for you, knowing on Sunday you’re marrying the girl you went back to seven years ago after walking out my door?” She stamped her heeled foot and snarled at him. “Here’s the news flash, Harry James Potter: no, none of it was easy and this wasn’t my idea of a fun Friday night!”
“Pansy-”
“And here’s the real kicker,” she says, gripping her chest with that same dooming sense of inevitability that she’s become so familiar with over the years. This time is going to hurt, too. “I know it’s my fault. I told you to go and you did. We were both too broken after the war, but the world wouldn’t leave us alone for five fucking minutes to figure any of it out. They hounded you and harassed me, to the point where we were sneaking around, lying to everyone. We were drinking too much, doing potions to dull the memories, using sex as a way out of the darkness… I know you thought it wasn’t right, I know it was killing you to be so…so…Slytherin. And I loved you too much to keep destroying you with my pain.” She glances up at him and feels the curtain fall away, feels the arrow take its mark. “But you’re Gryffindor. I didn’t think… I didn’t expect... You weren’t supposed to give up! You never did before, but you did! You gave me up so easily, and you went back to her, that freckly, tomboyish ginger!”
She takes the hit, square and with full impact, and nearly drops from it.
Harry looks down at her with the kind of boyish, dawning, soft understanding that melts female hearts. “Pans, I never went back to Ginny,” he tells her. “I never really got over you either. It’s why my life is nothing but work.”
Her jaw drops, giving her an instant and acute case of TMJ.
“After we broke up, I threw myself into my job at the Ministry, capturing Death Eaters and Snatchers—the people who had terrified you during the war. I thought that if they were gone, maybe you could finally find some peace. Maybe then someday…you and me…”
Oh, well, that explains why he’s so buff.
…And while her ex-lover was out saving the world for her, what the hell has she been doing?
"Why, you’ve been throwing yourself a nice pity party, Pansy!"
Fucking bitch! Always right!
“Pansy, listen to me,” Harry tells her, gently tucking a loose strand of dark hair back behind her ear. “This isn’t my stag party. It’s Ron’s.”
It takes a moment, but then...it clicks.
“You’ve got to be joking!” she groans, understanding that she’s totally made another mess of things by assuming all wrong thing, again. She throws herself at the glass window, and cupping her hands around her eyes to block out the city lights to see better through it, she notes Daphne and Millie and Tracey…all her best girls are congregated around the Weasel King in the centre of the room, tearing up the dance floor with him. “He…he…he said it was for you! That he wanted me for you, tonight. To kiss off your bachelorhood.”
Harry laughs and shakes his head. “That idiot,” he says rather fondly.
With a sigh, he turns to her and takes her in his arms.
Too confounded to know what to think or how to feel, Pansy does not put up a fight for once. Besides, Potter is warm and it is rather cold outside.
“Pans, I’m not seeing anyone. Technically, I am a bachelor.”
She turns to look back through the glass at Weasley.
“That bloody lion-weasel outsmarted me!”
“Technically, he outsmarted us both,” Harry says, cupping her jaw and forcing her to look at him. “He is a champion chess player on the circuit, though. It’s why Hermione’s marrying him, after all.” His thumb rubs over her bottom lip then and Pansy’s sure he’s smudging the colour. Oddly, she doesn’t seem to care, not when he’s looking at her mouth as if he hungrily wants to ruin its perfection in other ways. “Well, for that and his generosity. Giving me a present, when he’s the one getting married… Typical Ron.”
“Y-you have some nice friends,” she whispers as he dips his head to kiss her.
“They're the best,” Potter agrees as he captures her lips in a kiss that steals Pansy’s breath.
She takes the hit this time, and although it’s not without fear, it isn’t the devastating blow she’s expected.
In fact, this time, it feels like Cupid’s arrow has finally hit its mark.
~FIN~
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