She could feel the bitter cold stabbing at her as she sat outside on the cold stone steps of the castle, waiting, prolonging the inevitable that would come with entering those grand doors and accepting that this was where she was. She wasn't wrapped...
She could feel the bitter cold stabbing at her as she sat outside on the cool stone steps of the castle, waiting, prolonging the inevitable that would come with entering those grand doors and accepting that this was where she was. She wasn't wrapped in his arms safe from the world, she was quite possibly the furthest she had ever been from him. But her hand wrapped around his lighter and filled her with comfort.
Pansy loathed the warmth emanating from inside the walls of Hogwarts, a place she had once considered home. But she was never at home anymore, only with him, only with Theo.
Hold your head up high. she told herself, Even if you've got a dirty neck.
And pansy entered the great hall. The bustling noise and smell of dinner invade her senses as she makes her way over to the Slytherin table with her head up-shoulders back, just as her mother had drilled into her. Refusing to make eye contact with any of her supposed peers, she took her seat next to Daphne.
Daphne, however, refused to accept this.
"Pans, look at me" she whispered, Pansy did as she asked, and instead of seeing pity on her friend's face she only saw caring eyes and Daphne's hand reaching out to hold her own.
"We're going to get through this ok. Together"
'Together ' Pansy repeated in her head. She had Daphne, and she repeated to herself that she was enough, but Pansy knew that nothing, not even her best friend could fill the void that consumed her. The emptiness that came from loss.
And she had so much loss. Lost her mother to Azkaban, lost her friends to the death eaters, lost herself in the war, but most of all she was missing him.
Theodore Nott was her soulmate, her one true love and he wasn't there.
Nonetheless, she had to breathe, and eat and go through the fucking motions, for him.
That's what he would want, and she would do anything for him.
Shook from her thoughts by Daphne gently pulling her off the bench, and towing her out of the great hall, arm in arm. They followed the hoard of students headed to their common rooms.
The halls were crammed with students, first years led by prefects, eighth years navigating the crowd expertly, avoiding particular spots of the castle where no glamour could hide the horror that would be etched in the walls forever.
Pansy, being led by Daphne, found herself, not at the entrance of the Slytherin common room, but instead in front of an entirely new set of doors.
She looked at her friend quizzically
"Didn't you read any if the letters this summer?" Daphne asked Knowing the answer would be no, knowing Pansy had desperately ignored all of the letters from the school in a way to pretend it wasn't real.
"Eighth-year students have their own tower this year" Daphne continued
Pansy's eyes widened at this realization. The houses were divided no longer and they were meant to live together?
"Are you fucking kidding me?"
"Unfortunately not," a deep voice groaned somewhere behind her. That voice. She would recognize it anywhere. Draco.
Pansy whipped around and met his eyes, his cold grey eyes, and they met hers, and some semblance of her sanity returned.
"Draco?" she breathed
"Three months and 'Draco'" he repeated in her breathy surprised tone "is all I get?" Pansy was shocked to her core. He reached out to her, gently placing his big hands on her shoulders, steadying her, it was only then that she realized she had been shaking. Because this couldn't be real, he couldn't be real, because if he was real maybe, maybe there was hope.
She slowly extended her hands to his face, tracing his cheek bones with her thumbs before fully taking his face in her hands and connecting their foreheads, she needed to feel him, make sure he wasn't some hallucination induced by the muggle cigarettes she had picked up soon after Theo had gone missing. He pulled her into a tight hug, and she embraced him, tucking her head into his chest accepting that somehow Draco Malfoy was in her arms.
"Where is he Draco," she asked quietly, desperately tears stinging her eyes. Because as much as she needed to know she feared the answer.
"Come, let's talk," Draco said as he guided her into the common room, squeezing Daphne's arm as they passed.
Daphne led them to her and Pansy's new shared room, their bodies separated but pansy refused to let go of his arm, afraid that if she did he would fade into smoke and slip away from her.
"Well" he spoke so painfully slowly "It all happened after the battle" xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxI hope you enjoyed chapter one!
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