Archive of Our Own

Pansy wakes up with a sharp pain in her side, right under her ribs. She breathes in deep and the pain increases, blasting, almost like a hex. She sucks in another breath and it aches more. 

What the bloody hell has she done this time?

It’s dark as fuck, and she can’t see shit. She’s lying on something hard and cold, not a mattress or a couch. 

Her mind freezes, her whole body shrinking a bit, as if muscle memory is acting instead of her brain. For a second, she’s back at Hogwarts, lying on the cold stone floor and heaving shallow breaths after a dark hex. Her skin is cold and clammy, and she thinks she will be sick at any moment. 

Pansy stays very still, trying to process her surroundings. Where is she?

She bends her toe lightly, waits. Nothing happens. It’s so quiet. 

Then, reality rushes back to her: she’s not in the castle, she’s not 17, she’s not in danger. 

She turns, feeling her head go slightly dizzy, stomach lurching as pain stabs her side like a dagger. She takes a deep breath. 

Shit, it hurts like hell. 

She can’t move properly. She presses her hand on the floor. It’s cold against her clammy palm, calming her a bit. She takes small breaths through her nose, trying to not get her lungs full. Breathing until she relaxes further. Presses her brow against the cold tile and realises she is in a bathroom, from the floor tiles. 

She’s drunk, she realises suddenly. Very drunk, and dizzy, and in pain, and cold. On a fucking bathroom floor. She sighs. Bits and pieces of memory flash through her mind: drinks with friends—club night doing one too many shots—nasty tang of MDMA under her tongue—fucking the pretty blonde in the tight red dress against the alleyway wall. 

Fuck. It rushes through her; she can’t remember much after that. 

And it’s so dark she’s not sure if maybe she went blind. Pushing her hands against the floor hurts so much that she sees white spots and curls around herself again. Fuck it. Maybe she broke a rib or something. 

“Hello?” she calls out, slurring her speech. Her brain is working alright, but, apparently, her body is still under the influence. Her legs feel shaky, and her blood pressure is low because she’s cold, and everything even in the dark is blurry, and she doesn’t know if she has tears in her eyes or what. 

She feels terribly vulnerable. She hates being vulnerable. 

She’s alone. 

No one replies to her call and, Jesus, she feels awful. She takes another deep breath that hurts enough to take her out. Well, now she does have tears in her eyes, and she feels stupid. The tears are hot, running down the corners of her face. 

Pansy shivers. 

Fucking fuck, what the hell? 

She moves her hand, palming her side. She’s wearing a thin cotton tank top. She feels it under her touch and she knows which one it is. She remembers now, images rushing back suddenly: she’s at home. She remembers changing clothes before falling into bed. 

She's home. 

Relief warms her up a bit as she palms her ribs. It doesn’t hurt under her touch, but it does, badly, when she tries to move again. 

She breaks into a sweat of pain and effort, falling back down against the floor. 

Fuck it to hell and back, she shivers and cries. She’s pathetic, she thinks, hugging herself gently, giving into the abhorrent feeling of loss and dread and fear. 

For god’s sake, what has happened to me?

Pansy rocks herself very gently, sobbing a bit as she gives in, feeling lost and lonely and cold. 

Until she passes out.

There’s light crawling into the room from the open door. She blinks and groans. Her head hurts and she feels like shit, her mouth tastes like stale cigarettes and alcohol. She feels disgusting. 

She blinks and realises she’s still lying in her bathroom, like a total loser. Her whole body aches, and her ribs erupt in sharp pain when she tries to sit up.

“Shit!” She breathes in and out very shallowly and tries to come up with enough willpower to push through the pain. Once she does, she sits up, wincing, and gets dizzy with the movement. It’s a very strong, sharp pain; she hopes she hasn't nicked an organ or something. She has no idea about injuries and organs, but this feels fucking painful. 

She has half a mind to think she wishes her mam was here before she has to turn to her left and grab onto the toilet bowl before lurching forwards and vomiting, acidic and bitter, coming out through her mouth and nose and—

Honestly, she’s too old for this shit. 30 should be the age she’s leading an honest life, with a job and a house and a family. Her eyes sting as her side smarts and another wave of nausea hits her. Tears and spit wet her face. She should be better than this, but apparently, she can’t bring herself to be anything other than her stupid, single, broken self. 

She does have a house, she thinks bitterly, grabbing the toilet roll and cleaning her face, spitting again into the bowl before flushing. She leans against the toilet bowl and breathes; she smells awful. She needs a shower. 

Jesus, she is such a mess. Such a loser. 

She laughs bitterly. It makes her ribs ache, and she sobs like a fucking baby. She’s a ridiculous excuse for a grown woman. 

Pansy holds her breath as she stands up, gritting her teeth through it. The pain is so intense she thinks she’ll fall. But once she stands up and gets her shoulders straight, it eases a bit. 

Alright, I can do this.  

She looks in the mirror and her reflection stares back at her, as if mocking her. Apart from the dark circles under her eyes, the dark makeup smeared around her eyes and formed black tears down her cheeks. She snorts. She looks like those emo kids from the early 2000s. 

“No more drinking for you,” she grunts out, voice grave and thick.

She needs a shower. And then she’ll need to go to the hospital. Fantastic. What a wonderful way to start her Saturday, really.

She has been sitting on the bloody uncomfortable hospital chair for more than thirty minutes now. The taxi ride had been a real nightmare; she hadn’t been sure if she would break out sobbing in the backseat and the poor old man driving would get scared, or if the pain would mix with the nausea and she would sick up on the old disgusting rug on the cab floor.

She’d powered through it with slow, shallow breaths. 

“Miss Parkinson, room 7,” the nurse calls out and Pansy feels suddenly relieved. Though standing up is a whole ordeal, and she has to press a hand on the wall and lean there for half a minute to keep herself from crossing over the barrier of too much pain—she can survive this. 

With slow steps, maintaining the quick rhythm of inhale-exhale that makes her feel like that one time she went to power yoga and almost died, she walks through the pale white corridors and finds the door of Room 7, slightly ajar, and knocks on it lightly.

“Come in!”

Pansy walks in, hand pressed to her side and trying to not look so ridiculous. She looks up at the doctor and pales. 

“What the fuck—” she mutters under her breath and inhales a lungful of air that makes the pain flare incredibly. She stumbles, almost falling over, and has to put both her hands on the back of the patient’s chair so as not to fall.  

There, sitting on the doctor’s chair and staring at her with surprised large brown eyes under round tortoise specs, is Hermione Granger. 

Image description: Hermione, with her face flushed white in shock stares off the screen. Her eyes wide, brown, emphasized by her round tortoise glasses. Her hair is long, brown, and curly down her shoulders. She's wearing a stethoscope over her white Doctor's coat. A laptop opened to her right. Art by digthewriter. End description.

“Granger?” she grunts.

“What happened to you?” Granger asks, standing up and rounding the desk with a worried expression. “What are you doing here?” she adds, with a confused expression as she walks closer, and Pansy recoils. 

“I fell,” she says painfully, and really, if Granger is the only person who can fix her, well, she will allow it, past be damned. “I think,” she adds stupidly. 

“You think?” Granger repeats, brow furrowing and hands opening and closing as if she is uncertain what to do. “And you came to a Muggle hospital?”

Pansy rolls her eyes. 

Obviously.  

“I live here,” she replies drily. “In Muggle Limerick.” Closing her eyes against the pain that ripples through her side, she fucking loses it. “Can you help me or not?”

Granger swallows and presses her lips together in a thin line before nodding and helping Pansy walk to the examination table. 

“Tell me what you feel, Parkinson,” she commands. 

The next few minutes are a confusing mess of Pansy trying to explain what hurts and when it hurts and what movements make the pain worse, and assuring Granger she really, for the love of god, can’t remember how she fell because she was too drunk and woke up like this. She doesn’t go to the excruciating shame of saying she woke up on the bathroom floor, though; she has limits and standards to keep up. 

“I don’t have my wand with me,” Granger whispers, after inspecting Pansy’s ribs with cold, gloved fingers. “You have quite a contusion, but I don’t think it’s broken.”

“I don’t expect you to use your wand on me, Granger. I came to the Muggle hospital, otherwise I would have Apparated to fucking St Brigid’s up in Dublin,” she grunted out. 

“Right,” Granger says breathily. “Yes, of course. You will need an X-ray, then.”

Some boring paperwork goes on and Pansy is sent to wait once again before another nurse chaperones her into a small dark room and positions her against a monster machine that will probably take pictures of her insides, mainly her bones. This is all so foreign to her; Jesus, she hates Muggle medicine, she really should have just called her mam. 

The mix of pain and adrenaline from braving new Muggle medical appliances distracts her a bit, but soon enough, Pansy catches herself wondering what the hell is Hermione Fucking Granger doing working in St John’s Hospital. She tries to remember the last time Blaise mentioned the Gryffindor, but fails.

It’s so weird to see Granger after all those years, in a Muggle hospital, with her Muggle white coat and Muggle stethoscope hanging around her neck. It feels like a weirdass dream, images from different contexts jammed together in a surreal way. 

“You’re really not here to mess with me, then,” Granger says mindlessly, looking at the black and light blue images that make no sense to Pansy, but sure enough, are a picture of her insides. 

“No, Granger, my life definitely does not revolve around you. Sorry about that,” she replies tartly. 

“No need to apologise for it,” Granger says absentmindedly. “It’s just, the Prophet tends to follow me around, it’s a bit of a nightmare...” she offers in a quiet voice, brow furrowed as she apparently analyses the image. “All good, nothing broken. You probably have a muscle spasm due to the blow. Nothing serious. I’ll send you off to the pharmacy for some muscle relaxant and a painkiller, and if in seven days it doesn’t get better, you need to come back. Sometimes, the floating ribs can crack and it will only be seen when the bones settle,” she explains, scribbling down the prescription for the meds. “Don’t worry, though, I don’t think it will be the case. Press a cold pack to the site twice a day and I’ll add a salve here so the bruise will resolve—”

“A salve?” Pansy stares at her, nose scrunching up. 

“Oh.” Granger looks up, finally, and her large eyes go a bit round and funny and she blushes faintly. “Sorry, I meant cream . A normal, very Muggle cream,” she says with a laugh. 

“What are you doing here, Granger?” Pansy asks suddenly, sighing and pressing her fingers to her temples, attempting to ease the headache. 

Granger blinks, her jaw working and her shoulders set squarely in what Pansy realises is her way to prepare for a fight. Honestly, Pansy should just flee the room and be done with it. It’s not her business, anyway. 

“Why, Pansy,” she drawls playfully, “I’m working. It’s my Saturday shift.”

“Right.” Pansy looks down at her hands, feeling a bit stupid. It’s not like Granger would share her secrets with her. “Great, thanks for the check-up, doc,” she smirks, and the Gryffindor rolls her eyes. 

When she makes it to the door, grunting with every step, Pansy looks over her shoulder to see Granger watching her with a complicated expression. They stare at each other and Pansy doesn’t know exactly what goes on in the pregnant silence of the weirdest of moments. 

“Can y—”

“Have—”

They start at the same time and then Granger blushes and Pansy laughs softly. “Sorry, go on,” Pansy says. 

“Can you not mention that I’m working here?” Granger asks, deflating. “It’s just—” she shakes her head, probably not really knowing why the fuck she would share her motives with Pansy, but Pansy nods and feels her face soften as well, to a more approachable expression. “I just really wanna work in peace,” she whispers tiredly. 

“Sure. I won’t,” Pansy concedes. 

“Also, no drinking until you finish the meds. They don’t mix nicely.” Pansy nods, noticing how her voice is now softer in a way. “What were you going to say, before?” Granger asks. 

Pansy shrugs. She was going to ask how long she had been working in Limerick, because the city is actually small and she’s never seen Granger around before. 

“The glasses look really good,” Pansy comments with a small, secretive smile, because indeed, the glasses make Granger look even more of a nerd, but they also make her look rather cute. She watches the blush spread over Granger’s cheeks and grins even more. “See you around, then.”

As the week passes, Pansy grows more and more anxious about a newfound small obsession constantly nagging at the back of her mind: a constant murmur, a voice, a memory, a monologue of different reasons why Hermione Granger would be working in a Muggle hospital in bloody dreary, miserable Limerick. 

It makes no sense to her, and Pansy can’t stop thinking about it. She goes on with her life, though. Her ribs are getting better and better everyday, but everytime she has to massage cream onto the bruised skin on her side, she thinks of Granger’s cold gloved fingers testing the abused flesh. It makes her shiver, so she keeps on pretending she isn’t the tiniest bit obsessed. 

She keeps leaving her house everyday at half-past eight and helps Rob open the hairdresser’s. Pansy picks up calls and organises the agenda and cuts hair and makes nice updos and dyes hair and paints faces with stylish makeup, offering her customers good conversations about life. 

Pansy takes her lunch break at 2pm on a drizzly Thursday and walks around the block to sit at her customary coffeeshop on the corner of Little Catherine Street, watching people come and go in the cross of Thomas Street. She likes it here. She is used to the scenery, the people, the strong accent of sibilant ‘t’s, the constant drizzle, and the constancy that life in a small town offers her. 

She lights a cigarette and waves at Margaret from the charity shop, crossing the street with her twin girls and holding each hand, their pink wellies splashing water as they jump with each step. 

It’s easy to live here, in this corner of the world, without the pain and shame of her past. The elderly couple that lives up in Castletroy walks past her, with a trolley of veggies stuffed to the brim, and John asks Pansy about the weather and she replies promptly, in that easy-going and way-too-gentle way people here tend to treat each other. Their daughter just finished her master’s degree last summer, and Pansy drove up to their house to do hair and makeup for the whole family for the graduation party. 

It’s nice and quiet. She doesn’t remember nice and quiet back when she was still living in wizarding London, not in those years after the war. Not when she tried to stand up on her two feet, only to have the rug violently pulled out from under her. 

She hisses as the cigarette burns her fingers and drops it in the ashtray. She says her goodbyes to Aoife at the coffeeshop’s counter and walks back to the hairdresser studio. It’s packed inside with four young women chattering about hairstyles, one of them considering an undercut.

“Hullo,” she offers, and is swamped by work again, but at some point, in the middle of an actual undercut buzz, she thinks she sees Granger walking on the other side of the sidewalk. 

She’s not sure, though. 

She wakes up in the middle of the night, heart pounding in her chest as if she had run a marathon. Pansy touches her side gingerly, her ribs protesting the quick motion of her sitting up.

“Shit,” she curses, pressing a hand over her face. The images of the nightmare are flooding back in her mind, making her revisit that time after the war when her dreams were literally burned to ashes.

She hates this—the way memory can be so traitorous, the way the flashbacks of that blasted day come back in a rush of cold sweat and she wakes up thinking that her skin is burning, scorching with fire and scarring her arm. 

Her arm is slightly scarred, alright. She’s grown accustomed to the scars; they’re faint and ropy. There wasn’t enough time to heal her skin completely when she got to St Mungo’s, and even though her mam was there, it was a bit too late to erase all the burn marks. 

The scarring is not too bad, though, it’s just a bit on the back of her left hand and forearm, silvery lines that never let her completely forget.  

What she really minds is how the images play like a carousel in her head. 

Makes sense, she thinks, as she realises that blasted day was the last time she saw Granger, until they met again in the Muggle hospital a week ago.  

The memory is a bit fuzzy now. She remembers sitting on an uncomfortable chair in the corridor of St Mungo’s, her arm and hand patched up in gauze, itchy with disgusting green balm speeding up the recovery process of her skin. She remembers the smell of her burnt hair, remembers the bitter taste of smoke in the back of her throat. Remembers the constant shaking of her hands as she stared blindly at the floor, feeling lost and scared and destroyed. 

It had been the worst day of her life, worse even than the Battle of Hogwarts. She felt so scared when she entered her small art studio and saw the flames. Walls darkening under the fire and her paintings curling into ashes and the floor distorting and boiling. She remembers trying to salvage some of her artwork. Remembers the Aurors rushing in and taking her out against her will. Probably saving her. 

She remembers Harry Potter’s green eyes, concerned as he put out the fire that was burning her hair way too fast. He asked her questions and she couldn’t come up with words. “I think she’s shocked,” he told someone else, before telling her he would take her to St Mungo’s. 

She doesn’t remember much. She was indeed in shock. Years of her artwork burnt to ashes. 

They couldn’t salvage much, a few paintings. Her parents were glad she was alive but she felt like nothing at all was worthy in the miserably small English wizarding world. 

She hit rock bottom that night, with her eyes unfocused toward the floor of St Mungo’s while her mam did the paperwork on the registration desk, glancing at her worriedly. 

The Aurors said the fire was provoked by magic. Someone set fire to her art studio only six months after she dared to open it. They said it was revenge, a hate crime. “I’m really sorry, Parkinson,” Potter had said . 

Pansy remembers the emptiness in her chest as she looked at her bandaged arm, sitting there like a loser. She remembers the fast, hurried steps down the hall, shoes squeaking against the linoleum floor, and the lime green gown flashing stupidly, passing quickly by her. 

She remembers looking up just in time to see the confused expression of Hermione Granger staring down at her. There, at the rock bottom of her existence, in the deepest muddy waters of her life, while Granger succeeded in her career as a Mediwitch.

It felt like a punch in the mouth. It tasted like failure. It smelt like misery. 

And then, once she recovered from the burns and the heartache, tucked in her childhood room at her parents' townhouse, she fled Wizarding London and moved to Ireland, closer to her Nan. 

It’s been five years now.

It’s a surprisingly sunny Sunday morning, and Pansy is enjoying every second of it under the sun. Maureen is lying on the grass chatting away on her phone through messages with that stupid brat she’s been fucking around with. It’s fated to end in heartbreak—she’s already warned her friend—but it didn’t work. 

Pansy throws the ball again and again on the lush green grass of People’s Park and the black Labrador she’s playing with goes around, catches it and comes back. There’s something about dogs that Pansy will never understand: why would they keep on doing it, the whole running for the ball and bringing it back? 

“C’mon, Nala!” she yells and throws it back again, a fluid arch in the sky towards the slump of green grass under the park’s centre statue. “Are you still chatting him up?” she asks Maureen while the dog runs to and fro.

“Ugh, hate when you say I’m chatting him up,” she retorts, elbow pressed against the grass, holding her phone up to her face. 

“But you are,” Pansy points out and lights a cigarette. “How old is he? Like, he’s really young—”

“Shut up! He’s 24!”

“And you’re 31! Like a big, massive, horrendous mistake.”

Maureen throws a stick at her and Pansy laughs, head thrown back, shoulders shaking and says, “You’re such a baby.”

“Anywaaaaay,” Maureen sniffs, her bleach blond hair piled on top of her hair in a big round bun. “It’s his dick, I think he has a magical dick,” she confesses, smirking. “Have you ever sat on a dick and like, poof, started coming?”

“Ugh. You’re disgusting.” Pansy scrunches up her nose. 

“I think it’s anatomy, Pans, and like, it fits perfectly, like—his cock and my vagina are soulmates. D’you know what I mean?”

Pansy looks at her friend. She’s serious about the shit she just said, Pansy realises. She’s so fond of Maureen. She was her first Muggle friend. They used to pull pints together in a shitty pub up O'Connell Street all those years ago, when Pansy had no clue about Muggle culture at all. 

“I can’t really remember the last time I sat on a dick, Maureen,” she says. Which is kind of a lie, because she remembers last year at a rave up Dublin. She was too high on E or something, and the guy looked so much like Draco that something really old and wild overcame her, and she took him to the makeshift loo that stank like hell, and had him fuck her hard. 

It’s very blurry now, and he was really bad at it; she didn’t even come. Actually, she can’t remember if he even came, she can only remember vomiting in the WC bowl and pushing him out. 

It was really horrifying and embarrassing. 

“-ure thing,” Maureen is saying and Pansy has to blink the memory away.

“What were you saying?”

“I asked if you didn’t feel like that with your teenage neo-Nazi boyfriend—”

“Maureen,” she warns, looking around to make sure people around them didn’t hear it. Sha watches Nala playing with another dog in the field—Maureen has completely ignored her dog since they arrived.

It wasn’t a lie, though, when she told Maureen about Draco. It was only that she didn’t know how to explain to a Muggle about the war, about pure-blood supremacy, all that shit, but she tried her best. She even asked her Nan to help her create a backstory for this bit of her life. So, she told Maureen that she was a terribly prejudiced teen who fell in love with a neo-Nazi boy. 

“Right,” Maureen sighs, picking up a cigarette and turning around to sit by Pansy’s side. “Sorry I brought it up.”

“It’s fine.”

It’s uncomfortable, to be unable to come clean to her friend. She did the best she could, and Pansy didn’t lie or make things sound nicer. The few friends she made these last five years know full well Pansy was a bully, a disgusting one. She didn’t sugarcoat it. But sometimes, she wishes she could have told them the truth—about the war, about magic, about people vengefully burning down her art studio because they thought she deserved it. 

Nala comes back with not her ball but a long stick covered in slobber. 

“But like,” Maureen says, staring at Pansy with her brow furrowed deeply, “have you ever felt like this with a woman, then?”

Pansy snorts. She can’t believe Maureen is still on about the whole soulmate dick talk. 

“Maureen,” she says seriously. “He’s a fuckboy. You’re high on the thrill of getting sex out of it, it makes your endorphins and adrenaline go up, hormones all around, so you sit on his lap and BOOM.” Pansy moves her hands, mimicking an explosion in the air. “The toxic dynamic has reeled you in, like a mermaid luring you into the cruel dark sea.”

“Feck off!” Maureen pets Nala and shrugs. “I am not in love or any of this bullshite, I was honestly asking about sexual compatibility, Pans. Jesus Christ, you need to get laid.”

Pansy rolls her eyes. “Nah, never fell in love with any girls’ fanny. Though, couldn’t say that about a nice pair of tits—”

“Oh!” Maureen whistles playfully. “Like that girl… that girl from Ballina, what was her name? The really busty one. Gods, she was so into you. Why did you stop seeing her?”

“Ashleen,” Pansy mumbles. 

She’d stopped seeing her because the girl was way too nice, and she was in love with Pansy, but Pansy had no idea how to open up to a Muggle without feeling really shitty. 

“She was really nice, you should go back to seeing her.”

“It was like a year and a half ago,” she shrugs. “Is Will coming? I’m getting really hungry, I think we should walk to the Milk Market without him and get some falafel wraps before they close the stands.”

“He said he was on his w—” Maureen stops as someone approaches them. 

“Hello.” It’s Granger, wearing tight black leggings, a sports bra and an open hoodie over it. She is flushed and sweaty, her runners smeared with mud and grass. 

She has really nice tits. 

“Hey.” Pansy swallows. 

“I thought I saw you while I was running,” Granger explains, her hair pulled up in a ponytail, her curls all messy and windswept. “How are the ribs?”

“Much better, thanks. How have you been?”

“Not too bad.”

She stands there, catching her breath, each intake of air making her breasts shift, and Pansy tries not to stare. Goddamn, who knew Granger was so hot under her boring doctor’s coat? Maureen clears her throat as the silence starts to become really awkward. 

“Oh yeah, sorry. Granger, this is Maureen. Maureen, this is Hermione Granger,” she introduces them, feeling embarrassed and completely weird.

“Nice to meet you. Please, call me Hermione.”

“I haven't seen you before, are you new in town?” Maureen starts. Maureen is the best person in the whole world to make new friends; she could chat with a rock. 

“Moved here two months ago. I work at St John’s Hospital.”

“Cool, I work at the Red Hen pub,” Maureen smiles. 

“Oh, I heard about the place. Never been.” Hermione squints a bit; she isn’t wearing her nice tortoise glasses. 

A car honks twice at the street by the park and Granger looks up, her face splitting into a complicated smile while she waves. 

“That is Lisa,” she says, as if Pansy and Maureen would know who Lisa is. “Well, nice to see you. Take care!” 

Pansy and Maureen say their goodbyes and watch her go. 

“That was really awkward. Are you fucking her?”

“No!” Pansy rolls her eyes. “Why do you always think every woman I know is because I fucked them?”

“I tend not to be wrong.”

“I used to bully her relentlessly at school,” Pansy mumbles darkly, feeling bad about it. “And she’s straight—” 

Just as she says that, a woman with a low blond ponytail and a floral dress walks out of the driver’s side of the car, kisses Granger straight on the mouth and hands her the keys, walking around the car to go back in through the passenger's seat.

“What the bloody fuck?!” Pansy curses, eyes going wide. 

“Oh,” Maureen preens. “Very straight, that one.”

Blaise is lying on the sofa as if he owns Pansy’s flat, and she’s so fond of the image that her chest hurts. They take some version of magic MDMA—it’s quite mellow—then decide to just stay in and enjoy the increased colours and the increased intensity of touches. 

“I missed you,” she whispers, walking closer and putting down two mugs of tea on the coffee table. “You should live here.”

Blaise laughs. It sounds like waves around her, echoing around the room. She loves this room. It took so long to furnish it, with mismatched furniture from second-hand shops. She painted most of the different pieces of wooden furniture, made it colourful and heartfelt. She made it with love. Her Nan came down from North Tipperary to help her. Even Blaise joined once or twice, to paint walls the Muggle way.

“I would be so miserable, this city is so boring,” he snorts and takes his tea. “So, how’s life?”

Pansy rolls her eyes and sits heavily by his side, bringing her knees up.

“Hermione Granger is working in the city hospital,” she says. “Can you believe it?”

Blaise’s eyes widen at the information, and she gasps. 

“Oh my god, I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone—”

“I won’t say a word.”

“Right.” 

“Why is she here?”

“I dunno. I can’t get her out of my mind though,” she admits. She hates to take MDMA without drinking, it makes her all kinds of open and honest. “It’s so weird. Why would she work in a Muggle hospital? Like, she literally is the golden girl of wizarding England.”

Blaise starts laughing, staring at her mouth, as if a bit mesmerised or something. 

“She’s probably hiding,” he whispers, secretive, looking young and stupid. He starts combing her short hair with his fingers. “I heard people used to go to St Mungo’s only to ogle her. Some kind of ridiculous fanbase of the Golden Trio or such trash. Must be so irritating...”

Pansy nods. It sounds really ridiculous. People are so strange. 

“She has a girlfriend...”

“Uhh... the golden lesbian, then.”

They laugh.

The afternoon goes on like this, slow and easy, until they crack open the bottle of gin Blaise brought with him. They take another hit of MDMA, lying on the rug, laughing and touching and whispering secrets. It’s always like this when Blaise comes: they talk about the past and the present, and it seems like Pansy’s life—her life that normally feels split into before and after the fire—stitches back together and she stops feeling like she’s living a double life. 

And the evening goes on with deeply honest secrets being shared in the dark of her living room:

“Mum is marrying again,” Blaise tells her, face pressed against her sweaty neck. “I wish she would stop doing that,” he whispers, hurt, and Pansy hugs him closer, listening to his breathing, listening to his existence, loving the way her body feels pressed against the steady comfort of his presence.

“I heard Draco’s taking a sabbatical in Bhutan,” he says nastily, and Pansy laughs. 

“Shit, he became such a hippie idiot,” she says judgmentally. It feels liberating to just bash Draco sometimes. 

“I miss him,” Blaise confesses darkly. And it’s this time of the night, during which both of them end up talking about things they will pretend they hadn't the next morning. “Do you still fuck blond twinks and pretend it’s him?” he asks, so close to the truth that Pansy swallows heavily, blinks at the ceiling, and tells him about the last time she tried to do that and how poorly it went. 

“You too?” she whispers back, and Blaise’s jaw locks. 

She knew it back then and she knows it now, because Blaise never got over Draco. He never got over the fact that they were close, and that the three of them had a pretty toxic dynamic going on back in sixth and seventh year. He never got over the fact that Draco changed drastically, irreversibly, and never invited either of them into his new life. 

It really stings.

“Move on, Blaise. Let him go, live your life. It’s been too long.”

“Says the one who doesn’t paint or use magic anymore...” he retorts, and it smarts in her chest. She hasn't opened the attic door in years now. Sometimes, she just stands there, on the topmost step of the stairs, staring at the door, thinking about all her painting materials and the few canvases the Aurors salvaged from the fire.

She never steps closer, though. She shivers at the thought. It hurts deeply, like salt on a wound.

“Seeing Granger brought back the nightmares,” she confesses. 

“We should go out and dance,” Blaise decides after a moment, avoiding all those terrible memories altogether. “I’m tired of talking about the past,” Blaise grunts, and she smiles. She loves going out with Blaise.

They go out and Blaise sucks off a blond twink in the dirty back alley of NANCY’s while Pansy vomits in the pub’s loo, thinking of fire and Draco and her old magical paintings and Hermione Fucking Granger.

Pansy is not sure how, but since she met Granger in the park a few weeks ago, she’s started seeing her everywhere. They bumped into each other at Dunnes grocery shopping twice, and once at the kebab place close to the Milk Market, and now in Penney’s when Pansy goes with Maureen to make sure not to let her friend buy her weight in make-up products. 

“You really should buy it!” Maureen is saying excitedly, pointing at the mesh crop top with long sleeves. “It would look so good on you, Pansy, with the fake leather pants.” 

“I dunno.” She looks at the mesh. It looks really cool, but like, she would need to wear a bra, and apart from sports tops she can’t remember last time she wore a bra—she doesn’t even know if she still has one in some random drawer— 

“Oh look, it’s Hermione!” Maureen says loudly, waving at Granger. 

But of course Maureen would be loud about it. She had been nagging Pansy about the Gryffindor for the long, excruciating weeks since they met. She asked about how it used to be in school and if Pansy finds her terribly attractive now—to which Pansy lied with a firm no, but deep down she kind of finds Granger rather dashing—like in a sweet, hot-nerd kind of way. 

It’s a bit confusing, really. 

Granger, the poor thing, startles a bit as Maureen waves at her, and comes closer with a bland smile. “Hi.”

“Hey, Granger.” Pansy nods awkwardly. She hates it, the nerves, the knowledge that now they know where the other moves around in the city... makes her too aware of the past, of the obvious fancy doctor career Granger has, while Pansy— 

Well, Pansy doesn’t really wanna think about it. 

“Hermione, help me out, pet,” Maureen is already babbling at her, and Pansy takes a moment to actually look at Granger. 

She looks tired; under her round tortoise specs, Pansy can see the faint bruises of sleepless nights, how just below her eyes, the skin is gently purplish. Her hair is pulled into a bun at the back of her head, and she’s wearing a cable-knit black woollen pullover. She looks completely out of place, nodding at whatever Maureen is gushing at her, smiling politely but tensely, sometimes looking up at Pansy and then looking back at Maureen, holding a pack of boring white hair bands in her hands. 

“—don’t you think?” Pansy blinks, staring at Maureen and feeling completely lost. 

“Yes, I think it would look great on Pansy. Compliments the whole—” Granger waves her hand in Pansy’s general direction, blinking fast and staring at Pansy with her brow furrowed “— mean lesbian aesthetic,” she concludes, and Pansy snorts. 

“Exactly!” Maureen cheers, laughing and grabbing the mesh top to add to their trolley, dashing away. 

“Did you just call me a mean lesbian?” Pansy asks, half surprised and half concerned.

Granger grins at her. “Am I wrong?”

“Jesus .” Pansy shakes her head. “I haven’t even broken your heart!” she jokes, and Granger laughs. Like, really laughs. It’s a sucker punch kinda laugh, sounds like it came from the depths of her belly, making her shoulders shake. 

A smile blooms on Pansy’s face, definitely without her permission, and she looks around, a bit embarrassed. 

“I was going to say mean witch , but I thought: first,” Granger lifts one finger, “it would be pretty offensive; second,” another finger goes up, and Pansy notices that her nails are short and unpainted, “I’m never sure with the Statute here in Ireland.” She sighs. “Sorry if I offended you.”

“Nah, it’s fine. I can be a mean lesbian, if you like them better.” Pansy realises what she just said as Granger’s eyebrows go up and she stares at Pansy with very surprised, very large brown eyes. 

“Did you just hit on me?”

Pansy is sure her own face is blushing ridiculously fast, which is very unfortunate. Pansy is notorious for being the mean lesbian, the fuck-and-run kinda lesbian, and she doesn’t mind it. She just hates catching feelings and everytime it starts happening, she runs away. But right now—making a joke with Granger and kinda hitting on her—she feels different, so out of place and inadequate. 

She is so out of her depth here... Pansy presses a hand against her left eye and peeks at Granger with her right. 

“Maybe?” she asks. “Did it work?” She scrunches up her nose; this is so embarrassing. But maybe it did work, because Granger licks her lips and opens her mouth, then closes it again and laughs nervously. 

“A little?” Granger says, squinting, a confused smile gracing her face. Jesus, she is so cute. Pansy’s heart jumpstarts inside her chest. “Only, I kinda have a girlfriend. But like, you look great, Parkinson,” she says, nodding many times for emphasis. “That mesh top is going to look amazing.”

“Thanks, I think?” 

They laugh awkwardly and Pansy wants to die. Okay, so Hermione Granger has a girlfriend. Hermione Granger is a cute nerd lesbian with nice tits and she lives in Limerick. What the bloody hell?

“I’m sorry for bullying you at school,” Pansy blurts out of nowhere and pales at her own words. They were on such a great path. 

Hermione seems to sober up at that, and her face goes a bit stony first, then she sighs and nods once, firmly. 

“It’s been a long time,” she mutters, looking over Pansy’s shoulder. “I’ve put that past behind me long ago...”

“I changed, and I see very clearly now how shitty I was,” Pansy says anyway, because now that she started, she might as well do it properly. “I’m really sorry.”

“Thanks, Pansy,” Granger smiles tightly. “I’m sorry about your art studio.”

Pansy’s fingers curl around her purse so tightly that her knuckles go white. She doesn’t really talk about this sober—she prefers to pretend it never happened in her daily life. Even after she saw Granger at the hospital, she had been playing herself by trying not to think too much about it. 

So, she only nods, her lips pressed in a thin line. Something inside her smarts with longing, a sad kind of shame, a wound that still stings when prodded. 

“Right, I’ll go find Maureen now. See you around.”

After the war, Pansy went abroad to study painting at the Amsterdam Magical Fine Arts School. She spent three years pretending the war didn’t leave a scar on her reputation. She tried to pretend that everything that happened wasn’t really a big deal. 

She was still proud and naive and hurt. Hurt because Draco went on with his life in a very weird way: he took his year of house arrest seriously and studied for his NEWTs, did some community service; once the year was over, he didn’t want to mix with other Slytherins anymore. 

It hurt pretty badly, because truth be told, Pansy didn’t grow up in a prejudiced family. On the contrary, both her parents were Healers at St Mungo’s and took a neutral stance throughout the war; they abhorred the cruelty, and were shocked at the state some patients arrived in. They had sworn their Hippocratic Oath—to do no harm, to cure and heal, to protect at all costs. But Pansy—well, Pansy really only wanted to fit in, to feel special and seen, after growing up with parents that doted on her but had very little time to spend with their daughter. 

She spent most of her childhood between her Grandmother Parkinson’s house in wizarding London and long summer vacations in her Nan Peig's house in North Tipperary. And even though the Parkinson family was very much into the old ways of pure-blood supremacy, her dad had never shared their views. 

At Hogwarts, though, Pansy felt like she could lead, that she could be the princess of Slytherin and thrive. And so, she fell into it like a moth lured to the flame: she imagined her life as the future Mrs Malfoy and fell in love with the idea. She ate up all the pure-blood shit Draco talked about and she wondered how far they could go together. 

She fell in love with the Death Eater boy and the promises of future glory. 

But it was all a lie. The things she believed were a lie; people were killed using those blatant lies and she spat those words at such a young age, believing in it.

Truth be told, Pansy never paid for her mistakes, for her wrongdoings, for her sins.

When she came back from Amsterdam to London and started painting and selling her art to whoever would pay for it, she thought she could make it. Blaise took her to many parties and they got acquainted with people who actually thought Pansy was talented. She sold many paintings, enough for her to start renting a tiny studio in Diagon Alley. 

She reformed it, organised it, made it hers. Her parents were really proud, even though they still held a bit of a grudge against the fact that she didn’t want to pursue a career in Healing like both of them. 

A few months after the opening of her art studio, someone decided she didn’t deserve a future as she hadn’t atoned for her past and burnt it down to the ground. 

With Pansy’s dreams inside. 

Pansy parks her bike on the curb and walks through the tight pathway in the middle of the plants and bushes. It needs a trim, but everything in her grandmother’s house needs a bit of tinkering, if she’s being honest. The bushes are so high, mixing with the herbs and flowerpots and medium-sized pine trees that look like they should be in a Christmas tree farm. 

She walks the path up to the house. It’s a bit bent, and there’s the constant smoke drifting out from the chimney and up to the sky. This time, the smoke is a rather dashing shade of baby pink, and Pansy smiles. She pushes the door open and walks inside to be welcomed by a black cat with three fluorescent yellow eyes. 

“Hello, Agda,” she whispers, crouching to press her hands on its shiny black fur. “Where’s Nana Peig?” The cat purrs at her and butts its little head against her palms. Pansy scratches softly over the cat’s flanks.

She finds her grandmother doubled over the cauldron boiling in the fireplace in the massive kitchen, as always. She can’t really remember a time her Nana wasn’t crouching over the plants and herbs, chopping them, or preparing a potion. 

“Hey, Nan,” she calls out, and watches as her grandmother Peig almost knocks her head on the mantelpiece. She’s wearing her customary hat—it’s deep green, small and its point is bent to the left—and her white hair curls around her ears. “You need a haircut,” Pansy points out once her grandmother finally stands and gains balance, dangerously close to the fire. 

“I wasn’t expecting you today!” 

Pansy frowns. “But it’s Sunday.” 

“Oh, Merlin, I completely lost track of time!” Her voice is getting hoarse with age—and probably the pipe, as well—but Pansy only smiles. “You look good, Pansy!”

“You too, Nan.” She walks around the messy kitchen and sits on a high stool by the counter. “How have you been?”

“Ah, you know...” Nan trails off. She’s also getting a bit more careless with the house; there are herbs and plants half-cut on the countertop, and a basketful of clean clothes thrown messily on the kitchen table, after she probably finished drying it. An easy spell would make it fold nicely, but apparently, her grandmother is not all that worried about it. “This damned potion is coming out wrong. It’s the third batch!”

Pansy frowns, looking at the cauldron. Her grandmother supplies potions to many apothecaries in Ireland. The colour of the potion and the fumes seem right, the bubbles boiling just that perfect way her grandmother always did. 

“Why is it wrong?”

“Well, it doesn't smell like your grandfather anymore,” she replies with a furrow. Her eyes twinkle gently, the lens of her eyes starting to look a tad more cloudy than they used to—maybe Pansy should take her for a check-up soon. 

“What does it smell like, Nan?”

Her grandmother sighs, hands on her hips, thin lips curling with a bit of thoughtfulness. “Smells like you, and your mam, and a bit like Agda.” She laughs at that. “I’m such an old witch!”

Pansy smiles, watching how her round belly shakes with laughter while she dries the corner of her eyes. 

“Guess love can smell differently at the different stages of life,” Pansy offers fondly. 

Peig throws her hands up. “Look at my granddaughter, Agda, being all wise to me.” She peeps at the cat who now curls around her legs. 

The wrinkles around her eyes are very pronounced as she smiles at Pansy; they tell many stories and they make Pansy think of summers growing up in this house while her parents were working at St Mungo’s. 

“I’ll make you tea,” Peig decides, patting gently at Pansy’s cheeks.

“And I’ll cut your hair,” Pansy announces flippantly and Peig laughs. 

“What does it smell like for you, petal?” her Nan asks, while they have tea on the back porch.  

Paint. The answer is there, on the tip of her tongue, but Pansy swallows the words with a sip of scalding tea. The tea burns her tongue and the sadness stings her eyes. She only concedes sharing the other scents:

“Rain, potion fumes, tobacco... old books,” she adds, hesitantly. That’s new. 

“I see...” Peig watches her with those shiny eyes and Pansy blushes under her stare. “Old...books? That’s new...” Trust her nana to highlight it. “Never took you for a bookworm,” she adds knowingly. 

Pansy shrugs, her head spinning a bit.

“Ohh, can I read your tarot cards?” Peig asks excitedly. 

“Nope,” Pansy replies, already getting her scissors from the pouch she takes with her more often than not. 

“But it would be so fun, Pansy!”

“You’re terrible at Divination, Nan.”

Peig tuts, unimpressed, and allows Pansy to manoeuvre her around in the chair, take off her hat and start weaving her fingers over the white, fluffy hair. 

They talk about Pansy’s work, about her parents, about Peig’s neighbours. It's as easy-going as ever. There’s something very calming in their ritual of getting together and spending most Sunday afternoons in each other’s company. It’s soothing even. 

After, when the haircut is done and Pansy has folded the clothes in the basket the Muggle way, and promised her Nan that her potion is remarkable as always, Peig takes the teacups from the table before shooing Pansy away. 

“You know, Pansy,” she starts, voice a bit grave, eyes very serious, fixed on one of the teacups, where the leaves have settled on the bottom of it. “I’m actually terrible at tarot reading, but I will tell you just the one thing about your tea leaves, the only time I’ll do so in your life. So, listen to me carefully: you might think that closing a door is going to lock your pain away, that it will keep you safe. But life is much more than repressing things that bring you bad memories, that scare you. Life is to be lived, so you should start opening those doors.” She stares at Pansy with those wonderfully wise eyes and Pansy feels her throat constrict. “In your own time, of course, petal.”

“Thanks, Nan,” she whispers, hugging her close, voice muffled against her shoulder. “You’re the best.”

This is getting ridiculous. It’s all Pansy can think as she presses the young busty Brazilian face first into the bathroom mirror wall, lips against the nape of her neck, drinking up the sounds the girl is making, these small, breathy moans. The girl said she was straight half an hour ago, and now, Pansy is pretty sure once she manages to finish sliding her stockings down her thighs, she will be soaking wet.

But this is not what is getting ridiculous; actually, the girl is super hot and sweet and teasing. Damn, this is rather a turn-on, the way the girl slurs some very explicit shit with her broken English, while thrusting her hips back once Pansy manages to move her thong to the side and check—

Yeah, yeah pretty wet. House points for Slytherin, she thinks tipsily.

“Oh,” the girl cries, as Pansy palms her slick lips and the nub of her clit. “Oh this—wow. Wow…”

Pansy smiles against her sweaty neck, a bit proud of herself, and kisses the skin there. She is such a sucker for surprised ‘straight’ girls. She shouldn’t be; she is indeed such a mean lesbian—

“Oh fuck, yeah—please just—can you—” 

“Easy...” she mutters, fingers sliding in just so.

“Oh, you’re mean,” the girl laughs, breath fogging the mirror. Pansy watches her big round breasts in their reflection. They look hot as fuck. Pansy curls her fingers around one. She feels for a nipple and pulls and the girl mewls. 

“You like mean...” Pansy whispers, darting a tongue out to lick the sweat from her neck and, not really that surprisingly, she has another woman in her mind’s eye as she plays with those big tits and fingers the girl into a gasping, wet-hot mess. “You like it mean,” she repeats, fingers speeding up, thumb on her clit. 

Pansy can't hear what the girl says before they kiss messily over her shoulder, because in her head, it's Granger, and this is such a turn on. Granger’s big breasts and her wet pussy and—gods, this is truly ridiculous. 

She can’t believe she’s fucking a terribly hot girl while thinking about Hermione Fucking Granger. But that’s what makes the whole experience even hotter. 

“Ah—” the girl’s broken gasp brings her back to the stuffy bathroom and the situation, literally, at hand.  “You’re so good.”

Pansy smirks, staring at the reflection of those bright dark eyes and her red-lippy mouth, and her very not-Granger face, and rubs the girl’s clit. 

“Yeah, I am.” Pansy’s own short hair is messy and she looks turned on and high. It’s a good look on her. “Let’s make you come now, love.”

But the girl just starts shaking and nodding under her hands, and it’s fucking hot. 

Pansy balances herself on the topmost step of the stairs. A hot cuppa cradled in her hands, feet planted on the carpet. She stares at the door with intention. It’s been years now since she last opened it, but Nan Peig's words touched something inside her. 

A deep, sad yearning. 

Something she has been fighting for way too long. She misses it—the magic, the art, the way the paint on the brush caressed the canvas. They way it made her feel a little high and a little giddy. 

Long brushstrokes, peppered with sharp, smaller ones. The way shapes and shades started forming images and contours and stories... 

She steps closer, heart beating fast as her hand touches the door handle. She turns it, feeling her eyes sting and her breath quicken. 

With a small creak, the door opens, just a tiny little bit, just enough to fit a finger between the frame and the door. She steps back, feeling cold sweat break all over her skin, feeling her eyes swim with salty tears. The air around her presses in, smothering her. 

She watches through the crack in the door now, lets her breathing go back to normal, trying to fight the memories of fire and smoke and burns and shame. 

Her biggest failure hides behind that door. But she manages to open it. 

Pansy takes another step back. 

“You can do it,” she murmurs to herself. “You’re 30, you’re old enough to let it open,” she tells herself. Even with her stomach in knots and her heart beating fast, she doesn’t move to close it again. 

She turns around and walks down the stairs. 

She leaves the door open. 

It feels like something massive.

Pansy stares at the mirror and fingers her hair with a bit of wax. It’s starting to grow longer again and next week she will need a trim. She likes it a bit messy, really short on the back and a bit longer around her face. She doesn’t go for bangs anymore. She doesn’t go for many things that she used to like when she was a teenager. 

Rob is chatting animatedly with his latest client as she pays, after which they can finally close up and go home, when Granger appears at the door. 

“Hey,” she says and Pansy watches in the mirror as she comes in, as the sign outside still shows them as OPEN. “I didn’t know you work here,” she sounds surprised, pushing her glasses up to the messy curls of her hair; this time, they’re finally loose, almost 4 inches down her shoulder. 

“Yep.”

“Are you still open? I could really, really use a haircut today,” Hermione presses on. Something in those lovely, large brown eyes does it. Pansy feels a bit of a tiny tingling in the centre of her chest. 

“‘Course,” she mumbles, throwing a look at Rob as he rolls his eyes dramatically. She pushes a chair out of the way, walking closer to Granger. “Are you okay?” The words are out of her mouth even before she properly thought them, her hand on Granger’s arm over her heavy woollen coat. 

The smile is forced and tense, and Pansy knows better than to push. 

“Come,” she prompts, leading Granger to the hair-washing station. “Let’s get you wet,” she whispers with a smirk, and Granger smiles a bit more at that. 

They chat a bit and Pansy thinks Granger is going to fall asleep while she washes her hair. She relaxes into the chair, letting Pansy’s fingers soothe her. Pansy scrubs and massages, letting her imagination run a little wild there while carding through Granger’s hair, caressing the base of her neck, the crown of her skull. 

Rob leaves them alone after a few minutes and Pansy tries to control her heartbeat because this is really stupid. Fantasising about her school nemesis like a girly rom-com. She grazes the blunt of her nails against Granger’s scalp and the woman hums contently with her eyes closed. Pansy is such a perv, really.  

She wishes she could wash Hermione Granger’s hair in the tub back at her apartment. She licks her lips and sets to towelling Granger’s hair dry.

Pansy arranges the chair in front of the mirror for Granger to sit and starts untangling the long curls with her fingers. 

“I would never have guessed you’re a hairdresser.” Granger sounds surprised. 

“And why’s that?”

Granger scrunches up her nose. She does that a lot, along with the brow furrowing.

“Too posh for that?” Hermione tries, squinting with an embarrassed expression. 

“I would probably agree with you if I were sixteen.” Pansy hums. “I’ve always been good with my hands, though...”

Granger snorts at that. 

“Was that an innuendo?”

Pansy lets out a shaky breath, her cheeks heating up. 

“I’ve never got any complaints about my hands’ abilities, no. So, if it tickles your fancy, you can take the double meaning you're craving for.”

Granger rolls her eyes, biting her lip softly.

“Working with my hands calms me,” Pansy concedes and watches as those large round eyes watch her in the mirror.

Pansy starts with the scissors at the back, making Granger look down slightly, and cuts it with care, just two inches. Then, she will most definitely use the razor to add volume in a way that will help the curls settle nicely, instead of just lying messily and shapeless. 

“How long have you been living here?” Granger’s voice is a bit muffled. 

“Five years.”

“Oh, since the—” Granger stops herself mid-sentence. “Sorry, I guess you don’t wanna talk about this.”

“You’re right, since the fire.”

They fall silent again and Pansy presses her lips together, scissors working, mind buzzing a bit. 

“I’m really sorry,” Granger sighs. “I just want to say it was horrible. Harry told me about it back then...”

“That’s really sweet of you,” Pansy replies quietly, working fast on the curls, moving Granger’s head back up and starting on the sides. 

“You didn’t deserve that,” Granger says firmly. “I mean, you were a bit of a shit when we were at school. But we were so young, and like Draco, you were raised to believe that kind of nonsen-”

Pansy needs to take a deep breath. She puts the scissors down and turns the chair around so she can look at Granger’s adorable face. She has freckles on her skin, very delicate ones—nothing like the Weasleys, it’s just a few that pepper her nose and a few on her cheeks. 

“Look, Granger, I’m aware you know my parents. They work at St Mungo’s. My mam teaches at the Healing Academy. You probably did enough time in her classes to know that they did not raise me like that. They were actually pretty neutral during the war. They saved many lives, and they never taught me that kind of shite.”

Her heart is beating fast as she watches the many feelings passing in Granger’s eyes. Her face is very expressive, as if she doesn’t know how to control it. 

“Why, then?” Granger’s voice is slightly gravelly, as if the back of her throat is hurting, and Pansy lets her eyes fall to the woman’s neck, to the soft curve just below her jaw.

“Because I was a shitty girl,” she admits heavily. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m not evil, but I wasn’t very good, either. I wanted to feel appreciated, and back then, it meant being the perfect girl for Draco Malfoy. It made me feel better than others, and I wanted to believe in that. I just wanted to believe that I was special.” 

Confessing it aloud for the first time ever feels really painful. It hurts to say it, but it is the truth, and surprisingly enough Pansy enjoys living a truthful life.

Life is such a rollercoaster. When she thinks she’s healing, here comes life and puts the recipient of all her bullying years in front of her, looking soft and vulnerable, good enough to eat, furrowing her brow in confusion.

“In other words,” Pansy says, voice husky with emotion. “As Maureen would say it the Muggle way: I fell in love with the neo-Nazi, and I played the part.”

Granger gasps, eyes going round. 

“You told her that?”

“My friends know I was a shitty person, Granger. I told them the closest version to the truth as I could, considering the Statute.” 

Hermione nods, blinking slowly. 

“Now,” Pansy leans forward, putting both her hands on the arms of the chair, looking really closely at Granger's lovely face. “I’m giving you a fringe. You will be the cutest lesbian in town.”

And she is. 

When Pansy finishes, Granger’s hair is amazing—the curls frame her face, the fringe falls softly over her eyebrows and softens her features even more. She looks adorable in a way she didn’t back at school. 

“I really like it,” Hermione says to the mirror, and Pansy smiles. “I needed it.” 

“Why’s that?”

“Lisa and I had a fight last week. We broke up,” she says quietly. 

“Oh, I’m sorry.” Pansy offers, not really feeling it, mainly because inside her belly, a flock of birds start flying. Maybe it is hope, or lust, or maybe they just had a really intense and emotional moment. 

“It’s fine, she didn’t agree to me moving here in the first place. I knew it could go wrong.”

“I see.” Pansy cleans up and starts entering the transaction into the till. 

“How much was it?”

“On the house,” she chirps happily. “You can buy me a pint if you like, though.” She smiles at Granger and their eyes meet with a sort of intensity that makes Pansy feel slightly excited about how the night could end. 

Is she allowed to fantasise about messing up the hair she just cleaned up nicely? To have those lovely curls against the soft of her pillow, getting messier and messier as the night goes on? She licks her lips, feeling the tension, enjoying it, letting it fester inside her with a mix of fondness and lust. 

“You know what, Pansy, I could really use a drink. Why not?”

Pansy smiles, slow and sensual, as she always does to the girls she hits on during drunken nights. 

“It’s a date, then,” she announces, before going to flick the lights off.

“How are you adjusting to Limerick?” Pansy asks, taking a sip of her pint and watching Hermione sigh after tasting her Guinness. 

“You know...” She exhales heavily, hand gesturing at the window, and Pansy actually has no clue. She watches Granger with amusement. “Argh, it’s so damp...honestly Pansy, don’t start laughing!” But Pansy snorts anyway, rolling her eyes. 

“The whiplash of the Atlantic...”

“See, even in London it was a bit sunnier.” Granger takes a long sip, white foam smearing her lips, and she licks it off. “And the city is just so boring...”

Pansy laughs. When she had just moved in, she didn’t feel any of this, probably because she was still grieving her studio, feeling ashamed and traumatised. She focused on enjoying her time with her Nan up in Tipperary and slowly reforming the flat she bought with her small inheritance after her grandfather’s death. But gradually, the boredom started—not that many places to go, not that many restaurants to try. After London and her years in Amsterdam studying art, it was a bit of a culture shock. 

“You will get used to it. You just need to find the spots you really like in the city, and if you have a car, you can go on roadtrips. Ireland is truly beautiful.”

And it is. Pansy loves it here. She loves to take her bike to the sea, or to spend St Patrick’s in the mass of tourists getting smashed in Galway, or to go down to Cork when she has a day off and just enjoy the city there, or up to Wicklow, where the green is so deep and vast and the mountains surround Glendalough in such a way that takes her breath away. Or to stand on the rocky, dizzying side of the Cliffs of Moher...

“I don’t have many days off...” Granger grunts. “I love my work, but it’s intense.”

Pansy nods in understanding; she did grow up in a house full of Healers, after all. 

“I can show you around the city, if you like.”

Granger watches her, narrowing her eyes a bit. 

“I don't know if I trust your judgement, Pansy.” She smirks a bit and looks up. “Look where you brought me: a pub called Red Hen with a massive wooden horse hanging over our table.”

Pansy smiles at that, looking up as well to the rather massive horse hanging from the ceiling. It’s a bit of a joke, but she loves sitting at this table. 

“Why would you bring me to sit under this horrendously huge horse dick?” Granger asks playfully and Pansy laughs, shoulders shaking with it. 

“Maureen works here, I have a nice discount on the pints,” she shrugs, a smile still on her lips. 

Granger sighs and sits back, letting her shoulders down. 

“Why did you move here?” Pansy finds herself asking. “I mean, if that’s okay to ask—”

“Sure.” She puts the pint down and furrows her brow, but this time Pansy can’t see it properly, the fringe hiding most of it. “I really loved working at St Mungo’s. You see, I was properly trained to be a Healer, not a Muggle physician, but the last few years were a bit chaotic. Like, when the Prophet got word of me and Lisa, I would have reporters following me around all the time. Then it died down a bit, but started again when I saved a patient’s life.” She sighs, pressing her elbow to the table and cradling her chin in her palm. “It’s my work; I heal people, I save people etcetera, but it all ends up in the Prophet and then a lot of people start showing up at St Mungo’s wanting to be treated by me, even though it’s not my shift, or my specialty.”

She looks very tired while she says this, her eyelids drooping heavily, her cheeks slightly flushed in the warmth of the pub. 

“It gets a bit overwhelming, because the other Healers get stressed, and the reception desk has to send the ones faking an injury or disease back home, and it becomes very messy. It’s prejudicial to the work, to the hospital, to everyone working there, and the real patients,” she explains. She takes a long sip of her Guinness and sets the pint on the coaster, staring at it tiredly. She looks a bit sad about it. “I took a leave of absence for a year, enrolled in an Academy to extend my studies into the Muggle world. It was fun enough, I loved my practice at the Muggle hospital, it all felt a bit like my childhood again, so it wasn’t bad...” She blinks and looks up at Pansy. 

Granger looks vulnerable, open, as if she is showing Pansy a side of her that she doesn’t tend to show others. Pansy can remember quite vividly how every time she saw Granger back in the wizarding world, she looked so confident and strong, very sure of herself, one stride away from conquering the world. 

“I’m not good with fame. I never wanted it, you know...” 

Pansy smiles. She recalls all those times Hermione know-it-all Granger raised her hand to reply to a question. Book-smart and yearning for knowledge. She recalls feeling envy and disgust, thinking the Gryffindor only wanted to show off. But the Granger in front of her wants to hide and disappear, only wants to live her life and do her job in peace. 

“I started working at a hospital in England, but someone spotted me, and suddenly magical wearing the most atrocious clothes started popping in to try and get an appointment with Healer Granger,” she snorts. “Harry had to pull some strings, and people had to be Obliviated, so I thought: I have to leave England . And Scotland was still too on the nose, with Hogwarts and whatnot. The Republic of Ireland is not a fan of the whole war, they didn’t want to get much involved with the UK...”

“And why Limerick?”

Granger laughs, closing her eyes and shaking her head, looking a bit flushed and adorable. 

“You will laugh.”

“Oh,” Pansy smiles at her. “Yes, I will.”

Granger throws a soiled paper napkin at her, missing her by large.

“I closed my eyes and pointed at a place on the map. And here I am.”

Pansy waits. 

Granger blinks at her. 

“You did not!”

Granger starts laughing. “I did too.”

“Oh my god, Granger.”

She smiles sheepishly, takes another sip of her Guinness and says, “C’mon, you can call me Hermione.”

Pansy gets a heady feeling, her stomach fluttering a bit in a way that feels so childish and stupid that she hopes she’s not blushing. 

“Alright, Hermione ,” she gives in. “Thanks for telling me your story.”

Hermione shrugs. “I dunno if I can ask about why you moved here...”

Pansy sobers up a bit at that. It’s not like she wouldn’t tell Hermione her story, it’s just that she’s feeling cosy and rather soft in the warmth of the pub, and it’s already nighttime and she doesn’t really wanna go there so close to her bedtime. 

“You can,” she says, though. “My Nan lives in North Tipperary, that’s why I chose here. I didn’t want to live with her, but I wanted to be close. The rest of the reasons are really rather dark and I would prefer telling you about it another time, if that’s alright.”

Hermione nods, easy-going and gentle. They fall into a comfortable silence. 

“Do you see your Nan often?” she asks. 

“Yeah.” Pansy brightens up. “She’s really cool, I visit her most Sunday afternoons. Sometimes, I go with her to Nenagh. They have a coven there, and they have all these old-as-time rituals. You can come someday, if you want.”

“I’d love that,” Hermione replies with a big smile and Pansy feels her heart speed up a bit. 

“Brilliant.”

It’s the second time they go out. Pansy watches as Hermione talks. She gesticulates with her hands and Pansy is not sure if she used to do that back in school, she can’t remember. It’s been so many years now. She doesn’t look too tired tonight as they sit in the Thai restaurant over spicy bowls of curry. They talk about old acquaintances. 

“Harry is doing great,” Hermione says with a sigh. “As great as wanderers can do, I mean. Last chat we had a few weeks ago, he was on his way to Bhutan, searching for some old magical artefact from Grindelwald's time...”

“Oh,” Pansy feels a deep pang in her chest. 

“Hmm?”

“Draco is in Bhutan, I think, doing some soul-searching or some shite,” she offers. Hermione has been nothing but open and honest, so she wants to be able to do the same. 

“Are you still in touch with him?” Hermione asks in a light voice, as if sensing the need to tread carefully. Pansy smiles sadly. 

“Not really, he cut ties with most of his old friends. Clean slate, Tabula rasa, whatever. I think he wanted to forget our past.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” 

“I’m only really in touch with Blaise,” Pansy says. She doesn’t want Hermione to pity her for not staying friends with Draco; it would just compound the pain. 

“Oh, Zabini, I remember him.”

They talk about Blaise. Then they talk about Lisa. Turns out Hermione’s Lisa is Lisa Turpin from Hogwarts and Pansy takes an instant dislike to her. The conversation is a bit dry, as if they’re touching difficult topics as Hermione mentions how they are still talking but she doesn’t know how to make things work with her again. 

“I don’t really want to make the effort,” Hermione admits with a sigh. “We were together for almost five years, and it wasn’t easy. Not with the fame, not with me trying to dissociate from the magical world in order to follow my career. She never truly understood it,” she says, taking a long sip of beer. “My career is more of a calling; it’s important to me and even though she understands that, and she takes her own career very seriously, she doesn’t want to live far from magical Britain, or to stop going to magical places altogether. And even though I sometimes go to Diagon Alley or to Ministry events, and charity balls, I don’t want to be surrounded by people who think I’m some kind of... symbol, or heroine. It’s so tiring.”

Pansy nods. She likes to hear Hermione talking about her life and her job. It’s soothing, and she can relate to the need of being far away from the magical world, though for different reasons. 

“Understandable,” she says. “I can relate to wanting to be as far as possible from magical Britain.”

Hermione smiles sadly. They pay for their dinner and walk towards the docks to watch the Shannon. The river is agitated, running up into the country, which means the high tide of the ocean is fighting the natural course of the river. Pansy is sure if she tasted the waters it would be salty.

They sit at a bench and pull their coats tight against the wind.

“I noticed you don’t use magic anymore, at least I haven’t seen you with your wand...” Hermione whispers, looking around, as she discreetly mutters a Warming Charm around them.

“Thanks. You’re right, I don’t.” Pansy concedes, feeling Hermione’s magic wrapping around her and warming her up. “I haven’t used much magic since I moved to Limerick.”

“Why is that?”

Pansy takes a long breath and fishes a cigarette out of her pocket, holds it in her fingers, but doesn’t light it. 

“It wasn’t intentional at the beginning,” she tells her honestly. Pansy is tired of tiptoeing around the topic. And the warmth of Hermione’s magic, the view of the city at night, and her full belly make her calm enough to tell the truth. “After—” she takes a calming breath. “After the fire, I was scared. I couldn’t go out in the magical world. I had panic attacks. I feared for my life, I felt guilty and ashamed.”

She doesn’t look at Hermione, keeping her eyes focused on the tumultuous waters of the Shannon, and it grounds her to the present. She can feel the woman’s attention on her. 

“I felt like they burned my studio because I did not pay for my allegiance in the war.”

“You were never a Death Eater,” Hermione mutters, voice heavy. 

“I wasn't. But I was friends with Draco, Vince and Greg. I was very vocal about what I thought. I said in front of the whole school body that we should hand Harry Potter over to the Dark Lord.”

Her heart beats fast. She thinks for a moment that she will burst into tears or maybe have a panic attack. But she breathes, and nothing happens. 

“I know.” 

And it’s gentle, the way Hermione offers the words, as if she never forgot who Pansy Parkinson was back then. It’s surprisingly warm to hear it.

“After moving to Ireland, I thought that maybe it was time to repent. Atone for my sins and all that. I thought, if I had done that before, the fire would not have happened, then. I put my wand in my nightstand drawer and it sits there to this day. It’s a matter of pride now, my own penance for the things I believed as a teenager.”

She sees the movement of Hermione nodding, and Pansy looks at her, her furrowed brow, her pensive expression, how her jaw looks tense as she bites the inside of her cheek. 

“It sounds like a very long penance, Pansy,” Hermione finally says, large brown eyes looking at Pansy with such depth that it catches her by surprise. 

“I’m fine,” she whispers, but her voice sounds watery and tight to her own ears. 

Hermione smiles gently, and presses her hand to Pansy’s shoulder. 

“You are indeed.”

Pansy shivers and presses her lips together, takes another calming breath. She feels like crying. She clears her throat and sighs, looking back at the wavy river. 

“Would you like a pint before I walk you home?” Hermione asks tentatively, nodding to The Establishment pub just across the road. 

“Yes, please.”

Pansy walks up the stairs with bare feet and stops in front of the slightly open door. She has been dreaming of painting lately, the weight of the brush a phantom memory in her palm when she wakes up.

It’s happened three times this week. The first time was after her night out with Hermione. She dreamed of pastel colours splashed on the background of the canvas and large brown eyes painted on top of it. 

She stares at the door and takes a deep breath. Pansy dreamed again last night, of painting in the attic, with the windows wide open and the cold morning light coming in, touching her with a wisp of cold wind. It felt so real she woke up with tears in her eyes. 

She misses it badly. The way she used to take a long, deep breath, exhaling slowly, before taking the brush, before choosing her colours, before surrendering herself to the flow and rendering consciousness to creation. Letting it all go. 

Let it go. 

Pansy steps closer and presses her hand to the door, feeling its texture, feeling its weight as she pushes her palm against it softly, gently. It’s like a wild animal; she wants to go in and face it, but she’s scared of how she’s going to react. How memory will stab her this time, how panic will dig its pointy claws into her heart. 

She gasps. Emotion makes her tremble. The door opens slowly, not all the way though. The window shutters are closed and it’s dark inside. She can’t move for a moment and her chest constricts, a lump forms in her throat and she closes her eyes tight.

It used to be such a calming experience, and an exhilarating one; it was better than getting drunk or getting high. It was a holy experience, it was her most favourite moment: to feel how her creativity and her magic would intertwine in order to create images and colours and feelings on the canvas. 

How has she been surviving without it?

How can she bypass the panic and the open door and face it?

When will she feel that she has paid enough for her mistakes, and let go?

She doesn’t linger there. 

Pansy is tipsy. She promised herself she wouldn’t drink much tonight, but she’s shit at being responsible. She presses her hands to the lip of the bar counter; NANCY’s is packed and getting more crowded by the minute. Pansy watches Maureen flirt with some boy who’s much younger than her. Well, at least she stopped texting the fuckboy, so Pansy guesses this one is her next prey. 

“Maureeeeen!” she calls out. 

She left Hermione at their table with Rob and Will, chatting away. It’s the fifth time they’ve gone out together. Pansy couldn’t stop thinking about it in the days between, since the last time they grabbed a pint at The Locke Bar, colourful lights hanging over the tables with a view to the river and heaters buzzing gently to try and protect them from the cold winds, while the Irish dancers did a River dance that made Hermione clap and laugh delightedly. 

Pansy spent five days replaying every scene, every detail of Hermione’s fond smile while she listened to Pansy talking about her friends and Nan. 

Her heart beats a bit too fast inside her chest tonight. She worked out her insecurities with a lot of pushing from Maureen—and stupid small smirks from Rob—and asked if Hermione wanted to go out this weekend with Pansy’s friends. 

Hermione said yes.

So the night is looking rather great, because it’s a Saturday and neither of them have to work the next morning. Maureen comes walking her way, ditching the younger man, who goes back to his pack of stupid friends, and joins Pansy at the bar. 

“What? You’re looking antsy.”

“Sod off,” Pansy huffs, but she’s already tipsy. She rolls her eyes and drops her forehead against her hand on the bar. “I’m so nervous.”

She feels stupid. This whole thing is rather stupid. She knew it from the beginning. She knew from day one that she was getting slightly obsessed, but Hermione is so cute, and nice, and they can talk about things Pansy can never talk about with her Muggle friends.

“Jesus Christ,” Maureen barks. “You’re such a teenager...”

“I’m a terrible adult.”

“That too,” Maureen agrees. 

“Hey!” Pansy straightens, punching her friend's arm playfully. “You’re supposed to cheer me up!”

Maureen stares at her. Her dark makeup makes her blue eyes pop out incredibly; Pansy did her makeup while they had G&Ts and Pansy told her for the seventh time about how Hermione insisted on walking Pansy home to Wolfe Tone Street after their dinner date. How Hermione smiled softly when Pansy invited her in for tea, then just shook her head slowly, eyes heavy-lidded with tiredness and alcohol and maybe something else, staring at Pansy’s mouth. 

The tension was so heavy it was palpable. Hermione staring at her mouth made her insides dance. It emboldened her. Pansy was trying really hard to play nice, to respect Hermione and her recent breakup, to not press or push. She was growing steadily attached to the idea of having Hermione in her life again, even as a tentative friend, and she really didn’t want to mess it up with sex. 

But honestly, all Pansy wanted that night was to bring Hermione closer and kiss the hell out of her, to muss the hair she had styled a few weeks before with her own fingers. She wanted to kiss her neck and get ahold of those incredible tits. 

She cleared her throat and Hermione looked back at her eyes, realising she had been staring at Pansy’s mouth. “Oh, it’s late,” she muttered quietly. 

“You better go now before you tempt my mean-lesbian instincts,” Pansy said and then tsked. She wasn’t meant to say those words at all. She felt her face get hot as Hermione bit her lip. 

“Are you offering?” Hermione asked around a playful smirk.

Pansy pressed the tip of her tongue against her bottom lip, watching Hermione watch her with curiosity. 

“I could be...”

Then, Hermione laughed. 

“Oh my god, you are hitting on me!”

Pansy blushed, and took a step back, just for security measures. 

“I’m trying to tone it down,” she said, fishing a cigarette from her back pocket. If she had something in her mouth, she’d be safe from trying to kiss Granger unadvisedly. 

Hermione snickered. “I had a really great time tonight,” she offered, leaning against the side of the door.

“Mmm.” Pansy felt a bit high with that, a bit too bold. “You sure you don’t want to come in?”

Hermione pressed her lips together in a tight smile. “Too soon...”

“Well, we can just have tea, you know, it’s not like I’m gonna jump you or anything,” Pansy said innocently.

Hermione laughed again, shaking her head slowly, eyes dancing with something a bit too brave and a bit too heated. 

“I’m not sure I could keep my hands to myself, Pansy.”

Fuck. Fuck, so Granger was into her as well, it wasn’t just Pansy getting ideas. It was Hermione Granger on her doorstep saying she couldn’t trust herself to keep her hands off Pansy.

“ Oh .” She smirked, taking a drag of her fag and licking her lips. “Alright then, take your time. There will always be a cup of tea with your name on it at my place...” She took a step closer. “Whenever you’re ready,” she whispered dangerously slowly, crowding Hermione a bit against the door. “If you want to, obviously—”

“You are such a flirt, Pansy Parkinson!” Hermione chastised. 

They shared a laugh. “That I am,” Pansy agreed, and against all good reasoning she pressed her lips to the corner of Hermione’s mouth then stepped back, biting her bottom lip. “I had fun tonight too, maybe we could do that again?”

“Yeah,” Hermione replied breathily. “Well, you have my phone number.” She took a step towards the street and looked around. “Thanks for tonight.”

And after a wink that looked saucy and promising, she Apparated away.

“Paaansy!” Maureen calls. “Are you even listening to me?”

“No, no, I’m thinking of Hermione.”

“Of course, you are. And you haven’t even shifted her!”

Pansy rolls her eyes.

“I need a glass of water,” she says flippantly. “If I get langers, I will fuck this up.”

“Oh c’mon, Pansy,” Maureen chastises. “The woman is so into you.” 

“She just broke up with her girlfriend after years of being together.”

“Right, nothing a good, dirty shift and drift won’t cure.”

Pansy rolls her eyes. “Maureen...”

“Can we get a glass of water here, please?” Maureen calls for the bartender.

“Thank you.”

“Just let it happen, Pansy, stop overthinking,” she insists. “Whatever it is that happened in the past, with you bullying her, has most definitely faded.”

And it has, right? Pansy looks back at the packed dance floor, and to their small high table in the corner. She watches as Hermione gesticulates to Pansy’s friends and they all laugh. She seems to be having a grand time. 

It’s alright. 

The past is in the past. 

She can have this nice thing for herself. 

“Alright,” she says, feeling it in her heavy heartbeat. “Okay, then,” she pep talks herself as Maureen watches her with a smirk. 

There’s a certain kind of anxiety pressing against her throat, mixed with excitement and desire. She takes a long sip of water, and asks for another round of drinks. 

“Game on, calín ,” Maureen whispers, pressing a shot of Baby Guinness to her hand and Pansy laughs. 

“Game on,” they toast, drink up, and go back to their table. 

They are officially drunk now. That’s all Pansy can think before they all hit the dancefloor and Hermione smiles at her sinfully. She never, ever, in her whole life thought Hermione Granger could be sexy. But here she is, wearing a tight royal blue dress with very, very interesting cleavage. The fabric stretches sinfully around her breasts and hugs her curves in such a way that Pansy thinks she is probably dreaming. 

It’s probably a wet dream, is what she thinks as Hermione spins and presses her back against Pansy’s chest and grinds and laughs, throwing her arms in the air and then around Pansy’s neck. 

With a heavy intake of breath, Pansy goes with the flow, bringing her arms to Hermione’s hips and holding their bodies together. Hermione’s lovely curls brush against her face and Pansy breathes in her scent; something floral and delicate. People are moving around them, and curls of cigarette smoke float in the air into the open ceiling. The crowd is pressing in and Pansy crosses her arms around Hermione’s waist and feels the woman lean against her, her head falling on Pansy’s shoulder, turning her face to the side and brushing her nose against Pansy’s jaw. 

They had been playing a bit of footsie under the table throughout the evening. Hermione had also touched Pansy’s shoulder and elbow and neck, and even held her fingers tightly at different moments of the night. And now, this . Pansy is trying really hard to read between the lines here, but she’s not even sure anymore about what the hell they are doing.

“Hermione...” she warns, feeling the woman breathing against her neck. 

“You smell so good.”

Fuck. 

“So do you,” she confesses, hugging her closer. “How drunk are you?”

At that, Hermione seems to sober up a bit, or to at least realise what she’s doing, because she straightens herself and moves inside the circle of Pansy’s arms in order to face her properly, adjusting her arms around Pansy’s neck. 

They are so close, almost nose to nose, and the music changes to the obvious, ever-constant presence of The Cranberries . It’s “Dreams,” and people all around them are jumping and drunkenly singing at the top of their lungs. It’s a typical Limerick night out; the closing time song will most likely be “Linger,” and Pansy loves it. 

She just bloody loves it, and Hermione is here with her. 

“Very,” Hermione says loudly, their faces so close that Pansy can feel her hot breath against her skin; it smells like stout and cherry from the last shot they took. “Not enough to forget stuff or to regret stuff. But,” she emphasises it with a pause. She blinks a bit and licks her lips, looks at Pansy’s mouth and then up to Pansy’s eyes with intention. 

Pansy presses her open hands to the small of Hermione’s back, feeling the tension build around them, between them. It’s definitely there: this massive electricity, the chemistry they’ve been slowly developing over the last months. She feels like the frequency of it would make lightbulbs explode. She feels one of Hermione’s hands cup the nape of her neck, her fingers moving down to play with the mesh of her top, the one Pansy bought because Hermione said it would look good. Hermione’s gaze on her is determined and heated, looking tantalising under the colourful disco lights. 

“Drunk enough to give into this whole-heartedly,” Hermione finally says, and her hips push closer, breasts pressing against Pansy’s. Her thumb caresses the edge of Pansy’s jaw, drawing it down to her chin, the touch soft and gentle. Then, she brings her thumb to Pansy’s bottom lip, pulling it down while watching with wide eyes, breath quick and jaw slack. 

“You’re killing me here, Granger,” Pansy huffs, lips brushing against Hermione’s thumb, heart beating so fast and erratic that it feels like she took a hit of something potent. 

Hermione smirks, the tip of her tongue touching her teeth. Gorgeous, she is really gorgeous and so bloody sexy. Pansy throws caution to the wind and licks Hermione’s finger before sucking it into her mouth to curl her tongue around it and massage it, before slurping around her thumb as she would love to do to other parts of her body. She feels so bloody turned on that everything around them is but a blur.

“Oh, Parkinson,” Hermione smiles darkly, eyes focused on Pansy’s mouth around her finger. And now, well, Hemrione doesn’t look cute anymore, she looks sweaty-hot and turned on, a bit wild as she presses her thumb against the flat of Pansy’s tongue, her eyes heating up, now heavy-lidded with desire. She pulls out, thumb wetting Pansy’s lip with her own saliva before holding Pansy’s jaw with her wet finger. “We’re in for a treat.”

Pansy’s hands press her even closer and Hermione kisses her hard. The music around them shifts, and “Linger” starts playing. But of course, it would, and Pansy takes a harsh breath in before smiling into Hermione’s mouth and grabbing her curls in a tight fist. 

“Yeah, we are,” she agrees, before deepening the kiss. 

It’s such an adrenaline rush—her whole body feels alight. Pansy doesn’t normally deny herself indulging in charming women at all—she never holds back. She’s actually a “big mean lesbian” because she has a tendency to mess up, to fuck straight girls or girls who are in relationships. But with Hermione, it feels different, it feels too real, and that’s why she has been holding back. Because having Hermione Granger’s attention feels like a second chance, like a miracle, she doesn’t want to fuck up. Miracles and second chances shouldn’t be taken lightly.  

But now, now, with her fingers deep in Hermione’s hair and her tongue curling sinfully into Hermione’s mouth, she can’t see any wrongness. She can only feel her heart speeding up, her whole body shivering as Hermione kisses her deeply, making her tremble with the intensity of it, with the intensity of the meaning underneath the kiss, with the fact that it feels like absolution mixed with lust and some weird kind of heavenly experience as the song goes on around them, angsty, romantic, and exhilarating.

“But I'm in so deep. You know I'm such a fool for you. You got me wrapped around your finger. Do you have to let it linger? ”

Hermione moves her hand up from the nape of Pansy’s neck to her hair, pulling on it. It makes Pansy moan into their kiss, feeling dizzy. The urge to dominate starts to escalate from deep inside her core and she grabs Hermione’s arse, pulling her in, sliding a thigh between her legs, feeling desperate and drunk and— oh man , Hermione makes her feel so high, sucking on her tongue like that. 

The kiss starts to slow down a bit. The song changes again, the lights brighten up; they’re going to close soon, but all Pansy can do is nip on Hermione’s lip and suck it into her mouth. 

They keep kissing, slow and dirty, and their hands are everywhere. Hermione’s mouth moves to Pansy’s  neck. She sighs into it, sucking hard as Pansy curls her fingers over her arse. 

“Fuck...” she whispers, running her tongue against Pansy’s skin, making her shiver. 

“Come to mine?” Pansy offers, begs. Jesus, she wants her. 

“Yeah,” Hermione says, laughing, kissing her mouth once more. “Please, take me to yours.”

It's different, though, when they go outside and the wind is whipping against their faces and hair, and their coats are back on. The chilly night air sobers them up a bit, bringing a bit of an awkward energy between them as people crowd on the pavement in front of NANCY’s.

Maureen had patted her back saying goodbye, and when Pansy stood there a bit uncertainly while Hermione put on her coat, Maureen actually told her to feck off quite nastily, with a drunken slur and kissing noises that were truly disgusting. 

So off they’d gone, shoulders brushing while they walked up O'Connell Street. It’s Saturday night and the streets are packed with people. Pansy lights a fag. The anxiety inside her is making her overthink this. She never overthinks this kind of stuff; she always goes for the kill and enjoys herself. 

But Hermione looks a bit tense, too, with her hands stuffed inside her pockets and her head turned down. It all feels a bit off. 

“Hey,” Pansy calls, smoke curling out of her mouth and forming a greyish cloud in the air. She steps to the side and stops. Hermione stops too and lifts her face. She looks... well, she looks amazing—her lips are a bit swollen and red—though she’s furrowing her brow. “We can do something else if you want,” she offers lamely, and scrunches up her nose. 

Why does she say shit like that? Why is she so out of her game when it comes to Hermione? But Hermione only nods and licks her lips and looks around as a group of young women passes by them cackling loudly. The two of them crowd against each other, closer to the showcase of Brown Thomas.  

“Seriously, though,” Pansy sighs heavily. “I really loved kissing you, but I d—”

“Stop talking for a minute,” Hermione cuts in, taking her hands out of her coat and grabbing the lapels of Pansy’s heavy leather jacket. She takes a deep breath while her eyes map Pansy’s face, making her feel seen, naked even. It’s a bit stunning, to be the sole object of Hermione’s attention. “I loved every bit of it,” Hermione mutters, but something in her voice is very firm about it. “It’s been a while since I’ve been with another woman that’s not Lisa, and I’m just a bit nervous,” she admits. 

She looks a little vulnerable saying that—way too brave to open herself like that to a Slytherin, no less—and Pansy sees it as it is: trust and honesty. She drops the cigarette on the ground before bringing her hands to Hermione’s round face, cradling it in her palms. 

“I’m a bit nervous too, Granger,” she confesses, feeling the truth smarting in her chest, the way it slithers in bouts of excitement and fear. “You make me so nervous,” Pansy laughs as Hermione rolls her eyes. “I mean it!” she insists, lips stretching in a smile. She feels like such a fool. This woman has Pansy wrapped around her finger already.

Hermione draws a complicated expression, as if she is thinking really hard. 

“Come here.” Pansy shifts her face in her palms and their noses brush softly. Hermione pulls on her lapels invitingly and, this time, when their lips meet, it’s very slow and soft, completely different from the frenzied kiss they shared in NANCY’s. 

The cold air around them makes it feel isolated from space and time, like a clean page in their books. If before Pansy felt like the kiss tasted like absolution, this, well, this is the next level, with the way Hermione brushes her tongue against Pansy’s lips gently, coaxing them open. How she surges forward minutely, and their tongues meet and curl. 

It makes Pansy feel light-headed; it’s probably because she’s still drunk, but it feels different, intimate, deeper in meaning than before. They’re not kissing because they feel horny, they’re kissing because it feels right. They are testing a theory here. Or at least, that’s how Pansy feels. 

And her theory is driving her insanely close to the fact that she is probably in love with Hermione Granger already; even though Granger smells like perfume and alcohol at the moment, and nothing like old books as she used to back in school.

They kiss for a while longer, Pansy’s hands holding her face adoringly, feeling something soft and warm blooming inside her chest. She sighs into the kiss, eyes closed tight, attention on the right-here-right-now of Hermione’s knuckles brushing against her neck. 

When it’s over, they rest their foreheads together, collecting their thoughts and taking big breaths of cold air. 

“Do you still want to come?” Pansy asks, feeling incredibly dizzy with emotion and sensations. 

“Merlin, Pansy,” Hermione huffs a laugh. “You and your double entendres...”

Pansy snorts. 

“You have such a dirty mind, Granger,” she points out, but she shakes with contained laughter. Pansy feels lighter now, more certain. “Do you still want to come to mine , though?”

“Yeah,” Hermione blinks her large brown eyes up at Pansy. “Can we have tea, maybe?”

Pansy lets her head fall back, barking a laugh to the sky. Her fingers comb Hermione’s hair back, and then she brings their mouths closer, brushes their lips together softly, watching, mesmerised, as Hermione closes her eyes. Pansy kisses her gently, then she kisses her cheek, and feels so fond, so bloody fond of this woman, that she tucks Hermione’s face against her neck and hugs her tight. 

“What kind of question is that?” she asks quietly against her curls. “Of course, we can have tea. We can just sit on the sofa and chat, or watch something stupid on the telly. We don’t have to do anything at all, Granger.”

“Sounds lovely.” Hermione’s voice is muffled against the skin of Pansy’s neck before she starts kissing it, making Pansy shiver, her tongue caressing her flesh slowly. “I’m not a saint though, nor a prude, just got nervous,” she insists against Pansy’s earlobe. Her voice sounds a bit defiant.

“And that’s absolutely fine,” Pansy whispers, before stepping back. “Come on, it’s a bit of a walk.”

Pansy puts the kettle on and turns around to watch Hermione being nosy about everything in the kitchen. Pansy loves it here: the wooden floors and the massive wooden table and the messy, colourful cups and plates and pots and pans. Seeing Hermione here makes something inside her chest get warm and anxious and excited and—

“You have such a nice kitchen,” Hermione mutters, and then moves closer. “It’s really cosy.”

“Why do you sound so surprised about it?” It amuses her, to see a bit of a blush blooming on Hermione’s cheeks as she shrugs.

“Well...” she presses both her hands on the countertop and hoists herself on top of it, legs hanging lazily against the cabinet doors underneath. It makes Pansy feel things—lots of things, like really stupid and warm things. 

Hermione Granger is sitting on the countertop of her kitchen. 

Pansy smiles, biting her lip a bit and stepping closer, hands sliding up Hermione’s knees.

“Well...what?” she asks again.

“Oh.” They are still drunk, there’s no denying it. Even with the brisk walk, and the cold wind, and the several kisses they shared on the way up to Pansy’s, alcohol is still making things a bit blurred around the edges. “You know, Slytherin...” She smirks as Pansy’s hands slide up her thighs, her skin breaking out in goosebumps under her pantyhose at the contact with Pansy’s warm palms.

“Hmm, what else?” Pansy teases her, watching as Hermione parts her legs, making her royal blue dress run up her thighs, creating space for Pansy to slot between them. 

“The whole mean lesbian aesthetic.” Hermione licks her lips as Pansy presses against her. 

There’s something in her voice, something breathy and excited and Pansy realises Hermione is actually serious about it.

“You really like the mean lesbian aesthetic,” Pansy states, and Hermione laughs, pressing her face to the side of Pansy’s neck and inhaling. 

“Merlin,” Hermione mumbles against Pansy’s skin, pressing her lips in a tiny kiss to the column of her neck. “Yes, I’m pretty much into your mean lesbian aesthetic, Pansy.”

Sounds like a joke, but the way she follows it with a messy open-mouthed kiss to Pansy’s jaw makes it obvious that it’s not. Doesn’t seem to be a joke at all, really. Pansy hums, shivering as Hermione sucks a bruise on her neck.

“10 Points to Gryffindor for good taste,” she jokes. 

The kettle turns off and Pansy takes a step back, feeling dizzy and turned on. Her belly feels tight and she aches between her legs. She prepares two mugs of tea and splashes a bit of milk in them, trying to compose herself, trying to breathe. Trying not to think about Hermione sitting on the countertop by her side with her legs still open and a relaxed posture, her breasts moving rhythmically with every breath. 

“Here,” she presses a mug to Hermione’s hands. 

“Thanks,” her voice is breathy and Pansy feels a wave of desire, and a wave of tenderness, too. It mixes inside her chest. She wants to pull Hermione into her arms and kiss her and fuck her and make her even breathier. 

Pansy presses her bottom against the kitchen table, sips her tea and watches Hermione. The messy hair falling in loose curls around her round face, her large brown eyes drooping a bit with heavy eyelids, the messy makeup, the blush high in her cheeks, contrasting with her pale skin. 

Pansy wants to paint her. 

Fuck.

She wants to paint this woman on a canvas. Want to use different brushes and techniques to convey the reality of how gorgeous Hermione Granger is when she is like this: a beautiful mess.

Her fingers twitch; she feels the magic in her core tingle, and she shivers with the feeling. 

“Are you okay?” Hermione asks, eyes curious on Pansy. 

“You’re gorgeous,” she says huskily, and Hermione smiles sensually, body leaning back as she presses a hand back on the counter.

“Am I?” she teases, putting her half-drunk mug down to the side. 

“Fuck...” Pansy whispers as Hermione opens her legs a bit more. “You make me want to paint you,” she admits, licking her lips and putting her own tea down on the table behind her. She can see Hermione’s knickers from where she stands, obscured by the pantyhose and the dress, but still. It’s enough to make her mind stir.

“I wouldn’t mind that...” Hermione muses, biting her lip and Pansy watches as her chest moves with a deep shaky breath. Pansy licks her lips again. “Would you like an invitation to come closer?” Hermione asks around a soft laugh. “I’m trying my best here with body language.”

Pansy huffs a laugh and steps closer and closer until she’s between her legs again. 

“Granger,” she whispers, their noses almost touching and Hermione sighs hotly against her lips.

“Yeah?”

“Are you sure of this?”

“Fuck, Parkinson,” Hermione exhales and her hand curls around Pansy’s nape. “I’m not even that drunk anymore,” she offers, fingers massaging the tense muscles of Pansy’s nape. “Stop doubting this.” 

She presses her hot mouth against Pansy’s, sinfully slow, and licks her way in, tongue wet and sweet with tea and Pansy decides she doesn’t want to hold back any longer.

They kiss passionately, running out of air fast enough, and Pansy’s body feels alight with desire, a desire so strong she’s not sure when the last time was that she enjoyed snogging someone like this. She holds Hermione’s curls in one hand, making her head fall back easily, and the other hand runs up her thigh and into the royal blue dress. Hermione’s body undulates sinfully as Pansy licks the column of her throat and Hermione’s right leg curls around Pansy’s waist, pulling her in and rubbing against her front. 

She’s a miracle. The way she offers herself to Pansy makes Pansy’s heart clench and her insides burn, she can feel herself getting wet and her breath comes out laboured against Hermione’s skin. They make haste getting Hermione’s dress up her waist and Pansy looks down to watch the mesmerising sight of the pantyhose hugging Hermione’s legs in a thin sheen of fabric; the way she can see Hermione’s black lacy underwear takes her breath away and Pansy moves on instinct. 

Pansy pulls the thin fabric of the pantyhose down Hermione’s thighs with her help and when her palms touch beautifully strong, pale legs, she groans at the touch, at the feeling of skin-on-skin contact. 

“Fuck Granger,” she murmurs, as she stares at the lacy panty hiding Hermione’s sex just so. And Hermione takes a deep breath. 

“Are you just going to watch?” Hermione teases, eyes wide and jaw slack, and Pansy doesn’t want to just watch. 

“Fuck,” she curses, and kisses her lips messily, feeling Hermione’s fingers in her hair. She lowers the kisses to her neck, collarbones, to the neckline of her dress, licking and biting the round of her breasts and pulling the fabric down. The fabric stretches under her big breasts, letting them press against one another snugly as the cleavage of the dress constricts around them in a sinful image. “Jesus,” Pansy whispers around a moan before opening her mouth to suck on a pink nipple.

“Oh god,” Hermione groans as Pansy intensifies the suck, bites the hard nub of her nipple and her other hand massages the other tit, and then Pansy is completely uncontrolled.

She licks from one tit to the other, messily kissing them, and sucking soft bruises into Hermione’s skin. “Oh Merlin, Pansy,” Hermione shivers and trembles, both her legs curling around Pansy and bringing her closer. 

“You have such nice tits,” Pansy murmurs against the skin, feeling insane and hot and turned on. She’s shaking a bit and Hermione is grabbing her hair, painfully strong and bringing her back up to lick at her lips and kiss her deeply. 

It’s insanely hot and Pansy wants more—she wants everything. It's like part of her brain has already collapsed and she’s running now on pure instinct. 

She grabs Hermione’s legs and pulls her closer, holding her tightly before sighing impatiently and pushing her against the countertop, making Hermione’s legs fall open, sprawled on the wooden top. Pansy can see her sex glistening with lubrication, an inner lip peeking from the side of her panties. Pansy feels her heart beating fast inside her chest; she feels dizzy with desire. She can’t hold back any longer.  

Pansy takes one of Hermione’s breasts with a hand and doubles over her, the fingers of her free hand moving the lacy underwear to the side to free her sex. Her scent is strong and earthy-sweet and Pansy shivers. She glances quickly at Hermione’s flushed face and smirks, licking her lips. 

“So gorgeous,” she praises and Hermione huffs a laugh, drawing her legs open even more, inviting her in. Their eyes never leave each other’s as Pansy moves. It makes Pansy feel connected to her in a very intimate way, as if she could feel through Hermione’s eyes. It makes her want to paint it, to recreate the exact moment her tongue touches Hermione’s wet sex and the explosion of emotions and sensations that comes with it.

Pansy pulls the underwear down her legs in a hurry, bending over again and licking her in earnest, making Hermione moan and hiss, her fingers tightening in Pansy’s hair, as her tongue runs over Hermione again and again. Her clit is already swollen and hard and hot and she leaks against Pansy’s chin. 

Image description: NSFW ART; Hermione Granger and Pansy Parkinson. Hermione is sitting on a kitchen counter, legs spread, no underwear, eyes closed, wearing a blue dress, pushed down below her breasts. Pansy is on her knees below her, eyes closed, mouth open close to Hermione's vagina. Parkinson is wearing a sheer black top, and black jeans. Art by carlav-blogs. End description.

She tastes delicious. Salty-sweet, all-consuming. And Pansy eats her out with eyes wide open and her hands holding her thighs far apart. She licks her inner lips open and dives her tongue inside to get a proper taste and Hermione moans, legs shaking as Pansy goes back to suck on her clit while working two fingers inside her easily. 

“Ah,” Hermione moans, legs spasming around Pansy’s face and they find a rhythm, licking Hermione and fucking her with her fingers while Hermione pushes up against her face, rubbing against her mouth and chin and the tip of her nose as she grunts and sighs and moans and curses. It’s messy and wet and way too intense. Hermione Granger is fucking wild like this—like a goddess, glowing and buzzing with desire and pleasure. “ Fuck, Pansy,” she whispers and it sounds like a warning, as she grabs Pansy’s hair even harder, pushing against Pansy's mouth.

They grunt and moan and Pansy adds a third finger in, curling inside the heat of Hermione as she lick-lick-sucks. The rhythm is maddening, and watching Hermione give into pleasure is obscene and mesmerising, like a flower blooming. She doesn’t hide and there’s such honesty in her need, in the way she stares back at Pansy with wide eyes, her face flushed, expression a mix of pain and pleasure, riding the thin line between agony and release. She looks like a lioness, a painting, a holy saint. 

Hermione sighs and rolls her hips, eyes rolling back, legs shaking, abs spasming--

“Gonna—oh!” Hermione’s body falls back on the counter and her head leans against the wall, hand holding desperately onto the upper cabinet as her body starts to shake. 

Pansy feels so goddamned powerful, as Hermione starts coming against her face, her inner walls hugging Pansy’s fingers and leaking profusely down her hand. The way Hermione closes her eyes tightly and takes the pleasure with a bit of a fight, shaking and moaning and grimacing, legs tightening around the sides of Pansy’s face. She looks surrendered, gorgeous and wild. It’s like watching a miraculous event as Hermione gasps and her eyes snap open as Pansy holds back a bit and starts licking circles again.

“Ahn yesss...” Hermione hisses and stares down at Pansy with her brow furrowed in concentration, biting down her own bottom lip. “More,” she begs, sounding lost and pained and desperate as another orgasm washes through her in a wave that makes Pansy hold tight on her leg, not letting her escape. 

Hermione gasps again, brow sweaty and eyes blinking, hand tight in Pansy’s hair, the other hand still holding onto the upper cupboard. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” she trembles, body undulating, rubbing herself against the flat of Pansy’s tongue as Pansy’s fingers push in and out of her body, sounding wet and indecent and sinful. Pansy feels like crying as Hermione soaks her palm with lubrication and comes once again in another orgasm that takes both their breath away. 

“Oh fuck!” Hermione moans, finally collapsing bonelessly on the counter top, still shaky and spasming. 

Pansy takes a deep breath and rests her forehead against Hermione’s sweaty hipbone. She feels drunk and shaky—she can’t remember last time she fucked someone with such intensity, she can’t remember watching a woman give in to pleasure with such abandonment like Hermione. Her own knees are trembling, and she presses a kiss to Hermione’s hipbone and her belly, closing her eyes, trying to calm down. 

Hermione starts massaging her hair, coming down too and sighing. 

“I just need a minute,” Hermione mumbles, voice thick, and Pansy nods, feeling something deep inside her cracking. 

Pansy feels naked and exposed, vulnerable, even though she is still fully dressed; watching Hermione like this, half-naked and surrendered, makes her feel things—real, honest things—makes her crave a level of intimacy she’s never had before. And she suddenly feels it all too intensely. Her heart aches and her eyes sting and she thinks she’s going to break. 

Pansy is so gone for Hermione that it hurts. Fucking her only makes those feelings even more unbearable. It’s like a small vortex starts spinning and sucks everything in; she’s moved by Hermione’s pleasure, by the way she gave into it whole-heartedly, unabashedly, and how beautiful it was. She is moved by her beauty, by her wildness and her bravery. 

It’s something odd that Pansy can’t actually pinpoint. Just a big feeling, and it’s messy with her own desire and excitement and emotions. It feels dangerous, too real. She presses another kiss to Hermione’s skin, presses her face against her soft belly, the fabric of her dress and tries to pretend she’s not crying, tries to make it seem like it was due to the whole facefucking. 

“You alright?” Hermione asks, voice a bit soft, one of her legs still resting over Pansy’s shoulder, fingers playing lazily with Pansy’s hair. 

Pansy hums against her skin and Hermione squirms. 

“Bit intense,” Pansy mumbles against her belly, pretending to be just horny. Pretending she’s not overwhelmed about Hermione Granger having multiple orgasms on the countertop of her kitchen on Wolfe Tone Street. Pretending she doesn’t feel like she has just been blessed by Hermione's existence and the fact she got to fuck her. 

It’s ridiculous. Pansy feels ridiculous. 

“Are you crying?” Hermione asks in a whisper and Pansy snorts, which is a terrible idea because after snorting she kinda sobs, and it’s terrible, because her eyes are stingy and she’s tearing up all over Hermione’s belly. “Oh.”

Hermione manoeuvres them, pulling Pansy up. 

“You’re so gorgeous,” Pansy murmurs, hands trying to clean up the mess of tears and cum. “Sorry, I-- You’re beautiful,” she repeats and kisses Hermione gently on the lips, not letting her say anything. 

Hermione is quiet; she kisses back and cards her fingers through Pansy’s hair, hugging her close and caressing her face while making the kiss gentle and sweet. It’s tempting and it’s making Pansy hurt so much, she is not sure she will be able to look at Hermione's face tomorrow morning. 

“Let’s take this to bed,” Hermione proposes. “If you want, of course,” she adds gently and Pansy wants to die. Because she was supposed to be the mean lesbian and not the softy one. 

But honestly, how is Pansy going to survive after this? How is she going to keep on living after knowing how wonderful Hermione looks while coming? How is she going to fuck any other woman after having lived through the epiphany that is Hermione Granger?

They do take it to bed though, and Hermione undresses Pansy with such care that she feels precious. It should be ridiculous, but it feels like a blessing. It feels like Hermione is taking care of her. And she does, she kisses every single bit of Pansy’s pale skin, from her collarbones to the arch of Pansy’s feet. 

It’s sensual, and charged with silent meaning. It doesn’t feel like fucking; it feels like love-making. Pansy can’t control her moans as Hermione’s fingers enter her, not when Hermione holds the nape of Pansy’s neck and keep their eyes locked. Not when Hermione sucks Pansy’s pierced nipple into her hot mouth and plays with the metal with the tip of her tongue; not when Hermione finds the angle and the rhythm and fucks Pansy deep and sensual into the bed, her body pressing hot and heavy over Pansy, her lips always close enough to kiss. The kiss is deep and slow then it turns into deep and frantic as Pansy hugs Hermione’s body with her arms and legs and begs begs begs into her mouth. 

There’s sunlight on the bed when Pansy wakes up. For a second she feels confused, then the images of last night rush back and she smiles stupidly and turns in bed, pressing her face against the pillow. 

Hermione is nowhere in the room and Pansy stretches lazily before sitting up. 

Anxiety creeps in as she realises Hermione must have left without saying goodbye. She rubs her face with the palms of her hands and takes a long deep breath before standing up and fetching an old t-shirt and clean underwear. She pads the hallway quietly, suddenly smelling coffee while crossing to the bathroom. 

Pansy smiles to herself and stares at the mirror; she looks a mess but her smile is bright and honest. She snorts at her stupidity and splashes cold water on her face, before using the loo while brushing her teeth. 

She leaves the bathroom with her heart racing, but before she turns to go down the stairs to search for Hermione, she sees movement in the attic. Her heart somersaults in her chest: the attic door is open and sunlight enters the room that is usually darkened. 

Pansy runs up the stairs and watches, in a bit of a panic, a scene she would never have imagined.

A stark naked Hermione Granger is sitting on the rug with her legs crossed holding a cup of coffee. Around her, Pansy’s old paintings are lined in their easels. 

“Granger?” she asks, voice hoarse, and Hermione turns around with a bright smile and soft eyes. 

“Good morning, sleepyhead,” Hermione replies. “Found your treasures. Hope you don’t mind, the door was open. I got curious,” she adds with a shrug, as if it is nothing. Pansy steps closer, stopping under the doorframe, realising that with this amount of light, looking at her old paintings doesn’t seem as scary as she thought it would be. 

Maybe the fact that Hermione is there, naked, drinking coffee, completely relaxed, makes the whole thing much easier to digest than standing there alone. 

“I never come up here,” she confesses, finally stepping in and feeling her heart beating fast as the different canvases and colours surround her in a mix of pain and nostalgia. “It honestly gives me panic attacks...” Pansy whispers, eyes wide as she appreciates her own work. 

As the images stare back at her, a strong emotion crosses her chest and she steps closer. She feels lured in, enchanted by the shapes and colours, by the faces and forms. 

“Oh,” Hermione stands up. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to intrude.”

“No!” Pansy says fast. “No, it’s fine. It’s...” Calming. Releasing. Perfect. “Thank you,” she says, turning to Hermione and finally realising she not only has stayed, but she has messed around Pansy’s house naked, sleep-rumpled and lovely. 

“I made coffee,” Hermione offers with a small voice and a small smile. 

“You look lovely,” Pansy admits, noticing Hermione has her specs back on. She steps close enough to press her hand to Hermione’s shoulder, running it over her collarbone and curling over the side of her neck, her palm against last night's love bites. “Thank you for letting the light in. The paintings needed it. I needed it,” she confesses, bringing Hermione closer and pressing their lips together. 

Hermione tastes like coffee, like lazy mornings and brave, wild things. It’s a taste Pansy wants to savour, one she wants to cherish. 

One arm curls around Pansy’s waist, bringing her closer to Hermione’s body, pressing them together in an embrace as they kiss under the morning light. 

“Come, I put the coffee under a stasis, hope you don’t mind,” Hermione says, kissing her neck softly. 

“You really don’t mind then?” Hermione asks, while sipping her coffee, naked in the kitchen. 

Honestly, Pansy would never have guessed that Hermione would be like this. Well, alright maybe Pansy thought that by being a total know-it-all in school and later becoming a doctor, Hermione would somehow be more shy about anything sex-related. But all the jokes about double-meanings should have prepared Pansy to the fact that Hermione Granger is very comfortable with both sex and her own naked body. 

Her tits are such a great view that Pansy needs to hold back the urge not to cross the room and touch them. 

“Pansy?”

Pansy blinks, Hermione is smirking at her and she realises she has been staring at Hermione’s tits all along. 

“What, sorry?”

“You really don’t mind I went into your attic?” she repeats, amused. 

Pansy takes a fortifying sip of bitter black coffee. She doesn’t really want to talk about it; she would much rather talk about what they are doing next. Going back to bed? Taking a shower together? Going out for a ride on her motorbike?

“It’s complicated, but I’m not upset.”

“Alright.” Hermione nods and watches her, obviously waiting. 

Pansy snorts. 

“You are actually very nosy,” she realises, laughing. “Oh my god, you’re nothing like I thought you would be!”

Hermione’s large brown eyes go wide under her glasses. 

“What do you mean?” She sounds uncertain, brows furrowing in concern. 

“I mean, you are naked in my kitchen—” she starts.

“Oh, I can get dressed if my tits are distracting you that much,” Hermione peeps with a knowing smile. 

“No, no, please never cover them from me.” Pansy smirks, biting her bottom lip and staring openly at Hermione’s breasts. “I’m really enjoying your body positivity,” she mumbles, and nodding to her chest adds, “they are wonderful.” She tries to memorise their shape and colour. “I would love to paint them,” she says, feeling her own breath hitching, feeling turned on as Hermione’s nipples start hardening under her stare. “Oh look, they like the compliment.”

“Would you really?” Hermione asks with naked honesty, her own voice breathy, cheeks suddenly blushing.

“Hmm?” Pansy stands up from the chair and crosses the room, body slowly pressing against Hermione, who is no saint or prude as she rightfully warned the night before. 

Pansy should have taken her words seriously. 

“Would you paint me?” she asks, lips ghosting against Pansy’s, bringing one hand to the side of Pansy’s neck. 

“Oh...” Pansy watches her face; she looks sleep-rumpled still, but her eyes, those large brown eyes, look molten, hot. They look like a pool of desire. “Does it turn you on?” she asks in a husky voice, and Hermione’s reaction is a long body shiver. The mere image of Hermione feeling turned on by the idea of Pansy painting her is so sexy that she brings her fingers to Hermione’s right nipple and circles it into painful hardness. 

“Yeah,” Hermione confesses breathily. “You have no idea how much it turns me on,” she murmurs, before kissing Pansy deeply. 

Pansy melts into her, pressing closer and closing her hands on her round, heavy tits. She plays with them, and fucks Hermione’s mouth with her tongue, lazy and sensual, almost obscene. 

“Jesus, Parkinson...” she groans, as Pansy’s thigh presses against her sex. Hermione’s already wet against Pansy’s skin, as she rides it in tiny circling movements. 

“You’re so hot,” Pansy whispers, lips wet with saliva. “I haven’t painted in years...” She offers the information in a secretive tone. “Since the fire,” she adds, feeling Hermione’s hands in her hair, massaging her scalp with short nails. “But I would love to try. It’ll probably be shit, though. It’s been too long...”

“Fuck,” Hermione says, eyes dark with something new, filled with emotion and deep meaning. Pansy is not sure how to interpret the look. Hermione brings Pansy’s left hand to her lips and kisses the faint burn scars on the back of it. It’s such a small thing, but Pansy’s jaw locks and her heart flutters and before Hermione can say anything else, Pansy kisses her hard.

They work Pansy’s t-shirt off her body and Hermione pulls her into the living room as Pansy kisses her shoulders and back, impatient and delirious. Hermione pushes her against the sofa and Pansy falls heavily on the cushions, a lapful of Hermione following closely. 

Hermione’s body is hot and pliant as they lie together on the sofa, a mess of limbs and hair and caresses. They kiss and touch each other, working each other up to a breathless mess of gasps and moans. 

“Come up here,” Pansy asks, adjusting herself on the sofa and trying to bring Hermione to straddle her face. 

“Oh,” she nods enthusiastically, moving her body up Pansy’s and suddenly stopping. “Can I eat you out while I sit on your face?” Hermione asks.

“Jesus, woman.” Pansy closes her eyes, pressing a hand to her own sweaty hair. “You’re going to be the death of me,” she whispers, dizzy with desire. Hermione’s directness and explicitness make her insides burn and she feels herself leaking with desire. “Yes, a thousand times yes.” Pansy sits up first, though, grabbing Hermione’s hair and bringing her into another desperate kiss, hands kneading her arse, her thighs, her waist—she wants to devour her. 

She feels desperate, Hermione Granger makes her desperate. 

Pansy stares into the attic from the open door. The last bits of the afternoon sun wash in a soft caress of light. Her paintings stare back at her as she enters the room, this time alone. 

Hermione left half an hour ago; she was due to Portkey to London, she had explained. 

“I need to tell my parents about the breakup,” she muttered, her face a bit hard and concerned as she spoke. “And my friends, of course, though they kind of know about it...” It felt strained, the way they said their goodbyes just after Hermione added with a pained expression that she needed to go to Lisa’s flat. “I still have a lot  of my stuff there.”

Since she left the house, Pansy feels weird, like the lights have turned off. 

Having Hermione here was intense and delicious, an experience Pansy isn’t sure how to navigate. Are they going to do it again? Is Hermione coming back? Will she want to meet Pansy again? 

And though Hermione had assured her she would keep in touch and let her know as soon as she was back in Limerick, Pansy is not someone with a lot of self-esteem, and as soon as she left, the feeling of loneliness started, she felt her mind spiralling in doubt. 

She steps closer to the easels with her bare feet grounded on the rug. She hasn’t painted in so long that Pansy feels uncertain on how to even start again. She looks around for an old blank canvas. The paintings are probably as dry as old leaves, but she walks to the side desk under the window and finds her old charcoals. She touches them gently, feeling her chest constricting and her eyes stinging. 

She’s such a softy, she feels embarrassed even without an audience. 

Pansy puts the canvas in an empty easel in the middle of the room, flips the electric lights on for better lighting, closes her eyes for a moment and takes a deep breath, like she used to do years ago, her own personal creative ritual. 

The feeling is not new; it’s something like a second skin, muscle memory, the way her fingers curl around the charcoal, the almost weightless feeling of it in her palm, but firm and grounding to the touch. She breathes in; tentative tears pool in her eyes once she opens them. Her vision is blurry when she gently touches the canvas, heart beating fast, fingers slightly shaky. 

It pains her, like revisiting something you once loved and tragically lost. It feels like pulling the skin of an old wound, like baring your soul to something devastating. 

Pansy pushes through it, bringing the charcoal to the white canvas. She used to paint using a bit of magic, enchanting the shapes and paint with subtle movement or brightness. She doesn’t feel like using her magic now—she doesn’t want to chant while drawing. 

She feels like creating something raw, something real and sharp. Something very different from her old pieces. She feels like drawing the intense emotions that are curling like a snake inside her chest, coiling in the pit of her stomach, making it churn with panic and anxiety. 

So she uses her charcoal to the very end, creating a black and white fire, chaotic emotions inside a thin female torso; messy, tortuous thoughts represented by thorned roses growing out of her head. 

It's dark and heavy; her drawings and paintings had never been dark before. But they are a mirror of how she feels now, of who she is. She draws for hours, until her arm hurts and the tears dry on her face. She draws until she can’t anymore. 

The shapes and shades of the piece are startling. It’s messy and confusing, many scenes in one big canvas, but it works. It’s definitely not her best piece, not in form or technique. But it’s honest. 

She sits down on the rug and stares at it. Juxtaposed with the other paintings in the easels behind it, it looks startlingly different. Rough, almost ugly one would say. 

It looks like a new style, a new mood. Looks like the start of a new terribly honest life cycle.  

And Pansy loves it like one loves a beast; wild and raw and hurting, but hers nonetheless.

“So...” Maureen preens, sitting on the small sofa in the salon, while Rob organises the new hair products that arrived this morning and checks the till to start the day. 

Pansy pretends to be very interested in mopping the floor at her station. 

“She’s been like this since she arrived,” Rob informs, and Pansy flips him the bird. 

Is not like she doesn’t want to tell her friends about having sex with Hermione, it’s not that. It’s just that it was very intense and intimate. She wishes she could save that just for herself. Pansy is still trying to integrate not only the amazing sex but also the fact that Hermione unknowingly unlocked something that was hidden inside Pansy for a really long time. She literally opened a door and let the lights in and brought Pansy back into her previously dark attic and back to painting. 

It’s a lot to unpack.

“Are you alright, calín?” Maureen asks in a softer voice. Pansy knows she is concerned something went wrong with Hermione. 

Pansy sighs, finally setting the mop down and sitting heavily by her friend’s side on the sofa. 

“Here, have some coffee,” Maureen adds, offering her one of the take-away coffees she brought in with her. 

“You don’t need to tell us if you don’t feel like it,” Rob says, standing by the till, his blue eyes trained on her in a very serious expression. 

“Thanks, Rob.”

It’s incredible how she ended up finding some really gentle and friendly people in her life. Wonderful Muggle people. She wonders what 16-year-old Pansy would say if someone told her she would have Muggle best friends. 

“It was very good,” she whispers, feeling her cheeks heat up. “I don’t want to say much more about it yet,” she adds and both her friends nod quietly, Maureen displaying a big amused smile and Rob starting to roll a fag with a tiny smirk.

“Argh,” Pansy sighs, standing up. “I hate both of you.” She takes a sip of her coffee; it tastes perfect, hot and bitter on her tongue. “I need a cigarette,” she says flippantly. “The only thing I’ll say is,” she turns over her shoulder when she reaches the door, her green eyes falling on Maureen, “your soulmate cock talk, but the fanny version.”

Maureen starts cackling and Rob looks deeply confused. “I don’t think I want to know what you guys are talking about,” he says, and grabs his coffee. 

The three of them walk outside in the drizzle to have a fag. They don’t push Pansy to talk any further. Maureen seems to be in a high mood and ends up explaining to Rob about her own theory about soulmate genitalia and he looks aghast, while Pansy watches the buses and cars and people walking up and down William Street.

Everything feels a tiny bit different. 

She woke up this morning and went up to the attic, where the door was already wide open and the cold morning light washed over her paintings. She looked at her charcoal piece and felt relieved that it wasn’t just a dream. Since then, the city looks a bit different, even the grey of the buildings and the heavy drizzle and the wind; it all feels nicer, gentler. 

It's weird.

This place that she already loves and feels at home and safe in, it feels the tiniest bit brighter. Maybe it is her, maybe it is her eyes—

“Are you meeting her again soon?” Rob asks in his quiet voice once Maureen leaves them.

“I hope so,” Pansy admits, feeling the anxiety creeping in once more. “She went last night to London to finish getting her things at her ex’s and to tell her parents about the breakup.”

Rob only nods and watches her for a moment. “I’ve never seen you like this before, Pansy. I think you really like her.”

It’s not a question, it’s a statement. It’s a very Rob thing to do: to observe and share only when he feels like it is important to do so. 

“I think you’re right, Rob.”

Pansy feels like the days are stretching out too long. 

A buzzing anxiety coils itself in the pit of her stomach. It’s dark and bitter and confusing. Her mind plays tricks and makes her doubt herself, replaying her interactions with Hermione in her head to try to manage the total lack of updates from the Gryffindor. Did she do something wrong? Say the wrong words? Maybe it was the crying? 

She buys new painting supplies and organises her attic in a blur, trying the avoid the terrible and very old anxiety of being a mess, with the creeping feeling that she’s fucked up like a constant bass beat in the back of her mind.

She runs her fingers over the new brushes and charcoals, pacing the room and reacquainting herself with the space, with her old pieces and the new, waiting blank canvases. She puts them on easels. She moves around the room feeling out of sorts, feeling disembodied, feeling itchy and antsy and stressed.

Hermione sends her a message at some point. It is very direct, saying she won’t have a phone connection until Friday when she’s back, that she’ll let Pansy know once she returns. But that’s all, and in the meantime, Pansy’s anxiety peaks. 

Granger is probably mending her relationship with Lisa while Pansy tries to pretend all is well, she thinks bitterly. Cottagecore images of the couple in the Highlands, or at some nice London restaurant, pop in her mind and she hates it. She hates it so much she bites the inner side of her cheeks until the skin breaks and the copper taste makes her even sicker than before. It churns in her stomach. 

This is the exact moment where she would go out with her friends and try not to think, not to feel. She would get drunk and probably fuck some random woman. But instead, she closes her eyes, takes a long deep breath and starts painting. 

She paints a canvas with pale peach—it’s almost pink but with a hint of orange undertone— then adds two round blotches of brown spheres. She watches it for a while and pushes the windows wide open to let it dry. A long time ago, she would just have hit it with a Drying Charm. But creating it the Muggle way is more laborious, and she’s glad to live the process and the slowness of it. 

It’s rather soothing. Makes her mind go wonderfully quiet.

She runs to the kitchen to grab a bite of a cheese toastie and makes tea. Then, she takes a long shower. She breathes, she smokes a cigarette in the back garden and watches the light drizzle falling down; it looks like it’s moving in slow motion, but maybe she is just too entranced by the beauty of it, by the tiny drops falling over the overgrown lawn. 

The night air calms her down. 

The next night, she takes her new charcoal out and proceeds to draw on the dried, painted canvas, before her anxiety creeps in. Large round eyes, long eyelashes, soft eyebrows. She draws Hermione’s eyes with rough lines, but accurate ones. Her hands are a mess in the end and she laughs to herself when she realises her t-shirt is ruined. 

She stands there drinking a cup of tea and staring at the painting. 

It’s rustic, but she managed to capture the expression she wanted to paint since she had Hermione in her kitchen last Saturday night. 

Her anxiety has completely left her body once she washes her hands and prepares for bed. It’s crazy; she forgot how painting used to soothe her. She feels full of something inspiring and calming. 

She feels good. In her home, with an attic filled with old paintings and two new ones, she feels like herself. She feels settled under her skin in a way she hasn’t felt in a really long time.

“You’re painting again,” Blaise says, standing at her doorstep. He stares at her with a bewildered expression, his eyes narrowing as he looks at her hands. They are messy with charcoal and spotted with paint.

She completely forgot he was coming over, that they were going out for dinner and drinks as they normally do every month. It’s almost the end of the week, Pansy has been balancing herself and her inner turmoil with a steady routine of working until 5pm and then spending the rest of her night working on her creations in the attic. 

She forgot how much her art used to fill her days up to the brim. But now, slowly and steadily, this week has made her reconnect with it. 

“Yeah,” she confesses with a cheeky smile. “I’ll tidy up a bit so we can go out.”

“Can I see it?”

Blaise’s voice is slightly choked. His dark eyes are the tiniest bit wet. And Pansy grins; she grins because Blaise was her first supporter. He was also the only constant friend throughout her life, and Blaise knows how meaningful this step is: starting to paint again feels like coming home, like allowing herself to be herself after such a long, long—

Penance. 

Giving up on her art was another penance she sentenced herself to. Though it was mixed with fears of failure, it was a penance nonetheless. She thought she didn’t deserve all the amazing feelings that came with painting. 

But now—well, now, she feels like she’s slowly learning that she deserves nice things.

“‘Course,” she answers, taking a step back and letting him into the house. 

When they are walking up the stairs to the attic, though, she stops and looks back at her friend. 

“You should know something first,” Pansy smirks at him. “I’ve fucked the golden lesbian.”

The gasp and laughter boom out of Blaise like a blessing. He goes awfully quiet, though, once he steps inside the attic and stares at the new pieces. His eyes go wide and watery for a moment, then he sniffs gently and his hand curls gently around Pansy’s left shoulder, fingers pressing in over her bony structure. He nods silently. When Blaise’s eyes finally find hers, his smile is small and warm. 

“These have heart.”

And Pansy agrees, pulling him into a tight, awkward hug.

They have a wonderful night then, sharing gossip and good food and great wine in the bistro with a view of the River Shannon. They end up crying a little bit before the night is over. But they are tears of joy. 

Pansy feels content, happy, settled. 

Pansy isn’t content, happy or settled anymore when the clock hits eleven pm on Saturday night and Hermione hasn’t messaged yet. All her inspiration and desire to paint evaporated on Friday as Hermione didn’t reply to Pansy’s quick note wishing her a good Portkey back to Limerick. 

Pansy feels wrecked; she feels like she made a whole love story in her head about how she and Hermione would end up having a romance or some shite. 

“You’re such a fool,” she spits at her own reflection in the bathroom mirror while working the pencil on her eyelids and painting them black and harsh. 

She feels no tenderness, no calmness, only the restlessness of being a stupid softy who believed the Golden Girl would like her back. And it’s terrible, it feels terrible, and working on her art hasn’t helped at all today. 

So she’s hitting the pub with Rob and Will and getting shitfaced. 

It won’t solve anything, she knows that, but she doesn’t want to be left alone with her dark thoughts, heartbreak and anxiety. Pansy knows she needs a distraction; otherwise, she will start sending Hermione passive-aggressive messages like: “It would have been nice to know you arrived safely, you know?” or some shite. And she doesn’t want to play the clingy lesbian, especially because she has never been the clingy lesbian. But to be very honest with herself, it was the first time ever that she thought she could have something with someone. 

Mainly because Hermione is a witch and Pansy wouldn’t need to lie to her about her past with a makeshift story. Hermione already knows her story and, surprisingly, she seems pretty okay with who Pansy has become after everything. It felt kind of perfect, knowing Granger doesn't want to live and work among magical people anymore. It felt like such a perfect match that it pains Pansy to think that the only thing she got out of this was a few extraordinary fucks and the want for more that will never be fulfilled. 

She doesn't even know much about Hermione, if she is honest. And she is being honest, for fuck’s sake. Realistically, Pansy knows little about Hermione. The rest, she probably built in her head from bits of information. 

Hermione Granger is a gerontologist doctor living in Limerick after a lot of bad experiences trying to be a Healer in the Magical world. She broke up with Lisa Turpin after five years together because their lives didn’t match well enough. She runs in parks, and is constantly tired but satisfied with her job. She wears cute glasses and is a bit of a flirt and very wild in bed. 

That’s all. 

No, that’s not true. 

Pansy takes a deep breath and drinks a shot of vodka, still staring at her reflection. Her light green eyes pop out dashingly against the contrast of the black makeup. 

Hermione is understanding and hardworking and sweet, and she forgives people and believes in second chances. And she wanted to get to know Pansy better, even though she was bullied by her in school.

Hermione Granger is fucking wonderful and Pansy really wants to get to know her even better.

She takes her phone out and types a message, knowing full well she shouldn’t. Knowing full well she will regret it. 

“Hey, I thought you would let me know when you arrived. I hope you made it home safely. I don’t want to be clingy or anything. I just really enjoyed last weekend, and all the dates before. I feel like I don’t know you well enough, though I’d love to get to know you better.  I’m going a bit spare here with anxiety. But I understand if you don’t want to hang out with me anymore. Though I would really appreciate it if you could just let me know. x Pansy”.

It’s very honest. Pansy is trying her best, she thinks. She’s living a wildly honest life. 

When “Linger” starts playing, Pansy has had enough. 

“ If you, if you could return, don't let it burn, don't let it fade. ”  

Pansy rolls her eyes and puts her pint down. 

“ But it's just your attitude, it's tearing me apart. It's ruining every day.”

She is slightly tipsy and her eyes sting a little. She says goodbye to Rob and Will and faces the cold, heavy drizzle while walking back home. 

Pansy checks her phone again, but there’s still no message from Hermione. It makes her so angry with herself; why would she think Granger would give a fuck? 

Granger probably went back to London, saw her nice family and golden friends and was terribly reminded about who Pansy Parkinson used to be. She probably went to the flat where she used to live with Lisa and all the memories of the good old days came rushing back and they fucked. No, they made love , she thinks, disgusted. Which is tenfold worse now that Pansy knows how it feels to be gently and deeply fucked by Hermione Granger. 

She walks at a brisk pace, wanting to go back home, take a hot shower and be done with this terrible day. 

She also has this stupid, tiny hope that she will arrive at Wolfe Tone Street to find Hermione sitting on her doorsteps, waiting for her. Pansy wants to kill the small hope that festers inside her chest and makes her anxious and tense, because she knows, she knows she shouldn’t have high hopes. That she has always been best off any romantic ideals of relationships. 

Pansy was quite alright before Granger arrived in her life. It’s not like her life will be shit now that Granger apparently doesn’t want in. 

When she turns the corner to her street, her heart beats faster. All in vain, though, as there’s no one waiting for her to get back home. 

“What the fuck?!” Pansy startles awake and suddenly she is in her studio, the bright flames of the fire surrounding her and burning her paintings all over again. It’s bright, way too bright just like the flames had been all those years ago, but it’s not hot. The air is actually kinda chilly, and there’s no smell of smoke. 

Pansy blinks a few times, realising she is in her bed, in her house in Limerick, safe and sound, though her temples are aching with a mild headache, and the loud ringing sound that woke her up was the continuous ding-dong of her doorbell 

“What the actual fuck?” she mumbles, pressing a hand against her chest. Her heart is beating at a fast, uncontrolled tempo. 

She stares at the clock. It’s 8:23 in the fucking morning. Pansy feels like killing someone. But then—

Fuck.

Then her heart misses a beat because what if ?

Pansy jumps out of bed, a bit dizzy and disoriented, but not caring enough to be only wearing her undies and an old t-shirt and walks down the stairs as fast as she can without running. She doesn’t want to run, because it feels stupid and ridiculous, and she has standards. Haha, as if.  

Her heart is beating so fast and so strongly she can hear it booming in her ears under the blasphemous ringing of the doorbell. 

Pansy tries, for a wild moment, to imagine that it’s not Hermione. Maybe it’s something terrible, like a fire again, but this time in the salon. Or something with her Nan, and then she hates herself for thinking it and actually starts running to the door, because honestly if something happened to her grandmother she will die. She’s not ready to deal with it and—

She flings the door open and sighs. 

It’s Hermione. 

“Thank goodness,” Pansy pants, her breathing heavy and fast. “Jesus Christ, Granger, I really thought someone died for a second.” 

But when she actually looks at Hermione, she sees how soaking wet her hair is, though her rain jacket is perfectly dry—probably magic. Her face is flushed and her breathing is quick and shallow, as if she’s trying to catch her breath. 

“Are you okay?” Pansy asks flippantly. 

“I came running,” Hermione explains as if it makes any sense at all. 

“Sorry, you came running from fucking Raheen?”

Hermione nods, a hand holding on to the doorframe. 

“Sorry I woke you up, but I needed to see you,” she says seriously.

And now Pansy is worried, because honestly, she’s not sure what can come next, and her heart is a mix of hope and terror, and she will probably end up crying at the end of this chat and it’s really bloody cold—

“I needed the last two days to think,” Hermione starts, her large brown eyes staring at Pansy with fierce determination. It’s wondrous and terrifying at the same time. “I just really wanted to make sure that I wasn’t—” She makes a complicated hand movement between the two of them. “Like, using you to forget Lisa, or that I was getting my own feelings conflated with the scary feeling of being alone.”

“Why don’t you—”

“No, Parkinson, listen to me.” Hermione demands firmly and Pansy hugs herself against the cold and the heavy drizzle, remembering suddenly that this fiery woman is the Golden Girl. “This is me,” she says, hand moving in a flourish on her front to emphasise her point. “You said you don’t know me well, so I’ll help you out here: I take my time to think things over. But once I settle on something, I’m fucking determined about it. I run everyday because it helps me think. I am actually quite boring: I work a lot, I am a gerontologist, I read a lot about Magical Theory and boring Legislation on the Rights of Magical Beings in my spare time, about medicine—both Muggle and magical—and I also read porny lesbian romance on the internet when I’m in the mood. I live in Raheen, but I’m buying a bloody posh apartment with a view of the river, because I think my parents will like it enough to stop nagging me about living in fucking Limerick. I am buying it because I’m here for good. I also don’t have that many friends, and I want to adopt a cat. And I would really, really like to take you out on a proper date.”

Pansy gasps. 

“Shit,” she whispers, and she is not sure if she got a grasp on everything Hermione just told her but, oh gods.  

Hermione blinks at her expectantly.

“Shit, I’m in love with you,” Pansy confesses without thinking.

And then, Hermione Granger is pulling her closer and kissing her mouth in a mix of wet hair and breathless Gryffindor determination. 

“Great,” she says, while pushing Pansy back into the house. “Great, because I really think we should give it a try.”

Pansy’s mind is working a mile a minute with all the doubts and questions and things they still haven’t talked about. But she can’t think straight while Hermione pushes her deeper into the house and Pansy kicks the door closed, while being pressed against the wall in the hallway. 

“Wait—” Pansy gasps, closing her eyes and leaning her head against the wall. “I’m not sure I’ll ever use magic again—” she says, a bit scared and a bit too honest. Jesus, she can’t think, not with Hermione’s mouth wet and hot on her neck, her cold fingers grabbing Pansy’s waist. 

Hermione looks up at her. She’s not wearing her glasses and her fringe is plastered awkwardly against her damp brow. 

“I will respect whatever you choose to do.” Hermione cocks her head to the side with a cute, curious expression. “I’m also a Muggle-born, in case you forgot... So no big deal.”

“Right,” Pansy whispers, feeling shaky, her hands holding on to Hermione’s shoulders. She feels so scared; she feels excited and intimidated by the idea. “Sorry, this is all a bit overwhelming.”

“It’s fine,” Hermione reassures her, taking Pansy’s face in her cold hands and smiling gently. “We will tackle things as they show up. Right now, I just want to give this a chance. We don’t need to think about the future right now.”

A warm, moving feeling blooms inside Pansy’s chest. It’s so powerful that all the doubts she felt seem foolish, an exaggeration.

“I spook easily,” she whispers. Admitting this aloud feels right. And Hermione nods, then smiles, her hands on Pansy’s face warming up on her skin.

“I really like you, Pansy,” Hermione says, her thumb brushing softly on Pansy’s cheek. “I really, really like who you are now.” 

And that’s it. Pansy smiles at Hermione, hope curling in the pit of her stomach like a growing seed. In the pregnant moment between Hermione acknowledging her feelings and Pansy allowing herself to revel in it, she feels suddenly free, suddenly wanted and appreciated and forgiven. 

Pansy feels like life keeps moving forwards even when everything in her head pointed to a catastrophe. Maybe she shouldn’t believe so much in the anxious voice of her mind—maybe she should start trusting a bit more—maybe she should keep being honest. After all, honesty brought them here. And Pansy is feeling quite content in the present, pressed between the hallway wall and Hermione’s body. 

“I painted you,” she whispers like a secret, watching as Hermione’s eyes go wide and shiny, jaw slack.

“Can I see it?” Hermione’s voice is breathy and warm.

“Of course, darling,” Pansy replies fondly, feeling grateful and delighted to have Hermione here, interested in her and her art. 

Taking a deep breath, Pansy curls her hands on the sides of Hermione’s neck and pulls her in a bit closer, making their breaths mingle in the miniscule space between their bodies.

“I spent the week painting...” she utters the words against Hermione's lips; it feels sensual and hypnotic and honest. 

It feels good. Pansy feels good as she intertwines her fingers over the nape of Hermione’s neck, feeling the soft skin under her touch, brushing the tip of her tongue over Hermione’s lips.

“I think I’m finally moving forwards.” Pansy plants the words to the corner of Hermione’s mouth, gentle like a confession. Hermione gasps against Pansy’s lips, a small thing, but filled with surprise and wonder. Her fingers tighten on Pansy’s face a bit, her curvaceous body pressing closer, pushing Pansy against the wall. 

Hermione kisses her deep and slow, all lips and tongue. It’s terribly sensual, terribly intimate. Makes Pansy feel naked and seen and aching for more of this wonderful attention. 

Image description: A passionate kissing scene between Hermione and Pansy. The room is bright as a white light shines in through the window. Pansy on the right, pressed against a wall, she's wearing a baggy green t-shirt; her hair is a dark jaw length Bob. Hermione on the left, she's wearing a blue flowered pattern raincoat with her hair up in a messy bun. Hermione's right hand is on Pansy's neck, her left one is pressed against a dark red tiled wall. Pansy holds Hermione's face. Both have their eyes closed. Art by digthewriter. End description.

“I was wrong,” Hermione says, pushing back, hands going to Pansy’s angular hips, curling gently, kneading the soft flesh of her sides. 

“Hmm?” Pansy asks, confused, feeling mellow and dizzy with feelings and emotions and so much information. 

“You’re not the mean lesbian,” Hermione says very seriously, her brow furrowing and a tiny smirk starting to pull on the corner of her mouth, and Pansy braces herself. “You’re the emo one,” she says, fighting back laughter. “How didn’t I realise it before?”

“Oh, feck off!” Pansy laughs, her shoulders shaking gently. 

“Pansy Parkinson, the emo lesbian!” Hermione declares loudly to the empty house. 

“Oh gods, you’re ridiculous.” But she can’t stop laughing. “Oh, shut it.” 

Pansy suddenly feels light. Having Hermione Granger making fun of her like this, teasing her in her own house, pressing her against the wall and listening to her with a sharp, sarcastic humour, and sharing a laugh, well, it feels right. 

“The golden lesbian is asking for trouble...” Pansy teases, voice dropping low, hands pulling Hermione further into herself.

“Golden lesbian, is it?” Hermione laughs. “You are so mean,” she adds with a smirk and Pansy clicks her tongue. 

“I’ll show you mean,” Pansy replies, just before their lips collide in a dirty kiss that will probably escalate to fucking Hermione face first against the wall. It makes Pansy feel lightheaded and glorious.

She doesn’t know if it will work in the future, but she wants to be right here, right now: feeling Hermione Granger's mouth on hers, their bodies intertwining in a sinfully tight embrace, breathless and bloody happy. 

It feels lovely, she feels right, like finally moving forwards.

Pansy hopes it will linger.