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As a rule, Pansy Parkinson doesn’t run.
Running is for those who have done something wrong, for those who admit a moral demerit. Pansy does not lose any sleep at night over her decisions, or who she is and always has been. She has navigated strife, perhaps not the same as the rest of Hogwarts. The eldest daughter of parents who only wanted sons. The same daughter who was deemed unfit for marriage once the world turned on its axis. She didn’t run from what others thought of her, who they decided she was, because of what she’d said.
Still, her heels click a treasonous rhythm against the flagstones as she ducks beneath a tapestry, heart hammering. Somewhere behind her, the prefects are shouting. She doesn’t catch the words, only the tone: officious, overconfident, male.
She’s been evading worse than rule-abiding teenagers since she was twelve. Her etiquette coach inspired the same fear in her clients that Voldemort inspired unto the world. She got through that, just like she’ll get through them. This is practically sport.
She listens to them pass by, holding her breath. Their voices slowly fade as the distance grows between them, and she wants to scoff. Instead, she steps out from the tapestry and straightens her blouse.
Absurd. This much drama over not attending Potions. Furthermore, it’s eighth year, which is glorified babysitting. She doesn’t know why they all had to return, just that since they have, it feels like a sprint trying to survive the year.
“Hey!”
Pansy’s head turns in time to see the prefect at the end of the hall, pointing directly at her.
She draws in a breath and quickly steps around the corner. The great thing about Hogwarts—and there aren’t many—is the sheer amount of spaces that simply go unused.
Pansy walks past several classrooms she knows are abandoned before ducking into the third one on the left at random. She closes the door softly, resting her forehead against the wood as her heartbeat slows.
She doesn’t understand why they won’t piss off. That’s the issue with everyone at this school these days. Now that the war is over, they’ve already marked Pansy as one of the troublemakers, which makes class hell. Why would she subject herself to that?
Behind her, there’s a soft but deep spoken, “Oh.”
She startles at the sound, letting off a gasp as she quickly turns to find Harry Potter seated at the dusty old teacher’s desk. He stares back at her, not looking at all surprised, aside from the amused part of his lips. Then he exhales, a curl of white smoke.
Harry Potter, skipping class to have a smoke? She wants to laugh.
There is a half-melted candle stub on the desk, the wax cloudy and tacky with cheap ozokerite, its scent mixing oddly with the bite of warm tobacco. He must have set the mood for whatever self-loathing he was currently practising as the flame flickered along his hard jaw.
She supposes Potter is fit—if you’re into the whole stupid Quidditch jock bit. Which, Pansy supposes, she is.
Being a staunch supporter of equal opportunity suggests turnabout is fair play. She has every right to ogle men as they’ve been ogling her since her breasts came in. And she appreciates it when they give her something to look at, which, so often, they don’t.
So she likes a bit of back muscle? Sue her. Time and time again, men paraded about as if they were Merlin’s gift unto the earth without making an effort to wash behind their ears. And really, what did they have to offer?
Potter, on the other hand, has nothing to prove. His easy posture, all leaned back and spread limbs, tells her he knows exactly that.
Footsteps sound in the corridor. Pansy freezes, her gaze snapping to the door, pulse picking up again. Potter glances toward the noise, then back at her.
They look at each other for a long second, with her weighing whether she can make it to another hiding spot. She glances away from him, but the classroom is essentially stripped—no cupboards or dark corners. Except for the little pocket under the desk he is seated at. Potter watches her before his mouth curves just slightly, slow like it took him a moment to thread the thought.
He might be fit, but he still isn’t bright. Perhaps hit in the head one too many times.
“Under here,” he says, tipping his chin toward the space she’s already clocked.
“Oh, you’re raving mad,” she starts to say when the voices of the petulant prefects grow a touch louder.
She hesitates, but the footsteps are right outside now, and there’s something about the way he’s leaning back, lazy confidence, that makes her legs move before her brain catches up. She crouches low and slides into the narrow space, twisting sideways until her head ends up against his thigh. He smells earthy, like the sown lawns of a Quidditch pitch, tobacco, and broomstick polish, but strangely sweet like a treat you can only get at holidays.
She tries to back up, but it’s cramped. Her knees fold beneath her, and her hands have nowhere to go—she could leave them in her lap, but they’d be tucked against her stomach, so she wraps them behind his calves and tries to ignore the fact that she’s touching him.
She has very little time to really bask in the sheer precedence of her current positioning because right as she’s finished shuffling, the door creaks open.
“Oh, Harry, it’s just you.”
“Alright, Ernie?”
“Did you find her—oh, Harry, hi.”
“Hey, Wayne.”
One of them makes a noncommittal sound, like they’re working up the nerve to speak, before saying, “Shouldn’t you be in class?”
“Eh,” is Potter’s easy response.
Pansy waits for them to question him further, but she already knows that they won’t. What could either of them say to the saviour of the wizarding world?
“Have you seen Parkinson?” one asks. “She’s skipping.”
Potter moves slightly, hand reaching beneath the desk like he’s gone to scratch an itch in thought. His fingers brush softly through the strands of her hair, barely moving, careful not to draw attention. She can feel the warmth and callus of his touch, even in the cramped space, as he tucks the hair behind her ear.
Thump, thump, thump goes her pulse.
He leaves his palm on the back of her head, thumb running absentmindedly along her cheek.
“Can’t say I have,” he replies smoothly.
MacMillan scoffs—she only knows it’s him because he’s always doing that, as if the weight of the world sits on his shoulders and he’s so important. She expects them to leave, but there’s the sound of movement, and she thinks maybe one of them is taking a seat or leaning against an empty desk.
“Fucking bitch ran from us,” MacMillan’s nasally voice laments.
Pansy rolls her eyes.
“That’s all the Slytherins are good for,” Hopkins adds. “Bunch of–”
“Remind me what exactly you were doing during the battle, Wayne?” Potter asks mildly.
Hopkins makes some strangled sound, like he wasn’t expecting this from Potter. If she is being honest, neither was Pansy.
“You’re defending her? After she tried to sell you out?”
“At least she stood for something. Hermione mentioned you were off in Prague.”
“Fucking rich,” Hopkins snaps. “First Hermione defends Malfoy, now you with Parkinson?”
“Something to say about the company we keep?” Potter asks.
There’s a vicious note in his tone, so ready to defend his friend. Pansy recalls chiding Draco for taking up with Granger as his study partner and remembers the sharp bite in her voice when she snapped at others on his behalf in the Great Hall. At the moment, she wanted to poke fun at Draco and his moony eyes, which he had been trying to hide from the bushy-haired swot.
But it’s nice like this, and maybe that’s what Draco liked—having a lion so willingly at his defence.
Pansy tilts her head enough to see the bottom half of Potter’s face. His voice stays even as a half-grin curls the corner of his mouth.
“When the time came around to do something, I seem to recall that Parkinson was there. More than I can say for either of you. Easy to ride the coattails if you just say you were on the right side, isn’t it?”
Pansy feels something loosen inside her chest. The way Potter doesn’t just brush off their insults but quietly cuts them down—it’s not just protection. It’s respect. Something she’s long thought she didn’t deserve.
“You think you’re so—” Hopkins starts.
“Go on, Wayne,” Potter says with a smirk. “Say it. Make my day.”
“Alright, enough. Get to class,” MacMillan says as Hopkins flounders on his own tongue. “Or we’ll tell–”
“McGonogall?” Potter laughs low, lips breaking open finally to show the whole of his grin. He uses his other hand to bring the smoke to his mouth as he inhales before saying, “Please do.”
“C’mon, Ernie,” Hopkins gripes. “Not worth our time.”
The door clicks shut behind them, the prefects’ voices fading.
He sighs softly, the sound low in the suddenly still room. His chair scrapes quietly against the floor as he leans backwards, and light suddenly fills the shadow she’s occupied. His eyes fix on her face in the cramped space beneath the desk.
For a long moment, he just takes her in. She stares back from her knees, tucked between Potter’s legs. Finally, his voice breaks the silence.
“Alright, Pansy?”
She swallows hard, the tightness in her chest loosening just a fraction under his steady gaze.
“Yeah,” she whispers.
Then she realises how absurd she looks—stuck on her knees, fingers too tight around his legs, looking up at him from under her lashes. And she’s struck by how calm he looks, not tugging away. She still feels the warmth of his touch on her cheek.
She swallows and laughs, uncharacteristically bright, and sort of scrambles from under the desk. She stands up, and Potter doesn’t really move, just takes another drag of the cigarette as he watches her put herself to rights. She tucks her hair behind her ear, then smooths her skirt and focuses on breathing, not the ravenous pulse beneath her breast.
Does she thank him? Did his defence call for that? To admit as much would be to call attention to her being vulnerable, like she needed him to say all that. And she didn’t. Pansy was not weak.
The way he watches her suggests he might think the same.
She catches the thought before it fully forms, but by then, it’s echoing in her skull, a dull thump, thump, thump. She chucks it into the bin and fixes her shirt.
Pansy says, “Right,” and turns on her heel.
But she’s stuck in place, how odd, strangely fixed to her spot. When she turns to discern what has halted her, she finds a palm encircling her wrist—I must not tell lies staring back at her. Her gaze drags slowly from the scar, up the toned arm, to the broad slope of shoulders, somehow all connected to him.
Potter has gone and put his hands on her. Again.
“Best to stay right here,” he murmurs. His thumb smooths along the skin of her wrist before he lets go. He leans back in his seat again and asks mildly, “Wouldn’t you say?”
Pansy’s eyes narrow.
How interesting, Potter.
But she supposes he has always thrived in rings where he is underestimated. And it isn’t a lie, is it?
She leans against the edge of the desk and crosses an ankle over the other, shoes scuffing the rough floor. Potter’s small grin is lazy, but there. He holds out the cigarette to her, an offering. She plucks it from his fingers and puts it to her lips, drawing an inhale slowly just where his had been.