From the Ashes

From the Ashes

Part Five

by Fourth Rose

Oh, cease! must hate and death return?

Cease! must men kill and die?

Cease! drain not to its dregs the urn

Of bitter prophecy.

The world is weary of the past,

Oh, might it die or rest at last!

(Percy Bysshe Shelley, Hellas)

* * *

Harry doubts he could ever love Lucia more if he really were her father. In just a few short months, she has become his safe haven in the ongoing storm that is his life, the small, precious part of his existence that makes perfect sense and gives a new meaning to everything he does. It's strange somehow, because it caught him utterly unprepared; before all this, he never even thought about having children, and now this tiny human being is quickly becoming the centre of his universe.

He can sit for hours on end beside her cradle while she sleeps, content to watch over her and make sure that nothing disturbs her. It's not just because he still sees Draco in her eyes that he considers the moments he gets to spend with her the happiest of each day that passes; no matter how difficult things may be at the Ministry, or how tired he is of having to play a part that he just isn't made for, the knowledge that he's doing it for her sake makes it bearable.

Strange, too, how taking care of her has made him and Pansy start actually sharing their lives to some extent instead of just living them side by side. The times when they only saw each other during meals are long past, and somehow, Harry is glad of it; Pansy will never be the person he'd have chosen as his companion, but he finds that he prefers her company to being alone all the time. This is new, and he isn't quite sure when it started, but he has come to realise that he rather enjoys her presence when they're sitting in the living room together with Lucia in the evening. They usually talk politics while Harry has Lucia on his knees and tries to keep her grabby little hands away from his glasses. When she gets tired of this game, she prefers it if they put her on a blanket on the floor, where she wiggles about (she doesn't quite know how to crawl yet) and tries to pull herself up on Pansy's robes until her strength gives out and she flops back with a soft thud.

Sometimes she just squeals and tries again; at other times, when she's tired or in a temper, she starts wailing until Pansy picks her up and whispers meaningless little endearments into her fluffy dark hair to soothe her.

When that doesn't help, Pansy usually resolves the matter by giving her the breast, which quickly puts an end to the wails. The first time she does it in his presence, Harry asks her if she wants him to leave, which causes Pansy to look at him as if he'd just grown a second head.

"Why would I?"

Harry clears his throat, uncertain why he's feeling a bit embarrassed. It's not as if he's never seen breasts before, after all. "It's just that I thought you'd prefer a bit of privacy to -"

"Potter, you're my bleeding husband, for pity's sake." Pansy is rolling her eyes now. "If the sight of my nipple causes you to run away screaming, then you know where the door is. Otherwise, you're welcome to stay, I don't give a damn." With that, she turns her attention back to Lucia, and Harry leans back in his chair, doing his best not to stare too obviously, and stays.

He'd never admit this to anyone, but he rather likes watching Pansy breastfeed the baby. Her face, which - apart from the times when she's angry - is usually set in an expression of carefully maintained indifference, becomes softer somehow, the premature lines between her dark eyebrows aren't so prominent any more, and there's a small smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. Lucia's tiny pink hands press against the soft white skin of Pansy's breast in a way that reminds Harry of a litter of kittens he once saw knead their mother's teats with their paws while they crawled all over each other in their greed to get to the milk. He knows better than to mention this to Pansy, of course, but he remembers how the mother cat purred while she watched her insatiable brood with an air of utter contentment.

Besides, Pansy has really nice breasts. So far, Harry as always gone for the slim and rather flat-chested type, but now he can't help thinking that there's a lot of appeal to the gentle curves of Pansy's body as well.

Harry reckons that he should feel ashamed for ogling a nursing mother, but Pansy allowed him to stay, and she's bound to know that he's not blind, after all. He sometimes catches himself at the thought how her breasts would feel under his hands, whether they would really be as soft and warm as they look. He usually manages to rein in his frivolous imagination as soon as he becomes aware of what he has been thinking - that is, whenever it happens during the day.

Nights are a different matter altogether.

During the war, when Harry often didn't get to see Draco for months on end, he developed a wide range of fantasies to help him through the empty nights, fantasies that were usually based on slightly enhanced memories of their previous encounters. After Draco's death, Harry shut them away in a distant corner of his mind, and he would never consciously go there to retrieve them now. Unfortunately, while he can censor his thoughts when he is awake, he has no control over his dreams.

Over the past few months, he has been waking up from dreams that leave him sweaty, panting, and painfully hard, with growing frequency. He usually still has hazy afterimages of the scenes in his dreams - flashes of blond hair and pale limbs, the feeling of cool hands and soft lips on his skin, the pressure of a warm, lean body against his. He has come to dread these moments, when he stares into the darkness of his bedroom with his pulse racing and the sweat-soaked sheets sticking uncomfortably to him, his body aching for release while his mind is frantically trying to avoid going back to the remnants of the dream.

He just can't bring himself off to images of a dead man, no matter how persistently they keep haunting his nights. There isn't that much else in his past that he can use as a substitute, either. There were a few meaningless one-nights stands, the results of loneliness, desperation, or just one Firewhisky too many in the wrong surroundings, and they always left a bad taste in his mouth afterwards; then, of course, there was Ginny, but these are not memories Harry would be likely to dwell on even if she were still alive. Ginny's cocky display of daredevil courage didn't last long once the war had started in earnest; the longer and uglier it got, the more the frightened little girl who was hoping for the hero to save her began shining through the facade again. They'd never officially got back together after his sixth year, but sometimes she would come to him at night and slip into his bed without speaking. Harry dreaded these nights when she clung to him until he gave in and obliged her, his mind far away while he mechanically went through the motions, concentrating on the sound of his own breathing so he wouldn't hear that she always called him Tom when she came.

The only person in his past who it feels safe to think about is Cho, and it seems strangely fitting in a way because this is exactly what their relationship was at the time: a safe way to forget the world outside and relax for a few hours before it was time to wade back into the fray, with no emotions involved and no strings attached. Cho went into Auror training right after the beginning of the war and lost another boyfriend and a husband before she'd finished it. This caused her to swear off relationships for good and regard sex as nothing but an enjoyable pastime from this time on. After a drunken night at Auror headquarters in celebration of a major Death Eater arrest, Harry ended up on the sofa in Shacklebolt's office with her, and it earned him a standing invitation to her bed whenever they both felt like it.

The infatuation he had once felt for her was long past, but he always enjoyed himself with her, and he found the utter lack of any demands - other than those of a purely physical nature - incredibly relaxing. He sometimes thinks that Cho kept him sane during the darkest periods of the war, when his life seemed to consist of nothing but fighting and planning while he missed Draco and was worried sick about him. His relationship with Draco, whatever it really was, was never an exclusive one, and while Cho wasn't able to fill the void Draco's absence left behind, she at least made Harry feel better for a few hours. He hopes very much that he was able to do the same for her.

Now, it is once more Cho he turns to when his mind is searching for an image that will let him take care of his body's demands. He tries to banish the lingering echoes of his dreams, replacing them with memories of glossy black hair and dark eyes, smooth skin against his own, and a gentle, very feminine voice whispering in his ear. Then, finally, it feels safe to let his hands slip beneath the waistband of his pyjamas and start stroking himself with quick, perfunctory movements that will allow him to relieve the aching tension as quickly as possible so he can go back to sleep. He tries not to think about the fact that sometimes, when he's getting close, the full, soft breasts of the woman in his fantasy look nothing like Cho's.

* * *

"I hear congratulations are in order."

Harry grins at Percy, who's standing in the doorway of Harry's office. "Hello to you too - and thank you."

"It's true, then?" As always, Percy waits for Harry's inviting gesture before he sits down in the visitor's chair in front of Harry's desk, even if he's become a regular visitor whenever Scrimgeour is unlikely to notice his absence.

"If you mean Remus' appointment as Defence teacher, then yes, it's true. Scrimgeour can throw all the tantrums he wants, the board of governors won't overrule McGonagall's choice."

Percy shakes his head in amazement. "How did you do it? The majority of the board members come from old families and are conservative as hell. How did you manage to make them accept a werewolf teacher?"

Harry shrugs. "It wasn't that hard to make them see reason, as a matter of fact. Besides, what really eased their minds was the fact that I promised to take full responsibility for the decision towards the newspapers and the parents of the Hogwarts students."

"Oh my." Percy winces in sympathy. "You'll be up to your ears in Howlers once this hits the papers. Lupin is a capable teacher and an Order member, but -"

"He's not Fenrir Greyback, Percy," Harry interrupts him, "and he has Snape nearby to keep him supplied with Wolfsbane Potion. He's perfectly safe."

"I know that," Percy replies; he looks slightly affronted that Harry would imply otherwise, "but I doubt everyone will see it that way. May I ask what Pansy had to say about it?"

Harry shrugs again. "Not much." It's true, too; Pansy's only comment has been I hope you know what you're doing, Potter.

"Well, then." Percy adjusts his glasses - silver-framed instead of the horn-rimmed monstrosities he used to wear as a student - and tactfully changes the topic. Sometimes, Harry can't help wondering what Percy really thinks about his relationship with Pansy, and he's almost sorry that Percy is too much a politician to ever tell him. "What's next, then? I seem to recall that you were talking about changes to the syllabus."

"Yes, but that's still in the early stages. I've been thinking that we need to change Muggle Studies into a mandatory subject for all the students, starting in their first year - something that encompasses both worlds, the Muggle and the magical one, and helps the students understand the background of the other side. I remember how completely lost I was in the beginning, when I knew next to nothing about things that my pureblood classmates had grown up with, and on the other hand, most purebloods are so clueless about Muggles it's not even funny any more."

He realises a second too late how spectacularly he has just put his foot in his mouth, but Percy just grins weakly.

"I bet Dad would have loved that."

Harry isn't sure what to say to that. Before he can think of anything, Percy adds, almost like to himself, "I was at their funeral, you know."

Harry takes a deep breath. "Your father's and Ginny's?"

Percy nods absentmindedly; he's not looking at Harry when he continues, "I wore a Glamour Charm so that no one would recognise me because the twins would have killed me on the spot, but - I just couldn't stay away."

"Percy," Harry says, steeling himself, "I'm going to the Burrow again next weekend." He hasn't been planning on going back there so soon, especially since Pansy refused to talk to him for days after his last visit, but he isn't sure how long Percy will be in the mood to listen to him. "I want you to come with me. Your mother has suffered enough, and frankly, so have you."

Percy is quiet for a moment, then he says, in a strangely choked voice, "I'll think about it."

When he continues, his tone has changed completely. "So that's Defence and Muggle Studies covered. What's next? Please tell me you'll do something about History of Magic."

Harry nods, his expression grim. "You bet I will. We need someone who'll teach the students stuff that's actually useful instead of Goblin Rebellions. If we'd been told the truth about Voldemort's first rise in Binn's class, many of our generation might have made different choices later."

Percy whistles through his teeth. "That's going to be one hell of a fight."

Harry gives him a smile with no humour in it. "That's what I'm here for, isn't it?"

"You'll need to tread carefully if you don't want to make enemies on all sides, Harry, but I suppose you've got Pansy to keep you from doing that." Percy sounds very serious, but then, he almost always does. "Speaking of enemies - who's going to be Head of Slytherin House, now that Slughorn is about to retire?"

"That's up to the Headmistress to decide, but my best guess would be Snape."

Percy seems taken aback. "And you'll let her?"

Harry does his best to keep his expression neutral. He is careful not to think of that night, of the flash of green light up on the Astronomy tower. "Like I said, it's not my decision to make. Besides, I can hardly keep telling people to accept that the war is over if I refuse to do the same."

* * *

Molly Weasley's face turns ashen when she sees Percy standing in the door beside Harry. For a heartbeat, there's absolute silence; Fred stares, George frowns, and even Charlie, blinded by a reflected curse in the final battle, lifts his head in surprise as if he could feel the sudden tension in the room. Then Mrs Weasley makes a strange sound, a mixture between a strangled cry and a sob; in the next moment Percy is caught up in an embrace that must make his ribs crack.

Harry turns away and walks out the door, feeling that he no longer has the right to be with the Weasley family in a moment like this.

He finds Ron in the back garden, sitting on the low bench right under the kitchen window. He barely looks up when Harry sits down beside him. "So the prodigal son has returned?"

Harry nods, noticing the slight slur to Ron's speech with a pang of dread. His hope that Ron would at least be moderately sober at this early hour has clearly been unfounded, but he can't bring himself to leave again - not while a part of him is still trying to recognise his childhood friend in the wreck of a man beside him.

Ron sighs. "Fitting. Now that they've got another one to play the misfit, they can bring precious Percy back into the fold. I always knew that she'd do it, even when the others swore they'd hex him if he should dare to approach this house again. I never doubted she'd forgive the traitorous little shit if he came crawling back to her."

"He didn't." Harry's voice is a lot calmer than he feels. "Percy did what he thought he had to do, and he certainly never betrayed any of you. Besides, I all but dragged him here today, it wasn't his idea."

Ron gives him a strange look. "Will you ever get over the need to play the saviour wherever you go, Harry?"

Harry shrugs, assuming that this will be the end of their conversation, when Ron completely surprises him by asking, "How's the family doing?"

Harry blinks. "My family?"

"No, the royal family, you twat. Who else?"

"Well, they - they're fine, thanks, Lucia is growing pretty fast and Pansy -" He stops talking when he hears Ron chuckle. "What's so funny?"

Ron is shaking with laughter now. "It's just that... I never thought you'd one day tell me about the well-being of Malfoy's pug-faced little whore, you know?"

"Ron." Harry's chilly tone is a warning his childhood friend would at least have noticed. "Please don't forget that it's my wife you're talking about."

"'Course, mate. The precious Mrs Potter." Ron is still laughing. "So you owe me now, don't you? After all, I'm pretty certain that she'd never have married you while the ferret was still alive, huh?"

Harry feels the hair on the back of his neck rise. It's difficult to breathe all of a sudden.

"What are you talking about?"

Ron gives him a sly look. "You really don't know? Scrimgeour didn't tell even you? Bloody hell, I'd have shouted it from the rooftops, but the idiot wanted to keep it out of the papers."

Harry tries not to listen; he wants to move, to get up and leave, but he can't, he's frozen on the spot, and Ron's unsteady voice keeps going on...

"Because I did it, Harry! He was the one who'd had it coming since he was eleven, and he might have got away if it hadn't been for me! He turned up when we were bringing in the Dementor for his dear old daddy, he must have found a way around the Anti-Apparition Jinx because he just popped out of the air with his wand drawn... threw a Dark curse but missed, pathetic little loser that he was - reduced his own father to a pile of ashes, and that was the only good thing he ever did in his miserable life... also the last, because I got him the same moment he threw the curse. AK'd him nice and clean, though Scrimgeour didn't want that part to get out because of me not being an Auror and so on. But I did it."

There's a mad gleam in Ron's eyes now. "I didn't get to see Lucius Malfoy kissed by a Dementor, but at least I was able to send his traitorous spawn to hell right after him."

* * *

It's already dark when Pansy enters the study where Harry is sitting at his desk, his face buried in his hands.

"He told you."

Harry doesn't even look up; there's no need to confirm what was clearly a statement, not a question. For a moment, the room goes quiet; then there's the sound of soft footfalls approaching him.

Ginny would have put her head on his shoulder and wept all those tears he wasn't able to shed himself. Hermione would have embraced him tightly and whispered words of comfort although she knew them to be empty. Pansy does neither; she merely places a hand on his shoulder and remains, quietly, by his side.

The horrified stupor that Ron's words have left behind eases a bit from the warm, secure presence of her light touch. Harry tries to draw a deep breath and realises that he can't, that something is rising in his throat that has been waiting to resurface for years - all the loss, sorrow and grief that he kept locking away within himself because there was never time for it, because giving in to it would have made him weak and vulnerable when he couldn't afford it. It's coming back with a vengeance now, rushing past the barriers he's erected around his mind like a flooding river tearing down the dams that used to confine it. For the first time since the day they buried Dumbledore, the tears that have been burning in his eyes for far too long are beginning to spill over his cheeks, and then Harry is crying like he's never cried before, until his whole body is shaking with racking sobs that make him feel as if his heart were about to burst out of his chest.

It's as if the weight of ten years' worth of mourning, which he has been carrying around for so long that it became a familiar, almost normal feeling, has finally become too much to bear, and now it's choking him until he feels like he's suffocating, like he's being crushed under it. He would never have consciously allowed himself to come apart in front of Pansy, but he's past caring, past his ability to put up any kind of resistance.

The tears keep coming, tears for all those the last ten years have taken from him, and Harry cries for all of them, for Ginny and Arthur and Tonks and Neville, for Draco and the future they might have had, and for Ron, who has been by his side almost until the end, and whom he lost in a way that is much worse than everything death could ever have done to him.

Pansy doesn't move or make a sound, she just keeps her hand on his shoulder and lets him be. Harry loses every sense of time; he couldn't say whether it's a minute or an hour later that he's finally wept all the tears he has and the sobs have faded into low, ragged gasps that hurt in his throat. Pansy's face is blurry before his eyes when he finally looks up at her and covers her hand with his, as if he needed to make sure it is real.

"Tell me." His voice sounds strange in his own ears, hoarse and shaky, but Pansy merely nods and walks over to the cold fireplace, where she sits down in one of the two chairs and gestures for him to join her there.

Harry is acting on pure instinct, but he feels he just can't keep up any pretence of composure right now, and after what Pansy just witnessed, it probably doesn't matter any more. She's already seen him at his most vulnerable, and for the first time in what seems like forever, Harry is prepared to admit that he needs the support she has to offer. Remembering the feeling of her hand on his shoulder, he crouches down on the floor by her feet, just like Lucia likes to do when she's playing in the living room, rests his forehead on her knee and closes his eyes.

She doesn't react at first; perhaps she's surprised by this open display of weakness that will seem very much unlike him to her. Yet she understands, because after a moment, Harry feels her hand gently smoothing down his hair and coming to rest at the nape of his neck. He leans into the touch, pathetically grateful for the small amount of comfort it brings, and repeats, "Please tell me."

"It was right after you'd killed the Dark Lord, and the Order had begun hunting down the remaining Death Eaters." Pansy's voice is detached, as if she were re-telling a story that she read in the Prophet this morning. "The Ministry was in a state of complete panic; they were afraid that there might be a last desperate attempt from the imprisoned Death Eaters to escape, and besides, while Scrimgeour was content to let the Order members take over the truly dangerous tasks, he wanted to make it look as if the Ministry too were involved in the last battle somehow."

Harry clenches his teeth, remembering the nightmarish days after the death of Voldemort only too clearly. The remaining Death Eaters knew they had nothing left to lose, and they fought accordingly.

"Therefore, Scrimgeour gave the order to have all imprisoned Death Eaters executed. Several members of the Wizengamot protested immediately because the Minister has no right to issue death sentences, so he switched tactics and decided that he wouldn't have the Death Eaters killed, but Kissed instead, now that they had the Dementors back in their service. I heard that he was quite pleased with this solution because it would render the victims harmless, but would leave him with living trophies who could be paraded around afterwards if the need arose to remind the population of his importance in the war. First to go, of course, was Lucius Malfoy."

Harry remembers only too well; Lucius had been arrested only days before Voldemort's death, and Harry had been immensely relieved that it hadn't been him to make the arrest. Scrimgeour didn't even dare to send Voldemort's right-hand man to Azkaban, but decided to lock him up right at the Ministry to make sure he wouldn't escape.

Pansy takes a deep breath, but her voice is steady when she continues. "Percy let Draco know, probably just so that Draco would be prepared when he heard the news. I'm sure he didn't expect that Draco would try to do anything about it."

Harry raises his head at this; Pansy's face is calm, but there's a strange look in her eyes that he can't interpret. "He really tried to get his father out of -?"

Pansy shakes her head. "He knew there was no way to save his father, and I think that he would have been able to live with it if they'd merely executed Lucius. But to be Kissed - Potter, I'm not sure how much you really know about Draco's feelings for his father, but you need to understand that they never changed very much, not even when Draco left the Dark Lord's inner circle and started opposing him. He disagreed with Lucius' political choices, but he never stopped loving and admiring the man himself, and there was no way he could stand by and allow the Ministry to take his father's soul and keep the remains of him around as a trophy of their victory."

Harry feels his breath catch in his throat. He remembers what Ron told him about the events surrounding Draco's and Lucius' deaths, and suddenly it all makes sense with terrifying clarity.

"He didn't got to the Ministry to break his father out - he went there to kill him?"

Pansy merely nods, and Harry closes his eyes again and remembers that Snape wanted to put 'Loyaulte me lie' on Draco's headstone.

Loyalty binds me.

"He must have known he wouldn't make it out alive."

"He did." Pansy's hand on his neck is trembling slightly, and Harry is almost grateful for this indication that she's not as calm as she seems. "He came to me right before. He wouldn't tell me how he was going to get past the Ministry security. Percy swears he had nothing to do with it, and I believe him - Percy respected Draco, but he had no reason to lift a finger for Lucius Malfoy's sake. But Draco said that there was a way, and that he had less than half an hour left before it was time. I -" Her voice cracks, and it takes her a moment to compose herself. "Of course we both knew how dangerous it was, but I also knew I wouldn't be able to stop him. He wouldn't have been able to live with himself if he'd let this happen to his father. He said there was a chance that he'd make it out again, and I desperately wanted to believe him, even though I'm sure he didn't believe it himself. Neither of us wanted to admit that this might be the last time we saw -" She falls silent, and Harry can't help reaching for her free hand.

"Why didn't he try to contact me? I might have been able to do something." It is the question that has been torturing him ever since he learned of Draco's death - they'd been lovers for almost five years, and Draco still hadn't asked for his help when he would have needed it most.

Pansy's hand remains limp in his grasp when she replies, "You'd gone after Bellatrix Lestrange, Potter, there was no way for him to reach you."

The statement leaves Harry strangely numb; he doesn't have any energy left to feel the pain or the remorse he probably should feel now. All he can think of is the sound of Bellatrix' mad laughter when the green flash of his Killing Curse hit her; as if she'd known that in the end, she'd won again.

"So he came to you -"

"Yes." Pansy's voice is harsh, but her fingers tighten around Harry's as if she needed something to hold on to. "He came to me, upset and utterly terrified, and so was I, and that's how we spent our last half hour. We had stopped sleeping together long ago, once he became seriously involved with you, so I hadn't taken any precautions, but I didn't even think about it. All we knew was that that the only thing to do was to hold on to each other while we still could, and we did. Then he left, and his daughter was orphaned within the hour of her conception."

She's quiet for a moment, then she adds, like an afterthought, "If it hadn't been for Percy, they wouldn't even have let me bring back his body for a proper burial."

Harry remains silent; he feels there's nothing left for him to say. He expects Pansy to push him away, to get up and leave, but she stays where she is, one hand on the nape of his neck, the other one clasping his. Her expression doesn't give away what she's thinking, and he can't bring himself to ask.

He closes his eyes again and tries to draw a little comfort from the fact that at the very least, they have each other to share their grief with, no matter how little they have in common otherwise.

* * *

A year ago, Pansy's revelations about Draco's death would have caused Harry to lock himself away in some dark corner and not come out for weeks. Now, though, he doesn't have the luxury of taking time to lick his wounds any longer, and he finds that frantic activity is the only thing that will help against the numb, empty feeling that threatens to overwhelm him whenever he has a moment to himself. He flings himself into his work as if his life depended on it, and it's surprisingly soothing to keep working until he almost falls asleep on top of the files on his desk or in the middle of a meeting. If even that fails, he still has Lucia to remind him that this is no time for him to fall apart.

The shadows are always there, lurking in the corners of Harry's mind, but Lucia's smile keeps them at bay. She's reached the age where she's starting to babble, and whenever Harry picks her up and hears her make sounds that, with a bit of imagination, might mean "Dad", he feels a steely kind of determination to keep going, no matter how much he's choking on his grief.

It's only sometimes, when he's lying awake at night because sleep just won't come, that he suddenly remembers Lucius Malfoy's stone-cold eyes looking at him through the slits in a Death Eater mask. These are the moments when overwhelming hatred rises like acid bile in his throat and he wants nothing more than to lash out at someone, at Scrimgeour for refusing to see past his own agenda, at Bellatrix for keeping Harry away from where he should have been that night, at Pansy for allowing Draco to get himself killed, or at Draco himself for throwing his life away to save the soul of a man who'd willingly surrendered it to the forces of darkness years before.

Even during those moments, though, he can't bring himself to hate Ron. Harry knows only too well that Ron is another victim of the war, another name on the list of people Harry loved, and still couldn't save.

These are the nights when he doesn't fall asleep until the crack of dawn for fear what his dreams might be about. He's aware that he can not, must not dwell on this - sometimes, he feels as if he can see Draco, one blond eyebrow raised and his mouth twisted into the familiar sarcastic sneer, telling him to get over himself.

Spare me the dramatics, Potter, your righteous anger isn't going to accomplish anything.

He has heard that sentence from Draco more often than he can count, and it always made him furious because he knew that Draco was right. Draco tried to teach him to hone his hate and anger into something else, into a cold, focused kind of fury that would not lash out blindly, but hit exactly where it would do the greatest damage to one's enemies.

With your head, Harry, not with your heart - trust me, I learned it the hard way myself.

Although he would never have admitted it, Harry always knew that it was sound advice. It's just unfortunate, he thinks bitterly, that Draco himself forgot about it in the end, when his loyalty to a man who had never deserved his love and adoration won out over all his clever principles.

Painful as they are, there's a part of Harry that relishes these moments, when something Draco used to tell him surfaces so vividly in his memory that he feels as if he were hearing Draco's voice again. He wonders if it's like that for Pansy all the time; if she can hear Draco so clearly in her mind that she carries on conversations with him like the one Harry witnessed. Several times, he has been close to asking her about it, but he has always remained silent so far - he just isn't sure they've become close enough to discuss these things, and he wonders on occasion if they ever will.

Pansy never mentions their talk about Draco's death, but it seems to Harry that her behaviour towards him has softened a bit ever since. She seems more ready to smile at him when they're sitting in the living room together while Lucia, on her blanket on the floor between them, is trying to catch the hem of Pansy's robes, and sometimes, when she enters his study to talk with him about something, she puts a hand on his shoulder for a moment like she did that one evening. Harry is surprised how much these little gestures have come to mean to him, even if he has no idea what motivates Pansy to make them in the first place. Of course, he doesn't ask about that either.

True to her word, Pansy doesn't object when Harry invites Hermione at the beginning of August. Ever the perfect hostess, she allows Hermione to hold Lucia and keeps a rather stilted, but polite conversation going at dinner before she excuses herself to let Harry and Hermione talk among themselves. Later, she doesn't even gloat too much when Harry tells her that Hermione informed him she's going to come back to the wizarding world to start training as a nurse at St Mungo's.

The encounter with Hermione leaves Harry deeply uncomfortable. Hermione kept bringing up Ron - she'd been to the Burrow a few days earlier and still hadn't recovered from the shock of seeing Ron in his current state. Harry had no way to make her comprehend why he didn't want to talk about anything that concerned Ron, and it was painfully obvious how disappointed Hermione was in him. Harry understands that she must think he's giving up on his oldest friend for no apparent reason, but there's nothing he can do about it. He keeps hoping that he isn't going to lose Hermione over this, too, but there were moments during their conversation when he felt like he was talking to a stranger, and he can't help wondering whether they haven't lost each other already.

"Give it time," is the only thing Pansy says when he mentions his fears to her. He likes that about her: she's willing to listen when he talks about things that bother or worry him, but she never offers any kind of false comfort. Her candour can be harsh at times, but Harry has been lied to often enough in his life to appreciate it nevertheless.

* * *

Harry is perched on the edge of his desk and reading a letter from Mr Parkinson that just arrived by owl when the door to his study bursts open. Pansy is standing on the threshold, her face red and her eyes flashing, a piece of parchment with a broken seal in her hand - clearly, Harry's letter wasn't the only one the owl delivered.

Harry knows perfectly well what this is about, but he can't resist the temptation to feign ignorance. "Is something the matter, Pansy?"

Pansy seems winded, although she can't have run much further than along the corridor. "Potter - Harry - did you... I mean, Dad tells me he -" She pauses for a moment to draw breath, then continues in a calmer tone, although her voice is still trembling with excitement. "Dad tells me he has been chosen as a member of the Wizengamot to replace someone who retired last month."

Harry gives her a polite smile. He's aware that he's enjoying this far too much, but he just can't help himself. "Well, that is good news. I'll send him my sincerest congratulations."

Pansy takes another deep breath, her eyes narrowing dangerously. "What are you playing at? You had a hand in this, didn't you?"

Harry's smile turns smug. "I may have."

It was surprisingly easy, even; most members of the Wizengamot have been thoroughly irritated by Scrimgeour's recent, rather blatant attempts to interfere with their decisions. The Wizengamot isn't part of the Ministry of Magic, although it has its location there and traditionally recruits most of its members from the Ministry staff. Still, the Ministry has no official influence on the Wizengamot other than the fact that the Minister and the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement are entitled to be members of the court. The choosing of new members is up to the three Chief Warlocks, and while every Minister in the past tried to throw his weight around sometimes when it came to deciding on a candidate, none did it with Scrimgeour's heavy-handed arrogance.

Hence, it wasn't that hard for Scrimgeour's most prominent opponent to pique their interest in a candidate who is highly unlikely to have any ties with the Minister, especially since said candidate comes from an old and respected wizarding family. The fact that Mr Parkinson had Voldemort's vanquisher advocate his case obviously outweighed his political affiliations which are still regarded as questionable by the majority of the wizarding public, although Harry has already heard murmurs among the old pureblood clans that it may have been a bit rash to tar the neutral families with the same brush as the Death Eaters.

Harry is perfectly aware that the Warlock Council thought he was mostly trying to do his father-in-law a personal favour, and it doesn't bother him overmuch. He witnesses on a daily basis how things are done at the highest levels of government - if he won't push for a candidate he favours, someone else will do it for theirs. Besides, he has come to respect Mr Parkinson, and he seriously believes that he will have a beneficial influence on the decisions of the Wizengamot beyond just helping the cause of the neutral families in the long run. Therefore, Harry has been able to pull strings and strike bargains with a clear conscience, and he is quite pleased with the result.

'Quite pleased' doesn't even begin to describe how Pansy obviously feels about it. She looks as if she's only now beginning to believe that this is real and not just some elaborate joke; her eyes widen almost comically, and all she manages to get out is a strangled, "You..."

Harry's smile widens into a grin. "Me."

In the next moment, Pansy's arms are around him, and he gets just a glimpse of her beaming face before her lips are on his.

Something hot and heavy seems to explode in Harry's chest, and before he can think about what he's doing, his hands come up to hold on to Pansy when she's trying to draw back. It's evident that she only meant to give him a friendly thank-you peck, but she doesn't resist when he pulls her closer. Her mouth opens under his, and she even tentatively responds when he deepens the kiss. He fleetingly wonders how long he has wanted to do this without being aware of it, because it seems like a homecoming to feel her, taste her, breathe in the smell of her. Harry only realises that his hands have begun to wander when the feeling of her breast under his palm, both firm and ever so soft, begins to register on him. The moment he notices what he's doing, the spell is broken; Harry snatches his hand away with a feeling of deep embarrassment and half expects her to slap him for his presumption.

Pansy, however, merely lets go of him and takes a step back. She seems thoroughly flustered, as if she weren't sure how to react, and it isn't lost on Harry that he can see her pulse beating rapidly against the skin of her neck. At last, she says "I just wanted to thank you" in a surprisingly small voice and gives him a hesitant smile before she turns on her heel and hastily leaves the room.

Harry stares after her, his mind reeling and his mouth still tingling with the feeling of her lips on his.

* * *

Pansy doesn't come to dinner in the evening; when Harry asks Ketty about her, the house-elf informs him that she has gone out. Harry noticed before that Pansy often visits the cemetery on Sunday evenings (although she's still unaware that he knows where she's going), but so far, she has never missed dinner over it, and he spends the evening mentally kicking himself for his slip-up.

He is about to go to bed when he remembers that in his preoccupation, he didn't check on Lucia tonight, so he throws on a dressing-gown over his pyjama bottoms and makes his way across the corridor. The nursery is right next to Pansy's bedroom, and Harry notices the narrow streak of light under Pansy's door - she must have Apparated straight into her bedroom when she returned. For a moment, he is tempted to knock and apologise for his behaviour, but he finally decides to postpone it until the morning since she might see it as an invasion of her privacy - after all, he has never set foot into her bedroom or even seen the door stand open until now.

The door is open, though, when he leaves the nursery a few minutes later, satisfied that Lucia is sleeping soundly under Mim's watchful eyes. Light spills from the bedroom into the dim corridor, Pansy's silhouette a dark outline against it. Surprised, Harry takes a step closer; only now can he make out her face, which is wearing an expression he has never seen on her. Her cheeks are flushed, her brows drawn together, and she raises her chin in a way that looks almost defiant.

Before he can say anything, Pansy speaks up in a low, strangely flat voice. "Would you like to come in?"

This is so completely out of the blue that it takes Harry a moment to reply, and even then he only manages, "What?"

Pansy takes a step back and opens the door further; now that she's standing in the light, Harry realises that there's no sign of a nightshirt or pyjamas underneath her velvet dressing-gown. "You heard me."

Harry still isn't sure what to think, although the meaning seems obvious enough. "Just so we're clear on this, do you mean -"

"Yes, I do," Pansy interrupts him with a hint of impatience in her tone. "I'm offering, in case you're interested. Which I think you are."

There's no denying that last statement, and Harry has stepped over the threshold and closed the door behind him before his brain has fully caught up with what is happening. Pansy doesn't give him much time for consideration now, either, because her hands are already busy with the belt of his dressing-gown. Every attempt at rational thought goes right out the window the moment she touches his bare skin; she is indeed not wearing anything under her own dressing-gown, and Harry soon finds himself naked on the bed with her without being sure how he got there, nor caring overmuch. She feels warm and soft under his hands, her body pliant against his as he lightly kisses his way down her neck, savouring the feeling of her rapid pulse against his lips. She rolls over on her back, pulling him with her, but when he leans in to kiss her, she turns her head away and closes her eyes.

Harry freezes as he suddenly understands what this is really about, and a wave of cold fury rises in his chest. After all these months of learning to live with each other, tolerate each other and slowly starting to appreciate each other's company, she has the gall to act like she's servicing him, like she's obliged to do him a favour to even the odds between them.

He's sorely tempted to get up and leave, but then another idea flashes through his mind, and he is angry enough now to go with it. Pansy's eyes fly open when he slides down her body; she pushes herself up on her elbows and hisses, "What are you -"

"Shut up," Harry snaps back and forces her legs apart, and his mouth is on her before she even realises what he's about to do. Pansy draws in a sharp breath and stiffens, the muscles of her thighs clenching under his hands, but Harry barely notices; he's too busy concentrating on what he's doing. He knows he's good at this, thanks to Cho's frequent and completely unabashed instructions, and he's determined to make Pansy enjoy it, whether she wants it or not. There's something wrong with this reasoning, but he doesn't think about it; all he knows is that he'll be damned if he allows her to keep up the charade of lying back and thinking of England just so she can pretend she's only doing this for his sake.

Pansy is clearly struggling to keep up the detached behaviour, but she doesn't quite manage it once Harry has begun in earnest. He listens for that first little sigh that tells him he's got past her defences, and it comes soon enough and causes him to double his efforts, lips, tongue and fingers working furiously until Pansy's breathing becomes laboured. He doesn't look up at her face, but from the sound of it, she's biting her lip to keep herself from making any noises. She can't keep her body from reacting to what he's doing to her, though, and Harry keeps at it until her muscles tighten and spasm under his touch and she gasps out something - a name that isn't his...

Harry's head jerks up at this; she has her head thrown back, and her breasts are rising and falling with each rapid breath. He was fully resolved to get up and leave her like this, sweaty and panting and completely undone, but he's almost painfully hard now, and although the cold fury hasn't abated in the slightest, he can't bring himself to tear himself away from her.

As if she were reading his mind, Pansy settles the matter for him by grabbing his shoulders so hard that her nails dig into his skin and yanking him on top of her. She hooks her heels behind his calves and pulls, her hips snapping up towards his as he pushes into her. It's hard and fast and furious; Harry is past caring whether he's hurting her or not, but if he is, she doesn't give any indication of it. She moves with him, meeting his thrusts; she's biting her lower lip again as if it were utterly important to remain quiet. Harry is getting close, but he holds back with all his might until he feels her body arch up under him and hears the choked, breathless moan she can't suppress. Only then does he let go, heat rushing through him as he thrusts into her one last time and then stills.

He pulls back immediately, gets up from the bed and turns away without even looking at Pansy again. She doesn't say anything, and neither does he; he merely puts on his dressing-gown and walks out of the room.

* * *

He sleeps like the dead that night, but his sleep is troubled by dreams that are more vivid than anything he has experienced in a long time. He wakes at the crack of dawn, covered in sweat and dimly aware that he must have kicked the covers aside during the night since he feels the morning air like a cool breeze on his naked body. Harry keeps his eyes closed; his mind is still hazy with the remnants of his dreams - there were hands all over him, and he can still feel their touch on his skin, as if -

Only then does he realise that this is no longer part of a dream, that there are indeed hands on his body, pressing him into the mattress and holding him firmly in place. Harry's eyes snap open at this, and there's Pansy, looking strangely girly in pink pyjamas with her dark hair tied into a ponytail, kneeling over his legs with her hands on his hips. Harry becomes acutely aware of his morning erection right in her line of vision, and although it's probably stupid given the events of the previous evening, he feels himself flush with embarrassment.

"Pansy, what -" He falls silent when he notices the expression on her face; he doesn't think he has ever seen her look downright dangerous before.

"Two can play that game, Potter," is all she says, and then her mouth is on him.

Harry hears himself groan before his mind has even fully caught on with what is happening, and he feels his throat constrict at the familiarity of the sudden sensations. There can be no doubt where she learned this, who taught her all the wicked things to do with one's tongue and lips that he himself was so good at. Harry's eyes close almost on their own accord; there's no fighting this, it's dragging him right into the memories he has hidden from for so long, and suddenly it's no longer Pansy's mouth that makes him moan and gasp and tremble - it's Draco, hell-bent on making Harry lose his mind like he has done on so many occasions, each of them fresh in Harry's memory as if it had happened only yesterday. Harry bites down hard on the knuckles of his hand to keep his composure, knowing that he mustn't let go - it will be over the moment he does, and he doesn't want to let everything he has been longing for so desperately slip out of his grasp so quickly again.

He can't help it, thought, can't fight the tension building up inside him, and then white-hot lights explode behind his eyelids, and Harry cries out as the searing heat washes over him, leaving him panting and shivering in the cool morning air that causes goosebumps to rise on his damp skin.

His heart is hammering in his chest, and there doesn't seem to be enough air in the room because it's suddenly difficult to breathe. Only when he hears the door slam does he open his eyes to realise that he's alone.

* * *

Harry isn't sure how he expected Pansy to react to the events of the night, but the one thing he definitely wasn't prepared for was perfectly normal behaviour.

Pansy acts as if nothing had happened at all; she makes idle conversation at breakfast, neither avoiding his gaze, nor giving him any meaningful looks. When Harry returns in the evening after a spectacularly unproductive day at work because his mind kept wandering, she's just like always at the dinner table, and even though she doesn't join Harry when he carries Lucia into the living room to play with her for a while before Mim takes her to bed, there seems to be nothing amiss between them, as if they hadn't been fighting out a very dirty power struggle in each other's beds just a few hours earlier.

Harry feels restless and jumpy when he finally retires to his bedroom; there's no way he'll be able to sleep now, and after a while of turning things over in his mind again and again (which doesn't lead him anywhere), he decides he's had enough.

Pansy has made her point about how things are done the Slytherin way, but now it's time for him to remember he's a Gryffindor.

She opens her bedroom door when he knocks and arches an eyebrow at him, clearly daring him to come up with a convincing explanation what he's doing here again tonight. Harry, however, has no intention to keep dancing around the issue.

He does his best to keep his voice as even as possible; he wants to come across as neither arrogant nor apologetic. "I'm sick of the power games, Pansy. I'm here because I'd like to sleep with you. Truce?"

Pansy doesn't say anything. She just looks at him for a moment with her eyebrow still raised; then she steps back from the door and gestures for Harry to come inside.