Work Text:
Pansy was looking up from the floor in the middle of the crowd to stare at her boyfriend, singing a song about a girl. She’d been dancing with her best friends and giggling when she caught him looking back at her, and upon making eye contact, she realized that she was in love with Harry James Potter.
She was fucked.
The two of them together was something that began unexpectedly. It started when Harry and Ginny broke off their 2-year engagement because things weren’t working out and she ended up with Blaise. After dating him for a month the pair disappeared, only to come back and announce they got married - and Harry couldn’t have been any happier for them. Pansy herself had broken up with Draco shortly after 6th year ended; she dated without any serious intent for several years after that, except one year where she’d had a steady, if not hectic relationship with Gregory Goyle that entirely dissolved due to busy work schedules.
This left Harry and Pansy to be the only ones in their friend group alone, and therefore subjected to those so-called friends trying to hook them up with various witches and wizards. One night after the group of friends went out, everyone had left early - Draco and Hermione had stuck around with them for a while, but Hermione noticed he’d had one too many drinks and quickly ushered him away. This left Pansy and Harry alone at the end of the night - well, the early hours of the next morning; they were still at the bar and Harry was nursing a bottle of beer.
“Why don’t we just date?” He asked matter of factly.
Pansy’s eyes went wide, Not exactly sure how to respond to what she’d just heard. She turned her whole body to face him and responded bluntly with, “Harry Potter, are you asking me out?”
“I....erm... I mean, we should go out! Like a show for when we’re with everyone, but not actually dating. You know, to get them off our backs for once. We also won’t be alone.” Pansy knew his explanation was horrible, and absolute nonsense, but he was extremely flustered - and, she recognised, never any good at talking to girls sober, let alone drunk. Slowly, she picked out what he actually meant in between his bumbling lines.
“You mean… we pretend?” She inquired, her eyebrows furrowed and her face scrunched up.
“Er...Yes? If you want to. We don’t have to; I mean, that's fine! But...yes, I mean you can be my fake girlfriend and I’ll be your fake boyfriend whenever we need each other. Then we won’t have to do this - going out with our friends in a group on our own, and they’ll stop nagging us. It’s the perfect cover!” He reckoned, slowly gaining confidence and stuttering less over his words the more they tumbled from his mouth.
“What makes you think that no one will figure this out? You do realize your best friend, Golden Girl, will know what’s going on a mile away,” she taunted.
“That’s the thing: you don’t think them leaving us here, by ourselves no less, is really them trying to set us up? This is the perfect opportunity.”
His explanation was all Pansy needed to hear to agree. They spent the rest of the evening coming up with boundaries and scenarios on how they would act in a variety of situations to be the best, most believable couple there was.
Unfortunately, Pansy found herself 6 months later no longer wanting to continue on with pretending; no longer wishing to hide how she felt about him anymore. She broke away from her friends and went to grab a drink at the bar to steel her nerves As soon as the set was done, she marched back to the dressing room where she knew he could be found ready to break up with him. Yet despite her resolve, the problem with it was that Harry did not take well to the news.
“What do you mean we’re breaking up? Pansy, we can’t ! Everyone will be so down about it and things will go back how they were before. I don’t want that - and I know you don’t want that,” Harry pleaded with her.
“Harry, do you hear yourself?” Pansy gestured between them. “This is fake! It started off fake, and it’s fake now - we were never meant to be dating this long, it was just to get everyone off our backs!” She spat back.
“Yeah, well... maybe it should be real. I’m tired of pretending with you… I mean - Pans…” He began to spill his feelings out but trailed off.
“What are you saying?” She promoted him, rubbing her fingers on her temples - frustration and disbelief brewing a headache.
“I’m saying that I don’t want to pretend anymore. I want to be your actual boyfriend, Pansy. These past few months with you as your fake boyfriend have been some of the most amazing of my life. I feel like I can be myself around you.” He implored, suddenly earnest, and Pansy simply couldn’t believe what he was saying after so long.
She’d come back to the dressing room to tell him how she felt, and instead he told her exactly what he felt. For once they were on the same page - so she did the most rational thing she could think of. In a flurry of movement, she grabbed him by his shirt, hopped up on her tiptoes, and smashed her lips to his.
After a small make-out session they sat close, heads bowed, and talked about the next steps they needed to take when it came to telling their friends. Pansy was all in favour of simply letting sleeping dogs lie, but in the end, they planned on doing it at the next Friday night dinner.
The next Friday came, Harry and Pansy told all their friends that they had begun officially dating. To their surprise, no one was shocked about the fake dating plans except Ron - which, really, was entirely unsurprising . Hermione was relieved, and admitted if they didn’t confess anytime soon she would have forced them to come clean. Draco ended up paying Blaise 100 Galleons for winning a bet they’d placed on the two of them - Pansy had no desire of knowing where the specifics were. Everyone had a laugh about it; but in the end, Harry and Pansy had permanent dates for the foreseeable future.