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It happens after the fourth round. Pansy notes that it always happens right around then. Potter gets up from the booth and offers his hand to Draco, and Draco, blushing, takes it and rises.
"There they go," Seamus says. It's his role to comment on the obvious.
Pansy rolls her eyes. "Don't quit your day job. You'll put all these mediocre Aurors out of work with deduction like that."
That gets a laugh from the table. Except for Longbottom and Millicent, who are deep in a conversation about some plant or other.
Pansy sips her martini and then plays with the olive stick while Potter pulls Draco to the nearly empty dance floor, yanks him close, and Draco, smiling in his sloppy fourth-round way, goes into his arms like water over a fall.
"How's Gringotts?" Granger asks, pulling her attention away.
Pansy clears her throat and attempts to make her boring work sound interesting for no more than forty-five seconds. She's noticed that she tends to lose people to vacant stares around the one minute mark. She carefully avoids waxing poetic about Goblin futures. The only one who gives a shit is Draco, and Pansy is perfectly aware that even Granger's likely to go glassy-eyed if she starts, so she ropes it in and asks after Granger's work down in Mysteries.
"Oh, it's lovely." Granger smiles. "I love it." She nods for a few moments and Pansy waits for her to go on. Granger leans forward a touch. "Can't really talk about it. You understand."
"Oh, right. Right."
Granger sighs into the awkward silence.
Pansy glances at Potter and Draco again. Potter's kissing behind Draco's ear like no one can see him doing it or he just doesn't mind if they can.
"Merlin's shorts."
"I know, right?" This is Weasley. He's nearly three sheets himself and has his arm slung heavy around Granger in a way that's either overly possessive or bespeaks his need to be held upright. Pansy suspects the latter, which is probably why Granger's suffering it in the first place. "Sickening, that." Weasley shakes his head.
"Be nice." Granger swats him one in the ribs.
"No, not like bad-sickening."
"Oh, the other kind?"
Weasley doesn't seem to comprehend her gentle mocking. "Yes, exactly." He sips his new pint and leaves a frothy mustache over his lip.
"Where's Luna?" Granger half-shouts over the table.
Pansy consults her watch and frowns. "Probably still putting the magazine to bed." She shrugs and attempts a nonchalant smile. "The news never really sleeps. Or, uh, gets anywhere on time."
Her gaze travels back out to the dance floor when Granger's drawn into a conversation with Ginny. Potter and Draco are dancing so slow it practically can't be categorised as such. Draco's head is lain on Potter's shoulder, his normally pinched face relaxed, eyes softly closed. Potter's hands roam his back at leisure and then deposit themselves into the back pockets of Draco's trousers. Pansy shakes her head, snorts, and eats an olive.
"Oi!" Ron shouts. "Get a room!"
Potter glances up to grin, removes his hand from a pocket to shoot the finger, then resituates it back against Draco's bum. Draco snuggles even closer.
"Give them a break," Ginny says. "They're practically newlyweds without rings."
"Six months," Weasley complains. "Six bloody months I've had to—"
"Oh, would you stop?" Granger laughs. "You're the one that got them together, for Merlin's sake."
Weasley's chest puffs out. "Yeah, that's right. It's just… Well, I didn't think there'd be quite as much… public groping. I thought maybe they'd GET A ROOM for that."
Potter leans in, puts his lips right at Draco's ear, and whispers something. Draco pulls back to look at his face when he laughs, says something back that makes Potter smile, and they turn slowly on the dance floor.
"I swear," Weasley goes on, pointing at Dean across the table. "If you ever touch my sister like that—"
"Your sister's an Auror and can take care of herself," Ginny chides him. "Piss off." She throws back her Firewhisky and takes Dean's hand in her own. "Ready?"
"You got it, Gin." He leans in and kisses her, and Weasley winces and grumbles.
Pansy looks at her watch again and considers trying to find an owl as Ginny and Dean say their goodnights.
Weasley finishes his pint and belches. "One more. On Harry!"
Potter lifts his face from Draco's hair to shout over, "You're asking for it." But he digs in his pocket for the Galleons anyway.
"Anyone? Anyone?" Weasley scans the table.
"None for me," Pansy says.
Weasley staggers over to take the money and pats Potter on the back so hard he and Draco both stumble.
"Are you going to Side-Along the two of them home?" Granger asks her. "We could all share a Knight Bus."
Pansy snorts. "I'd rather not be in a bus full of beds with those two."
"Mm." Granger frowns. "Quite right."
"Besides, that's the benefit of sharing a flat; I don't have to Apparate twice."
"Do you think Luna's just gone home then?" She slants a smile up to Weasley upon his return with her dandelion wine. "Thank you, dear."
Pansy drops her chin into her hand. "Maybe." She watches Potter slam back a shot of something. Draco follows suit. Potter tosses the glass up, snaps his fingers, and both his and Draco's glasses Vanish.
"Show off!" Pansy yells.
Potter shoots her a grin and a wink, hand back in Draco's back pocket, and she rolls her eyes. She stirs her last olive around in the remaining gin and wonders if Luna's bent at her desk writing about Fire Crabs. If her new glasses are slipping down her nose. If her back might be aching. If maybe they could share a hot bath when they're both home.
Neville laughs at something Millicent says about Puffapods. Pansy wonders what could possibly be funny about them – just not enough to actually ask. Granger and Weasley's heads are together and they're talking like couples do, with kindness and humour swimming in their eyes. Seamus tries to put a chilling charm on his beer but ends up freezing it solid. "Bugger."
Pansy glances at the dance floor again, and yes, the snogging has begun. Pansy pulls the last olive from the stick with her teeth. "Time to fetch the boys," she tells whoever might be listening.
"Night, Pans," Seamus says.
"It's Parkinson to you."
She waves at the table and makes her way over to Potter and Draco, now stumbling together and laughing against one another's lips.
"Merlin, you're bound to bite each other's tongues off," Pansy tells them. "Come now, break it up."
"Hullo, Pans. Dance with us."
"Uh no."
Bloody hell, Draco's completely pissed. He weaves in Potter's arms, reaching for her and missing.
"I have to go home and fire-call Luna, and I'm not leaving you two here on your own."
"But why?" Draco pouts. Then he leers in the direction of Potter's lips. "We were doing just fine."
"Yes, I could see that, if by fine you mean stumbling stupid drunk and about to make a spectacle of yourselves."
"That's what he means," Potter says, smiling over his shoulder at her as they keep dancing.
"Very funny, Potter. Let's go."
"Pub crawling?"
"No, to bed." She tries to sound den-mother stern, but Draco just turns around in Potter's arms, presses his arse to Potter's crotch, and purrs, "Mmm, all right then."
Potter takes him by the hips and mouths at his neck.
"Merlin. Okay, that's it." She takes Draco's arm and starts leading him away. She whistles for Potter. "Come here, boy." She pats her thigh. "Here, boy. Come and get it."
"You're brilliant. Just hilarious," Potter tells her.
She whistles at him again.
"Okay, I'll meet you on the pavement, all right? Just don't Apparate without me."
"Fine, fine." She turns to the door with her drunken charge, and Draco stumbles along after her as Potter heads back to the table to take their leave.
Outside, it's sultry and still. She leans against the brick and watches the foot traffic along the newly-renovated Knockturn, witches and wizards laughing and strolling in the late evening, heading home or for one last drink.
"He's glorious," Draco tells her conspiratorially, as though this is somehow a secret.
"You are so going to regret saying that tomorrow."
Draco casts his gaze up to the stars and promptly stumbles from the vertigo. "Why?"
Pansy snorts. "Because by then you'll be back to 'wankering' and 'poncing' each other, and I'll still remember that you called him glorious and take great pleasure in tormenting you about it, that's why."
"No!" Draco insists. "You love me, Pans."
"Mm. I love tormenting you, too, though." She grabs him quickly by the arm to keep him from weaving into a passing group. "You'd do the same to me and you know it."
He laughs. "Yeah." He leans against the brick with her and sighs. After another moment he turns his head and whispers, "He really is, though. Potter. He's glorious."
"I've no doubt," she says dryly.
But the truth is she's come to like the Boy Who Lives with her. He's not nearly so insufferable as Draco'd made him out to be in their school years. He cleans up after himself; he cooks; he likes Horn-Tongue Hex's music, and that's more than she can say for Draco. He's even picked up her PMT potion when she's out. Which probably has more to do with his sense of self-preservation, but still.
He never looks at her like she's the girl who would have turned him over to the Dark Lord. She rather likes that in a flat-mate. Even though it's more than she likely deserves. Potter says it's water under the bridge. Potter's shagging her best friend. Potter's not a bad bloke. If she absolutely had to describe him thus, Pansy supposes 'glorious' is not so ill-fitting a term. Though she could never say it without it dripping sarcasm. That would be her own self-preservation kicking in.
Draco's seemed to shed the need for his. Well, when he's pissed at least. He sighs next to her. "He's got a massive cock. Did you know that?"
She laughs, shaking her head. "You'll be Obliviating me when you're sober."
Thank Salazar, the door to the pub bursts open. Neville's in the lead of their little group. "Fry-up at mine!" he announces.
"Exploding Snap?" Weasley asks.
"Of course."
"You're on." Then, belatedly, "Honey bun?"
"Er, so long as you never call me that again, yes." Granger threads her arm through Weasley's.
"Harry, Malfoy, Pansy?"
But Potter's already found Draco against the brick and is fervently kissing his neck.
Pansy answers for the three of them. "Uh, no. Thanks." She grabs their elbows. "Come on." She drags them, still attempting to snog, toward her preferred Apparition point.
"Pansy, you're a saint for putting up with us," Potter says as she pulls them into the alley.
"I know."
"You okay to Apparate?"
"One martini over the course of three hours. I think I'll be fine."
"I'm sorry Luna couldn't make it," Potter tells her. "Will she be at the flat, do you think?"
"I hope so." Pansy can't help but check her watch once more.
Draco sighs. "I love Lovegood."
"That's nice, now give me your arms."
Draco holds up both of his.
"I meant your arm and Potter's arm."
"Oh." Draco snorts, falls into Potter, and Potter kisses the top of his drunken head.
"Merlin help me," Pansy sighs and then Apparates them home.
*
"Luna?" Pansy calls, dropping her wand onto the kitchen table. Her heels click through the apartment as she checks everywhere. Because with Luna, she could be doing some sort of research at the back of a closet, you just never know.
But Luna's not home. Pansy sits on their bed and shoves the shoes off her feet. She falls back into the inviting softness of the mattress for a moment, listening to the sounds of inebriated foreplay coming from the living room: lascivious chuckling, a slap, a yelp, more chuckling.
She heaves herself off the bed and drops to her knees in front of the Floo. She tosses in some powder and chimes Luna in her office, but the Floo is already busy. At least that tells her Luna's still there and still working.
She stands and cracks her back. "Tilly!" she calls. She looks around the room. Tilly's cage door is open, which is how Pansy left it so not surprising, but no owl in sight. "Tilly!"
The sound of her beak against the window pane has Pansy turning sharply. "Bloody hell, which one of them let you out?"
Pansy opens the window, and her owl steps inside. "I need you to get a note to Luna." She composes a quick parchment – "Bit worried about you. Home from the pub. Drunk boys having sex in the living room. Help! Missing you, Pans". She looks at the note, peers around herself as though Blaise or Daphne might be ready to jump out any moment and take the piss for it, and then she sketches a lopsided heart. She rolls up the parchment and attaches it to Matilda's leg. "Hurry now."
The bird hoots, unmoving. Pansy huffs. "Rotten owl. Come here then." Pansy scratches the bird's ears, and Tilly shuts her eyes, visibly relaxing, and if an owl can smile…
"Oh, Harry! Lick the left one!"
"Bollocks," Pansy growls. "Now, off with you!" She shoos the owl from the window ledge. She's about to wand the door closed when she realises she left her wand in the bloody kitchen. She has to actually stomp over and slam the door by hand. "Plonkers," she grumbles.
She sets to taking off her pub clothes, sighing with happiness as she strips the stockings down her legs and flings them off. She rubs her sore toes, wishing Luna were here to do it for her.
A particularly loud groan comes muffled through the door.
"Oh, you're joking."
Maybe they'll be quick about it. She can hope.
Pansy opens her dresser drawers and pulls out her most comfortable boys' boxers and a ratty t-shirt that Luna seems to like the look of her tits in. She changes and then heads to the en suite to pee for days and then wash the make-up off her face.
When she emerges, it's quiet.
Pansy breathes a sigh of relief. Thank Merlin for boys so hot for each other they ejaculate prematurely as often as not. She needs her wand and she's starving. Bloody hell, she's only had three olives since lunch. She opens the bedroom door and pads down the hall only to walk around the corner into the living room and—
"Oh bloody buggering—!" She covers her eyes but not quickly enough. The damage is done. She peeks through two fingers, wincing.
Draco lifts his face from the pillow where he's been… well, muffling his bliss. "Pans," he gasps.
"Shit," Potter says and then attempts – valiantly, chivalrously – to cover Draco's nude body with his own still partially-clothed one where he's got Draco bent over the arm of the sofa. All she gets is more Potter-bum for his trouble. Which she did not need.
"You have a bedroom!" Pansy growls at them, stomping her foot. "Why? Why here?"
Potter actually appears to consider this. "We're twats?" he hazards.
"Obviously!"
Potter shifts a little, and then suddenly she's seeing the tip of his cock peeking up between Draco's perky arsecheeks.
"Oh, fuck, no! What…? God." Pansy covers her eyes completely again and starts feeling for the wall to guide her into the kitchen.
"I couldn't get it in," Potter explains. Like she even WANTS an explanation for that.
But this sets off a round of giggling from Draco. "…couldn't get it in."
There's the sound of yet another slap, a laughing yelp, a warm answering chuckle.
"Merlin." Pansy cringes.
She's made it to the kitchen, though. She grabs her wand and opens all the cupboards with it simultaneously. She makes some blind grabs for things and just prays that they'll make a redeemable meal once she gets it all back to the safety of her bedroom.
"Flip over," she hears Potter growl.
"No. No no." Pansy starts humming tunelessly to herself. She stomps back through the living room and can't help but notice that they're sprawled together on the sofa properly now, and they've attempted some bit of modesty by covering themselves with a blanket. But… well, that blanket is moving. Rhythmically. And she can still make out Potter's hand tight around one of Draco's wrists over his dishevelled head, and bloody hell, she can still hear them, too, and…
"Goodnight!" she shouts.
Potter's messy head clears the blanket. "Night." He quirks a daft smile at her before a hand sneaks up, curls around the back of his neck, and pulls him back down. And then a new round of laughter erupts only to die down to moaning and wet, slapping noises.
Pansy heads down the hall to her room, kicking the door shut once she's inside. She dumps her food on the bed and then aims her wand at the door and swishes out a privacy charm.
"Draco… Fuck, Draco…"
She swishes again, harder this time.
"Oh yeah… Harry, just like that…"
"Fuck, I'm gonna come all over you."
Pansy tries a different one, jabbing at the door this time. Blue sparks spit from her wand. She can hear Draco's escalating whining sounds still, and she groans. Because, fuck. She's an exhibitionist; she never learned her privacy spells properly. It just didn't occur to her she'd need them for this. Perhaps it's her karma.
Draco reaches new heights of vocal ecstasy, and he suddenly switches from 'Harry' to 'Potter'. Well. Maybe that means he's close.
And actually… That gives Pansy an idea. Maybe the first good one she's had all night.
*
Someone gently nudges her shoulder, and Pansy comes jerking awake, smacking her lips and realising there's a line of cold drool down her chin.
Lovely. She scrubs it away with a corner of blanket.
She blinks. And there's Luna. Beautiful, smiling, perfect.
"Where have you been?" she cries. And yet no sound comes out.
Luna taps at her ear. Pansy frowns at her. Luna smiles serenely and reaches for Pansy's head. It's only then that Pansy remembers.
Luna removes the earmuffs and asks, "Are these from Herbology? Second year and the mandrake roots?"
"Yes."
"That's brilliant." Her gaze then drifts to Pansy's chest. "Are you eating crisps between two slices of bread?"
Pansy looks down and finds that, indeed, the remains of her dinner last night are still there on a plate, balanced precariously on her own body.
"That's sort of brilliant, too," Luna tells her.
"No. It's not. It's repulsive." Pansy puts the plate aside and sits up, taking Luna's pretty face in her hands. "Thank Merlin you're here." Pansy leans their foreheads together. "Are they finished?"
"Mm, some time ago, it appears."
"Small mercies. Did they make it to bed?"
"Oh no." Luna leans back and smiles, taking Pansy's hands in her own. "They're on the living room floor. I take it they fell there at some point. Draco is snoring, and Harry's wearing exactly one sock." At Pansy's look, she adds, "Don’t worry. I covered up the other bits."
"Thank you. What time is it?"
"Almost four. I'm sorry I'm so late. Or am I early?" Her gaze goes off into the distance somewhere.
"God, you must be knackered." Pansy strokes a hand over Luna's hair, and Luna leans into it, humming her approval. "Do you want to sleep?"
"Yes. Soon." She lifts a brow. "After?"
Pansy can feel her own smile turning wolfish. "After what, Lovegood?"
Luna presses her back into the bed. "After we do it loud enough to wake up the boys, of course."
Pansy opens her thighs so that Luna can settle between them. "Oh I do love you."
*
Pansy sips her tea at the table, perusing her advanced copy of The Quibbler when Draco comes in, yawning and grumbling.
"Morning," she says.
He grunts and starts going through the cupboards. "Fuck's sake," he says. "Did that wanker eat all my crisps?"
"That was Luna and me, actually." She shoots him a smirk.
"Oh. Well, thanks a bloody lot."
"You want crisps? For breakfast?"
"They're good for my… condition."
"You mean your hangover."
"Tell me there's coffee."
"You know there is. You buy the coffee. Hold on a tic." She gets up and goes to the bedroom, tiptoeing around in her socks as to not wake Luna. She comes back and tosses Draco what's left of the crisp bag. "There."
"I don't know if you're a hag for stealing my crisps in the first place or a princess for not eating all of them." Draco digs a handful out and stuffs his regal face.
"Is Potter still a wanker then?"
"Of course he's a wanker." He gives her a small smile. "But he's my wanker."
"Who's a wanker?" Potter strides into the room like he didn't imbibe at all the night before. Bastard.
"Oh, nobody," Pansy says. "Everybody's GLORIOUS. Right, Draco?"
His cheeks pink.
Potter half-smiles, half-frowns at her. "Why are you being so odd?"
"I'm not being odd. Say, Potter, don't you have a massive…" She watches Draco's eyes bulge. "…workload today?"
He shrugs. "Actually, no, I've got a half day."
Draco sighs in relief, and she winks at him behind Potter's back.
"What about you?" Potter asks Draco, sidling up next to him and fetching a mug down from the cupboard.
"Mm. I'm behind in working out the algorithms for a curse we've got to put on a new vault, so…"
"I was going to see if you'd want to meet me for lunch."
"Can't. I'm free for dinner, though."
Potter blasts him with his full-wattage smile. "Lovely. I hope you have a good day." He leans in and kisses Draco's lips briefly like they'll be doing that the rest of their lives.
Pansy catches herself smiling at the arseholes.
"I need to shower," Draco says. He blushes profusely.
Potter smacks his arse – hard – as he walks out of the room, and Draco yelps.
Potter's following him, no doubt because he thinks he can be of some assistance, but Pansy grabs his arm and stops him.
"So, I thought maybe we should invent some rules around here."
"Oh?"
"For nocturnal… happenings."
"Oh."
"Yeah."
Potter nods. "You know, I think that's probably a good idea." He cocks his head. "Are you free for lunch?"
She startles some. Potter's never asked her to lunch before. "I—I think so. Why?"
"Why?" Potter laughs. "Because I tend to get hungry in the middle of the day and require foodstuffs. I thought that might happen to you around the same time."
When she arches a brow at him, he goes on, softer. "Because we're roommates." He licks his lips and lowers his voice even more. "Because someday I'm going to ask your best friend to marry me and he's going to need a best mate to freak out to about it."
"Potter…" She's smiling at him. She doesn't want to be, but she is.
"Because I like you, and I'd like to buy you lunch." He grins. "And because I need to teach you some privacy spells evidently."
"Me? What about the two of you?"
"Oh god, we were too drunk to get our wands to work. But I promise we'll try to make it into our own bedroom next time."
"Good. Okay. So… lunch?"
"Sure. Why not?"
Ever the Gryffindor. And Pansy can't think of a good reason not to. She actually thinks she might want to go. "Curry?"
"Perfect." He smiles, but then his attention is caught by the sound of the shower starting up. He looks like a Crup that heard the post.
Pansy rolls her eyes.
He smiles down at her again, gives her a wink, and practically sprints from the room.
She listens to the bathroom door shut and then his shouted privacy spell. She cannot help but laugh. She hears the floorboards creak and turns to find Luna rubbing her eyes, a too-big t-shirt falling to her mid-thigh. "What's so funny?" she asks.
Pansy smiles at her. "Come and sit, love. I'll tell you everything."