Work Text:
Never would Pansy have ever thought that sitting by the lake would be a place to find solitude, but somehow, in her last year at Hogwarts, it had become the one and only place that she could feel alone.
The Slytherin dungeons were now filled with wide eyed children that wanted to whisper about the previous year, about their parents, about her . The Eighth Year common room was overrun with Hufflepuffs and Gryffindors, and that was even more insufferable. She would not even consider going to the library for solitude, as that would result in seeing the absurdity that was Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy continuing their little dance around one another.
That left outside of the school, down by the lake to be precise, even in this cold. It was nearly frozen over, which meant that soon, it would be covered in ice skaters, but she still had another few nights of peace, where she could sit and be alone.
The warming charm she had wrapped around herself kept her from feeling too cold, and with the rolling Scottish hills and the heavy snowfall, she felt entirely alone.
Alone, save for the laughter of one particular Gryffindor that she could never escape.
Longbottom had been the one thing she never expected from this year. He had somehow grown into his previously large looks - his large head now perfectly proportionate to the rest of him, his long legs now carrying his thick body, his buck teeth perfectly straight, his clumsy hands sure and strong, his-
“No. Pansy Parkinson, you are above mooning over some idiot boy. You will not think about him, will not-”
Great. And now she was talking to herself.
It had all started with him flashing a smile at her their first week back. Everyone else seemed to avoid her, whether it was because she had wanted to give Potter to the Dark Lord, or because her father was now in Azkaban for life… but then he had flashed a smile at her, and suddenly, people were talking to her again. Granger had invited her to sit beside her in Transfiguration, and then Bones had invited her to sit beside her at lunch, and suddenly, she was no longer on the outside.
Except, being on the inside meant that Longbottom was always there as well, grinning at her from across the lunch table, helping her with her books after class, inviting her to sit with him in Herbology, and she… He was always smiling.
At first, Pansy had been concerned that his face was stuck that way, except, the smile he gave her was never the one he gave others, like Granger and Patil and even Weasley… no, the one he gave her was big, grand, like he was genuinely happy to see her. It was concerning, and she wished to have someone to talk to about it, except Millicent had chosen to not return, and Daphne had gone to Beauxbatons the previous year, and Tracey was now good friends with Abbot…
Theo refused to discuss Gryffindors with her, Draco had his own Gryffindor problems, and Blaise was definitely getting laid, given the grin on his lips all the time. Useless. All of her friends were useless.
And then that laugh - why was he always laughing? What could he possibly have to be happy about? His life was so full of tragedy and pain, she knew what had happened to his parents, so how could he laugh, how could he find joy, how could he-
And then he had to ask her to Hogsmeade! Like it was nothing! How dare he, just to ask her, because-
It was enough to make her want to cry, and somehow, twin tears were in the corner of her eyes. How dare they - how dare her emotions try to get the better of her.
She sucked them back in, wiping furiously at her cheeks, but it was no use. Within seconds, tears were running down her cheeks. She was not crying. She couldn’t allow herself to cry. She was a Parkinson. She was a witch. She was a Pureblood. She had control of herself, of her emotions, of her circumstances…
Except she was graduating Hogwarts in a few months with no future, with no parents, with just two little sisters that stared at her with wide eyes in the Slytherin common room, and no husband or job or idea what to do, and she…
“Pansy?”
“NO!” she snapped, turning and pointing a finger at him. “I can’t deal with you and your big teeth and big eyes and stupid smile right now.”
She had snapped that at him when he had asked her to Hogsmeade - the word no. She had yelled no at him and then ran away, down here to the lake, not wanting to deal with feelings and boys. Everything had made sense four years ago - she was going to be Lady Malfoy, and have Pureblood children, and everything would be okay.
Now, nothing was okay, and all because of Neville Longbottom and his stupid smile.
“My stupid smile?” Longbottom asks, and he has a grin on his face now, like he’s amused with her, and it’s absurd, so bloody absurd, she can’t even stand it.
“Yes. It’s stupid.” She tries to make her words sound sure of herself, but instead they’re tiny, like she knows they’re a lie.
They’re both quiet for a moment, and she’s ready to tell him off again, tell him to go back to wherever he came from, when he’s suddenly hit in the back with a clump of snow. In seconds, he’s whirling around, and she realizes he has a ball of snow in his own hand, which he now lobs back towards wherever the previous hit came from.
“Shove off,” he yells towards his friends. “Give me a minute!”
She doesn’t want to give him a second of her time, let alone one minute, and she shifts back where she sits on her blanket, staring off into the lake. She came here to be alone, to get away from the Gryffindors, but of course, the most vexing one has to follow her.
“What do you want?” she asks, and her voice sounds whiny to her ears, but she can’t exactly take it back.
“Why do you hate me?”
It’s such a simple question, but it almost sounds sad. She sputters at that, turning back to look at him. He has his hands in his pockets, looking somehow smaller than he really is, and she almost feels bad - except for the fact that he has her all in a whirl, and she hates it. Really hates it.
“I don’t hate you,” she snaps, and she turns to look back at the water, unable to look at him and his general sadness.
“So you like me?” he asks, and this time it sounds like a tease, and she hates that.
“What? No, I-” Her voice is getting higher pitched, and okay, maybe now she does hate him. Her cheeks burn, and she refuses to look back at him, to the point that he’s suddenly sitting beside her on the blanket, grabbing her hand, and she hadn’t even realized until it was too late.
“I like you,” he says, and it’s sure and it’s firm and he knows himself, and she-
“You don’t know me,” she retorts, and it’s choked out, because he doesn’t know her. No one does. She doubts she herself even knows who she really is.
“You’re Pansy Parkinson. You spend hours on your hair, because you want it to be perfectly in place, just like the rest of you. You excel at Transfiguration, although you don’t let anyone see it. You never smile big, because you don’t like your teeth. You are friends with Malfoy and Nott because they’re safe. And the only reason you wanted to hand over Harry Potter last year was because you were scared for your sisters, who you refuse to show weakness around.”
Her jaw is set as she stares at the water, and she can feel those stupid tears in her eyes again. She wasn’t as brave as he makes it out to be - she had also been afraid for herself. One life in exchange for everyone else… that was just practicality. The death of one to save so many… She wasn’t anything other than practical.
“You don’t like me,” she finally says. “You just like that I’m not fawning over you like the rest of the girls.”
He’s quiet for a long moment, and then he’s letting go of her hands. She feels cold, suddenly, despite the warming charms, and she wonders if this is it. If she had finally pushed him away.
“I’ve liked you a lot longer than you realized. Longer than I realized. It just took me wanting your eyes on me above all others that I finally realized it. But you refuse. You refuse to even look at me. Will you look at me now, just this once?”
She swallows down her feelings, and then looks at him, her eyes big and wide and scared, and… he’s so pretty, even in his sadness. He’s pretty as he swallows, and he looks more like the clumsy fourth year over the brave seventh year, and she… she hates that she put that sadness on his face.
“Do you really not like me?” he asks.
Her lips quiver a little, and then she’s looking back at the water, not knowing how to answer. She sniffs, trying to keep her nose from running, and honestly that would be the worst right now, if her nose started to run.
She doesn’t know how to answer that question, but she does like him. She likes him physically, yes, likes to look at him, but he’s also kind and good and decent, and she doesn’t know how to talk to someone that is so inherently good without ruining them.
He seems to take that as her answer, and pushes himself up to standing.
“Alright then. I’m sorry to have bothered you. You have a nice-”
He had stopped in his words, turning to stare at someone else, and she looked up just in time to see another stupid Gryffindor, grinning.
“I swear to Merlin, Seamus- Don’t you dare throw that snowba-, goddammit!”
The snowball hit him square in the face, and Pansy jumped up in shock, grabbing a handful of the snow and pressing it into a snowball. She felt like a child, from the speed in which she had reacted, and threw it hard at Finnegan, who went down hard in the snow.
“Honestly! He was in the middle of asking me if I liked him, and I was trying to say yes!” she yelled at the stupid Gryffindor, who was groaning from where he had fallen.
“You like me?” Neville asked, and he still had snow all on his beanie and scarf, but that stupid grin was on his face again, and she hated it, but it warmed her, warmed her deep from within, to see it back on his face, directed at her.
“YES!” she snapped, sounding far more angry than she had intended to, but, it simply was what it was. “I like you, okay? You’re nice, and you smile, and you make me feel important, and I don’t know what to do with it, because I’m not nice and I don’t smile , and I’m not imp-”
He cut her off, walking over to her, and pressing his lips to hers. She froze right there, feeling his lips on hers, and then he jerked away, his face suddenly bright red.
Neither said anything for a moment, and then she kissed him again.
And again.
And again.