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For someone who spent an inordinate amount of her youth meticulously planning her own nuptials—color schemes, floral arrangements, gown materials, guest lists—Pansy Parkinson really fucking hates weddings. Which is unfortunate, as at twenty-seven, she finds herself in that season of life when everyone is getting married. And despite her continued status as a social pariah, wedding invitations are the one missive that somehow never fail to reach her.
Daphne was first, marrying international Quidditch sensation Oliver Wood three years after the Battle of Hogwarts. Millicent was next, inexplicably binding her soul and bloodline to Ronald fucking Weasley of all people. Then went Astoria, the younger Greengrass stumbling into love and marriage with Neville Longbottom—docile darling of Wizarding Britain—the following year. And two years later, in a pairing that surprised absolutely no one, it was Puddlemere chasers Ginny Weasley and Blaise Zabini tying the knot.
What had been shocking was Theodore Nott—the fucking hussy—turning what he swore was a one-night stand with boy wonder, Harry Potter, into an engagement less than six months later. Leave it to Theo to find Pansy’s Achilles’ Heel—the very man who represents the death knell of her social status in the Wizarding world—and propose to him.
And now, Pansy regrettably finds herself at the wedding of Hermione Granger and Charlie Weasley.
Pansy has grown… somewhat fond of Granger’s eccentricities over the years of forced social interaction, but this wedding invitation, like all the others, was one she had hoped would get lost in the mail. But Granger, ever thoughtful and inclusive, had not only personally delivered her invitation, but asked if Pansy wouldn’t design her gown as well.
Reluctantly, Pansy had agreed to both; a decision that now haunts her as her eyes flit around a room filled with people immeasurably happier than she suspects she will ever be. Her gaze settles on the newly married couple, lips curling into a deep-seated frown as she watches the second-eldest Weasley feed his curly-haired bride a bite of sponge cake, the fruit topping dislodging itself from the icing and tumbling down the front of the ivory dress that Pansy had so painstakingly designed and tailored, leaving a traitorous purple trail in its wake. Granger doesn’t even notice; she merely leans into her husband and laughs like it was the easiest thing in the world.
“You look particularly put off tonight,” Draco observes as he kicks out the chair next to her and drops into it. “Don’t tell me you were fucking Dragon Weasley on the sly.”
“No, Draco,” Pansy exhales, her attention still focused on the euphoric couple at the front of the room as she brings a glass of Malbec to her lips. “Side dick is your area of expertise—not mine.”
Slowly, she tilts her head toward her ex-boyfriend. Their gazes meet—knowing, accepting, forgiving—before Draco simply shrugs and turns his gaze forward toward the newlywed table.
“It’s just you and me now,” Pansy murmurs. “The last two Slytherins who haven’t latched themselves to a bloody Gryffindor.”
Draco sucks in a sharp breath, and her head anxiously whips toward him. A fresh wave of dread crashes over her as he very purposefully avoids her stare, his pale eyes trained forward as he takes a shallow sip of his cocktail. Replacing the tumbler to the table, he scratches at his stubbled jaw and releases a long exhale.
“About that, Pans.”
“Don’t.”
Her eyes reflexively snap shut as they begin to burn with unshed tears, the impact of his words hitting her in the center of her chest and knocking the air from her lungs. She counts to ten once, then twice, before she successfully drains the emotion from her features and traps it within the murkiest depths of herself.
Eyes fluttering open again, she watches a lovesick grin slowly creep across Draco’s face as his attention settles on something at the far end of the tent. Tracking his line of sight, Pansy feels her jaw go slack, lips parting, as she registers the source of his affection.
Dean Thomas.
The former Gryffindor levels Draco with a sinful smile, twin dimples burrowing into his cheeks.
“We’ve been keeping it quiet while we figure everything out but…” his voice tapers off as Pansy slowly turns back toward him, his porcelain cheeks now stained pink. “He’s asked me to move in with him.”
Something in her chest cracks, falling heavily into the pit of her hollowed stomach.
“Fuck.”
She feels Draco shift toward her, reaching for her hand. But she wrenches away from him, chair legs digging thick grooves into the earth below as she launches herself from her seat and swiftly exits the reception, desperate to disappear into the early autumn night.
There had been a time when Draco’s admission would’ve left Pansy bleary-eyed and broken-hearted because it was Draco Malfoy specifically who was moving on. But she had long ago accepted that there was no future for her and the charismatic blonde; that while she spent lazy Saturdays lounging in the Slytherin common room daydreaming about wedding venues, children’s names, and summer estates, Draco had been spending most of his adolescence sneaking off to the Room of Requirement with Theo Nott.
And although it took longer than she would care to admit, Pansy eventually ridded herself of the distinct displeasure of pining over Draco Malfoy. But even with all romantic notions ending eons earlier, Draco had remained her plus one to most social functions over the years. The one person with a name just as toxic as hers; the only other friend who could not seem to move past the wrongs they committed when they were children.
And as much as she yearns to feel happy for him—that he has been able to find someone who looks at him like he’s more than just the sum of his bad decisions—all Pansy feels is alone.
She wipes furiously at the traitorous tears freely falling from her eyes as she winds along a twisting, overgrown path, heels repeatedly catching in the soft, swampy soil. Frustration boiling over, she rips both shoes off and continues to march along the trail before it unceremoniously dumps her in front of a thick, stagnant pond, the stench of which sears her senses.
She has set off down yet another dead end. A perfect fucking metaphor.
“FUCK!” she roars, the pitch of her voice blistering against every muscle in her throat as she chucks both of her heels into the pond. They land in the still water with simultaneous, stout splashes before silence cloaks the space around her once more.
“Got something you want to share with the class, Parkinson?”
Pansy’s head swivels, her eyes sweeping over the wizard tucked into a hand-carved, rickety bench to her left. He looks at her without an ounce of hostility, appearing almost amused as he smirks and helps himself to a sip of whiskey from the tumbler clutched in his left hand.
Pansy narrows her eyes. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
Leaning forward to rest his elbows against his knees, George Weasley breathes a laugh. “You do realize this is my—as your ilk would call it—ancestral home, right?”
Pansy blinks. “I would never refer to the Burrow as an ancestral home.”
If he’s offended by her reflexive dig, he doesn’t show it. He simply shrugs and holds her stare, studying her like she’s some complex arithmancy equation. But Pansy Parkinson isn’t complicated. She dislikes most people, and most people dislike her. Especially those with the Weasley surname.
“I meant,” she continues, crossing her arms over her chest. “It’s your brother’s wedding reception. Shouldn’t you be there toasting to the new couple and their blessed future?”
“Ah,” he tuts, taking another pull of whiskey before casting his gaze back over the pond. “I’m not one for weddings. Haven’t been for a while, I’m afraid.”
She absently nods, worrying her bottom lip between her teeth as she watches his eyes shift, chasing the gentle ripples blossoming along the water’s glassy surface. It strikes her in that moment that despite the growing interconnectedness of the former Gryffindor and Slytherin friend groups over the years, George Weasley has always been conspicuously absent from their gatherings. To the extent Pansy had ever noted his non-attendance, she had assumed it was the shop keeping him busy.
It never occurred to her that the exile could be intentional.
He twists back toward her, and for the briefest of moments she catches that glimmer of tired melancholy before he schools his features into something even. Something easy.
“Care to sit, Parkinson?” he asks, motioning toward the empty portion of bench next to him.
Pansy blinks, silent as the autumn air catches in her throat. Somewhere in the distance, a bullfrog croaks.
“I don’t bite,” he offers.
“I do.”
He releases an airy chuckle. “No surprise there.”
Stretching his legs out in front of him, he reaches an arm behind his head and bears a soft smile that doesn’t reach his eyes.
Pansy knows that kind of smile well. It’s the only one she has.
“But much like my freshly married brother, I always excelled in Care of Magical Creatures,” he explains. “I know how to avoid a burn or a bite from a feisty pet.”
She remains quiet, simply lifting an eyebrow in response.
He shrugs. “Up to you.”
Pansy briefly glances back toward the Burrow, internally groaning at the chorus of celebratory cheers erupting behind her before her attention shifts back toward the redhead seated just a few short steps away from her.
She blows out a sharp breath, fluttering her fringe before an involuntary series of steps carries her across the mossy terrain to the wooden bench at the edge of the pond.
“Hi,” he whispers as she settles in next to him. He angles his body toward her, but she doesn’t reciprocate his address or his posture; she keeps her shoulders even and her stare fixed forward.
“So,” he continues, apparently unphased by her lack of warmth, “we’ve established why I’m out here. What’s your grievance?”
She scoffs, rolling her eyes. “You wouldn’t get it.”
George snickers and moves his arm from behind his head to reach across the back of the bench. Her eyes track the motion, cataloging the scant space between his freckled hand and her shoulder.
“Try me.”
She twists back toward him with a sigh, color crawling up her neck and across her cheeks when she realizes how close they are; no more than a blink between them. But he appears unbothered by the proximity as he continues to regard her with unfiltered curiosity.
No .
This world does not exist. This world in which Pansy Parkinson, the girl who tried to hand over the savior of the Wizarding world to Lord Voldemort, makes pleasant, easy conversation with George Weasley, ranking member of the Order of the Phoenix.
Fortifying her defenses, she unleashes her reality onto him.
“Yeah?” she sneers, savoring the bitter tang of derision on the tip of her tongue. “You think you know what it’s like to walk into a room and have almost every single person there look at you with nothing but disdain?”
She expects him to recoil; to flinch as the poison she laced through her tone causes his blood to curdle. But he doesn’t. Instead, something resembling relief seems to wash over his features as he leans even closer to her, his whiskey-sweetened breath coasting across her skin as he speaks.
“No. But I know what it’s like to walk into a room and have absolutely every single person look at me with nothing but pity.”
Pansy’s breath hitches, her manufactured hostility vanishing in the span of a sentence as she watches something solemn bloom behind his hazel eyes before his gaze filters to the ground below.
“So,” he says with a long exhale, “I don’t like weddings. Or birthdays, or engagement parties, or baby showers. Any occasion where I’m forced to be in a room full of people acknowledging that someone’s life is moving on while they assume that mine never will.” His eyes sink into hers again. “I prefer being alone.”
Pansy swallows against a phantom throbbing in her chest. “Do you want me to leave?”
“No.”
She nods through a strangled breath as they simultaneously shift their stares forward, watching delicate waves ruffle along the pond’s surface as the cattails bow to the gentle, evening breeze.
For minutes spanning eternities they sit in silence as the courage in George Weasley’s confession slithers through the narrow cracks in her carefully crafted facade until the sheer force of his easy honesty shatters her walls and masks, reducing them to rubble and ash at her bare feet.
“My whole life,” Pansy whispers, voice paper thin and every bit as dry, “I was given one goal. One directive. Find a Pureblood wizard, marry him, and bear his children.” She closes her eyes and draws a rattling breath. “Our world has changed completely since then. That’s no longer the expectation of Pureblood witches. But despite that and the fact that I’ve started and managed my own successful business, I still feel like a colossal, fucking failure. Completely and utterly unable to fulfill the one thing my parents desired of me.”
George expels a laugh-like breath.
“Fucking seriously, Weasley? You find that funny?” she hisses, catapulting herself from the bench and wheeling away on the point of her heel before she feels a calloused hand wrap around her wrist, stilling her momentum.
“I don’t find that funny, Parkinson,” he responds as he gently tugs her back toward the bench. Seditiously, her body complies, sliding in next to him on the bench. Only this time, his arm wraps around her shoulder instead of the back of the bench, static coursing through her veins where his skin is pressed against hers.
An involuntary shudder surges down her spine when she feels one of his fingers tuck under her chin, tilting her face toward his. Whatever oxygen remains in her lungs evaporates as his gaze holds hers with the kind of quiet intensity generally reserved for someone you’ve known for years—not minutes.
He continues, “I find remarkably little humor in most Sacred Twenty-Eight traditions, particularly the treatment of witches.” Pausing, a flicker of a smirk twitches at the edges of his lips. “What I do find amusing is that, well, you’re sitting right next to a Pureblood wizard. And as you may have deduced from sheer family size, Weasleys are notoriously fertile. Give me ten minutes and I could solve at least one of those problems for you.”
Pansy blinks, long and slow. And then she laughs. Truly laughs. The kind of laugh that burns her belly and rattles her ribcage. The kind of laugh that thirty seconds ago, she would’ve insisted was forever lost to her.
Next to her, George is nearly doubled over, his own laughter bubbling across the space between them. It’s a warm and rich sound, sparking an incandescence within her that nestles between her ribs.
“Ten minutes, Weasley?” she gasps as she wipes at the tears catching in her lower lashes. “That’s all I get?”
“You drive a hard bargain, Parkinson,” he replies, also brushing at the moisture pooling against his cheeks. “Fine, I’ll throw in some foreplay and make it twenty minutes.”
Pansy throws her head back as more laughter billows up from somewhere so deep within her, she hardly recognizes it.
“And if you’re worried about the money, I can assure you that Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes is doing quite well. Believe it or not, I have my own flat with two bedrooms and a dining room wholly separate from the kitchen.”
“A formal dining room? How very aristocratic of you, Weasley.”
They chuckle for several more breaths before a comfortable stillness settles over them, Pansy’s attention momentarily drifting back toward the Burrow, where the raucousness of the wedding reception is beginning to fan out toward them.
“Would you like to see it?” George asks as his thumb traces delicate patterns against her shoulder before trailing down her arm, tiny fires erupting under her skin in its wake.
Pulse ringing in her ears, Pansy slowly twists her head toward him, every tendon in her neck pulled taut as his question hangs heavily in the air between them. She blinks once, then twice, then three times, as George simply observes her, apparently unabashed at his brazen proposal.
She swallows.
Noticeably.
Too noticeably.
A small, amused sound tumbles from his lips. “If you’re concerned about my intentions, I can assure you that despite my earlier remarks, this isn’t some clever ploy to get you into my bed.”
“I’m not sure if I should be relieved or offended.”
George lets out another easy chuckle. “It’s more of a safety precaution,” he shrugs. Pansy arches a questioning brow. “You strike me as the kind of creature who kills after mating.”
And for the third time that evening, George Weasley unlocks—without so much as a key—that hidden vault within Pansy Parkinson that so strictly guards her emotions. Uproarious laughter escapes her—the kind of all-consuming, booming sound that her mother would’ve told her was unbecoming of a Sacred Twenty-Eight witch—as it crawls across the ever-shrinking distance between her and George.
“Well, Draco’s still alive, isn’t he?” she snickers in retort once she catches her breath again.
“Sure, but I have it on good authority he’s only handling broomsticks these days, which leads me to believe his rumps with you left him traumatized and terrified of women.”
Another loud laugh pours from her like honey, her heady amusement abruptly ceasing when George wipes a tear from her cheek with the pad of his thumb as the rest of his fingers thread through the soft hairs at the nape of her neck. They are less than a breath apart now, and Pansy can feel her heartbeat in her skull as anticipation runs away with her.
George leans forward, her eyes closing and stomach inverting as she waits for the press of his lips against hers. But instead she feels his lips brush lightly against her ear, the barely-there touch still sending a trail of gooseflesh along every inch of her skin.
“If I were trying to bring you to bed, Pansy Parkinson,” he whispers, his breath tickling the sensitive spot under her ear, “it would be a whole hell of a lot smoother than a clumsy invite to my flat in the middle of a wedding.” He lingers there for a second and chuckles, the soft sound melting into her skin. But then he leans back ever so slightly, his face once again occupying her entire field of vision as he delicately drags his thumb across her bottom lip.
His gaze flickers to the advancing crowd of party guests. “What do you say, Parkinson? Escape with me?”
And then, without thinking—without blinking—a single syllable falls from Pansy’s lips.
“Yes.”