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"Hey," Theo answered the door before Pansy had even properly managed to knock on the door. Her hand was still raised in a first mid-knock so she quickly dropped her hand to her side and smiled at him.
"Hey there. You're keen." She commented as he stepped aside to let her inside and after shutting the door behind her he leads the way up to his room, though Pansy was sure that she would know the way in her sleep by now.
"As I said earlier, I want to talk to you." Theo hummed as they walked up the stairs and then took a seat on his bed.
Pansy pulled her legs up onto the bed after kicking off her shoes and crossed her legs underneath herself. "You alright?" She asked slowly, a frown flickering across her features. She had tried not to worry about what he wanted to say all afternoon but that had all come tumbling down now that she could see just how serious he was being.
"What's going on?" She asked slowly as she watched his face, tried to read him and see if he was going to give anything away. He looked tired, but that was all that she could tell from his smile - or lack thereof.
"It's nothing bad." He promised her as he reached forward to take her hand into his own, squeezing it as he tried to reassure her, but still, his words didn't take away the sense of dread that she could feel weighing down on her chest.
"Then what is it?" She asked again, an eyebrow lifted now. She couldn't help but start to get annoyed at him for pussy-footing around the topic. It was annoying but she supposed that this was giving him time to think about what exactly he was going to say.
"I just wanted to talk about, well, Percy." His voice was barely above a whisper though now Percy understood why. She knew that it wasn't at all easy for him to talk about his feelings, let alone his feelings for another man. "I… He wants to see me tonight and I'm guessing he'll have seen the papers so he'll know about me and you… but in our letters, he hasn't mentioned knowing anything. I… I guess I'm nervous. I don't know what I'm getting myself into but I also want to… I want to talk to him. I want him to understand about you, about us, about the future, and how I want him in that future."
Pansy gave his hand a gentle squeeze. "If he knows and he still wants to see you then that's a good sign." She paused for a moment before she continued, "And I can't see him having a problem with wanting to keep your relationship a secret when it's a secret, to begin with. Though, of course, if you want to arrange it so that his family knows and stuff, I have no problem with that. And once we have our heir, well…" She trailed off as she realised how nonchalantly she had just spoken about a child, their future child.
"I'm not going to leave you," Theo promised, his eyes meeting hers. "You know that, don't you? I'm not just in this to secure a baby, that's just our parents. When you said yes to marrying me, I knew we were going to be in this together for the long run. We're going to have this life together, not just a baby."
Pansy gave a soft smile as she gave a short shake of her head. "I never for one second thought that you were going to abandon me." She said softly. "I know I have you and I have Neville. Now we just need to get you your man."
Theo let out a groan at that. "And what if he doesn't actually want to be in a relationship but wants to keep just keep screwing me?"
"Is that what you want?" She asked him, her head tilting to the side ever-so-slightly as she studied his face for a moment. She'd never really asked Theo if he wanted to be in a proper relationship with Percy or if he was happy for the current arrangement to continue.
"I… I kinda want stability." He admitted quietly. "I guess that's why I didn't particularly mind when my dad announced that he had finally found, well, you." He said quietly, chewing on his lip slightly. "I want to… I want the happiness that you and Neville have."
"Remember how you told me that I should talk to Neville?" Pansy asked as she gave him a knowing smile. "It's your turn now. If he doesn't want what you want, it's best that you learn that now, right?"
Theo paused for a moment before he nodded. "Yeah, you're probably right. Tonight's the night, then."
"Good luck, not that you'll need it." She said as she gave his hand another squeeze.
"You got any plans for tonight?" Theo asked after a moment in an attempt to change the subject, which she couldn't at all blame him for. Until he could manage to speak to Percy they would only manage to go in circles after all.
"Gonna watch a movie with Neville, I think. Or at least go over there and just chill." She couldn't help but smile as she thought about spending time with Neville. She had seen him yesterday when he had taken her to visit his parents, but that was completely different to getting to spend some time one on one with him and completely different to getting to wrap his arms around him and just cuddle into him without anyone else there, without the chance or the worry that she would be seen with him. "I saw him yesterday. Actually, I met his parents. That was… that was tough. I don't know if you know what happened to them…" She trailed off, remembering when he had first found out and how disgusted she was with the side of the war that her family had been involved with.
"I've heard about them, yeah.." Theo's voice was just as small as hers before he cleared his throat. "I take it that went well though?"
"Yeah, it was oddly nice." She hummed, smiling gently. "He's really sweet around them and I think they liked me? Or at least they didn't seem to not like me." She moved to lie down on the bed beside him now and looked up at the ceiling. "I just hope that he doesn't expect a formal introduction to my parents in return." She knew that that wouldn't go as well.
"We'll hire you fake parents," Theo promised as he lay down beside her, pressing a kiss to her temple before he too looked up at his ceiling. "Ones that don't hate everything that they can't control."
Pansy had to laugh at that, but she knew that that was probably the only way that she would even get remotely close to being able to introduce Neville to her mother and father. It was a sorry state of affairs, but it was the life that Pansy had to lead.
They lay there for a while before Theo spoke again. "Do you want a drink?" He asked, his hand squeezing her hand gently as if to try to get her attention. Pansy knew that he was probably aware that she tended to zone out from time to time. "I have mulled cider downstairs."
"Mulled cider?" Pansy asked with an eyebrow raised as she rolled onto her side to face him. "Isn't it a bit earlier in the years for that?"
"It is never too early for mulled cider," Theo told her as he pushed himself up into a sitting position. "Besides, this is an old family recipe so I can assure you that you have never tasted anything like this before."
"An old family recipe, huh?" Pansy asked as she followed him down the stairs again. "Does this mean it's my recipe now too?" She asked, teasing him.
"Not until we're married," Theo told her with a laugh and a shake of his head. "But I will let you have some today."
"How nice of you." Pansy hummed as they made their way into the kitchen. It was larger than the Parkinson one and it looked as if it was used whereas her one was pristine and Pansy was pretty sure that her parents hadn't stepped foot in it since she was a baby, if then.
"Do you cook?" She asked as she looked around the kitchen, noting the pair of aprons that were hanging next to the back door. She'd never learned to cook - her mother had said that learning such a skill was pointless when they had a house-elf to perform such duties - but she'd always wanted to learn.
"Uh, kinda." Theo shrugged slightly as if it wasn't all that big a deal, and Pansy realised that to him it probably wasn't. She had always assumed that they had had a similar upbringing but it was starting to transpire that he might have had a slightly different one. She hadn't ever seen his father as being the warm type, but then she had never seen him behind closed doors.
"Kinda?" She hummed as she watched him head to the stove where a big pan sat. To her surprise, he didn't use his wand to heat it but turned the hob itself on. She was starting to realise that they weren't the same after all, not that that was a bad thing, but she wasn't exactly sure how to feel about that either.
"Yeah. I can make the basics, but nothing all that fancy." He said with a small shrug as he stirred the contents of the pan before he poured them both a glass and nodded towards the small table at the other side of the room. "My mum taught me."
"Well, now we know who will be doing all the cooking then." She ridiculed though she made a mental note to ask him to teach her one day further down the line. She didn't want to have to rely on anyone, and though she was sure that her mother was going to make sure that they had a house-elf of their own, she knew that being able to prepare and cook her own meals would give her some sort of sense of independence.
"No pressure then, huh?" Theo chuckled, shaking his head slightly. His eyes lingered on the table for a moment before he looked up at her with a clearly forced smile. Pansy hesitated for a moment, wondering if she should push him to find out what was wrong before she remembered his mother was no longer alive and she chewed on her lip. She didn't want to take away from something that meant a lot to him because of her.
"I bet Percy can cook too?" She hummed after taking a sip of her cider and deciding that if there was any reason to marry into this family then this was it. She didn't know much about Percy or the other Weasleys if she was completely honest. She knew that Neville was best friends with Ginny, so she often ended up spending time with the girl, but that didn't mean anything. Ginny was one of the people that avoided even making eye contact with her, let alone having an actual conversation with her. She tended to see a lot of the second youngest Weasley as well, and while she sort of wished that she could be friends with Ron (if only to piss off Draco) she had never had a conversation with him.
"I've never actually asked." Theo admitted, a sheepish smile now coming onto his lips and replacing the fake one. "We don't really talk all that much when we're together and when we do it tends to be about things like the war…"
"So light topics of conversation then?" Pansy mused, watching how his expression had changed as he had started talking about Percy. She wondered if her face lit up like his did when she talked about Neville.
"Oh, yeah, let's call them that." Theo hummed before he gave his head a short shake. "He's been going through some stuff and recently he's actually managed to open up to me about it all, about losing his brother and while it's not the same, I can sort of relate." He paused for a moment before he cleared his throat. "I don't do things by halves because of what happened to my mother so it makes sense to me."
Pansy reached across the table to take her hand into his. She didn't know the details about how his mother had passed away, just that she had died when he was thirteen, but she couldn't imagine that it was easier for him to talk about. She knew that she wasn't close to her own mother, but most people had at least some sort of attachment to theirs - mainly because their mother was motherly in some shape or form. Pansy hadn't been so lucky there, but she also knew that that wasn't really her mother's fault.
"You do you." She said softly, hoping to reassure him somehow, though she didn't exactly know how to do that. She just really wanted him to know that she wasn't going to judge him, his choices, or his relationship. She wanted him to understand that she was with him, not against him, no matter what.
"Thanks Pans." He said softly as he gave her hand a squeeze back before pulling his hand back so that he could drink his cider.