Fancy Dress

Ginny Weasley was having a birthday, and everyone was invited. The invitations leapt out of their envelopes, pirouetted in the air, and blew little horns that shot out confetti. They helpfully advertised three pertinent points: the place, the time, and the dress code. 

Pansy arrived fifteen minutes late, dressed as a shrike and bearing a bottle of Millicent’s latest gin as a gift. A little sign waved merrily at her and pointed her to the back garden.

She stepped through an arched garden gate and was nearly bowled over by Lee Jordan dressed as Celestina Warbeck, belting out A Cauldron Full of Hot Strong Love and leading a conga line. Pansy paused to let it pass by. There was a pumpkin, and a cockatrice, Arthur Weasley dressed as a— well something muggle, clearly, with a headset and a disc and little buttons— a kneazle, and a sexy healer in short robes and thigh high boots. And then it was past, and she saw Ginny reclining on a chaise, draped in gold cloth, hair cascading from a high ponytail, cuddling a pair of miniature pigs.

“Pans, you made it!” Ginny took the bottle and grinned. “Love the costume. Go get some punch,” she said, with a magnanimous sweep of her arm. Pansy turned to look, and there was Neville. His hair was crowned with oakleaves, and his skin was charmed green. He wore an open waistcoat, and trousers, and nothing else. And then he caught her eye and grinned, warm and open, and she felt her heart fall right out of chest and roll across the grass to land at his feet. It was awful. She smiled.

He was standing with Dean Thomas, who was dressed as a beetle with a lute and striped cap, and Seamus Finnegan, rather predictably, if spectacularly, covered in flames. She noted the way Dean followed Neville’s gaze and took her in, then went back to Neville, the little furrow in his brow. Fair enough.

She screwed up her courage and crossed over. Anything else would be a direct snub, and he'd done nothing to deserve it. His smile got wider, and it was terrible, his friends were looking, and then she was at the punch bowl and he was looking down at her. 

“Parkinson,” Dean said by way of greeting.

“Hullo boys,” she answered, keeping her voice lightly bored. “How’s the punch?”

“Try it,” Neville said, and their fingers brushed as he handed her the cup, and she felt the thrill of it all the way to her spine. She held his eyes as she took a sip. It was delicious, and absolutely chaotic. There was pomegranate juice and orange fizz and flecks of gold and at least three liquors. 

“It’s certainly punchy,” she finally said, when she remembered her cue. “Firewhisky, elven brandy and grenadine, a bold combination.”

“How’d you know?” Seamus demanded, flames rippling.

“Oh, practice, of course—is that Luna?” She’d never been so glad to see an absolutely indecipherable combination of wings, antennas, and too many eyes. “It’s been an age. Cheers,” and she lifted her glass and strolled away. 

“Neville, mate, what are you doing?” one of them hissed.

She paused and glanced back over her shoulder, in time to see him smile, spread his arms, and answer, “Whatever she wants.” Fuck.

“She’s going to eat you alive,” the other murmured— Seamus, she thought.

Neville slipped his hands into his pockets, utterly relaxed. “If she wants.” Fuck!! She forced herself to keep walking.

“Hello Pansy,” Luna’s husband said warmly, “What a lovely shrike costume.” Hamish was dressed to match Luna, with at least a dozen eyes on long stalks bobbing above his earnest face. 

“Frosted mirewing, darling,” said Luna beside him, and she patted his chest absently before reaching out to stroke Pansy’s feathered skirt. “And has your aura been well, Pansy?”

“Quite well, thanks. Mils tells me you went to Iceland recently? How was that?”

She let the bubbling small talk carry her along, from Luna and Hamish to Blaise (smoking jacket, Venetian mask, eyes continuously slipping to take in Ginny’s glory), polite nods exchanged with a tipsy and flushed Hermione Granger (abstract, smears of color all over) and Ron Weasley (a knight), and finally back to perch alongside Ginny.

George Weasley sat next to her in what was unmistakably a Sexy Harry Potter costume, complete with wig, glasses, and barely-there auror robes. He waggled his eyebrows at her, leaned in, and asked “Do you want to play in my forbidden forest?”

“What the fuck, George, I died in there,” actual Harry Potter said, and Pansy froze. George slowly turned to look at the saviour of the wizarding world, who was as rumpled as ever, dressed as—Merlin, was he dressed as himself?

“Harry, I—”

Harry pointed one finger at George’s chest. “I can’t believe you didn’t follow that with ‘I know, I’m that good.’ Come on, I set you up so well!”

George laughed, and Ginny shouted “Unsexy Harry Potter strikes again! The score is now 4-5, folks, 4-5, a real nail biter!”

The party circled on, and Neville sat beside her, and the world didn’t stop. His thigh pressed against hers, and conversations continued apace. Her heart raced, completely out of proportion to events.

The evening grew dark, and the punch bowl dipped low, and then Seamus and someone dressed as Baba Yaga began setting off fireworks. Rockets spiralled up into the sky overhead, bright bursts of gold and red, glowing broomsticks zooming and swirling, and as the crowd looked up and oohed, Neville took her hand. Another boom, another, pixies skipping merrily from blossom to blossom, and he kissed her. “Stay over?” he murmured in her ear, and she stayed.

Bagels

Neville was aware that you had to come at some things sideways, with Pansy. For all her brilliant sharpness, she was skittish. She’d slept over a half dozen times, but she looked at the toothbrush he kept for her like it could explode. 

He didn’t think she was busy this morning—on weekends her stuff— her engagements— always started in the afternoons or evenings, at a fashionable hour. Still, he thought asking her outright to spend it with him might put her guard up. He rolled over, covering her with his body, weight braced on his forearms, and said,

“Bagels.”

Her eyes widened. “Go on,” she said, tilting her hips up towards his.

“This morning needs bagels,” he said, and bent his head to bite her earlobe. “Let’s get some.”

“Right this moment?” 

Many, many moments later they got up. Pansy looked at last night’s dress and wrinkled her nose, so he rifled through his wardrobe and handed her a shirt and cardigan. “You can transfigure these,” he offered. She narrowed her eyes at him, and then slipped them on, and it was very definitely the best thing that had ever happened to his clothing. Her hair was rumply and her feet were bare and dainty. He couldn’t stop looking at her. She stuck her tongue out at him, looked down at herself, and did an elegant little gesture with her wand.

“Okay,” she said, looking sleek and put together again, even though the cardigan was still a woolly cardigan. “Bagels. Do you have a source?”

“I know a place,” he answered, and they walked there together in the chill air. She stepped quickly beside him, head constantly turning to take in a shop window or interesting sign. He noticed more of the street, walking beside her and watching her, than he had in the three years he’d lived here.

The bagel shop was small and crowded, and they ordered at the counter and took their hot coffee and bagged orders to a set of stools by the front window. It was a little damp and the bell over the door kept jingling, but Pansy was unwrapping her order reverently. He watched her take her first bite.

“Merlin fuck,” she said, as soon as she swallowed. “How??” 

He sipped his coffee and smiled. “Right?”

“This is the best thing I’ve ever tasted.” She took another bite and closed her eyes. 

She paused and blew on her coffee, then took a drink. “So when Potter popped by the other morning—” what she meant, of course, was when Harry had flooed into his house and interrupted them just as things were reaching a climactic moment. “Does he do that often?”

“Pop in unexpectedly? I wouldn’t say often , but I think he gets lonely knocking around in that old place. Have you ever been? It’s just— it’s the worst house I’ve ever seen.”

“No, I meant does he use you like that often? Act badly and then come have you comfort him and absolve him?”

He shifted in his seat. “He’s not using me, Pansy, he’s my friend. ” She just looked at him, one eyebrow slightly lifted, as if she didn’t see the difference. 

“Those things aren’t mutually exclusive,” she said, gently , which made it worse.

“You wouldn’t understand.”

She froze, coffee halfway to her lips, and he wished immediately he could take the words back. Then she set it down and met his eyes and said, each word like ice, “Because I’m such a—how did Potter put it? A traitorous, conniving Slytherin?” 

“Because you’ve always had friends, Pansy. You’ve always known the rules, and you know how to do all that… that stuff that you do, the way you think it all out. You know what I was like, as a kid. You know about Harry, right? First the Muggles kept him in a cupboard, and then Dumbledore told him he was special and trained him to die. Neither of us know how to do more than show up and care.”

“You think I don’t care?”

He felt himself actually gaping. “What? How did you—no, I think you care as much as anyone I’ve ever known. You’re just smart with it, you have…” he floundered for the word, “Strategy. Or vision. If you care for someone, you’re going to deploy it in exactly the best way for them, not just sort of knock your feelings together and go home. Are you—Merlin, are you crying? Pansy!”

“Shut up, Neville,” she said, and delicately blew her nose. “That is the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me, and I’ll hold it against you forever. Eat your bagel.”

All in all, he counted it a success.

Sandhu’s

Pansy sighed dramatically as the morning sun cut through her curtains. Neville rolled up onto his elbow and looked at her patiently. She sighed again. “Neville,” she said, despairingly, “even the sight of your spectacular chest cannot redeem this day.” He started to pull the sheets up higher, teasingly, and she added “But no, no— please don’t deny me that small solace, on this, the day of my most tedious errands.” She flopped onto her pillows, and he sat fully up so the sheets puddled just above his groin, the lovely lines of his hip bones on full display. She traced one with a single fingernail.

“Tell me about these errands,” Neville said, and as she listed them his face grew graver and graver. “There’s nothing for it, then,” he sighed. “You’ll be lost without me, buried under a pile of shopping bags of banal origins. I’d better come along,” and he made it sound so easy and natural that she let him.

The first stops were straightforward, even if it felt suddenly, shockingly intimate to have Nev strolling along beside her as she dropped off her specialty cleaners laundry. She successfully bought a package of new quills, a stack of bound parchment notebooks, fresh tea and a sack of owl treats. It wasn’t awkward, somehow, although she felt strongly that it should be. And then they came to Sandhu’s.

Sandhu’s Home Emporium was the place for all the sundry housekeeping items that a wizarding home might need, and many things it mightn’t. What Pansy needed was SteamAll Shower Cleaning Solution. What she and Neville found were her father and his latest girlfriend ensconced in the bath section, helpfully blocking the only access to Bath Potions, Powders, and Polishes.

She felt her spine stiffen and her jaw tighten, and Neville shifted to stand at her shoulder. 

“Well if it isn’t my Pansy!” Her father boomed heartily. “Fancy running into you here. Leona, come meet my daughter. Too busy for her old man these days, this girl!” Leona looked like she was barely older than Pansy, and she was wearing some kind of sexy shepherdess outfit with puffed sleeves and acres of cleavage.

Pansy nodded at her, then turned to her father. “Hullo Pater,” she said, kissing his cheek. “Doing your own shopping? I’m surprised.”

“Yes, well Leona here is quite the little interior designer. Big ideas for the bathroom, big ideas indeed. And what Lulu wants, Lulu gets!”

Lulu was looking at embroidered toilet covers. They had flounces. “Oh, I’ve heard so much about your taste, Pansy—What do you think, the French toile, or the Venetian silk? The little rosettes are just so darling!”

Pansy bit her lip. “Oh, I really couldn’t say. It’s such a personal choice, of course, it should really represent you. Don’t you agree, Neville?”

He looked down at her, eyes all barely-contained laughter, and then nodded seriously. “I’m a damask man, myself.” Lulu nodded along, then went back to studying her options.

“Why, is that young Longbottom? Haven’t seen you since you were knee-high to a doxie.”

Pansy broke in before he could move on to the rest of his jolly questioning routine. “Yes, actually Father, you know I hate to rush, but Neville has an engagement this afternoon and I would never forgive myself if I made him late. Neville?”

“Thanks, Pansy, considerate as always. I’ll just grab this—” he swiped a toilet cover from the display, “and if you’d excuse us, sir, we’ll get past you here and make our goodbyes.”

“Of course, of course, wouldn’t keep you. Pansy, I’ll be owling for dinner! Bring Neville here along. Neville, looking forward to catching up! Been far too long. Splendid chap.”

And Leona waved vaguely, and then they were past and she grabbed the blasted shower cleaner and made it three aisles further before she could make eye contact with Neville.

“I’m keeping this,” he said, holding up the cover, and now she could see that it was embroidered with narcissus blossoms. Her laughter escaped as a snort, and she covered her mouth.

“I knew coming along was a good idea,” he added. “How else would I learn about the importance of personally meaningful toilet covers? I clearly can’t trust you to tell me. What else have I missed?”

She dropped her head to his chest. “You can’t buy that,” she said. 

“You can’t stop me,” he said, “because I am very tall.”

Long Live the Queen

Neville stepped through the floo and into an oak-panelled receiving room, stumbling as he crossed the threshold. He was dressed semi-formally and everything felt wrong, his tie too tight, his shirt too starched, himself too himself. He could smell the old magic and the various hair powders that had passed out of fashion half a century ago, knew Gram was waiting in some adjoining parlour with important personages he would stammer at, and why the fuck he still came to these things was a bloody mystery. 

It wasn’t a mystery, of course, it was for Gram, so he braced himself and opened the door to the main hall. It was full of witches of advanced age in formal robes and dramatic hats. One of them glared at him, for no reason that he could tell. He felt like he was choking.

He stepped forward, and there was Gram looking regal, and she was talking to someone whose name he couldn’t remember, but there was something about dragons. He was supposed to ask  her about dragons or never, under any circumstances, ask  her about dragons, or ask her about dragons only if it provided an opening for her to talk about her summer in Romania. His head began to pound. He crossed the room and stood next to Gram, and she inspected his clothing and nodded. “Congratulations,” he said, and she smiled briefly. Surely this was enough. He could leave as soon as she had a plate.

The crowd ebbed a bit, and he saw a sleek bob and a charming nose, and he excused himself and made a beeline for her.

“Pansy?” he said, “You’re here?” 

She took one look at him, said calmly to an ancient witch, “Excuse me just one moment, magistra,” and pulled him through another small doorway, one he had to duck to enter. 

“You look a state,” she said, shutting the door behind him. “What’s the matter?”

“That—” he waved towards the rest of the house. “How can you stand these things? I won’t last another ten minutes.”

“I am organising this thing,” she said pertly. “If you think Great Aunt Agatha is handing over her bridge crown–to your grandmother, of all witches–without a demonstration of rank and grace, you clearly have not been paying attention.”

“I definitely have not been paying attention to this, no,” he conceded. “But I don’t understand why she wants me to be here.”

She took his arm and led him to an ornate liquor cabinet, then poured him a whisky. “Sit,” she said, “because I am only going to explain this once. This game is the primary medium for social manoeuvring and power building within the over-80 society set. They are ruthless. They wage multi-year campaigns to host a single evening’s match. My great-aunt has ruled for the last five years running, has been the top player and the top host, an unassailable bastion of bridge club. She is hosting this party to show her graciousness, that she can afford to be gracious because she is secure in her power, and that her usurper can be taken under her wing. Are you following?”

He drank his whisky and nodded. “Your grandmother,” Pansy continued, turning on her heel, “is Great Aunt Agatha’s fiercest rival, and this year has finally managed to surpass her in points. It is considered a triumph for your grandmother, for your family name, for your house. If you leave too early, she will feel like someone dropped ice down her robes–she won’t show a thing, but it will put an absolute damper on her accomplishment.”

He put his head in his hands. “I’ll stay,” he finally said, “but you’ve got it wrong, I think. I’m an embarrassment to her. I don’t know how to do these things.”

She stepped in close and smoothed his shirtfront. “I could teach you,” she offered, “But why bother? They might be stuffy and hidebound, but they’re sharp. They haven’t forgotten you’re a hero, and the scion of an ancient line, and a treat for the eyes. You could spill your lemonade on Bertie McLaggen and she’d count it an honour. You absolute muppet.”

He could feel himself blushing, but he tugged her in closer and kissed her. “You’ll keep an eye on me?” he asked, and she nibbled his earlobe. 

“I will,” she murmured, “and if you’re good, I may even meet you in the library once things are off and running.”

—

The party was everything he had dreaded. Three large, interlocking rooms, all full of witches of advanced age and elaborate decoration who looked him up and down with eyes like hippogriffs, swirls of conversation that relied on decades of arcane social knowledge, an abominable array of finger sandwiches, and delicately delivered lines that he was sure were insults even if he couldn’t figure out how. Except, somehow, he was enjoying it.

He sat next to Ms. Chang, whose eyes were magnified by bright blue lenses and who smelled soothingly of candied violets, and smiled. She leaned in conspiratorially and whispered, “Rather daring, putting thyme in this tart, wouldn’t you say?” He took a bite of the one on his plate and thought about it. 

“I think it’s quite nice,” he said sincerely, and she narrowed her eyes at him.

“Playing the diplomat, I see. Yes, I see how it is.”

“Really, Connie, let the boy eat. A strapping figure like him needs to keep his energy up.” The empty seat on his other side was claimed by a familiar witch wrapped in acid yellow robes that glowed in the dim light. 

“Hello Ellinore,” he said politely. “Are you enjoying yourself?”

She smirked at him, nose crinkling. “Not as much as I will later,” she confided, and her elbow nudged his ribs. She looked meaningfully across the room. Neville followed her gaze to where Blaise’s grandmother leaned elegantly against a mantle, silver-white hair piled ornately on her head. 

“Oh!” he managed, very intelligently, and she cackled. 

Ms. Chang leaned around him to peer at Ellinore. “You’re going to wreak havoc with these assignations,” she warned. “You know Hyacinth has spent the better part of this year trying to woo her.”

“I won’t be held accountable for Hyacinth’s dawdling,” Ellinore retorted. “The better part of the year!” she snorted. “Criminal, with a witch like Zayza.”

“I think I’ll go get another sandwich,” he said, and stood up. 

“Strapping,” Ellinore said again, approvingly, and then he was safely away.

There was lemonade, actually, so he took a glass of it and another plate of sandwiches and tried not to spill while Mae Ferguson, three miniature ravens perched on her hat, began telling him in detail about her nephew, a healer in Edinburgh. Two minutes into Fergie’s monologue Pansy caught his eye from three grannies away and winked, and then it dawned on him. Fergie was not offering these details to make clear his own shortcomings as a member of society. This was attempted matchmaking. 

He frantically replayed the last several nods and hmmms he’d offered. Had he agreed to a date? He didn’t think he’d agreed to a date. But now he had missed the last bit of conversation and Fergie was looking at him expectantly and what was it Pansy had said last time she rescued him? It came out calmly, with the memory, “I am so sorry, Fergie, but I’ve just seen an old friend, if you could excuse me?” and she grinned back at him.

“Worth a shot, Nev, worth a shot! If you’re ever in the market let me know. He’s a fine lad. Off with you now!” And he wasn’t too proud to admit to himself that he fled.

Neville very courageously avoided Gram, Fergie, and Ellinore by escorting Leslie Hornbruff to a warmer spot, which turned out to be a tactical error. 

“Now then,” she said, settling in and patting the seat next to her. “I’ve heard you’re known for your swordwork.” He swallowed over the acid in his throat. “Something about a very large sword, very expertly wielded.” Merlin, Morgan, and the Banshees together. 

Tapas

“I need a favour,” Pansy said, like she was inviting her own execution. He looked up from the curry he was making.

“Okay.”

“Circe’s pigs, Neville, you can’t just say okay! I could be asking for anything!”

He looked at her and waited.

“It’s a date. I need you,” she stumbled a bit, “to go on a date with me, and Millicent and Anastasia. Millicent needs me to go on a double date, and I won’t let her down, but I really don’t want to go with anyone else.”

“Okay,” he said again, and checked the rice. “I think I like Millicent. I know Boots did.” Boots gave a happy woof from under the table.

“Boots met Millicent?” She asked. “When?” 

“She stopped by a while ago. I don’t… I don’t actually know why? She just turned up and we had a beer and she left again.”

“Oh my wand,” Pansy said faintly, and then visibly gathered her thoughts back together. “This doesn’t mean we’re dating,” she went on, voice a little high and thin. “I’m not your girlfriend, and we’re not—” he tugged her over and kissed her.

“Okay, Pans, sure.”

“I mean it,” she gasped, as he bent his head and nuzzled her neck.

“I know,” he said, and kissed her again. “What’s the plan?”

“I don’t know,” she said, all frustration. “Millicent is convinced she needs to woo this witch properly, but honestly—if she’s head over heels for Mils, she can’t be looking for dinner at Engleman’s.”

“More like a picnic?” He asked. She nodded against his chest. “That would be really nice, actually,” he continued. “You could set a warming charm, and some fairy lights, and eat and drink whatever you like best, and watch the ducks.”

“Where did the ducks come from?” She murmured, snuggling in closer.

“We’re in a park, keep up. Of course there are ducks. Squirrels, too,” he kissed her neck, “and interesting clouds,” he moved to the slice of exposed collar bone, “and maybe lichen… Cladonia cristatella… ”

“Neville,” she said tenderly, “are you seducing me again, or is the curry on fire?”

—

They ended up going for tapas. Pansy blamed Draco, for reasons he didn’t quite grasp.

“We’ll get there early,” Pansy warned him. “It’s less awkward for Mils if we can just wave her over.” He nodded. That made sense. He appreciated a social beacon as much as anyone.

Blessedly, getting there early involved making out in an alley for ten minutes before going inside, and then he could follow her to their booth and slide in first, and feel the seat shift slightly as she settled next to him and crossed her legs primly.

They sipped their lemon water and pretended to look at the menu. Pansy watched the door, and he watched Pansy, and then he saw her shoulders roll back and her chin come up and she smiled in welcome and stood and made introductions.

“Ani, so good to see you again! Neville, Anastasia Bell, Ani, Neville Longbottom. And of course you remember Mils, from that time she invaded your home.”

Millicent nodded at him. It dawned on him that he might not be the most awkward person on this date, and he grinned.

“Wow, M,” Anastasia murmured. “I had no idea you and Cardigan were so intimately acquainted.” Pansy choked, and he patted her on her back.

The waiter came by, and Pansy and Anastasia chatted about wine before choosing a bottle. Everyone took a sip and made appreciative noises. He noticed Pansy making smooth little nudges, dropping hints for the rest of them to follow as they talked about the menu, until they all felt perfectly confident that they’d made the best choices. He could see her doing it, and it still worked on him. 

Anastasia excused herself to the restroom and Millicent whipped her head to stare at Pansy, eyes wide. “Pans. What do I do? What are we supposed to talk about? We’re just going to sit here, and eat at each other, and she’s going to realise I am the most boring person she’s ever met.”

“Yes, well Mils, this is why you should have listened to me. ‘Draco keeps talking about tapas’ is meaningless information. As I reminded you, you hate this kind of environment!”

“As I reminded YOU–” Millicent caught herself before full-on shouting, “This isn’t about what I like! It’s about ROMANCE!” She turned to Neville, “ISN’T IT.”

“Are you– you are actually asking me. Okay. I think she’ll be happy anywhere you’re happy,” he began.

“That’s not HELPFUL,” she retorted, and then Pansy kicked him under the table– Millicent too, from the quick wince on her face.

“Have you been to Uist, Neville?” Pansy asked, as Anastasia sat back down. “Mils raves about the plant life there, especially the– what’s the word, Mils?”

“Machair,” Millicent said, gravely. Anastasia beamed at her.

“Not yet,” he answered. “But I’ve been meaning to, especially when it’s all in bloom. There’s a spotted orchid there that won’t grow anywhere else.”

“May, then, it’ll start.” She took a drink and visibly recollected that this was supposed to be a conversation, looked a bit desperately at Anastasia, and added “We’ll have puppies then too. Good time to visit.”

Anastasia jumped in. “I have been waiting to see these puppies for weeks already, poor little Bee is fit to burst . Mils has started a pool on how many she’ll have,” she offered.

“What are we staking?” Pansy asked. “I won’t do favours again, that was a logistical nightmare.”

Ani blushed a bit. “Ah, well, mostly– most people are staking things they’re good at, or that they produce. Mils converts them to a common rate.”

“Right,” Pansy said. “I’m in, for six” and he went in too, with an optimistic nine, and they all took a drink to mark it.

Pap Inn

It should have been a lovely cozy catch-up with two of her dearest friends. Blaise and Draco sat across from her in the quiet booth of a refined establishment, elegant and poised, which usually worked as oil to any troubled waters. Instead, she was glaring at her scallops and bouncing her leg under the table. 

“Something on your mind, Pans?” Blaise asked, and Draco snapped to attention. “Or someone, perhaps?”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she replied coolly, and took a long sip of her Sauternes. 

Blaise leaned back in his chair and raised one hand. “You were very cozy at the Orpheus launch, I thought,” he tapped his first finger.

“Hardly your finest hour for thinking,” she retorted. “The last I saw you that night, you were stroking a bowl of plums in your kitchen while your date wandered through your flat and slipped me her number.”

Draco propped his head up with one elbow on the table and watched them like a tennis match.

“And then,” Blaise continued imperviously, “you had your heads together at Muse.” 

“Everyone had their heads together at Muse, Blaise. I thought that was the point?”

“It was a point,” he conceded. “But did you or did you not disappear with him at Ginevra Weasley’s birthday?”

Draco’s eyebrows shot up and he looked at her, wounded. “Pansy, we swore to tell each other everything!” 

“Like you’re telling me about your assignations with Potter?” she hissed, and he put his hands up conciliatorily while Blaise turned and studied him. 

“Like I will tell you both about, imminently. Let’s focus on the matter at hand.”

Blaise tapped another finger. “You were seen together, at an unmentionable hour of the morning, in a bagel shop in Brixton.”

She subsided into pouting.

“You were both at that horrible show!”

“Blaise, everyone was at that horrible show! You and Ginny were both there, but I’m hardly building a case for your budding romance!”

She noticed him falter, just barely, and she was about to pounce when Draco protested “I’m sitting right here. ”

“You were brilliant in it, of course, but you can hardly expect our loyalty to extend to the entire cast!”

“I suppose I could forgive you,” he sighed, “if you would tell me who it is you’re not dating.”

She waved wearily at Blaise, and he exhaled with relish, “ Neville. Longbottom.” and she dropped her head to her arms on the table as Draco said with dismayed sympathy,

“Oh, Pansy. You do like to suffer.”

“Right now, as we speak,” she said, lifting her head back up, “he is scaling an icy mountainside in Glen Coe in search of a rare variation of Ossian’s lousewort that brings peaceful dreams to curse victims. So.” She took a deep breath. “So you see how it is.” Blaise looked a bit stricken— well, perhaps he’d think a bit before gloating over his knowledge like a Swedish Short-snout.

He had the good grace to move them on, at least, and she felt a bit better for being understood. She did order a second glass of wine and let him pay, but that was just being a good friend in return. The guilt would eat him for days, otherwise.

She got back to her flat and stood in the middle of her living room, staring at the wall and picturing Neville, alone, exhausted, possibly injured. Fuck it all to Atlantis and back. She stormed into her bedroom and threw open her overnight bag, tossed in the essentials, and then flooed to Pap Inn, Glencoe, Argyll.

Thankfully the reception was also the bar, and the bartender was also the dispatcher for the mountain rescue team, so she made herself comfortable in a wide leather chair with a large pot of tea and looked through a copy of Magical Plants of the Cairngorms: A Natural History that was lying about. She started every time the door opened, bringing with it a gust of cold air and another cluster of walkers or climbers.

The room got darker as the last glow of twilight faded. The hours ticked by. She felt excruciatingly embarrassed to be there and absolutely convinced he had fallen and was grievously injured. The barkeep added cheese and biscuits to her next tea order. She got up and paced, felt even more ridiculous, and turned to sit again. And then the door opened, and he stepped through.

There was frost on his face, and he froze when he saw her, just stood there with the door open behind him staring at her, eyes slowly running from her face down to her toes and back up, and then he smiled like sunshine, and then he realised he’d left the door hanging wide and turned and fumbled to close it, and she had a moment to compose herself, so that when he turned back and said “You came,” she could answer serenely,

“Yes, well, I thought a bit of a holiday would do me good.”

He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her into a hug, firm and strong and safe and smelling like snow.