Chapter Text
Potter looked nervous. All of them did, really. They squeezed themselves onto one of Theo’s long velvet couches, shoulder to shoulder as they sipped butterbeers like bloody children. Pansy was draped across the forest green chaise, the black silk of her dress ridden up on her thighs and one of the straps hanging loosely off of her shoulder. She brought her cocktail to her blood red lips and took a long gulp of it as she watched them fidget and glance around like they expected death eaters to swarm and start hurling avadas from every angle.
“This is fucking awkward,” Blaise drawled, his tone bored and tired.
“I thought Gryffindors were brave,” Pansy purred, swinging her legs around and pushing off of the chaise. She swanned across the parlor and dropped herself into Weasley’s lap. He looked at her wide eyed and hovered his hands over her knees and at her back.
“You’re going to scare him, Pans,” Draco scoffed. A devious grin spread over his face, “or else this is about to get legitimately interesting.”
The redhead beneath her bristled at Draco’s goading, “Piss off, Malfoy,” he snarled.
Her ankles were crossed, stiletto heels perched against Longbottom’s thigh and she looked over at him with a sly smile. He didn’t meet her eye, just stared down at his lap and cleared his throat before adjusting his posture and resting a hand just shy of the arch of one of her feet.
“I’m just trying to break the ice, they’re all so,” she tilted her foot to press against Neville’s inner thigh and grinned when he hissed under his breath, “stiff.”
“Pansy, you’re hot, ok? No one has forgotten, you don’t need to splay yourself out before the enemy,” Draco said enemy with gritted teeth, eyes pointed toward the chosen one himself.
“In other words, stop being a slut, darling,” Theo reentered the parlor room with fresh drinks floating behind him and gripped Pansy’s upper arm to haul her away and lead her back to the chaise. Pansy huffed and rolled her eyes, but glanced back to the couch and saw Neville still staring at the spot where her heels had been, his hand flexing on top of his thigh. Curious.
“Don’t be jealous that I have the option of being slutty and you gave it up,” Pansy teased as Theo sat on the arm of the couch next to Potter and took his hand, patting it with mild reassurance.
“Don’t you be jealous that someone wants me for more than my cunt, love,” Theo bit back. Almost everyone to his left gasped, looking between them like wands were about to be drawn. But Pansy just smiled wickedly and waved a hand in Theo’s direction.
“You say that but I’ve never let you near my cunt and you won’t leave me alone,” She said with a laugh and Blaise snorted.
“HAH! That was clever, Parkinson, I’ll concede,” Theo said with a shrug and the Gryffindors just stared until Potter leaned close and whispered something to them.
“Share with the class?” Blaise asked, still chuckling at Pansy and Theo’s brief verbal spar.
“I was just explaining the dynamic here.” Potter gestured across the room at them and then at Theo.
“Elaborate, oh chosen one.” Pansy held her glass aloft and it refilled itself.
“Insults are a form of affection between you.”
Pansy pursed her lips. “And I suppose you lot just do a fair bit of hugging?”
They looked at her incredulously until Blaise gagged and she and Draco laughed.
“Alright, you three.” Theo pointed at them and they all gasped in mock affront, “behave yourselves! Harry and I are together and as our friends, we all need to start getting along!”
Pansy rolled her eyes and Theo’s gaze softened, “You know I’ll always support women’s rights and their wrongs but, every man on this couch is taken.”
Neville shifted uncomfortably and she noticed Granger put a hand on his shoulder. Potter mumbled something to Theo and Theo huffed, “Correction, Harry and Weasley are taken, apologies Longbottom.”
Neville muttered a quiet acceptance and Theo continued, “Shall I offer you a night with Parkinson’s pussy in this trying time?”
Neville had just taken a long swig of his butterbeer and unceremoniously choked, spluttering and spewing the sweet smelling drink across Theo’s mahogany coffee table.
“I beg your pardon!” Pansy pressed a hand to her chest, clutching imaginary pearls.
“Bloody hell, Nott.” Weasley patted Neville’s back as he coughed and wheezed.
“I’m not a rebound fuck,” she insisted, throwing a withering glance to Draco, “never again.”
“No matter, you two!” Theo turned to Blaise and Draco, “look alive and stop acting like being here is beneath you as if you had literally any other plans.”
“This is important to me, to us.” Potter looked to his band of bleeding hearts before looking up at Theo with a disgusting affectionate smile.
“Fine, we’ll play nice, right boys?” Pansy reached over the arm of the chaise to stroke Blaise’s arm. Blaise and Draco grumbled unintelligibly.
Pansy’s stroke became a pinch and he yelped before he looked over at Draco and sighed, “Yes,” Blaise huffed.
“Good boys, now who wants to play a game?” she summoned a bottle of firewhiskey the Gryffindors visibly perked up.
“What kind of game?” Granger asked, warily.
“Ooh let’s play one of those silly muggle games we would play in the common room!” Pansy sat up on her knees, summoning shot glasses and placing them on the table before gesturing for the whiskey to circle the glasses, filling each one.
“So we’re getting the lions pissed tonight, are we?” Blaise said, more amused than he’d sounded all evening.
“We could play never have I ever,” Granger posed, unsurprisingly well versed in these party games.
“I like that one! That’s an easy way to get to know people!” Theo said cheerily, patting Potter's knee and summoning some chairs so the Gryffindors could both spread out and move closer to the alcohol, rather than remaining packed onto the couch like testy sardines.
Neville moved onto an arm chair next to Pansy’s chaise and sat back, relaxed with his long legs stretched out in front of him. Pansy took notice of how large he was now that he wasn’t squished up between Granger and the weasel.
“I’ll go first, never have I ever cut the head off a snake,” Blaise drawled and Neville rolled his eyes before reaching forward and grabbing a shot. He tossed it back and returned it to the table where Pansy’s charmed bottle refilled it immediately.
“Cheap shot, Zabini,” he said with a dry laugh and Draco sat up straighter to evaluate everyone around the circle.
“Never have I ever worn hand-me-downs,” the poncy git smirked at their guests as each of them reached forward to take a shot.
Pansy bit back her smirk and instead rolled her eyes at his pretentiousness. If he was going to pine after the frizzy golden girl herself, this wasn’t the way to go about getting into her good graces.
“Predictable,” Granger sneered and Draco’s smug face fell. Serves him right.
“Ok, ok, never have I ever lost my virginity in the hospital wing,” Theo said pointedly, glancing at both Draco and herself.
“The hospital wing?” Weasley screwed his freckled face up, “What’d you sleep with Pomfrey?” he asked as Draco’s glass was halfway to his mouth.
Pansy burst into a fit of laughter, “Pomfrey, Draco?! She get to you before I did?”
Weasley pursed his lips, apparently understanding his mistake and his friends chuckled in his direction.
“Fuck off, Pans.” Draco tipped his shot back and held the glass tightly in his fist as it refilled.
“Oh come on,” she crooned, “Is that anyway to speak to the woman who was there for you after the chosen one and the matching set of weasels kicked your arse?”
“If that’s what happened, you’re welcome, mate,” Potter interjected to everyone but Draco’s immense amusement.
“Take your turn, Potter,” he huffed before slumping in his chair.
“Never have I ever had a threesome.”
Pansy’s eyes widened and then widened significantly more as she turned and saw Neville throw back a shot.
“Nev!?” Granger shrieked and Weasley reached over to shake Neville’s shoulder, laughing.
“This I have to hear,” Theo said eagerly, gesturing for Neville to have the floor.
“I don’t kiss and tell,” He responded with an uncharacteristically confident grin.
“It was Luna and Gin, after Gin and I broke up,” Harry said with a shrug, adding when Neville protested, “Ginny does kiss and tell.”
“Wow, Longbottom, didn’t think you had it in you.” Pansy didn’t bother pretending she wasn’t impressed.
“Quite a lot you don’t know about me, Parkinson,” he said under his breath, giving her a sideways glance that sent a shiver down her spine.
“Ok, um, never have I ever gone skinny dipping!” Granger piped up, eying everyone and clapping when Blaise drank and told the tale of Theo daring him to jump in the Black Lake and he screamed like a first year when he thought the squid grabbed his leg and it turned out to be seaweed.
“Did you think the giant squid was the size of a pygmy puff?” Weasley teased and Blaise flicked his wrist and caused Weasley’s forgotten butter beer to fizz up and spew all over his jumper.
“Never have I ever, hmm, Parkinson hasn’t had to drink yet!” He tilted his dripping butter beer bottle at her as he charmed his jumper dry. “Never have I ever slept with Malfoy.”
Pansy rolled her eyes and drank. “Weak, everyone already knows that.”
Neville looked at her with a strange fierceness in his eyes, “Never have I ever been naked in greenhouse three.”
Pansy choked on her whiskey and coughed until Blaise reached over and smacked her on the back. How did he? Was he there?
“I practically lived in that greenhouse, Sprout let me store my personal plants there. I was working on propagating some moly cuttings when a certain Slytherin princess appeared, blushing, naked as the day she was born and staring out all of the windows like there's a warrant out for her arrest.”
“You– how did you, I didn’t see you in there! Why didn’t you say something?”
“So you could hex me or my plants? Unlikely.”
“What the fuck were you doing, Parks?” Blaise asked incredulously.
“I was fooling around in that alcove, the notice-me-not failed and we almost got caught by McGonagall, he ran inside and I saw the greenhouse and I panicked.”
The laughter around her was drowned out by the way Neville was looking at her. Like he remembered that moment like it was yesterday and not seven years ago. Coming back to repeat her seventh year at Hogwarts had been a difficult decision in the face of Slytherin’s tarnished reputation, not to mention her own dubious choices. She had formed a habit of using men to distract herself from the disdain of her peers.
“That was probably the best day of your life, Longbottom.”
“18 year old me would agree, I certainly never forgot it,” He said with a wink.
She arched an eyebrow at him and leaned forward, whispering for just his ears, “Return to the memory often, do you?”
His confident smirk slipped and he swallowed. “I don’t kno–”
“Relax, I’m teasing you.” she turned back to the rest of the group, “Never have I ever hooked up with someone outside my house.”
Theo, Potter, Weasley, Neville and Blaise drank before Neville turned back to her in surprise, “Really? Only Slytherins?”
She shrugged, not willing to admit that until recently it was only Slytherin men who showed much interest in being seen with her, “I like a firm hand, other houses are rather soft.”
He hummed in quiet disagreement and leaned back in his chair, stretching his arms and letting them fall over the arms of the chair. His left hand landed inches away from her knee as she perched on the end of the chaise. She watched as it twitched in her direction, like it wanted to reach out to her against his will. She glanced up to see him watching her and felt her face flush. He was giving her whiplash with the way his confidence surged and receded.
Blaise was speaking but she didn’t hear him and hours later when she was tucked into her plush four poster bed, she stared at the canopy above her and couldn’t stop thinking about that twitching hand, and the way his eyes had seared hers before he licked his lips.