Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Ron’s wand is broken. His tailbone throbs with dull, evil pain and his elbows are bloodied, but that's not the worst part. Two skinny palm trees sway above him while the pavement beneath pulses with heat. The splintered wood poking a hole through his trouser pocket like a bloody dandelion through concrete makes him want to rip it into even tinier pieces. 

He wasn't supposed to land here.

A dull roar builds and crests like a wave inside his skull until he turns to see a wheeled board heading straight for him, ridden by a Muggle who’s all cargo shorts and zero concern for the grievously lost wizard in his path. 

Ron throws himself out of the way, rolling onto the cooler grass. A khakied blur flies across the pavement and lands in a cacophony of thuds and scrapes. 

Bloody hell.

The board hits an overfilled trash receptacle at the same time the man groans.

Gingerly rolling himself onto his knees, Ron brushes his roughened palms against his trousers, hissing at the sting. The past hour has been absolute chaos, and that includes the bizarre few seconds before he grabbed the Portkey. 

"Oi, show some fucking manners! You don't come ripping through the center of the path like a twat. Look at this, you've broken my..." The voice trails off. Ron looks up to see Pansy Parkinson struggling to maintain her air of authority as she gestures aggressively with the sad remains of her wand. "...My stick."

She must be baking in the heat. Wisps of her short black hair are tucked under a fisherman's beanie, a collared jumper, trench coat, gloves, boots—all of it black, matching her impenetrable gaze behind black sunglasses. 

"My bad," Cargo Shorts says, edging away like she's an event horizon. "You want me to find you a...new one?" 

The rubber of Pansy's boot digs at a loose chunk of asphalt. Dressing like the grim reaper doesn't dilute the air of disdain she's always carried around, looking down her nose at people who are taller than her.

"Yes," she says.

Ron rolls his eyes. 

"No, she doesn't."

Cargo Shorts backs away with his hands up as if Ron is a jealous boyfriend and not enemy-adjacent to the obstinate witch before him. 

The bloke scurries away as Pansy glances at Ron for the first time.

"Spoilsport," she says.

The slight upward curve of her lips is just one input too many in Ron’s clusterfuck of a brain. 

He struggles to his feet, pressing his palms on both sides of his head. He's got a raging headache and, blimey, would you look at that, the roaring in his skull isn't just pounding blood but waves crashing on the beach. 

He'd been told to arrive at Theo's where the Portkey was waiting for him and, thanks to the worst fight he’d ever had with George, he’d barely made it in time, rushing into Nott Manor's drawing room and coming right up against the tip of Pansy's wand.

Neither had said a word. On the oakwood coffee table, the gaudy snake keychain with emeralds for eyes had pulsated and they both lunged for it.

Worlds had whipped past them. Every extremity squeezed and spun and eventually spat out here, on a beach with too many palm trees to pass for Michigan.

Blades of sunlight glint off the water, forcing his squint into something violent. He's sweaty and nauseous and his skin has the stubborn habit of soaking up every bit of malevolence the sky can throw at him. 

"Where are we?" he asks, but she doesn't hear. He spots her retreating figure as she weaves through the crowded boardwalk, a smudge of darkness in a rainbow. 

Ron jogs past a gaggle of fit grans, his bones jolting like he’s on stilts. He's never been around a bunch of American Muggles and he's pretty sure he's teetering cartoonishly above them. 

"Parkinson," he says. He doesn't touch her. "Where are you going?"

The air is sticky-sweet like sugar floss, tempered with the salty breeze and something fried. His mouth waters.

"Home. Have you still got one of those or did they move you to a palace after the War?" She asks. Her accent is still crisp, an underripe peach of a diction. 

God, she's awful.

"You don't think a palace is a home?" he says with a smirk. 

Pansy slows down, waiting until he's close enough to snatch his arm and drag him out of the foot traffic. 

"You're still following me," she says, frowning. 

Ron's gaze snags on the rich color of her lipstick, like dried blood on a handkerchief. 

Now he's frowning, too.

"Did you do this?" He asks, accusation dripping from every word. "Was this something you planned? Hermione never mentioned that you'd be coming--"

Her knuckles turn white around the remnants of her wand and it’s the hair-raising moment just before lightning strikes. 

“The Portkey shat the bed, Weasley. Despite your staggering confidence in me, I’m not capable of messing about with complex magicks.” 

It’s odd, but he expected her bite to be sharper. The kind that rips into the flesh and leaves a mess. 

“That’s it?” He asks. “You’re not going to figure this out with me?”

“No.”

She gets a few steps away before he goes for the kill.

“You can’t disappoint Hermione. You know she’s spent ages planning this.”

Pansy rears back like she’s been slapped. 

“And you, of all people, care about her disappointment? Don't make me fucking laugh.”

Shit. He always forgot she was better at this, at wielding words like poison-tipped darts. The numbness that's been his constant companion for years recedes as guilt torpedoes him through the chest.

He hasn't been there, or here, or anywhere in a long time.

So, the lake house. His redemption. A chance to apologize, at the very least. These days the list of his transgressions was longer than one of Hermione’s Arithmancy essays between his failure at friendship and his failure as a brother. 

Hermione, Malfoy, Nott, and Charlie have all been at the lake house for two days already. If nosediving into work had been an option, he might’ve been tempted to take it, but the shame he’s been lugging around like a troll’s club wouldn’t allow it.

Arriving late was better than not arriving at all.

"I thought I'd be traveling alone," he bites out, shoving his hands into his trousers and immediately taking them back out. His palms are too sweaty to endure any kind of containment.

"You will be," she says, tossing him the cursed snake keychain. 

He catches it against his chest, looking around with a growing sense of despair. 

This is what he knows: They're in North America. Somewhere coastal, like California. He's wandless and nauseous and more than a little out of his depth. Loneliness, that creeping vine that's had years to wind around his spine, cinches tight, making him ache with the effort of standing. 

"We took the Portkey together," he says stupidly.

Pansy pockets her splintered wand and puts her hands on her hips. How she manages to look so conceited with such a round face and tiny nose is beyond comprehension.

"Shall we get married, then?" she asks. "Open a business together? Tattoo each other's faces on our arses?"

Her cheek reminds him of Ginny, so Ron flicks her nose.

Pansy lurches back, her mouth hanging open in naked dismay. It makes him smile. Eases the ache behind his sternum.

"I'll fucking kill you," she says, slapping his hand away. He’s tempted to do the same to her sunglasses so he can actually see her eyes sparkle with the intoxicating mix of mirth and murder.

They used to see each other semi-regularly. Hermione introduced them like they were feral cats, first floating the concept of her friendship with Pansy, coming over to the joke shop after she’d seen Pansy or mentioning something she’d recently said. Then came the anecdotes, each one crafted to highlight Pansy’s quirks while simultaneously divorcing her from the image burned behind Ron’s eyes of Pansy pointing her bratty finger at Harry during the Battle of Hogwarts. 

Ron never forgot; subsequently, all Hermione’d accomplished was filling his quiver with arrows perfectly homed in on Pansy’s embarrassment. It was, however, a two-way street. Pansy would ignore him and skirt every room, every table, eluding him until she’d pop in with a droll one-two punch he never saw coming. 

He hadn’t missed it. 

"I don’t know the first thing about Muggle customs," he says, taking a risk. He might as well lift his jumper and invite her to twist his tits. “D’you reckon they’ve got an Office of Magical Transportation nearby?”

Her sigh hisses between them.

"A car's going to be your best bet," she says after a long moment. "Everything is privatized and regulated to hell, so unless you’re prepared to stand in line for approximately five years at the WDMV, the Floo and Portkeys are not an option. If you fancy a broom, you won't find one until you're in a rural area, and even then they don't accept knuts or galleons."

A muscle below Ron's eye twitches.

"What about a train?"

Pansy’s mouth slouches into a real pout, and he can just make out the shimmer at the bow of her lips. It looks soft, like something that might stick just a bit to his fingertip. 

"Oh, Weasley," she sighs. "Welcome to America."

"Alright," Ron says, battling his splitting headache. It doesn't help that she's still talking in terms of journeying separately. "So I just go to a car park and I ask to take one."

She goes rigid, her frown deepening. It punches a dimple into the side of her pale left cheek. "You don't have a license, do you?"

Bloody buggering fuck. 

"Surely we aren't the first witch or wizard to end up stranded here," he growls, feeling sweat trickle down inside his jumper. He’d like to tear it off and chuck it at the white lady with dreads who’s banging on an overturned bucket unencumbered by rhythm. "Securing another Portkey can't be that complicated."

Pansy shrugs. He watches her boots take a step back, reads the disengagement she’s telegraphing with her gaze set somewhere beyond his shoulder.

“It’s–-I mean, it’s technically not. There’s just a lot of waiting and twiddling of thumbs,” she says.

And he knows, he fucking knows, that she’s about to turn around and officially leave him. He’s old enough now to trust that in this, his instincts are infallible. He always knows when somebody’s about to leave. 

“I hate the Floo,” he says. It just comes out of him, like the time he’d jinxed himself to vomit slugs. “It gives me migraines for days afterward. S’why I asked Nott for a Portkey.”

Pansy laughs ruefully, pulling her fisherman’s beanie on a little tighter. Her feet stay planted where they are. “I have my reasons, too,” she says. 

He holds out his hand in a flourish, motioning for her to list them. 

“It’s none of your—” She stops. “Look,” she says, her gaze at her feet before she meets his. “I’m not just being a cunt. Traveling with me is…complicated.” 

His brain lags in keeping up with his eyes, so he stands there for several uneasy seconds, knowing without knowing.

"Hang on," he says, stepping closer. The only bit of skin she's showing is her cheeks and chin, perhaps a tiny length of her neck. There's no natural flush to her skin tone, just a smooth finish like porcelain in shade. It's otherworldly. In fact, it’s almost like the dead.

Everything inside him quiets at the realization.

 "You're joking,” he says.

Concern and dread and fury knit themselves into an unholy mess at the base of his throat. She’s a vampire. It’s why she’s covered from sole to crown, why she’s got those god-awful sunglasses and why, he imagines, their Portkey flung them to the wrong side of the country. 

Pansy holds herself still, a gloved finger tapping against her elbow like she's waiting for him to come up to speed.

"So you knew the Portkey wouldn't work," he says, ignoring his inclination to tread lightly here. It feels good to be angry, to have such a deserving target. 

A wary family of five skirts around them.

"I suspected," she says unapologetically.

He's not experienced the physical surge in his magic for almost a decade, but it boils to the pads of his fingers, ready to be tipped and poured through his wand. If, you know, his wand was actually serviceable for once in his life. The damned thing was cursed to break as soon as it sensed he might need it.

"Parkinson," he growls. "There are laws against you traveling via regular wizarding transportation. You don’t need regular wizarding transportation."

Vampires could trace. From what George said about it when he was researching how to make disappearing bubble gum, it’s the same concept as Apparating but there’s no need for a wand. A vampire simply wills it to be and they find themselves in the location of their choosing not a half-second later. Would splinching be an issue?

"Yeah, well," she says, casually waving down the length of her body with a gloved hand, "this is a new situation, and not as fucking simple as you might think."

His eyes follow the path set for him, raking over every inch of her with new wariness. The lines and curves of her body make up a more solid figure than she used to be, no longer waif-thin or even slim at all. Against every expectation, she looks soft and abundant, a curious juxtaposition to the sharpness of her features. Tilted eyes, a small, upturned nose, and a heart-shaped face wasn't what he imagined when he thought of vampires.

Her lips, though. Fuck. The top one is disproportionately lush, practically made for pouting. The deep crimson color contrasts the cool tone of her skin like an open wound and it's gory, almost too much for him to look at, too tempting.

"Has it been--" He stops at the gruffness of his voice, clears his throat. "Are you alright?"

He watches her tongue swipe at a particularly sharp canine, a flash of light pink there and gone. 

"The point is," she says, ignoring the question, "I wasn't sure the Portkey wouldn't work. I don’t have…wings and I can’t trace, so I’m not entirely sure what I am."

“I’d think you couldn’t stand the sun,” Ron says.

Pansy scowls. “I’m not exactly having a good time.”

Around them, the sound of gulls crying and shrieks of delight fill the air. If Ron could take a bite out of it he would, filling up on its sea-brined goodness and anchoring him to this moment, this brief rest before he has to move hell and earth to get to Michigan in time to see his friends.

"Alright, so what are you gonna do?" he asks.

It breaks her out of her reverie. 

"As previously stated, I am leaving." 

Only one boot makes it off the ground before a familiar high-pitched trill stops her in her tracks. Fishing the stupid thing out of his back pocket, he's unsurprised to see Hermione's name flashing across the screen. Pansy's got an identical message if her scowl is anything to go by. 

"They're wondering where we are," he says, as if she hadn't already read the message herself. "Are you gonna answer?"

Pansy's fingers fly across her mobile keyboard, distressingly faster than his pointer finger pecking. He's had years to get used to a cell phone and still he loathes it.

"Granger is resolved to Apparate somewhere nearby," she says stiffly. 

"Side-along won't work on you," he says, doing his best to keep the concern from leaching into his voice. "She knows that, yeah?"

Surely she's told Hermione about her condition. Or Malfoy. Surely she's not stupid enough to suffer it on her own.

"It hasn't come up," she says. 

Ron can see his reflection in her sunglasses, a portrait of reluctance. "Goddamnit."

He types painstakingly slow without allowing himself to truly think about it. His gaze narrows to the tiny fucking keyboard with the stupid little buttons not made for human-sized thumbs and he manages to press send without having to backspace more than twice. 

You know I hate Apparating, it says. Parkinson and I have already found an alternative route, so we'll see you soon.

It's a bluff, an outright lie, but it feels essential. 

An entire year has passed since he's seen Hermione--the longest they've been away from each other since they met. He doesn't have an excuse, either, besides the fact that he fucking hates the idea of making nice with Malfoy and it's been easy to bury himself in work. Weasley's Wizard Wheezes had expanded to two more locations, one in London and the other in Glasgow. 

Maybe he's a coward, but he's not ready to face her, and if Pansy's body language is anything to go by, he'd bet she isn't either.

His phone pings with Hermione's response.

Keep me updated.

"She's not coming," Ron says. Pansy glances up at him, her mouth hanging open.

"She's not," she repeats, bloodless fingertips resting on her lips.

He shakes his head slowly.

He saw spells and wards warp the very air around him during the interminable year of the War he'd spent on the run. Somehow this moment between the two of them has the same effect, an intangible wall of sorts building itself around them, keeping the world out.

"I told you my situation is difficult," Pansy says. It's soft with warning. The strangest thank-you.

Ron kicks the toe of her boot, annoying her back onto familiar ground.

"We've got that in common."

Chapter Text

Hypothetically speaking, Pansy could hop on a plane.

She's loitered around in the US long enough to understand that walking out the door without her UK government-issued ID and papers could lead to complications should she find trouble. Especially with her posh accent and Korean features. Her wallet and passport sit against her thigh pocket, ready to be used.

The problem is, she doesn’t fucking want to.

Instead, she finds herself sliding her credit card over a counter in exchange for a pair of car keys, unimpressed with the wizard's ogling behind the desk. He's a stout man wearing a burgundy polo with khakis sitting high on his torso: more like the Google result for a car salesman instead of the actual manifestation of one.

"Can I interest you in the flying package? It comes bundled with invisibility so you save 40% off the total cost," he says, tucking her card beneath his chin and giving himself a scratch. She glares at him.

Flying invisibly might have its novelty, but she'd read of too many horrific collisions mid-air to be tempted.

Behind her, Weasley's managed to knock the pamphlet shelf askew, reaching out with his big hands to steady it. Pansy has always known chaos was a thing contained in the Weasley line, but Ron is a separate creature from his siblings, so tangibly clumsy it’s difficult not to watch. She rolls her eyes.

"Darkened windows and speed charms will suffice."

Thirty minutes later she climbs into the SUV, reaching for the button that pushes her chair closer to the wheel. She finds it and adjusts the mirrors, all while completely ignoring Weasley's skeptical stare.

"This is bigger than my room at the Burrow," he says.

The little ghost of Pansy's past sets out a few choice insults on the silver platter of her mind, insisting the words would taste sweeter on her tongue than clotted cream. She swallows, reminding that bitch she's basically lactose-intolerant these days and anyway, poking fun at his lack of wealth no longer smacked of wit so much as it did embarrassing entitlement.

"Why's it only used for transportation? They could add a privy and a bed. You could live in here. All this space and nothing but a couple of benches--a bit like scraping the warts off a toad and tossing the rest, innit?" he continues.

Pansy glances at him as she pulls out of the parking lot, noting his restless fingers tapping against his thigh. They pass billboards advertising bail bonds and the San Diego Zoo and CBD shops sure to be manned by a guy named Marshall with the stringiest hair you’ve ever seen. For the briefest second she imagines taking Weasley to one of them, watching him smoke a blunt and, most likely, hack up a lung like she did her first time.

Fuck. She’s smiling.

“I’ll be sure to mention that in our review: ‘Experience only could have been improved if there were a toilet within arm's reach.'”

Weasley snorts. He rests his elbow on the middle console and leans his head on his hand, subtly covering his upturned lips.

It's quiet save for the sound of her blinker and the low hum of tires on the pavement. Pansy's thoughts are a jumble of uneasy objections and concerns.

For one, she could be in her massive, empty Victorian home curled up under a pile of blankets. Or, even better, going to the movies. There's a kitschy movie theater fifteen minutes from her and she's taken refuge in the cool, dark environment at least three days a week for the past year. She's seen cult classics and shitty box-office screw-ups. Between her and Bernie, the old man who owns The Bijou, they manage to sneak in the entirety of the Jurassic Park franchise every couple months.

Secondly, she's thirsty.

If this were a normal trip she'd have brought Juice Box. Reasonably convinced the Portkey wouldn't work, she didn't want to risk flinging JB into the aether. The pig's beady black eyes would haunt her and despite their mutual dislike, she wasn't an actual monster. Er, well, she didn't think she was.

Her fangs pulse uncomfortably in her gums.

If she could get to Vegas, she knew of a spot where she could take the edge off, but it still might not be enough. She'd spend the next several days in a fog of hunger, ears becoming more and more attuned to the pulse beating in Weasley's throat. Or his hands. God, he's got lovely veins. They stand out in sharp relief against the back of his hands and run all the way up his arm, disappearing beneath his shirtsleeve and climbing up his neck. Perfect for sinking her teeth into.

She tightens her grip on the leather wheel, digging the pads of her fingers into the stitches and seams until they leave an imprint.

"You're, erm, still working at that joke shop?" she asks. It's a desperate attempt to distract herself from imagining the scrape of her fangs against his skin. Doesn't help that he smells like a goddamn apple fritter.

Weasley gives her a funny look. He waits long enough to respond she's convinced he's going to call her out on not actually caring about the answer.

"Yeah. I handle the finances and George," he blows out a breath, looking out the window with such melancholy even teenage Pansy would've found it impressive. "George does whatever he wants."

What a sulky boy. As an expert in this particular manifestation of ennui, Pansy threatens to rip out her own heart if it dares to throw itself in the path of another man who has a penchant for leaning on women and then discarding them as soon as he's tired of limping around for attention.

She is not a crutch. She will not be a crutch again.

“Didn’t you have a guaranteed spot with the Ministry squad?” she asks.

Weasley leans away to get a good look at her like she must be joking. Seeing her seriousness, his mouth twists with contempt.

“Yeah, I’ll devote my life to the arsewits who completely fucked my childhood,” he says. His laughter is full of venom, a strange sound coming from someone so fangless. “The Ministry is the same as it always was. Rich toffs like your parents slide their money under tables and buy politicians. Aurors are glorified attack dogs for the wealthy.”

Pansy inclines her head, conceding his point. She, of all people, has always known who pulls the strings. 

Seemingly embarrassed by his vehemence, Weasley loosens his grip on the middle console. 

“Besides,” he says quietly, “you think I spent the majority of my years at Hogwarts breaking just about every wizarding law Merlin could come up with only to turn around and become an Auror?”

A lock of hair falls over his forehead like it’s protesting the very idea of an upright and law-abiding existence.

She frowns at him.

“No need to get your knickers in a twist. I only thought—”

“You’re not the first person,” he says, staring moodily out the window.  

Pansy fiddles with the AC, resigning herself to being eternally cold and somehow always finding the wrong thing to say. 

Ron shifts in his seat. Once, twice, a few times before he whips off his jumper, the shirt underneath hiking up to reveal several inches of torso. Like her, he’s softened with time, grown into his frame, grown up. Compared to her unnaturally pale skin, he looks sunkissed and solid. 

His ratty grey t-shirt slips back down and she’s a lizard being shooed off a hot rock in the sun, jolted back to reality. 

"Sal's left nut, how are you not melting?" Weasley groans, tossing the jumper behind him in a fit of pique. “Every inch of me is sticky and disgusting. I’ve been sweating since the moment we landed here.”

Her enhanced senses can actually detect that he’d showered this morning, that he’d applied a deodorant that smelled surprisingly sweet, and fuck. His blood would taste like caramel. She’d lick his skin for the extra salt.

“Vampire,” she says, pointing at herself. “Or something.”

“Yeah. About that,” he says, holding his hands out to the tepid air vents. “Hermione hasn't figured it out yet?”

Pansy’s throat works around a lie before she clears it.

“No,” she says. “I've not been around."

There's a pause. Neither of them is in any hurry to make it to their destination, the air in the SUV heavy with dread. A strange sort of camaraderie makes the silence neutral, if not comfortable.

"How'd it happen?" he asks, touching his canine with the tip of a finger. "This."

She’d practiced telling the story. Not in the mirror or anything, but under her breath. Sifted through the words like she was choosing the ripest produce at a supermarket instead of what she was really doing, which was trying to tell a story in which she does not play the fool.

"Purchased from a Spirit Halloween," she says.

Weasley's furrowed brow tells her he hasn't spent an October in America.

Pansy tries a different tack.

"A complicated sex ritual. There was lots of blood, the whole thing perfectly wicked," she says, flashing him a coy smile.

The skepticism in his stare is discomfiting. He searches her expression like he can see past her sunglasses and right through her bluff, and then a smile blooms on his face, so wide it brings to mind Heath Ledger in 10 Things I Hate About You.

"It's embarrassing, isn't it?" he says.

"You assume I experience the full spectrum of human emotion," she says, employing her skill of admitting nothing and cinching the subject closed in one fell swoop.

Weasley snorts, rubbing his hand over his mouth.

"What?" she asks.

"Hermione once told me that I've got the emotional range of a teaspoon," he says, nudging her with his elbow, "so between the two of us, maybe it's closer to a soup spoon. You know, the kind that cuts the corners of your mouth if you try to shove it all in at once?"

She presses her lips together.

"I forget that you people just say whatever idiotic thing comes to mind," she says, biting the inside of her cheek to kill the fondness residing there.

“Careful, Parkinson,” he says, gesturing between them. “This doesn’t have to end in bloodshed.” 

God, did he have to bring up blood? He drums a beat against the dashboard with his long fingers.

"There are worse things to be, I s’pose,” he says after a moment, his voice contemplative. “A spoon keeps us bite-sized. Digestible.” 

“Easy to swallow?” Pansy says, the corner of her lips kicking up.

Weasley’s choke of laughter was worth it.

The miles melt into the sunbaked pavement and Pansy spends the next two hours breathing through her mouth. Weasley's like a freckled space heater in the passenger seat and every minute shift of his body sends a wave of hunger crashing over her head. She comes up sputtering by taking small breaths, sipping oxygen like it's a too-strong martini rather than a necessity.

"God, I'm starving," Weasley says for what must be the dozenth time. Their speed charms have got them to the outskirts of Vegas in just under three hours and the promise of actual restaurants, the possibility of quenching her thirst, has her on the edge of her seat.

Granted, she's short, so. She'd be there anyway.

"Shut up, I'm trying to focus," she says as they wade into so many lanes of traffic it's like seeing double.

"I've only ever seen this in films," Weasley breathes. Hotels and casinos taller than any building in Diagon Alley pop up around them.

"Billboards for gentleman clubs?" Pansy asks.

"Well, yeah," he says. "But--have you seen Ocean's Eleven?"

His casual mention of one of her favorite movies hits her like one of the many bugs splattered across the windshield.

"Of course I have."

Weasley flashes her that grin again.

"S'kind of stupid, but I thought it'd be more yellow."

She knows exactly what he's talking about because it's what she'd thought coming to Vegas her first time, too.

Tucking that bizarre insight away, Pansy navigates them to the Strip, pulling under the awning of the Circus Circus Hotel. She tosses her keys to the concierge and motions for Weasley to follow her inside.

He blinks at the gaudy yellow lights, the audacity and spectacle of the place. "What are we doing here?" he asks, hustling to her side. He has to bend to speak lowly in her ear. "It smells like dirty change and pineapple."

He's not wrong. 

The red and gold paisley carpet stretches in front of them, the hallway lined by statuesque Roman columns and lots of gold foil. It’s the garish kind of opulence she’d pay good galleons to see her parents endure. 

“There’s a shop for magic folk in here,” she says, pointedly skirting around a crowd of rowdy groomsmen, “but its location is never the same.”

Weasley easily keeps pace, a sad smile on his face that tells her he wasn’t really listening.

“Fred and George would love this,” he says quietly. 

Pansy takes it in. The roar of conversation, chips rattling in buckets. Game machines flash red numbers in greater quantities than is probably ever won, waitresses in black skirts expertly navigate the floor, and rows of slot machines wink and sparkle.

Does Ron still think of his twin brothers as a unit? Fred Weasley’s death is a sharp memory for her, a distinct sorrow set apart from the rest of the senseless casualties of that day. He’d always flaunted the kind of courage she could only dream of possessing. 

She squeezes Ron’s forearm—the most fleeting contact—before leading them to a red leather stool in front of a slot machine. 

Pansy feeds the machine several quarters before gesturing to Ron.

“Go ahead and pull it,” she says.

He yanks down on the yellow lever and they watch as the reels spin, a blur of cherries and clovers and sevens. They click into place one at a time.

YOU’LL

FIND

TREA

SURE

SOON

Instead of coins, a tiny scroll of paper spits out of the tray. Pansy unfolds, reads it, and stuffs it into her pocket. 

“You’ve got the lucky touch,” she tells Weasley, her heart drumming along with the jungle-themed music as she meets his eyes. “To the elevators, we go.”

They follow an elderly lesbian couple with matching sequined visors to the 70s wood-paneled elevators and step in behind them. 

“What floor, kiddos?” The salt-and-pepper one asks after punching the number four. 

“Five,” Pansy says. “Thank you.”

“It’s too dark in here for sunglasses,” the other lady says to Pansy. “How many fingers am I holding up?”

Weasley snorts.

Pansy makes a show of pulling down her glasses and squinting.

“Just the middles?”

Both women cackle, slapping each other’s forearms in delight. Salt-and-Pepper pinches Weasley’s sleeve. 

“You keep a close eye on this one, alright? I know trouble when I see her.”

Before he can respond, the elevator doors open, leaving them in a potpourri and cigarette haze. 

“You sure you don’t want to stay here a few days?” Weasley asks with barely hidden amusement. Pansy wastes no time twisting the button for the basement until it's topsy turvy, then pressing it three times. “Seems like a good time.”

Oddly enough, she agrees. It’s an idea that sinks her up to her ankles in no time at all.

“Back to business,” Pansy tells him, losing a proverbial shoe or two in the quicksand of her mind. “A squib owns this shop and I'm warning you now, if you embarrass me in front of Vic I’ll make you bleed."

"A squib? They can sell magic 'round here?" Weasley asks. Something groans and creaks below, and suddenly their descent to the bowels of the building is a violent plunge. Quicker than she can comprehend, she’s pulled into his chest, his forearm like an iron belt around her waist as he braces them against the wall. 

Pansy's breath whooshes out of her. 

Even here, in this shitty hotel with its garish lighting and questionable stains, she can smell it. Something buttery and decadent, cinnamon and sugar. Apples. Food has long since lost its appeal to her, but it’s his blood that sings to her in notes she no longer thought she could hear, much less savor.

The elevator lurches to a stop and both their knees nearly collapse.

With a great grinding and shudder, the doors open. Pansy rights herself, stepping away from Weasley's shaking hands.

When she speaks, her voice is hoarse.

"Welcome to Featherlight Curiosities.”

Chapter Text

Like everything else seems to be in Vegas, the entrance is gimmicky. 

It's flanked by gold-painted sarcophagi and the walls are carved with hieroglyphics. It's not truly Egyptian, not like the Egypt he'd visited at least, but the marketing part of his brain can appreciate when a business unashamedly occupies its niche.

The thought almost provokes a smile.

Look at him, using the degree George forced him to get.

"Would you like to place a wager?"

A lanky boy with braces and the kind of sullen posture only teenagers can truly perfect waves a wand at them, beckoning to the massive scale at the center of the room. It too is gold, but there's such substantial weight to it, a kind of shine that wasn't painted. It’s been here longer than the building.

"We would," Pansy says, stepping in front of Ron.

"K, cool," the boy responds, clearing his throat. His t-shirt has a busty anime girl licking an ice lolly that drips down her breasts. "I'm Derek, and I'll be standing in for Anubis as we weigh your souls today."

Ron raises his brows. "Big shoes," he mutters, gratified to hear Pansy's snort.

"I'll just, uh, perform the spell and we'll go from there," Derek says, but Pansy stops him.

"Hang on, I remember the scale but I didn't have to do this last time. What sort of spell are you talking about?"

Derek's neck slowly turns red, then an alarming shade of purple. It's like watching the focus group of Bazzle's Barmy Bottle Caps when George accidentally added too many billywig stingers to the first batch.

"For sure," Derek says, swallowing. Ron imagines what it must be like to meet an adult Pansy Parkinson for the first time and pities him. "It just, um, does a quick scan of your heart so that when you place your bet, we can actually tell if it's a valuable wager or not."

"What are we betting on?" Ron asks. “And isn’t there supposed to be a feather?”

Derek’s brow quirks in confusion.

“Like in Ancient Egypt. Anubis, weighing hearts against a feather…” Pansy trails off at the boy’s lack of comprehension.

"It’s…not really a bet. Or a ritual. The casino just wants us to be more on theme,” Derek says, licking his lips anxiously. “Think of it as collateral. It discourages stealing."

"You take our stuff so we come back for it?" Ron clarifies.

The kid looks grateful to be back on solid ground where he doesn’t have to know facts about Ancient Egypt.

"Yeah, exactly." He raises his wand. "So am I good to...?"

Ron lets the silence play out for a few moments, too entertained not to watch him sweat.

"Do it," Pansy says.

Derek points the wand at Pansy first, his voice cracking on the first syllable.

"Souls of stone and hearts of heft, offer what ye'd leave bereft."

It’s the kind of hogwash Seamus Finnigan (or honestly, Ron himself) would have trusted as a First-Year, but when magic unfurls in a red ribbon and curls around Pansy's torso, Ron’s forced to acknowledge that it might not be completely made up. In front of them, the scale abruptly teeters to the left, falling with a clunk like a massive weight's been dropped inside.

Ron steps to the side so he can see Pansy's face.

She refuses to meet his eyes, scowling at the scale like it’s holding hand-me-downs.

"Now what?" she asks.

Derek jolts, his eyes widening. "Oh, yeah, so you just put your most valuable possession on the right and if it balances with the left, it's enough."

"Who walks around with their most valuable possession on them?" she snaps.

For once, the boy has a ready response. "You'd be surprised," he says. Self-preservation kicks in thereafter. "But it's okay if you don't have it on you, just write it down on this."

He hands her a piece of paper and a pen but she angles her body so Ron can't see what she's writing. It's probably an heirloom necklace that curses half-bloods or something equally vapid and dangerous.

"If you end up stealing, the magic is bound to that object regardless, so it'll just show up in my boss's office or bank account."

Pansy laughs as if he's said something funny. "God, don't tempt me."

After placing the scrap of paper on the right side of the scale, it gently tips downward until it's even with the left.

"Offering accepted," Derek says.

"I should fucking think so," Pansy growls. Grumpy at the prospect of letting a single knut of the Parkinson fortune dangle in the balance, no doubt.

"My turn?" Ron asks.

Derek nods, pointing his wand at Ron's chest and repeating the incantation.

When the scale drops more dramatically than it did for Pansy, the wretched thing in his chest does the same. He'd been distracted by Pansy's pettiness and hadn't truly considered what the outcome might be for himself.

"Right," he says, mortified and stupid.

Even worse, he realizes he can't do it. He can't give up his most valuable possession.

Can't, won't: it's all the same.

"I'll, er, wait outside," he says. He doesn't care if he looks like a prat. Pansy spent all their formative years thinking that anyway, so why the hell should he bother explaining himself now?

Derek misunderstands. "Do you need some paper, too?"

Ron shakes his head.

"No," he says, chest tightening. The thought of parting with what he always keeps in his pocket makes him lightheaded. "I'm not going inside."

Pansy scoffs impatiently.

"Now is not the time to lose that obnoxious Gryffindor spirit, Weasley. We've come this far."

Ron opens his mouth but nothing comes out. Nothing. He can't scrape together more than a hoarse laugh at himself. Derek shifts on his feet, eyeing Pansy like she'll know what to do with the tosser in front of him.

"Oookay. You could always offer money," Derek says. "Ten thousand is the minimum."

It's the easiest decision Ron's ever made.

Ripping the paper and pen from Derek's hand, he scrawls out the address of his flat in Diagon.

"That should cover it," he says, careful to keep the paper face-down so Pansy can't read it. She'd think he'd lost his fucking mind.

The scales balance.

"Alright," Ron says, impatiently urging Derek forward. "Let's get on with it."

He follows Derek through the wooden door that's branded with two eyes of Horace in the middle, ignoring the palpable curiosity radiating from Pansy. He's hungry. He's tired. This trip could be over in approximately two seconds if he'd just text Hermione and tell her the truth.

Never mind that the thought of leaving Pansy to fend for herself fills him with shame so potent he almost chokes. 

He can't be the one to leave. Not again.

"You look for squib sticks," Pansy says, still annoyed with him. "If I don't get my hands on a blood pop in the next five minutes I cannot be held responsible for the things I'll sink my teeth into."

He sighs.

"What's a squib stick?" he asks.

As is her habit, she sets off without answering, disappearing into one of the aisles crammed with product. It's packed floor-to-ceiling with colorful displays and catchy slogans like the ones George spends so much time coming up with, but it’s more like a petrol station than a luxury boutique. They had to wager so much on such a shitty little shop?

Ron steps closer to read a squat purple bottle with block lettering.

Line Cook's Rizz

All the charm, none of the grease

He spins the bottle around, squinting at the fine print. What does it do?

When the description is a jumble of nonsense, he sets it down and moves on to the next.

Cryptid's Muzzle

Can't shut up long enough to maintain your aura of mystery?

Again, he's left puzzled.

"Is that you, my flower?

At the end of the aisle, Ron sees a middle-aged woman haul Pansy into a hug. They're all loose-limbed, bright smiles and absolutely none of the stiffness he'd expect from the girl who'd looked down her nose at anybody wearing denim.

"Careful, Vic. You smell too good," Pansy says, burying her nose into the woman's scarved neck. Instead of recoiling, Vic holds on tighter.

"You haven't been taking care of yourself," she chides Pansy. "Where's Juice Box?"

Baffled, Ron makes his way over as Pansy explains.

"At home. It's a whole thing," she says lightly. Then she turns to Ron. "Vic, this is Weasley. Weasley, Vic. She owns the place."

The woman scrutinizes him closely. Her unruly hair is blonde with silver streaks and bound together messily with a massive claw clip in the back. She reminds him a bit of his mum with her lived-in smile lines and artless warmth.

"Well, why hasn't he offered you a drink?" Vic says, keeping her eyes on Ron.

The suggestion rocks through him.

"Not everyone has a bite kink," Pansy says blandly, like this was a thought she'd already entertained. "Now please tell me you've got blood pops."

"Only a few," Vic signs with a frown. "Crime-solving podcasters convention blew through town last week and went wild for them."

Pansy grimaces. Ron's still stuck on the suggestion that she bite him.

"I’ll take what’s left," she says.

Instead of pointing her in the right direction, Vic levels Pansy with a glare that's impressive considering her good-natured demeanor.

“The sugar’ll make you sick,” she says, then eyes Ron with such obvious impatience he can feel his face scorching the air around him. “She needs fresh blood or she’ll be limping around like an anemic Victorian child.”

Something neighboring discomfort stirs behind his sternum. Guilt? Indigestion?

Pansy claps her hands, reclaiming Vic's attention.

“Point me in the right direction,” she says.

"They're at the very top of that aisle," Vic says, pointing two rows down but jutting her chin in Ron's direction. "Your friend will have to reach it for you."

Her coolness doesn't escape Ron's attention.

"And what about squib sticks? Both our wands are kindling," Pansy says as Ron leaves them behind to fetch the blood pops. He scans the shelves, thoughts fragmented and only half paying attention.

He'd forgotten about her thirst. Or maybe he hadn't taken it seriously. She's a vampire and somehow in the hours they'd spent on the road, his focus had shifted elsewhere.

Like her tongue.

She'd do this thing where she'd drag it along one of her fangs, offering glimpses of pale pink the same shade as the roses he'd helped Fleur plant at the cottage. It was mesmerizing.

Beyond that, he'd spent a truly stupid amount of time recalling when they'd met.

He'd seen her at the Ministry before Hogwarts. It was a day set aside for families to tour the place and even though they never spoke, he knew she was friends with the evil little Malfoy boy. They'd shared a tightly packed elevator lift with the whole of his family as she and her parents expertly projected their distaste without saying a word.

Looking at her made him feel messy, like he had a smear of jam on his cheek from breakfast.

And he remembered her black hair.

"What exactly have you gotten yourselves into?" Vic’s softened voice pulls him back to the task at hand.

How is she going to explain it? How can anyone, knowing the context of who they are and where they came from, make sense of what they’re doing?

“I’ll let you know once I find out,” Pansy says.

He grabs the blood pops and finds an array of squib sticks at the end of the aisle. Selecting the one labeled Accio, he leans out of the aisle and waves it.

“How does it work?”

Vic walks over, pulling the reading glasses off the top of her head and squinting at the punchy explanation on the back of the box.

“It’s like a wand but only one spell is stored in the wood. You can cast it once, then it’s dead."

He takes the box back, shaking it in Pansy’s direction. “Come look at these with me. We’ve got loads to choose from.”

She obliges, breezing past without meeting his eyes.

“Engorgio, Incarcerous, Obscuro…are most of these used for sex?” Pansy asks.

Vic smirks. “Do you think I’m following these people home to monitor how they’re choosing to live their lives?” A flash of mischief in her eyes, there then gone. “If the puffskein cuffs happen to be displayed next to them, well. That’s none of my business.”

Pansy snorts. “It quite literally is.”

“Oh hush,” Vic says.

She leaves them to peruse, squeezing Pansy’s arm before she goes. It’s such an easy gesture. Maternal.

Pansy leans into it like the last crup left in the litter.

Or maybe it's got more to do with her hunger, because as soon as Vic disappears around the corner, Pansy sways on her feet.

"Blood pop?" She asks, all of her pique gone. She seems to be concentrating solely on holding onto the shelf for support.

Ron claws at the packaging and rips off the plastic for her, offering it like he'd offer gauze for a wound.

"Sit down," he says, taking her by the elbow. She stiffens her limbs obstinately, shoving the lolly in her mouth and shaking her head.

"Grab whatever seems useful and go pay," she says. "I'll meet you outside."

Normally he'd argue but her sunglasses have slipped down her nose and he can see her bloodshot eyes. Red irises. Tears pooling.

He can't say no.

Ron gathers what might be helpful and settles the bill, giving Vic his Gringotts vault number. He's not rich like Harry and Hermione because so much of his money has gone to the joke shop and his family, but he's comfortable enough not to worry about it.

Before she lets him leave, Vic grabs his arm. She looks him in the eyes and, warmer than she'd been earlier, she squeezes him.

"You make sure she takes care of herself," she says. Demands.

Ron doesn't have to lie, so he nods.

"I will."

By the time Ron gets to the car, Pansy is already sitting behind the wheel. She'd been laying her head back, her chest rising and falling in great breaths, but she straightened up when she saw him.

"Thanks," she says exhaustedly as he climbs in and shuts the door.

Ron shrugs, more concerned than he's willing to let on.

"You can drive like this?" he asks.

Her sunglasses are still on even though it's past dusk but he can tell when she rolls her eyes.

"I'm fine," she says, turning the key. The engine roars to life.

"That's not what I asked," he points out.

"I've had three blood pops in the time it took you to get back here. I'm fine and I don't need a fucking babysitter," she snaps.

Ron reaches over and takes out the key. The engine cuts out and all that's left is a silence so frigid he's surprised frost isn't forming on the windows. His sigh is long and loud.

"Here," he says, flinging his hand out in front of her.

"What are you doing."

Ron extends his pointer finger, feeling like an idiot. “Take it or leave it.”

She removes her sunglasses, eyes narrowed like he's pulling her wand.

“Don’t offer if you don’t mean—“

“Just do it, Parkinson. Fucking hell.”

Twenty seconds stretch on for entire hours.

"I've never drank from a person before," she says.

Ron just blinks at her, refusing to acknowledge the surge of unnamed emotion swelling in his chest.

Then Pansy flips his palm upward and her cool breath hits his skin just before she sinks her teeth into the pad of his pointer finger.

At first it’s painful.

Like a pinch from a chizpurfle, but then that comparison flies out the window when she sucks.

Little laps of her tongue scorch his skin as she catches the beads of blood running down his finger. The whole endeavor is messy and primal and with each pull and suck, his limbs turn liquid. Molten.

Pansy must feel it too because she squirms in her seat, beginning to gasp after every swallow.

Ron can't help it when his cock swells. He's so enraptured that the voice of reason is just a whisper when it warns that he'd let her drink him dry. He'd watch her suck and writhe and—

She pushes his hand away abruptly, covering her bloodied mouth with shaking fingers. Almost like she doesn't want him to see the gory aftermath.

He searches her face for clues as to how he should feel about that.

The whites of her eyes are back to normal, those crimson irises swallowed by her pupils as she watches him with something like horror. She's breathing hard, but then so is he.

When the tip of his finger pulses like it has more to give, he tucks it away under his leg.

Then, when it’s clear she’s not in any hurry to explain what the bloody hell that was, Ron reaches over and twists the key in the ignition. He adjusts himself and turns off every part of his brain but the essential tactician because it’s the only way he’s not going to do something really fucking stupid.

“We can probably squeeze out a few more hours on the road,” he says, ignoring his fingertip and everything else that throbs. “I’ll Doogle a place to sleep.”

This breaks Pansy out of her stupor.

“Circe’s tits, Weasley. It’s Google,” she says, but she finally moves her hand to the steering wheel. Her lush red lips are faintly stained with his blood as they curve upward. “Your lack of culture is embarrassing.”

At one point in their history, she’d have meant it. 

“Yeah, laugh all you want,” he says. “I refuse to be embarrassed. Not when the wizarding world is full of blokes named Dedalus Diggle and Groondle Knobbery.”

She bites her lip, a fang hanging over in such a charming way that it’s upsetting. 

“I’ve never met a Groondle,” she says, putting the car in reverse and backing out of their spot. The joke is so innocent it eases the tension between them. “Do his friends call him Groon?”

Ron scoffs, finally relaxing into his seat.

“You should know better,” he says, keeping his eyes on the neon lights passing by the window. “Nobody named Groondle has any.”

Chapter Text

Pansy's body riots.

The only thing not staging a revolt of the French persuasion is her brain, and even that's tenuous. She grips the steering wheel and keeps her eyes on the road like her life depends on it (because it does), forcing herself to remember her surroundings.

The SUV is tight quarters. The man she's with loathes her. She's so painfully aroused that it's all she can do to keep from whimpering when she clenches her thighs together.

What the fuck?

When she feeds from Juice Box, the experience is outright boring. Thank god. It's like lugging around a thirty-pound Hydro Flask with a terrible attitude. She pierces JB's flesh, sucks until the buzzing in her head goes away, and then lavishes her hateful pig with strawberries because they're JB's favorite. A healing spell for the wound and then she's done.

But that? The moment in the parking lot? That's concerning.

At first, she thinks maybe this is just what it's like to drink from a human, but she dismisses the thought as soon as it forms. Pansy has done her research. She knows vampires feed like humans eat: it's not simply a craving, but a biological necessity.

That's not what this feels like.

Her skin is too tight, her nipples too sensitive. This feels like addiction.

"Where's the nearest hotel, Weasley? I'm tired."

He sits up, turning down the music on the radio that neither of them really like but don't have the energy to mess with. Pulling out his phone, he pecks at it like a geriatric chicken, an entire minute passing before he responds.

"We're forty-five minutes away from St. George," he says. He hasn't glanced her way ever since they started driving and he doesn’t now. "It'd be a lot shorter if the speeding charm hadn't—how'd you put it? Shat the bed?"

Pansy manages a grunt.

"We could stay in Mesquite. There's a fancy hotel five minutes away," Ron says.

Somehow she safely follows his directions and they end up at a building with red block letters blazing Virgin River Casino.

"Another one?" she asks.

Weasley shrugs. 

Since she's the one with the license, she checks them in. Separate rooms. The faux marble countertops aren't a good sign, but Pansy is so preoccupied with trying not to combust that it doesn't matter.

“What time should we meet in the morning?” he asks, groping his chest to catch the keycard she throws at him.

She turns and speed walks down the hallway the lady at the front desk pointed to, passing plastic potted plants and a bowl of mints. She focuses on the tacky carpet so she doesn’t spin around and bite the clueless redhead behind her. Whether it would be pleasant for either of them depends on how irritating he chooses to be. 

“Seven,” she says, amazed she can even remember what numbers are. She debates for a moment when they make it to the elevators. Can she convince him to take the stairs? Being in an enclosed space with him right now seems about as wise as bringing free-roaming doxies to a tea shop. 

“Merlin, that’s early,” Ron complains.

Would a stairwell be much better? 

“Fine,” she growls, jabbing the button marked with an arrow pointing up. “We’ll meet in the lobby at eight.”

The metal doors slide open immediately and she steps in, punching the correct floor and bracing herself against the railing. Ron leans against the opposite wall with his arms crossed. Neither of them looks at each other. 

“Eight’s not much better,” he grumbles. And honestly, him being a whiny shit is a small mercy. It’s the only thing keeping her from throwing herself at him. 

“Good god, Weasley. Just tell me what time you’re hoping I’ll offer.”

“Nine,” he says, entirely too pleased with himself. 

She nods. Hardly hears him. The doors finally slide open and she’s out like a shot. Down the hallway, hunting for her room. When she makes it to door 209, she shoves the card into the slot. A lewd red light blinks back at her.

“G’night, I guess,” Ron says, watching Pansy shove the keycard in so violently it leaves the traces of a smile on his lips when she dares a look. 

“Night.”

The blinking light turns green and she rushes inside, slamming the door behind her. 

There's a mirror right next to her. Pansy's reflection sinks to the ground (another tick in the not-just-a-vampire column), ripping off her beanie to reveal tousled black hair. Her cheeks are pink in a way they haven't been since her departure from humanity, like there's actual blood pumping through her veins, like...she's just been freshly fucked.

Irises still red, though. Her eyes are bright as she rips off the multiple layers she usually needs for any semblance of warmth and if she wasn’t wearing any lipstick, she imagines her lips would be rosy too. She's burning up. Sweating. Didn't know she could do that anymore.

Finally naked, she crawls into the bathroom, ignoring the dirty grout and long black hairs that line the baseboards. Fancy hotel, her arse. Weasley probably didn't know to read the reviews but she doesn't fucking care. She twists to turn on the water and steps inside before she can talk herself out of it.

Icy glugs of water hit her back since the water pressure is shit. She couldn't be more grateful. Pansy tips her head back until it douses her scalp, stays long enough that her jaw is tired from clenching against the cold.

It cools her down.

By the time she's out and dried off with the raggedy, thin towel, the heat below her belly is manageable. Her hair drips onto her bra straps as she grabs the remote and turns on the tv. Something mindless or so hopelessly bad that she can make fun of it sounds like just the ticket.

"Hold onto your butts."

Pansy stops her perusal. It's her comfort movie, the one she's seen more than any other, and it's playing right now. Jurassic Park.

She turns the volume up to drown out the sound of the slot machines downstairs and does her best to pile up and puff the thin pillows behind her, silently cursing the scratchy sheets and the fading effects of the shower. By the time an injured Jeff Goldblum is lying back with his shirt baring his magnificent chest, Pansy can't help it. Her hand slips beneath her knickers.

As soon as she works a circle around the sensitive bundle of nerves, a gasp leaves her mouth like it's been punched out of her.

That pulsing heat is back. There's no way to pause the movie and keep it on Dr. Malcolm's chest, so Pansy squeezes her eyes shut and holds the image behind her eyes. His sultry stare. Soft, plush lips. Veins that stand out in sharp relief beneath his skin.

Her chest heaves as she breathes deeply. Salted skin with the sweetest hint of caramel. Blue eyes fringed with lashes so thick and light that lower as they watch her, his strong nose nudging out an obscene rhythm against her clit as he licks through her with a thoroughness she'd thought he only reserved for dessert.

She moans.

Fuck! Don't think about Weasley.

It's no use, though, because now that she's imagined it, she can't stop. Would he be selfish and fist her hair behind her neck? Shove her face down, force her to suck?

She's given her fair share of blow jobs and enjoyed it just fine but the way her body shakes when she imagines taking Weasley into her mouth is borderline alarming. She'd be so careful with her fangs, teasing him with a drag and scrape that might give her a few beads of blood. She'd lap them up with her tongue like a kitten with cream.

Pansy's eyes roll to the back of her head at the thought and she moans. Loud. 

"Are you—masturbating to Jurassic Park?"

Her hand freezes when Weasley's voice is barely muffled through the paper-thin wall. Of course, he could hear her. There's somebody a few rooms over with kids arguing over who gets to hold the remote and the dulcet tones of N-SYNC coming from above.

Unfortunately, his voice only tosses petrol on the fire already pulsing in her cunt.

"Shut the fuck up, Weasley," she says. Her voice is breathy and holds none of the severity she hoped it might.

After a pause and no response, she decides she doesn't care. The tension building with every squeeze of her thighs can't be ignored so she lets her hand drift down again.

Pansy fingers the lace edge at the top of her knickers, pulling it up tight against her cunt until the delicious pressure makes her whimper. 

"Is this about that blood kink you mentioned?" he asks. 

She scoffs but it comes out more like a moan.

"Don't be stupid," she pants, slipping her fingers back into her knickers and teasing herself by only rubbing to the side of where she really needs it, the barest whisper of satisfaction fluttering somewhere deep inside. "It's Ian Malcolm."

His laugh is rougher than she remembered it. Has she lost her senses? She’s holding a conversation with Weasley and actively pursuing an orgasm at the same time. Surely one or both of them will put a stop to it. 

"He's got that," she huffs a breath, her brain almost too scrambled to find the words, "broody, intellectual respect for nature."

This time Ron's laugh is probably heard by the entire floor.

"Respect for nature does it for you, huh?"

Despite the teasing words, they aren't mocking. He sounds genuinely curious.

"It's—ah," Pansy's so wet her finger slipped and bumped her clit. "It's the veins too, if I'm being honest." She doesn't specify whose.

Another pause. She trails her other hand along her collarbone, over the hollow of her throat. Is he imagining what she's doing? Is he hard like he was in the SUV? She could ask, but she’s pretty sure he’d never admit it. 

What she says next comes out accidentally.

"I'm so soft.” It’s almost to herself, but that's not quite true, is it? She said it for both of them.

She's rewarded with his sharp intake of breath. 

A keen thrill shoots through her limbs, lighting up her nerve endings with pleasure. This is insane. Wanking to the thought of Weasley and his long fingers and stubborn heartbeat is objectively horrifying. It is. It is.  

It’s just that it’s also making her hot and after the kind of day she’s had, she’s already scraping at the bottom of her cauldron for self-control. 

"It's the skin around my nipples," she lets herself muse, ignoring the blaring in her mind. She traces under her bra to feel the smooth expanse she always finds herself playing with when she’s feeling turned on. "The swell of my tits."

Her chest pauses in its heaving as she holds her breath, waiting for him to admit he wants to play.

"Highly underrated area," Ron says hoarsely.

It makes Pansy smile.

She runs her fingertip over the sensitive bud of her nipple and it's sensory overload in the best way. Her left hand drops to her hip and scrapes her nails all the way up to her ribs, reveling in the sting of it.

The movie’s forgotten on the TV, so she turns it down. Squeezes her eyes shut. Is Weasley still fully dressed? Is he imagining her kneeling on the bed, back arched so her knickers between her arse cheeks are on full display? 

She bites the inside of her cheek to keep from asking.

Instead of marching over and busting down his door, Pansy spreads her legs, surrendering to the indulgent urge to lavish herself with the attention her body deserves. She's spent a whole year living like it's her own worst enemy but right now, on this rickety mattress, she feels herself falling back in love with it.

Licking her hand and tasting herself, she gives her cunt a slap. It reverberates through her center, abruptly pushing her so close to the edge that she throws her head back again and accidentally thunks it against the wall.

"Oh, shit," she pants. It wasn't enough to hurt, nor was it enough to bring her back down to earth.

There’s a matching thud moments later.

"Fuck, Pansy."

His tortured groan pulls everything taut inside her.

“You’re evil,” Ron says when she laughs. 

She opens her eyes and looks down at herself, unabashedly admiring what she sees.

"It's so pretty," she says, slipping the pads of her fingers through the soaked folds. They glide inside with ease. Besides being pleasant and feeling luxurious, they can’t bring her to completion so she takes them out and pops her pointer and middle finger between her lips. "So wet."

And then she can hear it. Smell it. His arousal. It’s like he’s right there in the room with her, working his cock with reluctance painted over his pained features, his bed groaning with every movement. 

Her eyes roll back in her head.

"You got hard when I bit you," she says, taunting him. Thinking of the way his pupils almost swallowed his irises whole. "You fucking loved it."

Another growl from his chest.

"Your nipples got hard. Saw you squirming in your seat," he says accusatorily. They're both breathless, their harsh exhales punctuating every other second.

"I needed the restroom," she lies, grinding against the heel of her hand. Her hips lift and drop against the mattress with desperation. Her skin feels too tight.

"Liar," he snorts.

“It was cold, too,” she says, doubling down just to fuck with him.

“Don’t be shy, Parkinson. You wanted to climb over my seat and sink down on my cock.”

Another thrill zings through her. Who knew that Weasley had such a filthy mouth?

"That's not polite," she pants. Maybe he’ll think she’s taking a jab at his upbringing. It might be best if he does because that would break the spell that seems to have them both moving like they’ve been imperiused. 

"Tell me I'm wrong," he taunts back.

Lying is easy. Always has been.

"You're wrong," she says with a smirk. 

Ron's laugh is little more than gravel. "Such a bloody brat," he says, but she can hear the grin in his voice.

“Hmm, agree to disagree,” she says. Then, because somehow he brings out whatever wickedness she’s managed to bury over the years, she asks, “Which one were you imagining?”

A sound of frustration leaves him.

“What d’you mean?”

She pulls up her ankles, spreading her knees as wide as they’ll go before circling the tight bud below her vulva. Shockwaves of pleasure almost take her out but she pushes a wet finger in, reveling in the tight fit.

“My mouth or my cunt?” she clarifies breathlessly.

There’s not much of a response on the other side of the wall besides the accelerated bumping of the bed against the wall as he fucks his fist harder and groans like she’s just told him he has to walk the rest of the way to Michigan.

“Neither? Guess it’s my arse then,” she teases, sliding her finger in and out until it’s clear she’s about to detonate. Refocusing her attention around her clit but not on it, she does her best to prolong this. Her body is singing in a way it hasn’t in years and she’s not ready for that to stop.

“God, Pansy. Do you ever shut the fuck up?” he husks. His irritation sends shivers of delight through the hair follicles of her scalp. He’s in a bad way and it’s all because of her.  

“With the right motivation,” she says.

Every atom in her body buzzes like it’s undergone a breakdown at the nuclear level, unstable, shifting, and bursting when she hears what sounds like Ron falling apart.

Pansy doesn't try to silence her moans and neither does he. She works ever-tightening circles over her clit until her legs are shaking. She imagines the come spilling over his fist, can practically feel hot jets of it landing on her thighs. It's enough to make her shatter.

"Fuck," she gasps. Her orgasm clips her like a bludger. She's wrecked, a total mess of relief and shame and bone-deep pleasure. She pares it all down, shoves away the rational thoughts that try to crowd her in and allows herself this moment to just be. She’s a writhing heartbeat with spasming limbs. 

A loud crash shakes the other side of the wall. Pansy bolts upright, weak but alert.

"Weasley?"

She can’t make out anything but footsteps and cursing. The sound of water rushing through pipes. More cursing.

Finally, she hears a sigh.

"The bed broke," he says.

She drops against the headboard, trying to imagine how that possibly could have happened. Was he jackhammering his hips into the mattress? Thrusting so hard it snapped the structural integrity of the metal bed frame? Do his brooms snap in half as soon as he flexes his thighs?

Pansy's snort turns into a full-on laugh.

Of course Weasley wanked so hard he broke his bed. This is the boy who cursed himself to belch slugs.

A few minutes later, she's still a grinning heap on the bed, but then there’s an angry pounding on the door and it’s not funny anymore. Weasley won’t be able to sleep in his room. When they walked in earlier, she spotted a few Greyhound buses with a truly alarming number of old people in the parking lot and she knew they were lucky enough to get the last vacancies. 

Throwing on her long, button-up dress shirt that hits mid-thigh and loosening her posture to convey a nonchalance she doesn’t feel, she pulls it open. And if she left a few buttons at the top undone on purpose, who can blame her? She’s always been more devil than cherub.

Ron stands there with pursed lips, deliciously mussed-up hair, and hands on his hips.

"Shove over, Parkinson."

Chapter Text

“Did you put away your wrecking balls? Because we don’t do that kind of thing in here,” Pansy says as she opens the door wider. 

Ron's mortified but clueing her in on that fact would be lethal. He has merciless older brothers. He'd know.

Keeping his expression neutral, he puts his palm out and stiffens his arm to shove her head away as he walks past, resorting to his most tried-and-true technique with Ginny. Although, treating her like a sister after what they just did...it feels like pulling off a lie doped up on Veritaserum. 

Pansy kicks the back of his leg so his knee gives out. It's just as well, considering the perfume of sex that hits him like fucking Amortentia. She's been in this room, wet and wanting, and now he's here. After coming so hard he'd had a fit of magic that broke the bed.

That hadn't happened since he was a scrawny teenager.

"I'm here because there's been a noise complaint," he says, straightening his gait and strolling to the far side of the bed. "D'you know anything about that?"

He eases himself down on the comforter as casually as he can, which isn't very, and convinces himself the taunt will only land if he's looking at her.

It's a bad idea.

Somehow she glows in the buttery yellow lamplight. Her eyes shine ruby like pomegranate arils and her lips look kiss-bruised, pinkish-red and puffy. As out of place in this manky hotel as a Veela in a troll cave. 

Pansy's vibrance hurts, and never more than when she grins.

"I was too busy fucking myself to notice," she says.

Ron gives up fighting the blush. It overwhelms him, an occupation of heat that flares in every direction without thought or care for his pride. 

His plan walking in had been to pretend nothing significant had happened. And it hadn’t, really. He’d spent an entire day with a beautiful woman and she’d sucked his finger like she was hoping to do the same to his dick. They hadn’t professed their love nor made any promises. They didn’t even like each other, could hardly stand to be in the same room.

A whisper of discomfort is the only thing keeping him honest.

“Weasley,” she tells him, a coy smile tugging at her lips. “We don’t have to do this dance. So we got off together? If that meant anything I’d be married to Daphne Greengrass right now.”

That imagery just about does him in.

"You're a menace," he says, reaching for the remote. 

If he pretends to be at ease, maybe he’ll actually feel it at some point. Jurassic Park only has a few minutes left and he tries his damnedest not to think of what started this whole fiasco in the first place. 

Nothing good could come from hate-fucking Pansy Parkinson.

The bed dips when the T-rex shows up to critically injure some velociraptors, Pansy settling into the space beside him. The mattress is small, maybe a queen if he's being generous, and it doesn't allow for more than an inch of space between them. He's aware of it like a Snitch is hovering there, the flutter of its wings brushing against his skin every few seconds. 

Can she feel it? 

"I'd have survived if I'd been in that situation," she says.

Ron is still adjusting to a world in which Pansy Parkinson willingly speaks to him for any reason other than to mock him—not to mention where she gets off to the sound of his voice, so it takes a few moments to process.

"Where, in Jurassic Park?" he asks, crossing his ankles on the bed. 

"No, at the supermarket."

He rolls his eyes.

"No magic?"

She shakes her head in his periphery. "No magic."

The helicopter rescue unfolds onscreen, Dr. Grant pulling a stunned John Hammond away from his crumbling dream. The credits roll and Ron can’t leave it alone. He’d assumed Pansy’s only interests were Parisian shopping, bullying waiters, and correcting people’s posture by cracking their back in half over her knee.

His curiosity gets the better of him.

"How?" he asks. 

Pansy readjusts, folding her legs beneath her as she faces him with intense focus.

"As soon as the power goes out, right? I'm legging it to the freezer. I find one of those food station carts and I pile up the refrigerated goods on the bottom. Pack the edges with ice if I can find it. Then I raid the dry goods and stack those on top. We're hunkering down for what might optimistically be a day or two, so I find a washroom—toilet and water access—and barricade myself in there, refusing to come out 'til I hear the heli."

"So, burying your head in the sand."

It lands between them like a dropped Quaffle. 

He hadn't meant to ruin a rare moment of camaraderie, but now that he's said it, he can't take it back. A part of him wants her to take offense despite the effort he’s put into moving on from that time of his life.

The truth of it is, though, that she was in the wrong. 

She'd believed in blood purity. She'd offered up his best friend to Voldemort. Ron lets himself remember that these weren't just petty teenage squabbles, that people were actually killed thanks to those beliefs of hers, and that she would have fit in all too well if things had gone the other way. 

He tips his head back on the wall. 

What the bloody hell is he doing? Escorting Pansy Parkinson to Michigan when she'd probably be fine without him? Dreading the thought of seeing his best friend so deeply that he'd rather hang around somebody who probably wouldn't care if he was dead? Jerking off to the thought of her mouth?

"Yeah," she says, meeting his eyes without any of the remorse that should be there. "I know my strengths."

Despite what most people think, Ron's not dumb. He's always been able to see interactions and relationships like they play out on top of a chess board, mentally choreographing possible outcomes—it's just that his mouth has always been faster than his brain. 

Pansy's showing him that if he expects her to grovel, he'll be waiting a long time. 

"I'd probably head for the breaker to get the power back on," he concedes. It's a bid for peace. He's tired. It's been a long day and there's only so much dredging up the past that he can stomach.

They're silent as the second Jurassic Park movie comes on after commercials, neither saying anything about its inferiority to the first and third. Pansy probably likes it because Jeff Goldblum's the main character.

Halfway through, just as Ron's focus is starting to lull and his eyelids begin to droop, she shifts beside him.

"I've spent a lot of time imagining what I'd do with a time-turner," she says, voice raspy from disuse. He glances at her but she's looking at the tv, dark eyes focused on something far away. 

"But in every scenario, there's nothing that would've been enough. If I showed up and blocked a young version of myself from attending Sacred Twenty-Eight rituals, from wasting so much time climbing a social ladder destined to crumble, it wouldn't have made a difference. I was a coward. I’d have chosen Draco over everything.

"And it wasn’t—It wasn’t just weakness. My beliefs were systematic. Small experiences piled on top of each other and just fucking drenched in dogma."

Ron doesn't say anything. He gets the sense she's not asking him to.

"It took time to become what I was, and it's taken time to undo it. To sift through and figure out if there was even a me left when you take away all the blood purity bullshit."

Pansy sighs heavily.

"And I know that if the world were sane or just or fair, I'd be dead. I wouldn't have the chance to work through this. But it isn't, and I do. So I am."

He's wide awake now, weighing her words and sincerity like she's placed them on a giant golden scale before him. 

He's thought about time-turners, too.

Besides the most obvious choice of going back to save Fred, he's wondered if he could return to that lonely moment in the forest when the terror thrumming beneath his skin was worse than wearing the horcrux. 

All he'd been able to imagine was the Burrow, just a pile of cinders and rubble. Ginny's stuffed fox she'd refused to grow out of keeping on her bed among the ashes. Boxes of Fred and George's contraband buried under floorboards that creaked and nobody there to salvage them.

Mostly, though, he'd thought of his family. How could anything be more important than just being with them? 

And for the first time since it happened, something kinder than he’s used to warms his chest. He’d honestly believed himself brave in the moment he chose to leave. He’d been angry, of course, and frustrated, but it was the courage that made him act.  

No more waiting around and worrying that his family was already dead. No more telling himself their safety was out of his hands.

He’d go and he’d make sure of it. 

As usual, his brain was two steps behind his feet. No sooner had he landed in a clearing than he’d realized courage had made him stupid. That’s what people were always saying about Gryffindors and they were right, weren’t they? He’d let his sense of self-importance go to his head, completely forgetting that if his family was a target, he was the bullseye. 

He was seventeen. What the fuck was he going to do that his parents hadn’t already thought of? He’d already been doing exactly what was in his power. 

Before he can follow that line of thinking to its usual conclusion that he’s an unworthy sod who didn’t have any business being seen as a war hero, that new warmth suffuses his lungs again. It whispers in the same voice his mum used to use when she was singing to herself as she went about feeding the chickens.

He'd needed to learn because he'd been a kid…and he hadn't been the only one.

"I burned the letter you sent without even reading it," he tells her. It had been a year after the War was over. He'd heard from Hermione that Pansy Parkinson was making her apology tour and he'd wanted nothing to do with it.

Surprisingly, she laughs.

"Thank god," she says. "It wasn't a good one."

The muscles in Ron's cheeks twitch. 

There's an errant spring in the bed that's poking his arse and he already knows tonight is going to be miserable for his back, but all that frantic panic has ebbed. Pansy may very well be fine traveling to Michigan without him. He doesn't know. She’s nothing like her flower namesake these days.

"I run cold," she says. Before he can quip that he already knew that, she gets up and flips the covers back. "I'm telling you now because I'll probably steal the blankets."

When she settles in beside him, Ron slips under too. Should he tell her there's a good chance he'll end up wrapped around her by the end of the night?

"S'okay," he says. "I run hot."

◡ · · · ○ · · · ◡

When Pansy wakes from sleep, she knows exactly where she's at. 

Her head is tucked under Ron's arm and he's got the other one draped across her hip. The warmth radiates from his chest against her back, his hand, his bicep. It seeps into her like water through parched soil. 

She soaks it up shamelessly.

The digital clock's numbers glow red on the nightstand, broadcasting that it's still the middle of the night. If she were a normal person, she'd get up and drink a glass of water, but she's not. 

Her thirst can't be quenched so easily.

Carefully, Pansy peels his arm from her waist. She's about to sit up when he uses the arm under her neck to roll her into him. They end up even closer, his fingertips dangling just above her mouth, for Salazar's sake.

"S'wrong?" he mumbles, stirred by Pansy's whispered curse.

She shakes her head, doing her best not to breathe too deeply. Nothing has ever smelled so good as he does, sleep-soft and pillow-mussed.

"D'you need a drink?" he asks. It's so groggy, so artless, that he can't be awake. But then he pulls her hips closer and shifts, pressing the pulse of his wrist against her lips.

She's powerless not to take it.

Blood, hot and rich, pours from where she punctures him. His heartbeat's steady as he pulses into her mouth. Just like last time, there's an invisible string between her fangs and her cunt and every suck pulls it tighter, aggravating the stitch of her hunger.

Pansy laves her tongue generously over the thin skin of his wrist. She revels in it when she finds him hard against her belly.

Grunting, Ron pulls her leg over his hip, lining them up and punching a gasp out of Pansy. Suddenly there's a more pressing hunger in the region of her pelvis.

"Mm," he hums, slowly thrusting against her. The head of his dick catches against the fabric of her knickers then bumps her clit, each push and drag a languid endeavor, like he's not even chasing completion. 

A strangled moan works its way from her throat.

"Are you hurting?" he asks lowly, fingertips flexing on her hip. They can only see each other by the gleam of their eyes but somehow she knows he's asking in the same way he'd ask if she had a splinter. 

He's here, and he wants to take care of you.

Pansy laps up the blood from his wrist, the wound healing unnaturally fast, and fists her hand in his shirt. A whimper is all she's got.

"C'mere," he says, rolling on top of her and pinning down her hips. He puts his weight on his forearm and holds her still as he uses his cock to fuck the outside of her knickers. His hips roll in a steady beat, each movement suggesting a firmer touch, the whisper of real pressure.

"Ron," she breathes, unable to do anything but take it.

He keeps pace despite Pansy's increasingly desperate clawing. She sinks her nails into his shoulder blades, every jolt to her center more electric than the one before.

"Oh, fuck," she whispers. He's going to lull her into orgasm. 

"You better not be thinking about Jeff Goldblum," he growls, lowering his head to bite her ear lobe.

Pansy laughs, and it's the weirdest fucking thing because then she's coming, and she didn't know her body was capable of doing both. Gasping. Writhing. Smiling. He fucks her through it with his mouth at her neck, huffs of laughter caressing her skin.

When Ron stops rocking against her, he drops his forehead to her shoulder. What's—He's not going to finish? Her bones are still abuzz and she wants nothing more than to take over and draw him to the brink. He’d tap her shoulder to warn her he was coming but she’d keep licking and sucking. Riding.

Fuck. 

After she comes down, Ron pulls her into his chest again, tangling their legs together. It's so natural. Uncalculated. She squeezes her eyes shut against the onslaught of emotion she won't name that corkscrews its way into her heart. 

This is a road trip, and these are extenuating circumstances. Reality is waiting for her back home and its name is Juice Box. 

Before she's even finished spiraling, Ron's breaths have evened out and slowed down. He's already asleep.

Settling in with a sigh, Pansy does her best to follow him. His middle-of-the-night generosity was enough.

It has to be enough.

◡ · · · ○ · · · ◡

The second time Pansy wakes, she's alone.

A sliver of sunlight streams through the closed curtains and pierces painfully behind her eyes, ricocheting around her skull with all the malice of a claustrophobic pixie. Everything aches. Her limbs feel heavy when she sits up, scowling down at her crinkled shirt.

So he left. She’s not going to think about it.

Forcing herself to swing her feet out of bed, she follows that momentum and lands on the carpet. Her mouth is dry and her neck hurts from sleeping on Weasley's arm. Even worse, her joints are about as rickety as a suit of armor. 

She could spend the next ten minutes spiraling about how uniquely awful she feels, how completely abnormal this is, or she could get dressed.

Pansy gets dressed. 

She's cold so she wraps herself up in all her layers and shoves the beanie over her finger-combed hair. She'd sent her belongings for the lake house stay through the Floo with Theo, but she uses one of the squib sticks for a quick ironing charm. 

It's not until she's pulling on her boots that there's a knock on the door.

"Morning," Ron says when she pulls it open. He scoots past her, taking a huge bite out of one of the burritos in his hands. "I waf ftarving."

Merlin, he's an idiot. She's always been partial to them.

He plops down on the bed, uncaring of the potential crumb situation and seemingly unaware of the fact that Pansy is fully dressed, standing by the door.

"I got you one," he says, holding out the other burrito. 

God. She'd thought he'd left and now she's having to acknowledge that last night happened, that he's still here, and he's brought her breakfast. Pansy doesn't need to eat food, has only kept up with it because it's a comfort, but she reaches for the burrito anyway. Maybe taking a few bites will help her feel better.

"Thanks," she says.

They devote themselves to their burritos, him on the bed and her leaning her back against the closet. 

Last night happened. It wasn't a fever dream, and she knows because the red dots on his wrist flash her direction every time he takes a bite. He'd offered his wrist and given her an orgasm. He’d taken care of her like he’d wanted to. 

It wasn’t very enemy-adjacent of him.

Confusion has always been a dangerous thing. It makes one susceptible to being swayed, it weakens resolve. Pansy is interested in neither of those things, so she tells herself she’s glad he doesn’t want to talk about it. No doubt he’s filled with self-loathing and disgust.

She’s not, though, and that’s already more than she wants to know. 

◡ · · · ○ · · · ◡

Check-out is simple since they have nothing to pack. 

"You alright there?" Ron asks as Pansy buckles her seatbelt. "You look a bit green around the gills."

"Maybe that's the missing piece," she says, pushing her sunglasses up her nose. The relief from the blinding sun is immediate. "I'm half mermaid."

Ron shivers.

"Don't joke. I'm still traumatized from the Triwizard Tournament," he says.

"You weren't even awake." Giving him a hard time helps almost as much as the food did. It takes her focus away from her pounding head.

"Doesn't matter. Did you watch that documentary that Nils Dybdahl came out with? He was a few years behind us."

She shakes her head as she pulls out of the parking lot.

"I have not."

"He spent a year filming the mermaid colony in the Great Lake. Learned Mermish and got to know all their names and everything. Apparently they call their young 'pups' and their mating rituals can be lethal because the females have these hooks that come out of their, er, bits? Anyway, if a male tries to slide his trouser snake in there without her blessing, she rips it to shreds."

"As she should."

"Yeah. It got me thinking, could a person research more about mermaid bits? If they could build a model of what it really looks like and how it works, maybe there's a way to create a product that can be inserted into, you know—"

"The vagina?"

"Exactly."

Pansy is used to being slapped in the face with the wrongness of her assumptions, but confronting the fact that Ron Weasley might actually be quite smart isn't the surprise it might have been two days ago. 

"It's the kind of thing Hermione could probably figure out," he muses. She watches from the corner of her eye as the mention of their friend visibly dims his enthusiasm.

She has no business trying to cheer him up, especially when she's unequivocally of the opinion that he's been a shitty friend, that Hermione deserves to drag him to hell and back, but she can't help it. Maybe it's the way he took care of her last night or maybe she's losing her mind. 

"Seems like something you could figure out, too," she says.

Pansy can feel the heat of his stare on the side of her face. He's just as surprised as she is.

"Maybe. I've helped George develop a few of his products but he's the one with the skills probably required to make it happen," he says, drumming his fingers on his thigh. "I'll mention it to him."

"It's a bit serious for a joke shop, don't you think?" she asks, because Pansy is clever, and that's really just practicality with a fancy hat on.

"Well, yeah. But we've got enough resources to offer it for free. Women and whoever wants to use it shouldn't have to pay for something like that in the first place."

Pansy lets a fang pierce her inner cheek. It's a brief sting of pain and it's absolutely necessary to dull the growing respect for him that's almost taking her breath away. He'd been pig-headed in school and that was the one judgment she hadn't been wrong about. He'd literally oinked at her because of her upturned nose. 

Apparently he'd grown up. She had, too.

"D'you like what you do?" she asks. Her curiosity is something she'd deny until her dying breath but there's something in the way he's spoken about his occupation that makes her think it's a poor fit.

Ron turns his gaze out the window at his side, watching as the landscape turns into beautiful red rocks and sage greenery.

"I dunno," he says, his voice far away. "George doesn't think so."

He's confiding in her. Just yesterday she knows he'd have blown her off. Pansy keeps her hands very still on the steering wheel, afraid that if she moves or draws attention to herself he'll remember who he's talking to and shut her out.

"He's been threatening to fire me, actually."

They're practically strangers. She knows that. But somehow in the past twenty-four hours, she's gotten a feel for a few things about him that she'd be willing to bet on: 1. he's a caretaker and 2. if she were to point that out, he'd scoff. 

Pansy can imagine him right after the War, overwhelmed with the pain of losing Fred and knowing there was no fixing it for George. She can see him stepping up and trying to fill in for someone irreplaceable just because no one else is going to.

"Ah," she says. "You've been embezzling."

When Ron snorts, she finds a third thing to bet on: he's only comfortable opening up if she doesn't coddle him.

"I'm not a good partner," he says. "None of it comes naturally to me. I went to business school and got my degree at a Muggle university, and that aspect, the actual marketing and strategy side of it, is what I'm good at. But George doesn't need that. He's looking for a partner who can invent and come up with new product ideas like, I don't know, shoelaces that make your feet float."

Pansy listens with a strange pulsing behind her sternum. It's got the same painful throb that she's come to recognize as empathy. 

"That concept's not half bad, actually," she says.

Ron turns his head toward her lazily. "That's because it's already one of our products. I can't improvise an idea because I don't bloody have any."

"Alright, so George fires you. Then what?"

He doesn't answer for a while. Long enough that Pansy's convinced he remembered the time she called his hand-me-down robes Nicholas Flamel's cum cloth.

"I've never actually thought about it," he admits. 

"So do," she says. The road is winding as it snakes through the most beautiful canyon Pansy's ever seen. Her whole body still hurts but there's something fortifying about chatting with Ron like this. 

She hasn't talked to a friend like this in a long time.

The thought pulls her up short. 

Could Weasley ever be her friend?

"I want to work with my hands," he finally says. "That's what I learned during the Rebuilding. There was so much I couldn't fix and I was so angry, but building houses and replanting gardens—it was nice."

Shit. 

Pansy might as well admit it to herself: she's attracted to him. Just helplessly drawn to the idea of watching him nail fenceposts into the ground, bent over at the waist as he pulls up weeds. Maybe even nailing other things.

Her skin feels hot again.

"That's—mhmm." It's all she can manage. Her arms start to shake from holding her hands on top of the wheel, so she lowers them and takes a deep breath. It only worsens things because he smells so goddamn good.

"It's dumb though. 'S'not like I can pick up and leave. We're opening another Weasley's Wizard Wheezes in Edinburgh, so there's a ridiculous amount of paperwork to be done."

"Tell George to find a replacement," she says, gritting her teeth.

She should be fine. He fed her a scant few hours ago but it’s like it’s been days. 

"I can't do that," he says with a sigh, rubbing his face. He looks tired. "He's not in a good place right now. He needs me."

Pansy can't respond. Not because she doesn't want to, but because it's taking all her effort to keep her eyes on the road and her foot on the gas. Maybe Ron doesn't want her to anyway because he turns up the radio a minute later.

They drive on like that for hours. Silent except for the occasional sat nav direction. It's a slow and thorough torture, sitting next to a fucking feast and having no right to ask for a bite.

By the time they make it to Colorado, Pansy's resigned herself to having to ask for another drink. He won't say no because he's got that Gryffindor savior complex and probably loves having her in his debt. She opens her mouth to ask when, after passing nothing for miles, she notices a country store with a massive Ogden's Olde Firewhisky advertisement in the window. 

She slows down before Ron tells her to pull in.

"What the fuck?" she whispers.

"D'you think it's another magic shop?" Ron asks.

It's made of wood that's dirty from years of standing and it's got a giant Coca-Cola emblem above the sign that says Don's Emporium. There's a rusty old petrol pump and three parking spaces. She pulls into one of them.

"Has to be," she says. 

Adrenaline propels Pansy out of the car with more of a spring in her step than she thought she'd been capable of. There's something homesick that perks up within her every time she finds magic folk in the US, that soothes her with the sense of community that she's been missing ever since she left. 

Ron opens the door for her, the heat of his front against her back so delicious she's tempted to lean into it. She doesn't, of course, but god. She wants to.

They step inside where the floors are sticky and the light coming through the coke bottle windows is minimal, only two rows of merchandise set up in the tiny space. 

She has to take off her sunglasses.

Ron's hand closes on her shoulder at the same time she realizes a tall man with a scraggly beard is smiling at her from behind the cash register, his eyes cataloging her like she is exactly what he'd ordered.

"There you are," he says. His studded leather vest is cracked and peeling and Pansy can smell the stale coffee from where she's standing. "I was hopin' you'd stop by."

Chapter Text

Ron's body has never learned how to let go of the high-alert, combat-ready-at-the-drop-of-a-wand thing, so his left hand automatically finds the bombarda squib stick he'd tucked into his back trouser pocket on a whim.

Yet another souvenir of the War.

The shop is dark but he can sense the strangeness of its magical signature—it reeks of something like smoked meat and death mixed with the unnatural mist that clings to Knockturn Alley.

"We've been looking for you too," Pansy says, stepping forward and away from his hand on her shoulder. "You're a difficult man to track down."

She trails her fingertips lazily along the dusty shelf littered with merchandise, making a clean line on wood that's clearly been repainted a dozen times judging by all the chipping.

Ron alternates between horror that she's moving closer to this creep and admiration that she's making him uncomfortable in return. Whatever she's playing at, he'll back her up.

The man's eyebrows almost raise to his hairline.

"Have you, then?" he drawls, patting his chest. It's only upon squinting his eyes that Ron can see he's got a wand holster beneath his palm. "It's not often one of your kind knows to seek me out."

"We can't all be the brightest, can we?" she says. Ron follows her lead, wiping all traces of confusion from his expression.

The man laughs and it sounds like the engine of Dad's car when they tried starting it up after years of sitting in the Forbidden Forest. Rough, rusty: the kind of noise that makes you want to duck and scramble away because you just know something's going to blow.

"You are a beauty, all right," he says, dark eyes shifting from Pansy to Ron with obvious suggestion. "But you're not being fed properly. Is that why you've come all this way? To find a man to fill you up?"

Ron wraps his arm around Pansy's waist, stepping so her back is fully pressed against his front. Whether it's a show of possession or a bid for comfort, he doesn't know, but it's necessary.

"What makes you say that?" Ron asks, doing his best not to growl.

When Pansy leans into him and trails her fingers along his jaw in what must look like an absentminded gesture of affection, he can finally unclench it.

"She's got that seed-starved hollowness about her eyes," the man says, stepping out from around the counter. Ron watches him loop his thumb into his giant copper belt buckle all while trying to keep his face neutral. Seed-starved? "You feelin' tired, baby?"

Merlin fuck. Is he intimating that Pansy's a succubus?

She's gone stiff in his arms, but Ron gently tilts her chin to the side with his fingertips. He looks into her eyes and tries to communicate what his lips can't.

"You know I'll feed you whenever you want," he says, sweeping over her face. He means it (holy shit he means it) but he's also trying to give her a safe reason to decline this creep's suggestion.

She blinks back at him. Swallows.

"I've got a boundary spell that extends about a hundred miles in each direction. It only lets my shop appear to your kind. Did you know there's a whole community that'd pay a steep price to be with somebody like you?" the man asks, eyeing Pansy up and down. "Never seen one mixed with a vampire."

The hairs on the back of Ron's neck raise up. If he had his wand, he'd be ready for a scoundrel's duel and hit the smug bastard in the face with a jinx before he could realize what was happening.

But he doesn't.

All he's got is a single-use bombarda, and considering the holster strapped to his chest, there's a good chance this man is a duelist. A safe exit isn't a guarantee.

"So I’ve heard,” Pansy says, her posture loosening again. She turns to Ron with a thrilled grin. “Finally, some luck. He’s perfect.”

Clearly she has a plan in mind and it’s all he can do to hang on to her broom head and hope she doesn’t drop the both of them.

The man perks up.

“You see,” Pansy says, stepping close enough to run her hand over the top of his leather vest, “we’ve been in a bit of a bind ever since my transition.”

Ron keeps his hands fisted behind his back, doing his best to maintain his aloofness. Having her so close to someone who is clearly dangerous makes his eye twitch.

“Every time I feed, I sort of…lose my inhibitions. All I can do is drink until they’re dry,” she says, glancing down at the shiny belt buckle before looking back up. “Just tearing, ripping, sucking. It’s a messy affair, as you can imagine.”

Ron smiles. She’s a bloody genius.

“You’ve got a bit of a succubus fetish, haven’t you?” Ron asks the man. “She's hungry.”

"You don’t mind?" She turns to ask Ron.

Pansy looks up at him with wicked crimson eyes. There's fury and fear there, but there's also humor. She wants to make this man squirm.

"I want you to feel better," Ron says. It's the easiest lie he's ever told because honestly, it's not much of one. "Can I watch?"

She’s half-lidded and serious when she responds.

“Always.”

The man shifts on his feet.

“That doesn’t interest me,” he says. The hand on his buckle moves up his chest, like if he does it slowly enough they won’t notice.

“You touch that wand and I’ll trace to rip your fucking throat out,” Pansy says. Ron believes it despite her inability to trace up until this point. She's radiating enough malice to do whatever she puts her mind to.

The man holds his hands up, backing away to the other side of the register.

“Listen, I’m not looking for a confrontation,” he says, a note of pleading entering his voice.

Ron finds his feet moving before he’s sure how wise it is. He plucks the wand from the man’s holster and snaps it in half. He could have taken it but he’d heard MACUSA tracked stolen wands and he didn't want to pile that on top of his worries.

“If you cast that perimeter again,” Ron says, tossing the halves behind him, “you’ll get one.”

Pansy’s arm wraps around his waist and suddenly he’s climbing into the SUV, his hands shaking with excess adrenaline. The past ten minutes wash over him in flashes.

Pansy got them out of that. She kept them safe.

He repeats it internally until he can finally process that they're driving. As soon as Pansy got into the car, she whipped them out of that parking lot and got them the hell out of dodge.

Her fingers clutch the wheel and he wonders if they're shaking, too.

"Oh, fuck," he breathes. He yanks at the roots of his hair to ground himself, focusing on his stinging scalp.

Pansy nods, pursing her lips tightly.

"That was—"

She shakes her head. Maybe she's processing what she's learned about herself, or maybe it's that she's finally showing how scared she was. He doesn't push her. They drive in silence for a few miles, Ron glancing at her from the corner of his eye too often for her not to notice.

He has a roster of people to worry about. 

Ginny, because she and Harry don’t seem to be aware of the invention of birth control. 

Harry, because he’s working as professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts and has to relive the War all the fucking time.

George, because, obviously.

Somehow Pansy’s made the list too.

He cares enough to catalogue all her ills. Dark circles under her eyes, her slightly green pallor. It's enough to beckon dread to lie down and curl up into a ball inside his stomach.

"Breaking the wand," she says with a swallow. "Did that mean you broke the perimeter spell? Is he still able to track me?"

Ron doesn't know, but he can sense the panic in her questions.

"All we can do right now is drive," he says. Then, because he's already in over his head, he pushes forward. "Even if he is tracking you, you're not alone. We're not going to let him near you."

Pansy scoffs.

"Right. 'We,' with the squib sticks and the shitty fucking SUV with its shitty fucking speed charms."

Somehow he knows she wants him angry instead of reassuring. She doesn't want his pity or his pussyfooting.

"Pansy," he says, keeping his hands on his knees instead of reaching for her. She'd slap him away and he knows it. "I spent a good year on the run from Voldemort and his followers. I know how to stay safe."

He doesn't mention that most of his success at evading Voldemort had been Hermione's quick thinking. That's a given. But even though he had mostly spent his teen years doing his best to give moral support, Ron knows that's not all he has to offer these days.

He's grown up.

His prefrontal cortex is fully formed. Grief has broken him into enough pieces that, in putting himself back together, he's made sure to become more independent. He's stitched himself together like a wonkier version of how Molly used to combine his ratty old shirts into a blanket, repurposing the recklessness that never served him into something like stability.

"I need a good fuck," she says, wiping every thought of his progress away.

She's trying to give him a heart attack.

"Alright," he says slowly. His hands are sweating so he wipes them on his trousers. How long has it been for her? It's been ages since he fell into bed with anyone. Would he still be any good at it? "D'you...can you pull over?"

Sunglasses or no, the look she gives him is open-mouthed shock. What had she expected him to say? Whatever it was, she recovers. 

"I like my men desperate for me," she says, "and that will never be you."

It's a slap in the face. She's so matter-of-fact, like she knows he won't argue the point. But how can she think that's true? He lost his goddamn mind last night without even seeing her.

"Can we stop at a pub or a bar tonight? I—I think a one-night stand situation might be best," she continues, oblivious to the warring factions of disappointment and relief that make it hard to breathe.

So she doesn't think he's one-night stand material, but she can get off to the sound of his voice?

"Sure," he says, because he's not going to beg her consideration. If their roles had been reversed would he have turned to her for help? There's no telling and it's useless to speculate.

But he thinks so.

"I could use some stress relief too," he says, then backtracks. "Not that—I mean, it's not a biological necessity for me. But it'd be nice."

A hint of humor tugs at her lips but she doesn't respond.

"What?" he prods. "Say it."

Pansy shakes her head.

"I'm trying to be good, Weasley. Don't tempt me."

A wistful pang bounces around in his chest, knocking crucial things askew. He's lopsided in his wanting and he can't find a reason to smile back at her about it.

◡ · · · ○ · · · ◡

Hunting for dick in a bar whilst lightheaded is not the liberating experience Pansy had imagined.

She's been stuck in the same car, the same hotel, the same air as Ron for too long. It’s starting to mess with her brain. Her eyes are calibrated to look for him in a room, to search for the tell-tale sign of his embarrassment by watching the tips of his ears closer than she ever watched her potions.

He's chatting up a woman with long brown hair. She's objectively gorgeous even though her style is a bit honky tonk for Pansy's taste. Ron would probably enjoy being stepped on by her red cowboy boots.

"Your eyes are like, really cool."

Pansy had almost forgotten about the man standing next to her. He’s been asking her questions like where is she from, what does she do for a living, etc. and he’s been perfectly nice. It’s been an hour of small talk but she’s running out of steam.

He leans against the bar with one elbow, angling his body to face hers.

"They're red," he says.

"I'm a vampire," she tells him. "Or they're colored contacts. Take your pick."

He's attractive. Tall, with hair that can't decide if it wants to be brown or blonde. He laughs, looking away before returning his gaze to hers like he might be a bit shy, a bit out of practice when it comes to flirting.

"Either way, you're beautiful," he says.

Americans are so forward with their attentions. If she hadn't already spent a year here, she'd assume that he was infatuated, completely bewitched by her charm. For all she knows, this is his routine.

But that's okay. All she's looking for is to give the guy a blow job and suck him down like a 7-11 Slurpee because apparently, that's what she needs to survive these days.

A shiver runs up her spine.

"Yeah?" she says, angling his way too. "What are you going to do about it?"

Credit where credit is due and all that, because he doesn't hesitate to lower his face to hers. He kisses her gently. Pleasantly. She can taste the tequila on his lips.

It's not the worst.

She's careful to keep her mouth closed for the most part, worried his tongue will catch on a fang and she'll have to double down on the I just love vampires bit that she's used for the past twelve months.

He breaks away from the kiss, lifting a hand to her cheek as he searches her face.

"I don't even know your name," he says.

She tries to keep her entire body from shaking. She'd taken her beanie off for this so all the warmth it normally traps seems to escape and make her shiver again. It's getting harder to pretend like she's not weak from hunger, but it's not the same thing as arousal. It hurts too much for that.

"Pansy."

He smiles down at her.

"I'm Jack," he says, "and I don't usually do this."

It’s quicker than she’s ever hooked up with anyone but that’s kind of the point. She needs sustenance and she needs it now.

"I'm going to be honest with you, Jack. I don't care what you usually do," she says. If she doesn't feed soon it feels like her bones are going to split down the middle.

If it's possible, he looks even more pleased and Pansy has her confirmation. This is his routine. A perfect, no-strings-attached arrangement for the both of them.

It's against her will when she glances back to where she'd last seen Ron. 

He's still standing there, listening intently to something the brunette is saying. She's about to look away when his eyes lift and catch hers, nearly bowling her over by the undisguised heat in them.

He wants her.

Pansy knows this just like she knows her knickers were dry until this very moment.

"You wanna get out of here? My apartment is only five minutes north," Jack says.

She tears her eyes away, refocusing on the uncomplicated escape plan in front of her.

"I—erm, yes. Yeah," she says, forcing herself to make the cleanest choice. She won't be aching for more with him and she knows it. Even still, she can't help herself. "Let me run to the restroom first."

He slides his hand down to her waist and lets her go with a wink.

Pansy doesn't look in the direction of the tables she’d seen Ron standing by as she moves: she just puts one foot in front of the other. She'd been feeling frail, but the arousal that thrums through her center is oddly fortifying. She could drop to her knees. She could lick and suck and—

She brushes the thought away. 

It’s a nice bar and the floors aren’t sticky as she makes her way past a billiards game. There must be something about being a succubus because now that she’s aware of it, she can see how heads turn when she walks by. Is there something about her smell? The way she walks? 

Does she have a tattoo across her forehead that reads LOOKING FOR SPERM DONORS?

In the hours they had to drive before they found this place, she’d spent the whole time grappling with this unwelcome revelation. She’s part vampire. She’s had a few months to adjust to this new reality, reading books and outdated blogs and everything in between to get a handle on the restrictions it’s put on her life.

She can’t take Portkeys. She’s not legally allowed to use the Floo. She isn’t a full vampire and therefore cannot trace. Sun sensitivity is definitely a thing but it doesn’t burn like it ought to. More than anything, it’s left her with a deep sense of distrust in every person she meets.

Oh, and it’s still legal to hunt her kind in the US. 

She hasn’t disclosed that fact to Ron because, despite her initial efforts to get rid of him, she doesn’t want to travel alone. She’s wandless, friendless, and now she’s figured out that the missing piece of her identity makes her even more reliant on others.

Not exactly the most ideal travel companion.

And here she is about to leave this bar, asking him to wait for her while she fucks a stranger. Who knows, though? Maybe he’ll be fucking a stranger too. 

The thought has her fists clenching, fingernails biting into her palms. She’s starved and horny and the last emotion she wants to add to that clusterfuck is jealousy.

As soon as she slides into the bathroom, she’s weak-kneed with relief that it’s a single toilet. The thought of pulling herself together whilst crammed into a stall was too much. Setting her bag on the hook on the back of the door, she doesn’t even have time to flip the lock before the handle twists and a tall figure shoves inside.

It's Ron.

They just look at each other, both of their chests heaving. Ron's hair looks like he's been tugging at the ends of it and his eyes are bright though the rest of him looks like he's in pain. He locks the door behind him.

"What are you—"

He shakes his head, breaking off her question.

"Don't," he says hoarsely.

She could pretend not to know what he's talking about, but she knows. And fuck if it doesn't make her wetter.

He must see it in her face because then he's surrounding her, his hands on both sides of her face as he backs her against the wall. His lips press against hers with such blatant hunger that she opens for him. He sweeps his tongue inside, avoiding her fangs, and presses his erection against her belly.

Pansy moans.

That bone-splitting sensation is back, but this time it’s filled with promise instead of pain.

She spears her fingers through his hair, tugging hard enough at the roots that he groans and ducks his head to nip at her neck. One of his hands charts a path over the curves of her breast, belly, and hips, finding its home on her arse. He kneads her in a push and pull that presses her against his hard length.

"No more." His lips move against the skin of her collarbone. At first, she thinks he's talking about their snogging, but then he presses a kiss to her jaw. "It doesn't have to be complicated. If you need to be fed, I'm the one feeding you. If you need to come, it's my fingers or tongue or cock that'll be filling you."

She whimpers.

He kisses her lips again, but this time he deliberately nicks his tongue against a fang. Beads of hot blood swell as he sweeps it gently across her lips, taunting her with it.

Pansy kisses him back, letting their tongues tangle and giving his a suck. She's so turned on her thoughts go hazy and all she can process are the sensations: the bruising grip of his fingertips on her arse, the mintiness of his breath. She's always so cold but never when he's near.

"What do you need, Pansy?" he whispers, dropping his mouth to her neck. He licks a hot stripe there, which doesn't help her coherency.

She places her hands on his chest and pushes him away.

"Please," she says, guiding his back to the wall. She drops to her knees and works at the button of his trousers.

Ron tosses his head back and squeezes his eyes shut tight. Once she's got enough to room to pull him out, she wraps her hand around his length, something primal and thrilling igniting below her belly.

"Fuck," he hisses as soon as she licks him.

He's warm in her hand, smooth against her tongue. He tastes so good—exactly like she'd imagined. Salty-sweet. Other-worldly.

She's given blow jobs before but none of them tasted like anything other than penis. Vaguely avocado-like and nothing to write home about. The thought almost makes her laugh but then his hips punch forward and he hits the back of her throat in the most delicious way.

"Sorry," he pants, his palm warm against the back of her head. "Sorry."

She leans back, lips spit-slicked and puffy as she smiles.

"No, you're not," she says, pressing his hand harder against the back of her head.

His grip on her hair tightens as he looks up at the ceiling.

"You're going to kill me," he huffs.

For one brief moment, Pansy worries. Could she? When she'd been bluffing to that horrible man in the country store, she didn't believe a word she was saying. Now, though? When her entire body is aflame and all she can think about is sucking him dry?

She squeezes his thigh.

"You take control," she says. "That's what I need."

Ron bites his lip, searching her face. Whatever he finds solidifies his resolve and he nods.

When his length slips between her lips again, it's with a slow, languid roll of his hips. He hits the back of her throat and stays there until she swallows around him.

He exhales roughly.

"Not going to last long," he tells her, pulling out.

"Don't want you to," she whispers back.

He keeps her head steady with his palm and fucks her mouth in a steady rhythm. Every time he hits the back of her throat, Pansy's eyes threaten to roll to the back of her head.

She's never loved it like this. Never felt so consumed by every slide of his cock against her tongue. It's like she's been living without flavor her whole life and he's placed chocolate on her tongue and allowed her to savor it, to let it melt.

By the time Ron's gasping, hips punching forward, she's almost crying. It feels so good, so intense.

But she's not ready for it to end.

She’d told him to take control but she finds herself wresting it back almost immediately, like there’s something inside her that knows how to draw this out, how to make sure he comes hard enough to fill her up. 

Her lips pop! when she pulls off his cock, pressing kisses and dragging her fangs shallowly along the artery that snakes down his thigh. He jolts like he's been electrocuted.

"Oh, fuck!"

Pansy cups him, carefully scraping her nails along the sensitive skin beneath his length. His cock jumps beside her cheek as she nuzzles into the crevice of his hips and breathes deep. 

She's being weird. She knows this crosses the bounds of a quick, meaningless blow job.

But he came after her.

He wasn't going to let her leave with another man without giving her the option to have him instead. And maybe it wasn't jealousy. It could have been pure concern that she was about to leave with a stranger, but somehow she knows that's not the case. It's recalibrating her synapses, orienting each one to recognize him as hers.

His cock jerks in her hand.

"Shit," he pants, knocking his head back against the wall as he stares her down with heavily lidded eyes. "It's yours, Pansy. Take it."

She pumps him with her hand, enraptured as she watches the moisture bead at his tip. 

Tentatively, like she knows she's about to do something irrevocable in a way that nothing else they've done has been, she laps at it.

Acute need sucks the air from the space between them.

She holds his hips down when he tries to thrust, bobbing up and down along his length with a kind of ravening pleasure she's never known. Ron curses, his spine bending over the top of her and cradling the back of her head.

Pansy clenches her thighs.

She's going to come from this.

"Yes," he hisses, fingernails digging into her scalp. "That's so good. That's so fucking good."

Then he's coming, hot and urgent against her tongue.

The world whites out behind her eyelids as she takes it, swallowing every bit he has to give. Ron shouts something incoherent and she drinks that down, too. Her cunt clenches over and over.

It isn't until he tips her chin down and keeps thrusting that she falls apart.

Her orgasm detonates like a bomb sending shockwaves from her center, leveling whatever resistance she'd built to this like it was nothing more than a few stacked-up toothpicks. It melts her down into something fundamentally new. Something stronger.

"Bloody hell," Ron breathes, letting her lick him clean even though the tip is sensitive. His stomach moves against her hand, warm and solid. He waits a few moments before removing his still-hard dick from her mouth and brushing her bottom lip with his thumb. 

Pansy's shaking. Her limbs are suffused with energy, bones somehow denser from the overwhelming pleasure.

He tucks himself away and grabs her hands, pulling her up.

"You alright?" he asks.

She feels better than she ever has. Every muscle and joint is harboring kinetic energy just waiting to be used. She could run the rest of the way to Michigan.

Or she could find a bed and fuck him in it.

"Mhmm," she says, straightening her shirt and dusting off her knees. Now that she's not blinded by lung-crushing need, she appreciates the gleaming tile floors and how objectively nice the bathroom is. It smells like citrus and sex.

"Was that—are you okay?" she asks, finding it difficult to meet his eyes.

Ron nods.

"More than," he says, biting his lip as he grins at her in the mirror. "I feel really good."

Both of them look like they've taken a ride in the Beauxbatons carriages, hair wild and clothes disheveled. Pansy's knickers are uncomfortably damp but they smile at each other awkwardly as they brush down flyaways.

"Good," she says, grabbing her bag. She unlocks the door. "I've got a date though, so I'll see you later."

It takes him a few moments to realize she's trolling him. When he does, the blank stare turns into a scowl that’s trying its hardest not to lift at the corners.

"That’s fucked up, Parkinson.”

Chapter Text

They get back in the car and drive for six hours, neither of them tired enough to stop and get a hotel. 

Instead of listening to the radio on low and pretending to sleep, Ron's alert. Keyed up. Feeding Pansy was like being plugged into a fucking lightning bolt but instead of getting burnt to a crisp, volts of energy ripple through him, making it impossible for him to shut up.

"There's no way," he says, shoving a handful of spicy peanuts into his mouth, (he'll give America its due: they actually season their food. He's obsessed with it.) "you'd fuck Gimli instead of Legolas."

Pansy shrugs.

"I'm not into blondes."

Ron's brain takes that and runs with it. Is that a dig at Malfoy or an admittance that she could be into redheads? 

Bloody hell, he's embarrassing himself.

"His hair can't be better than mine, either. That's a power differential I can't be arsed with," she says.

"What if they have better hair but they're two inches shorter than you? That's got to even the scales, right?" he teases.

"Depends on how good they are at giving head," she says, rummaging through the bag of food they'd purchased at a petrol station. 

"Middling."

Pansy sighs.

"What's his clothing situation?"

"He's got a heart of gold, Pansy. Have mercy on the poor bloke."

"Let me guess," she says, pulling out the black licorice. Awful stuff. "He's your good mate and his name is Groondle."

Ron looks out the window, biting his knuckle to keep from smiling. 

"We go way back," he says seriously.

She throws a piece of licorice at him. His hand accidentally slaps it between his seat and the center console.

"Never met a guy so ready to settle down—" he's saying when Pansy's phone rings in the cupholder, buzzing loud enough to make Ron flinch. 

She grabs it from his hand when he offers it. 

"Fuck," she says. "It's Hermione."

"Took her long enough," Ron says. He's surprised she's held out this long without demanding to know what exactly was going on. What was keeping them from grabbing a new Portkey?

Ron and Pansy stare at each other for a moment before she hits accept.

"Hi, Mum," Pansy says.

He can hear Hermione loud and clear.

"Is everything okay? We were expecting you all day and it's getting really late.” He’d bet his signed Quidditch World Cup that Hermione’s biting her right thumbnail. It’s always reddened and abused by her anxiety, perfectionism, you name it.

“Please,” Pansy says. “Between Ron and I, we could probably orphan a few dozen Pygmy Puffs.”

Her humor is bone dry. It forces you to be brave, to laugh before you’re sure it’s a joke. He should hate it—definitely would have ten years ago—but he’s drawn to the audacity. To the dare. 

Like maybe being wrong with her might be just as worthwhile as being right. 

“Ron, huh? Maybe Charlie’s theory about you two shacking up and deciding not to come after all has some credence,” Hermione jokes. 

Ron’s fortifying sip of Dr. Pepper shoots up his nose. Pansy glares at him.

“Pansy?” Hermione prompts when she doesn’t get a response. 

Their eyes meet, a question in his and something indefinable in hers. Does she want him to jump in? To deny how close Hermione actually is to the truth?

"None of you get to make fun of me,” Pansy finally says, "considering who you've ended up with."

Oh, shit. Fuck. She’s going along with it? Her decision to plow ahead shocks him more than the time the Chudley Canons won a match against the Wimbourne Wasps after a 164-year losing streak.

“Hang on,” Hermione says. “Are you serious? You and Ron…?”

Pansy keeps her eyes on the road. Is she pranking Ron? There’s no way she’d admit to fancying him so easily. Not unless it gave her an advantage in some way. 

"Cool your cauldrons. We’re…enjoying taking our time." 

Ron rubs his mouth to hide his grin. He is enjoying it, isn’t he? Maybe a concerning amount. 

“Did that hurt to say?” he whispers, watching a few strands of black hair stir at the bottom of her jaw. 

The faintest shiver rolls through her shoulders. 

Excruciating, she mouths.

“Oh my god,” Hermione says. 

"I will remind you, you have no leg to stand on," Pansy says.

A burst of noise that could be yelling or laughter on the other end makes Pansy pull the phone away from her ear. In the background, Ron imagines he can hear Charlie saying, "Called it!"

"Pansy Perfidia Parkinson," Hermione says. “I—you’ve rendered me speechless."

Pansy’s back straightens as she sits up in her seat. 

"I don't recall entrusting you with my middle name, Granger."

Perfidia, huh? 

Ron considers it, tucking it against his cheek like a stolen chocolate. He’d always thought her name was a well-earned cosmic punishment but now that he’s spent time around her, now that he knows she takes special note of his favorite snacks and keeps them topped up in the middle console of the SUV every time they stop at a petrol station, he can’t help the irritation that burns in his chest like a flame eats at paper. 

Her parents were wankers, weren’t they? They looked at the soft curve of her cheeks and decided to give her a name she’d have to spend the rest of her life disproving.

"I was always going to find out," Hermione says. "And anyway, don't think you can make me forget why I called. When, exactly, are you going to grace us with your presence?"

Pansy's hand clenches the steering wheel until her knuckles turn white. 

"Look," she says, her voice lowering like she doesn’t want Ron to hear. "You know this is complicated for me. Let me take my time."

It's quiet for a few moments before Hermione sighs.

"Alright," she says. Ron knows she's disappointed, wonders if Malfoy or Nott had to confiscate her wand and tie her to a chair to keep her from coming after them. "I’ll rearrange the schedule, but don’t make me wait too long, okay? We're missing you. All of us."

Pansy purses her lips. Hermione’s hint about Malfoy instantly sours the interaction but she does her best not to show it. 

“See you soon,” Pansy says and hangs up.

Silence smothers the air between them. Ron’s thoughts gain coherency about as fast as his shitty, hand-me-down broom, the events of the conversation hitting him like Bludgers he can’t outrun.

"I bought us more time," Pansy says dryly.

She drops her phone in the cupholder and sits up, yanking her beanie off and tossing it to the backseat. The flyaways of her black hair create a chaotic orange halo around her head every time they pass a lamp post.

"You realize what this means we’ll have to do now, right?" Ron asks, crossing his arms.

Hermione thinks they are, at the very least, fuck buddies. 

And technically that’s right, isn’t it? They’ve fooled around more than once at this point. He could tell himself it’s out of the goodness of his heart but it’s not like he’s not getting something out of it, too. Primal satisfaction fills him, bone-deep and hard to look in the eye, that he’s the one she chose to meet her needs. 

"It’s not like you’ll have to drop down on one knee," she says, rolling her eyes. "All this means is that we'll have to pretend to be civil for the duration of the trip and possibly share a room. They’ll think we’re one step above hate-fucking and that’s all it needs to be."

Ron clenches his jaw. Her blase attitude shouldn’t bother him. They aren’t lovers and there isn’t the easy tenderness he’s seen and, on his worst days, yearned for between Gin and Harry.

But to cheapen what they’ve done together? It chafes.

"I don't have a problem pretending we get along," he snaps, tapping a rhythm against his knee. "You, on the other hand?"

Pansy doesn’t clock his irritation because she’s watching the road. 

"I don't know," she says, smirking. "I was pretty nice to you earlier."

As usual, his body betrays him. Ron's whole face heats up. Blood rushes to all the most obvious places and his anger braids together with arousal. 

Pansy makes him want to tease back. To be bold.

He’s not her and can’t feign aloofness so he doesn’t even try. Ron settles back into his seat, spreading his thighs a bit. He makes sure Pansy’s watching when he adjusts himself, relishing in her double-take. He palms his hardening cock and gives it a squeeze.

Fuck. Why can’t he get enough of her?

She's driving. Her eyes flit between his hand and his face, her mouth dropped open the slightest bit by shock. Satisfaction at catching her off guard almost has him vibrating.

To keep her off-kilter, Ron runs his fingertips lightly along the fabric covering his shaft, clenching his jaw. 

"D'you think you could be nice one more time?" he asks.

Pansy swallows.

"Tell me your knickers aren't wet," he demands.

He’s fuming and on fire and if she wants to treat him like he’s just a means to an end, then so be it. She doesn’t get to lie about how hot he makes her, though.

"They’re not wet," she says breathlessly.

Ron grins sadistically. 

"Prove it."

When she turns to look at him, her pupils are wide, her cheeks flushed. Is that his blood that's signaling her arousal? Is he the reason she’s practically glowing? 

Pansy turns on the cruise control, then unbuttons her pants. She keeps one hand on the steering wheel and the other disappears beneath her knickers. Ron doesn't breathe. Completely forgets how. 

Then he watches the wet slide of her fingers as she works herself, eyes heavily lidded but still on the road, and his lungs fucking hurt. 

God, the noises she makes. Her expression is mostly unaffected but the lewd slip and slide of her fingers doesn't lie. She's soaked.

When she finally pulls her hand out, chest heaving and slender fingers wet from her arousal, she offers them to Ron.

He grabs her wrist, his thumb pressing against the palm of her hand as he sucks her fingers clean. His tongue splits between them and he imagines that it’s her pussy he’s licking. His dick throbs painfully against his trousers.

Pansy clenches her thighs.

"What the fuck?" she mutters under her breath, looking at him with a mixture of longing and bafflement. The same thought has been echoing in the back of his mind since the beginning of their journey like his alarm is sometimes incorporated into his dreams. 

He has no interest in waking up.

Ron palms her inner thigh, growling at the heat he finds there. His fingertips curl around the middle of her knickers and he pulls them toward her belly so they split her lower lips apart, torturing her with the pressure and reveling in her gasp. 

“Pull over,” he says, relaxing his hold and rubbing his thumb in a lazy circle. Her sharp inhale lets him know he’s grazed her clit, the warmth radiating from her center making his cock jump. 

He’s willing to beg. 

Before he can, however, Pansy slams on the brakes. Both their bodies hurl forward and ricochet against their seatbelts. One moment, he’s watching a blur of tawny brown streak in front of his vision and the next he’s landing hard on his arse. 

Pain shoots like a curse through his tailbone. 

He grunts, rolls his body until he can get on his knees, and curses so heavily Mum would whack him with her semi-sentient broom. 

The road is gone.

He’s kneeling on tall yellowed grass. It’s got that sickly sweet smell of decay and, looking around, he finds that’s the theme of this place. A massive Victorian mansion looms behind him, its yellow paint peeling and a literal tumbleweed stuck at the bottom of the stairs to the porch.

Did he accidentally apparate by himself? Panic pushes him to crawl.

“Pansy?” 

He finds her flat on her back next to him, panting in little gasps and hands clenching fistfuls of grass.

Ron hobbles over on his knees, ignoring the dull pain from his abused tailbone. He squeezes her shoulder. Brushes the hair away from her mouth.

“It’s okay,” he rambles, unable to stop surveying her body for breaks or blood. “Just give yourself a minute.” 

She curls in on herself and erupts into a coughing fit. Ron’s eyes roam restlessly, reassuring himself that none of her limbs are jutting out at odd angles. The tightness in his chest loosens. 

By the time she’s calmed down, she blinks at him with thick, damp lashes. 

“Oh my god,” she says hoarsely. “I think I just traced.”

Ron looks around with new eyes. 

The SUV is nowhere to be seen, the cornfields of Nebraska are gone, and they seem to be on the set of The Addams Family. 

“Where are we?” he asks.

Pansy struggles to her feet, wiping off the dirt and grass from her knees. She takes in the abandoned house behind them and tilts her head back. Closes her eyes.

“Well, fuck.”

She starts toward the mansion and Ron scrambles to stand, grateful the pain in his arse is fading. Whatever she’s seeing, it’s not good. 

“D’you know this place?” he asks, sidestepping a rusty wheelbarrow. 

They trudge through the tall grass but all she says is, “Watch out for snakes.”

Ron hikes with his knees to his fucking chest. Uneasiness spreads and multiplies like cursed goblets in his stomach when he sees the gossamer gleam of spider webs in the moonlight. 

“Parkinson,” he says, pulling her to a stop. “What is this?”

She keeps her eyes fixed beyond his shoulder.

“Mm, right. That’s my house,” she says, pointing behind them. 

Ron frowns. It’s difficult to see in the dark, but he knows neglect when he sees it. This house cannot be inhabitable.

“You live here,” he says.

“Yes.”

“By yourself.”

“I haven’t got a spouse if that’s what you’re asking.”

Ron ignores that.

“Are you sure? Looks like the kind of place you’d find Nosferatu on holiday,” he says.

Pansy blinks at him.

“You watch a lot of films,” she says. Her eyes search his face like she’s disturbed. He looks right back, frowning. She’s the first person to notice.

He shakes it off and gestures to the house.

“This whole thing,” he says, “looks like spider territory.”

Something wicked gleams in her eyes as she shrugs. 

“They’re not the worst roommates.”

Pinching the bridge of his nose, Ron tries to keep his breathing even. The thought of a million beady little eyes staring at him right now, pincers readying to tear him apart on a microscopic level, is paralyzing.

“Listen, I can take a joke, yeah? I know this is ridiculous,” he says, holding up his hand so she can see it shake. “But I need you to tell me the likelihood of them descending on us. Are these baby acromantulas? Do they show you deference?”

Pansy doesn’t laugh, but she doesn’t meet his eyes, either.

“Come on,” she says, folding his arm in hers as the corner of her mouth ticks up. “Stay close.”

She lugs him up the rickety steps. Ron’s eyes are on a constant swivel, the hairs on the back of his neck standing at attention. He’s underestimated arachnids before and it’s not a mistake he’ll make again.

The door’s unlocked because of course it is. They’ve landed on the scene of every stereotypical horror movie and yet Pansy pushes it open with a massive creak. She gestures for him to enter the black void, smiling when he hesitates. The kind of grin that shows her fangs.

It sends a shiver up his spine for multiple reasons.

“I can’t promise there aren’t spiders,” she says evilly, following him in and shutting the door behind them. Darkness swallows them whole and Ron clutches at her arm. “Let me get the lights.”

After a bit of fumbling and stepping on his foot in what he’s not convinced is an accident, she finds the switch and light floods the foyer.

He squints, shielding his eyes.

Instead of neglect and something reminiscent of the Shrieking Shack, it smells like sawdust and paint. The bones of an elegant foyer surround him, the regal staircase the only thing that looks finished. Ornate lilac wallpaper climbs up the wall with threads of silver throughout, sections peeling like they’d been applied incorrectly. 

Wait—did she do this herself?

“Are you restoring this?” he asks incredulously, trailing a finger over one of the masterfully carved balustrades. Not a speck of dust to be found.

The floors look like original, beautiful hardwood that just needs a good sand, buff, and sealer. He learned a lot about the Muggle way of building in the post-War Reconstruction period, having worked on plenty of Muggle-born homes that had been collateral damage of the War. 

“Attempting to,” she says, using her boot to scoot a short ladder out of the way. “I wasn’t expecting company.”

Why would she want to live in the middle of nowhere? 

She pulls open a closet door, takes off her coat and places it carefully on a hanger.

“It’s funny,” Pansy says, tugging off her hat and combing her fingers through her short black hair. “I grew up in this beautiful manor and my parents were so proud, but it was built by Muggles. Pureblood families imperiused their way into these massive estates, convinced the Muggles they wanted to leave, and pretended their bloodline had been there for generations.”

Ron watches her toe off her boots and sets to work doing the same. It’s warm and the soft, buttery glow of the chandelier above them almost makes Pansy look more alive. 

“Would you believe me if I told you I came by this one honestly?” she asks, eyes sparkling with mischief.

He doesn’t know what he believes. He’s all mixed up and nothing is what he thought it would be.

“I’m guessing that depends on who you ask. How many raccoons did you evict? Did they have children?” he asks.

Pansy laughs, then shoves him into the wall. Ron stumbles and scowls.

“Sorry,” she says with a smirk. “You almost stepped on a nail. There are quite a few and usually I have a metal-detecting spell that makes them glow but, well. You know why that’s not an option.”

Right. No wands.

Ron plops his tender arse on the stairs, running his hands through hair that must look like a mess at this point. He’s disoriented, the urgency of the past several minutes dissipating, and his hands shake. He’d gone from angry to turned on to terrified blisteringly fast and he just needs a bloody moment.

“Are we close to Michigan?” he asks, grasping for his bearings.

He knows when she doesn’t meet his eyes.

“About that,” she says. She wears shame with a lifted chin, different than anybody he knows. Ron wonders if it had always been there in her proud posture. “I didn’t, er…bring us here on purpose. I panicked and I guess this was the first place I could think of.”

He exhales long and slow, his shoulders slumping.

“Are we farther away than we were before?” he asks quietly. Ron knows how to receive bad news. Seems like he was made for it.

Pansy leans against the newel post carved with acanthus leaves, looking down at him.

“This sets us back about twelve hours. Since I live in Montana,” she says haltingly. There’s a flash of something regretful in her expression before it’s gone, replaced by indifference. What a magic trick. “Probably for the best, though. You can take my car to the nearest Portkey office. It’s only forty minutes away.”

Ron has no business being surprised by her decision to bail, but he is. Painfully so. “You’re not coming,” he says flatly.

She shakes her head and he feels like he’s looking at a brick wall. Not the kind where you can just tap the right spot and it’ll fold open, no. The kind that’ll shatter your nose if you try walking into it.

Disappointment makes his whole body heavy before frustration burns it away.

“That sounds about right,” he says, even though it doesn’t. He’s too angry to tell the truth. “Too much of a coward to finish what you started.”

In a flash, he’s lying back on the hardwood stairs, each step jutting into his spine. Her foot presses painfully against his chest, holding him down and leaving him breathless.

“You must have me confused for someone else, Weasley, because I fucking stay when other people leave, for better or worse. I don’t abandon what’s mine.”

Whether she meant for it to be jab or not, her words find their target. 

“Prove it,” he says, swallowing down the shame that threatens to choke him. “Come with me.”

He doesn’t admit to the truth that sits like a pinless grenade in his chest, that he doesn’t feel like he can face this without her. 

She keeps her foot on his chest, scowling.

“You think we’re the same but we’re not. Draco left me behind because he couldn’t deal with his shit and I just had to live with that. You have no idea how fucking awful it is to have the most important person in your life decide your presence is too difficult to endure. How is what you’ve done to Hermione any different?”

The comparison is an unwelcome one. It blasts through him with all the force of a bombarda, leaving him gasping for air.

Her foot shoves him one last time before retreating.

“I still talk to Hermione and Theo. I send them gifts for their birthdays and I—” she stops, laughing. “I don’t owe you a fucking explanation. I don’t owe anyone anything. Not Draco. Not you.”

Ron winces, sitting up and rubbing his sternum. He watches Pansy disappear, but not before she throws him the keys to her car. They smack the back of his knuckles and he scrambles to catch them.

“You can see yourself out,” she says.

He’s left alone in her hollow foyer. 

Cursing himself in both English and the bit of Romanian he learned from Charlie, Ron gets up. 

Even now, in his thirties, the taste of being wrong is sour on his palate. It congeals the frustration that had been bubbling up, makes him want to vomit. Everything Pansy said was fair. It was true. 

He isn’t much different from Malfoy in regard to Pansy.

He still talks to Harry (doesn’t have much of a choice as he’s his brother-in-law) but if he’s honest with himself, it’s been difficult. Harry’s got his own family, his own kids. He’s had to function and move on regardless of whether or not he felt ready.

Ron, on the other hand, has stayed in the same place for over a decade. 

He’d found purpose during the Reconstruction. He worked with his hands and built something new every day, repairing what was broken. Once all that was over, he dedicated himself to the task of filling an unfillable void for Fred, of becoming the kind of reliable that eased Molly’s worries.

It was fucking exhausting.

And talking to Hermione, who knows him better than most, had just seemed like too much. She would have called him out on his coasting. She’d challenge his assumption that this was the only path for him to take.

Harry always took it easy on him, but never Hermione. And, now that he thinks about it, neither does Pansy. 

He sets off to find her, keeping an eye out for rogue nails. 

Ron passes a sitting room with a beautiful aubergine couch and a hand-painted fireplace. The hallway is tall and narrow as he moves through it, the archway decorated at the top with intricately carved wood and crown molding. 

The next room is stripped down but still decadent. It holds a long wooden dining table with a bunch of candles of different sizes crowding in the middle, each one burned down quite a bit. There’s a painting of the seaside in grays, blues, and greens that reminds him of Bill and Fleur’s cottage.

Moving quicker, he finds a closed door that looks promising. It’s probably her bedroom. Faint conversation emits from it and Ron freezes, an ugly hypothesis forming in his gut.

She lives with somebody.

Swinging the door open with a fervor that might be described as overzealous, Ron steps into a dark room only lit by a massive screen. Based on the dancing figures that move across it, the movie is Singin’ in the Rain.

Something tender blooms like a weed in his throat.

Watching movies had started as a way to keep his head above water, to distract him from his unrelenting grief. He’d been aiming for numbness but landed on unmitigated wonder. He wanted to understand where they started and how they were made because the allure of regular old magic had dulled after the War.

He’d wanted something untainted in his life. 

Ron’s watched countless movies, but Singin’ in the Rain is one of his favorites. Is it hers too?

Looking around, this was the only room he’d seen that was finished. Velvety red seats mimicking the movie theater are stacked in rows. Subtle lights line the floor. She’s even got old-timey shell-like sconces mounted against the wall.

It’s an intentional, beautifully constructed haven.

Ron’s eyes search for her in the dim light, finally finding her curled up in one of the chairs with her hands clutching her knees to her chest, watching him with clear exasperation. He makes his way over, plopping down in the cushioned seat next to her.

Gene Kelly, Debbie Reynolds, and Donald O’Connor tip over a couch together on the screen. Ron settles in, enjoying the luxury of their private movie theater.

“What are you doing,” Pansy hisses. 

He glances at her, gauging the anger in her expression before putting a finger to his lips.

“Shhh, I’m trying to watch.”

Seconds tick by. His stomach writhes like he’s perched on the precipice of a cliff over shark-infested waters. 

Come on, Pansy. Play with me.

Finally, she huffs, pausing the movie and shoving his shoulder.

“What the fuck, Weasley.”

Ron’s giddy with relief. He smiles at her, crossing his ankle over his thigh and tapping against his sock.

“I don’t know what you expect me to do, Pansy. I don’t have a license.”

The downturn of her lips twitches but she holds onto her glare with all the stubbornness of a niffler. He holds his breath. 

She rolls her eyes and resumes the movie. 

They watch for a few minutes but Ron’s eyes are unseeing. He can’t unclench his thighs, or his jaw. The muscles in his limbs are taut and the fist of his stomach tightens with each passing second. 

So Ron has a history of leaving. 

Pansy sees through him like his soul is only covered by the thin lace curtains that hang from above the Burrow’s kitchen sink. It’s almost freeing, the way she grabs his cowardice by the throat and demands it be accounted for. 

An apology lodges below his Adam's apple. Would she believe him if he told her the thought of leaving her behind was at least five hundred miles ago? 

Nothing feels sincere enough.

Pansy’s face is painted by the reflection of moving colors on the screen, a chiaroscuro study of aloofness and beauty as he studies her. Bluish light gleams in her eyes and flashes his way when he pulls the notebook from his pocket.

Ron hands it to her. It’s heavy concrete in his palm, but light like a feather when she takes it.

“My collateral,” he says.

Chapter Text

It doesn't look like much. The maroon leather of the notebook has a water ring, its pages are wavy and warped, and it's small.

But Pansy knows it's sacred.

She'd know even if he hadn't told her it was his collateral. He watches the shapes her fingertips trace across the cover as if they're runes, a notch etched between his brows like he’s puzzling out their meaning.

"If you think this is going to buy immunity from being a prat, you are ill-informed," she says.

Because despite the fact that her heart is in her throat, that Ron wears his vulnerability like a white flag, she won't forget the words he'd hurled at her anytime soon.

Coward, he'd called her. It smarts in the way a bullseye might when a dart sinks in.

"I thought if I apologized outright you'd be more likely to clobber me," Ron says.

Well. He's not wrong.

Pansy opens up to the first page, reading through a list made in neat block script.

SPACE CASE: BRIEFCASE WITH EXTENSION CHARM THAT PROVIDES ROOM FOR ESCAPING DULL CONVERSATIONS OR DEATH EATERS, WHICHEVER COMES FIRST

MOANING PARCHMENT: SELF-EXPLANATORY, INNIT? shockingly so

PATRONUS PAL: CONTAINER FOR PATRONUS? PORTABLE? NOT SURE ABOUT CONJURATION AND DURABILITY BUT ENDLESS POSSIBILITIES, GEORGIE

SPARE FARE: COIN THAT PASSABLY TRANSFORMS INTO WHICHEVER CURRENCY IS NEEDED. RESEARCH MUGGLE MONEY? imagine these in the hands of mundungus

FUNERARY FUDGE: UPON INGESTION, CAUSES UNCONTROLLABLE LAUGHTER. you trying to torture people, freddie?

The lowercase handwriting is similar in its legibility, but Pansy knows it's George's. Her lungs feel shrink-wrapped and her heart is heavy.

"It's Fred's idea book," Ron says, voice rough like he hasn't spoken in days. "I pulled it out of his pocket when he…yeah."

It has the cadence of a confession. If that's the case, Pansy's stinging eyes are his pardon.

"Haven't told anybody about it," he says, looking down at his hands. "It should go to George, obviously, but I can't seem to—I can't let it go."

She blinks furiously.

Pansy remembers his faulty wand in their school years. Trousers always just a bit too short. Hideous dress clothes at the Yule Ball. The fucking rat he'd bragged about in First Year from his brother Percy. 

None of it had ever been his. Not in any way that mattered.

Perhaps she's not an authority in this situation, but Pansy can't help it.

"You're just as much his brother as the rest of them," she says like she’s got a gavel to pound, a sentence to pass.

Ron sniffs and laughs, looking away. The glow of the screen is bright, illuminating his grief-split face, and his lips twist in an effort not to tremble. Like maybe what she said was something he'd desperately needed to hear.

Pansy presses the notebook back into his palm.

"This is yours," she says. Decisive. Convincing. Ron begins to shake his head. "It’s yours."

When he looks over, his eyes are shutters blown wide open. She can see guilt and fear and the kind of pain that finds its home in the joints so every movement serves as a reminder. He moves closer slowly enough to let her decide if she wants to stick around.

And then he kisses her.

It's soft. So fucking soft. His other hand comes to rest on her cheek and he's framing her face, gently tipping it, angling it to both their advantages as he drinks from her lips.

He holds her like her parents held rare gems. Cradled between palms, worshipped and doted upon and turned this way and that just to see how each facet might wink in the sun. It fills her with an ache so sweet she worries it’ll rot her teeth, her appetite, her ability to accept anything less than veneration the next time someone lays their hands on her body.

Just when she's about to climb on his lap, Ron pulls back, looking stricken. They stare at each other for several moments. 

“I want you so much I feel sick with it.” His statement is quiet. His gaze flits around her face like he’s memorizing every inch and Pansy’s floating until reality yanks her back to earth.

She’s part succubus. 

He’s probably been compelled by whatever haze of hormones her own desire has stirred rather than genuine attraction. Disappointment has her stomach dropping, her chest aching.

Ron goes to kiss her again when she turns her cheek.

“Sorry,” she says, straightening her spine and scooting away. “The library. It’s got some books on succubi, I think. I’m sure we’ll find something to restore you to your faculties.”

She’s up and out of the room before she’s even sure he’s following. 

Ron laughs behind her, but it’s edged with frustration.

“My faculties? What exactly do you think is happening here?”

Pansy’s socked feet are silent against the hardwood floors but his footsteps trudge behind her. They climb a winding staircase to the turret. 

“You’re in my thrall,” she says, remembering the horror stories about succubi leaching their victims of choice. “It’s biological, nothing personal.”

As if sucking blood like a parasite wasn’t enough, now she preys on sexual appetites. It fills her with helpless rage so potent she could scream. Because Ron caring for her isn’t in the tea leaves. If he could somehow forgive her for her past, that doesn’t change that she’s going to suck him dry physically, mentally, emotionally.

She’s never been easy to love and she’s not going to pretend she is just so he sticks around.

“Nothing personal?” Ron asks. “What the hell, Pansy?”

It can’t be personal because when it turns out to be chemical, the disappointment will crush her. She’ll be a squashed chizpurfle on the bottom of his shoe. 

“I’m not—I’m not trying to be a bitch. I’m just saying, be realistic. You want me because I need to gargle your dick every few hours to keep from contracting rickets,” she says. “Without that dependency, you’d be running the opposite direction.”

His laugh is humorless.

“Right,” he says, “because I’m so stupid, such a caveman that I can’t see past your tits.”

“Can you?” she asks, turning around to face him. “Honestly, can you say you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that your feelings are your own? That my nature has no impact on your opinion of me?”

His jaw clenches but she doesn’t wait for him to reply.

“It wasn’t my intention to imply that you’re stupid. You’re not. Just—don’t say things you can’t take back.”

Ron crosses his arms, the veins on his forearms flexing beautifully as he watches her. She imagines all the arguments formed on the tip of his tongue that he so clearly wants to articulate, but he doesn’t.

“Alright,” he grunts. “I can do that.”

With a short exhale of relief, she turns, shoving the heavy library door.

It opens into a rich, tower-shaped room. 

Silver astrology lines and constellations pop and shine against the deep, velvety indigo of the domed ceiling. A grand fireplace notches into the wall, bookshelves stretch at least two stories, and half-circle windows let in the faded blue of dawn. It’s packed with leatherbound books, cracked spines and vaguely threatening titles facing outward.

It’s her heritage, as fucked up and ghoulish as it gets. 

“Wow,” Ron says, whistling low. “Smells old in here.”

It’s so irreverent it snaps her out of melancholy.

“It’s a work in progress,” she says defensively. “My parents aren’t much for reading, so they sent me their collection.”

“Looks like the Restricted Section,” he says, leaning both hands on the back of a black leather couch. "Do they ever visit?"

Pansy snorts, pulling the curved ladder along as she looks through the titles on the shelves.

"They have no interest in America."

"What about their daughter?" he asks. "Not big fans of her?"

Had the question come from any other man, she'd have hexed his knob to turn corkscrew like a duck’s. Unfortunately, his preference for unabashed honesty is rubbing off on her.

"As she's not an obscure heirloom, the country of France, or a particularly rare vintage, that would be a no."

She can’t see him but she can feel his stare. Glancing his way, she’s snared by the humor that shines in his blue eyes.

"Not to mention you hate flying," he says. "Which, by the way, what the hell?"

Returning to the books so he can't see the curve of her mouth, Pansy does her best to regain her footing.

"You ever pissed yourself on a stick?" she asks, using the Quidditch term for broom. Draco used to say you could tell who was really into Quidditch based on their comfort with slang and she can’t help showing off. Ron's brow furrows.

"No,” he says slowly, making his way over, “but I pissed myself on a log.” 

Like that’s even close to the same thing.

Once again, he captures Pansy’s attention. He waits just a pace away, watching her with eager eyes like he just knows she’s going to delight him with her response.

"You pissed. In your pants," she says skeptically.

"Oh! Er, no. I pissed a portrait of myself onto a log. It was hard, you know. With the curve."

"The curve?" Of his dick when it was hard? Maybe she has a terrible memory, but she distinctly remembered thinking, "oh," when she first saw it. Straight as an arrow.

One look at her face and Ron bursts into laughter, closing the distance and shoving her shoulder lightly.

"You're a pervert."

"Shut up—"

"The curve of the log, Parkinson. Jesus Christ."

Pansy shoves him back. This is what she gets for trying to impress him.

"I was talking about a broom, you clot. I peed myself on a broom because I was so afraid and my dad didn’t let me change even though we were touring the Ministry that day," she says. 

Ron frowns.

“Was that the day in the lift?” he asks. “The first time we met?”

Humiliation from the memory burns in her cheeks as she nods. She’d stood stock still, afraid the entire family of redheads could smell her.

“Oh, Pansy.”

The pity in his voice has her grasping at literally anything else to change the subject.

"Hang on, why were you pissing your portrait on a log?" she asks.

He couldn't look less self-conscious if he tried.

"I'd like to see you spend as much time in the woods as I did in Seventh Year and tell me if you don't start losing your mind."

"I'd be wearing a homemade fur coat within days."

"That's mental. That's what a villain would say."

"There actually is such a villain and she's named Cruella de Vil. Kills Dalmatian puppies."

"Sounds like you in another life," he says.

Pansy scoffs.

"You're really showing your arse here," she says. "Have you not watched any animated films? 101 Dalmations is a brilliant color study."

Ron takes out a different notebook and an honest-to-god pencil.

"I'll look into it," he says, painstakingly writing down the movie title. Pansy can only stare, helplessly and pathetically endeared to his messy handwriting, to his tongue poking at his cheek as he concentrates. "Does she have black hair? That'd be a bonus."

She purses her lips, pulling them into a frown like she used to pull her hair into tight ponies that didn't do her round face any favors. Shakes her head.

"Come on," he says, putting his arm around her shoulder and pulling her close until his nose brushes against her ear. He smells like pinecones and her impending misery once this whole trip is over. "C'mere, my Cruella."

She lets him awkwardly cradle her head, accepts his infantilizing pats on the back.

"She does, actually," she mumbles into his shoulder, "have black hair. Half of it at least."

His chest shakes with laughter, the perfect conduit of joy so potent it almost hurts.

Fuck and shit and damn and fuck.

Pansy fancies him.

She does. Her circuitry has been rewired over the past few days to recognize all the things she’d overlooked, like his gentle hands, the spray of freckles across the back of his neck, the cowlick on the crown of his head. All these boyish tricks of light will stick around even as he ages.

“Anyway,” she says, stepping away from the cradle of his arms. “My dad had an unfortunate succubus obsession that upset my mother very much, so there should be at least a handful that mention them. I’ll start on this side if you want to take the left.”

So she can get some goddamn space.

He gives it to her, following orders like the good little boy Hermione probably taught him to be. “We’re looking for keywords that are magical-being adjacent, yeah?” he asks.

Pansy nods and they get to work. 

It’s difficult to focus when she can hear Ron’s heartbeat, can practically taste the caramel sweetness of his blood, but nevertheless. She persists.

After a full hour of finding nothing, she’s about to order him to go to bed when he walks over with a tan leather book. It’s beat up and probably old as Hogwarts itself, so Ron’s careful as he holds it open.

“D’you think this is something?” he asks.

The page depicts two illustrations that are blurry and ink-splotched and explicit. The first depicts a voluptuous woman on her knees with a man’s cock in her hand and mouth, but somehow it manages to communicate that he’s the one in worship. His head is bowed. His eyes are closed. 

It’s the closest thing to prayer she can think of.

The second illustration is a simple rune surrounded by Middle English, most of which she can’t read. 

“Could be,” she says, itching her nose. A memory hovers at the edge of her conscience like a Snitch, flitting in and out of her periphery before it suddenly lands in the palm of her hand. “My dad used to have a painting in his office of a naked woman draped over a tree branch, and I think she was drawing this shape in the dirt. Maybe she was supposed to be a succubus?”

“Hmm,” Ron says, a warm presence over her shoulder. “If that’s a rune, where’s the ritual?”

He turns the page, inner wrist brushing against her forearm.

“Ah,” he says, his breath stirring the hair at her jaw. This time the illustration shows the rune on the thigh of a man as he fucks a woman from behind.

Pansy stares at the veins that map the soft skin at Ron’s wrist, how they twist around his forearm and disappear places she’d like to trace with her tongue. 

Something heavy and languid settles between her thighs.

“It’s a sex ritual,” she breathes.

◡ · · · ○ · · · ◡

You could blow Ron over with a quill. He's reduced to basic bodily functions like swallowing, blinking, shifting on his feet.

“What’s the purpose of the ritual, do you think?” she asks.

How he’s supposed to process anything other than the mole on the curve of her neck, he doesn’t know. She plows ahead anyway.

“From what I’ve gathered, a bond can be created between a succubus and her…partner. It’s difficult to tell what the benefits or drawbacks would be but I’m sure you’ve heard tales of people losing control of themselves under the influence of a succubus’s pheromones,” Pansy says, allowing him a peek behind the curtain of her mind as she puzzles it out quietly. She still hasn’t moved away from him. “D’you think it’s a ritual to bind a victim? To force them into compulsion?”

It takes several moments for Ron to detangle why, after trying on her reasoning, he wants to spit it out like it’s an expired potion.

“You realize wizards are really bloody racist, right?” he asks, thinking of all the misinformation that’s still being spread about werewolves. He’s not naive enough to think the wizarding world was fundamentally changed after all the Order fought for: the Ministry still enforces laws that make it nearly impossible for anyone of a different species to be gainfully employed or use any forms of transportation that might allow them to be seen by society. “Whatever you’re thinking about succubi is probably antiquated bigotry.”

Pansy stares at him like she expects a second head to sprout from his neck at any moment.

“You sound an awful lot like Granger,” she says.

Ron rolls his eyes fondly. “I don’t mean to shock you, but my lived experience and views have changed since I was seventeen.”

“How unnatural,” she says drily, as if she doesn’t know what it’s like to be a stranger to the person she was at Hogwarts.

“Point is,” he says, moving close. He can’t help it. He takes Pansy’s hand and places it on the back of his neck, just because having her close feels necessary. He wraps his other arm around her torso as he breathes her in. “Tavern songs and rumors about succubi aren’t proper sources.”

Ron holds her, reveling in the simple intimacy of being the one to hold her up, to feel the subtle sway of her hips.

It only lasts a minute before she pushes away, dropping her arm from where it had been slung around his neck.

“Myths don’t spawn out of nowhere,” Pansy says with a frown, leaving him behind.  Her movements are agitated as she sets the book on a small table, deserting him to continue her studies. 

He stands there, resisting the urge to be embarrassed. They aren’t a couple. She’s made it abundantly clear that she needs him for his blood and his sperm, and that’s it.

Taking his cue from Pansy, Ron redoubles his research efforts.

He has to make it a game to keep his focus sharp, earmarking every disturbing illustration he finds to show Pansy later. He makes it to a bat with testicles so large they have to interfere with aerodynamics before a gasp startles him into dropping Magical Beans and Beings: How to Make Your Garden Thrive No Matter What You Are.

“What is it?” he asks when she doesn’t immediately volunteer an explanation. A few pages of his book are crimped from how they landed and he hurriedly flattens them out.

“It’s genetic, ” Pansy says, looking up from her tome with wide eyes.

Ron shoves his book back on the shelf. 

“Your succubus half?” he asks.

She nods, staring blankly at the fireplace while her tongue traces a fang. Her face scrunches like she smells something foul.

“Oh my god,” she says. “Mum was right to be upset, wasn’t she? He—I’m not even her—”

“You think your dad knocked up a succubus?”

“Well, I know my mum wasn’t one,” she says. 

Ron strides to her side, leaning over to see the text when she uses her body to shield it.

“What are you doing?” he asks, amused. “I want to see what it says.”

Pansy clutches it close to her chest.

“I’m not finished,” she says.

Ron tilts his head, searching her face. She’s got a habit of holding eye contact when she’s trying to intimidate. 

“Why are you embarrassed?” he asks. Direct questions agitate her but he likes how her nostrils flare when he’s tactless. 

She glares at him.

“Go back to abusing my books,” Pansy says, shooing him away. “Don’t think I didn’t notice you bending all those corners.”

He doesn’t bother explaining himself. She’s not going to show him her findings? Fine. He won’t show her the bat who’s hung like a horse.

Her loss.

Chapter Text

Pansy has only felt truly helpless a handful of times in her life. 

The first was in Sixth-Year, watching Draco's health circle the drain even as he pushed her away. She told herself he was trying to keep her safe, that he didn't want to drag her down.

Delusional.

She'd never looked to her parents for reassurance that everything was going to be okay: it was always him. Draco was the fixed point she’d followed, the only person who carved out a space for her to exist without her having to do it with her own bloodied fingernails. She'd stand by him even as he waded into deeper water. She'd hold her breath as long as she could, resigned to drown regardless.

The second was when he left.

And now, after choreographing the ritual in stilted stops and starts with Ron, she feels it again.

They’re going to perform this ritual and he’s going to realize he wants to leave. Needs to, probably. He’ll wake up from the stupor she’s kept him in and he’ll be so angry he won’t even be able to look at her with those warm eyes and proud nose.

God, this is the last thing she wants to do. 

Because she won’t have to wonder how on earth he stuck around for so long. She’ll know. 

And he’ll have to stay regardless, hating her more with each moment that passes.

Pansy leads them to her bedroom, confused as to how the gusts of emotion tearing her apart inside aren't doing the same thing to the paintings on the walls. Doors should be rattling until they fling open. The roof should be ripped clean off.

Ron looks around, his curiosity a tangible thing.

She sees the room through his eyes. He might wonder why she chose it when it’s objectively small, but it’s obvious. 

The bay window.

There’s a bench she uses for reading with a compartment below the lid that’s stuffed with blankets and quilts. It was one of the first things she found at an estate sale and she suspects she’ll request to be buried in it.

"D'you mind—er, is this alright?" Ron asks halfway through removing his shirt, like complete nudity might be breaking her 'clinical' vision of the next ten or so minutes.

Pansy nods.

Ethereal light from the early afternoon sun filters through her jade curtains, transfiguring his freckles into ink sprays across his shoulders and back. He's pale and solid and she's never been so content to just stare.

But that's not what they're here for, so Pansy takes off her clothes.

Awkwardness makes her clumsy, hopping on one foot to slip out of her trousers and nearly tearing out a few eyelashes when removing her tank top. Ron has the grace to look down at his feet but she almost wishes he'd laugh to ease the air around them.

Keeping in mind that this is a purely mechanical act is essential. 

She can't learn to rely upon his kindness, no matter how natural it seems. Soon enough he's not going to be around and she'll have to find an alternative to getting by. 

The thought makes her nauseous.

She's always had a sneaking suspicion that she was never created to exist alone, that she's not weighty enough to hold onto substance all by herself, clinging like a parasite to whoever's near.

It's why Draco's disappearance felt like her own.

Add a reliance upon blood and semen to the mix and it's a sick kind of relief to have concrete proof that she was right. 

She's not built for life on her own.

"Is kissing allowed or should we just shake hands to get started?" Ron asks quietly, stepping into her space with a smile in his voice.

“Whatever it takes for your dick to participate," she says.

His body heat seeps into her front, his hand warm as he slides it to fit below her jaw.

"I got hard from looking at this shape yesterday," he says, tracing the subtle divot between her collarbones with a rueful grin. "I'm going to kiss you anyway."

That's all the warning she gets.

Ron uses his thumb to angle her face higher, sweeping the underside of her jaw soothingly while his lips brush against hers. It's lovely and light and leisurely: the exact opposite of what she's here for.

She bites his lip and he hums into the kiss.

"No funny business," he murmurs, bumping their noses together. 

Pansy should be angry he's mocking her rules, that he's just as slow and intentional as he was before her warning bite. She should put a stop to the whole thing because it's immediately clear she's not going to get what she asked for.

He's going to fuck her and she's going to like it.

When the back of Pansy's legs hit the bed, she falls back. Her head lands on the open book with the rune they brought with them for reference. She's about to reposition when Ron drags her down by the legs until her bottom is almost hanging off the bed.

Then he gets on his knees.

"Did you know I never made Hermione come when we were together?" he says.

Pansy sits up on her elbows, the demand that he get up vanishing from the tip of her tongue. What the hell did he just say?

"Weasley," she says, glaring at him. When that doesn't do the trick, she resorts to his first name. "Ron."

He settles her thighs over his shoulders, unbothered.

"Seemed like you needed a reminder of why I'm awful," he says, running his hands up her sides like she's the newest broom on the market. "Don't want you to enjoying this too much."

Pansy collapses back, covering her face. 

"Oh, god."

What a prick.

"Let's see, what else," he says, squeezing her waist and settling deeper between her thighs. He rests his head against her like she’s a pillow. “All my jumpers smell like soup. I don’t even know how I’d go about rectifying that.”

Behind her hands, Pansy groans. His hair is so soft.

“It's called laundry detergent,” she says. "How do I know that and you don't?"

Her thighs lift when he shrugs. 

“See, I don't really want to know,” he says. “That's the problem. I live by myself but it's not as lonely if I always smell like The Burrow.”

Pansy squirms a bit.

“Well now you've made it sad,” she says, frowning.

Ron places a kiss on her belly. 

"You mean pathetic."

No, she thinks, I don't. 

But then she remembers he's helping her to put distance between them and a lump forms in her throat.

"Exactly," she whispers around it.

Another kiss, this time lower.

"That's the spirit, Pans."

Instead of closing her eyes like she should, she keeps them open, unable to tear them away from his challenging gaze. It's like his thoughts are scrawled across his forehead: he wants to see if she can remain unaffected.

All her good intentions are shot to hell when he pulls her down hard against his face. 

Pansy fists the covers to keep from sinking her fingers into his hair as he sets into her, his hold so tight she can't even rock her hips. Ron eats her out exactly like she'd imagined he would: messy strokes, hungry eyes. He watches her fangs sink into her lips, groan vibrating against her center when she licks the blood away.

"Fuck," she breathes, collapsing back to the mattress. "Doesn't even feel that good."

Next thing she knows, he's elevated her just enough to slap her arse. Laughter bursts from her chest. 

It probably shouldn't be this fun, she thinks, but she doesn't have the will power to get them back on track. Not when his nose keeps bumping her clit in a steady rhythm and his tongue fucks her with all the finesse of a starving man. 

“I’m probably not going to come like this,” she says. It’s a lie but this is their game, isn’t it? 

Ron pauses, pressing kisses on her thigh and ending on a bite that zips to her core.  

“Who said this is for you?” he asks gruffly. 

Damn him. 

Damn him to hell. 

How is Pansy meant to pick up the pieces of a life without his smart mouth? 

Who else is going to go toe-to-toe against her when she’s being a brat? 

What is she to do with the knowledge she’s meticulously gathered about him, like his least favorite Jurassic Park movie or the fact that he peels the plastic off every bottled beverage he drinks? It’s annoying because then it just sits in the cup holder. 

What happens when she’s alone and missing a bunch of fucking wrappers?

Despite the heat of his mouth, the desperate ache in her cunt, she sits up.

He hardly notices.

Grabbing Ron's hair, she tips his head back until the long line of his throat is exposed.

His lips and chin glisten.

His lids are half-mast, pleasure-drunk and looking so fucking sure that whatever comes out of her mouth is going to be brilliant.

“You ready to bleed, Weasley?”

◡ · · · ○ · · · ◡

Ron’s overwhelmed and nobody’s even touched his dick yet.

He watches heat bank and brim in her eyes as he rifles through his conscience, searching for even an ounce of reluctance and not finding it.

"Christ, you're terrifying," he tells her. His voice is shaky like he's just finished running Quidditch drills, like he's downed a shot of Odgen's instead of sipping.

Of course knowing she scares him makes her smile.

Pansy's body is soft against his when she stands, the warmth of her thighs melting into his knees. She switches places with him and pushes until his arse falls to the bed, senses akimbo.

"I'm not the one with the horse cock," she says.

Ron's laugh is pulled out of him. Pansy's grin reminds him of what Fred looked like when he'd managed to make a particularly angsty Ron laugh. Like they'd pulled off a coup.

God, why'd he think of that? 

He’s fucked in the head for wanting to tell her she reminds him of his dead brother while he’s hard as a rock.

But then she kneels between his legs, the crimson in her eyes a thin event horizon around her pupils, looking at him like she can taste his heartbeat just from hearing it and rational thought flees.

All he can see is the warped air between them, hot enough to paint mirages on the pavement.

That's all he can think, that she's a mirage, that this can't actually be happening, when she lowers herself to her knees and presses her cool palms on his thighs. He's never been so aware of every inch of his body.

Pansy lowers her head.

"Oh, fuck!" He hadn't been expecting her to immediately take him to the back of her throat. Her mouth is hot and wet and he's abruptly concerned about being too worked up to complete the ritual.

This isn’t what the diagram looked like, either. He’s supposed to be fucking her. She’d been very clear about that. Choreographing the act had even included the bit of black paint she’d carefully squeezed into a bowl for the rune. 

It sits on the nightstand, drying and forgotten for now.

“Pansy,” he says, white-knuckling the duvet as she works him with lethal precision. “I’m not supposed to come yet.”

She pauses the onslaught, withdrawing but keeping her lips on him like she’s annoyed he had the audacity to interrupt. She places open-mouthed kisses down his length. 

“Then don’t,” she says against his heated skin.

He scoffs and it turns into a groan as she once again takes him all the way to the root. Her fringe is messy as she bobs up and down, growing more frantic with each pass. He wants to tell her to slow down, to let him savor it, but it’s not going to happen. Her hips move in a jerky motion, back and forth.

Bloody hell, is she already close?

Every muscle in Ron’s body is taut like a bowstring. He cannot think about what is actually happening or he’s going to explode. 

“That’s good, Pans,” he grits out. “Nice and clinical.”

She removes her lips from his dick with a pop! and replaces her mouth with her hand, giving the head a squeeze.

“I’ll fucking bite you.”

They stare at each other, wresting meaning from the tiniest twitch of the brow, the most infinitesimal widening of the eyes. They're stuck in a stand-off of mutual desire, both unsure of what to do with it.

He’s never been interested in teeth being near his hard-on but the surge of curiosity that has him sitting up from his elbows to his hands is undeniable. 

It’s mental.

Her mouth is obscene, lips bee-stung and spit-slick. Her fangs sit so pretty above her bottom lip, accentuating the natural pout of the top, and he'd be more comfortable if he knew it was the thrall because there’s nothing he wants more than to feel her pierce his skin. To suck him dry.

His lungs tighten at the thought.

Pansy notices, alertness practically pricking her ears.

“Can I…” she says, pupils blown wide.

She wants it too. 

He nods, unable to speak.

She starts by dragging a singular fang from root to tip. The sting registers like a half-hearted hex, the best kind of pain. It’s a shallow abrasion, only enough for tiny droplets of blood to well along the path, but he watches her throat work to swallow. He's keenly aware that this is what she looks like at the edge of control, at the very end of her leash.

He wants to tip her over. Snap the rope.

Her tongue soothes the sting, licking the blood away in flashes of pink and red. It doesn’t take long before her wet kisses turn messy, desperate, and Ron groans. His hips move of their own accord, thrusting gently as she pants and squirms.

“God, it’s so good,” she moans. “I can’t—I need—”

“Take it,” he says hoarsely. “Fucking take it.”

It’s genuinely admirable how quickly she does.

Keeping her eyes on his, Pansy tilts her head. Brushes her lips against him.

Sinks her fangs into his cock. 

Ron’s mouth drops open on a shout that dies halfway through his throat.

It hurts. Obviously, it hurts. She’s just pierced his most sensitive appendage and he ought to push her away as carefully as he can and then curl into the fetal position until it stops throbbing.

The issue is, it feels good. He craves it.

Ron’s always been violent in his wanting and for the first time, he’s found someone who feels the same, who can’t help but squeeze too tight, press too hard. He wants to feel the bruises when she’s gone.

The thought almost stops him cold but then she’s sucking and he can’t think, can’t breathe.

Fucked-up pleasure blazes through each of his limbs and localizes at the tips of her fangs. Her eyes flutter shut as she works him with her teeth and tongue and lips. Like his blood is ambrosia, like she’s never going to get the chance to drink from him again. 

He can’t speak. Can’t do anything but watch as her cheeks hollow like she’s sucking every bit of pulp from a grapefruit, blood pooling around her fangs and dripping down her chin like juice. 

It starts at the base of his spine. With all the decadence and urgency of honey, his orgasm spreads through him, slowing down his pulse, stopping his heart.

At least that’s what it feels like. 

He’s never had the words and he bloody well doesn’t have them now.

Not when Pansy’s tongue soothes his overheated skin as she laps up his come. 

Not when she praises him incoherently, kissing and licking like she’s one second from release.

He doesn’t know where the fortitude comes from, but Ron yanks the balloon of his head back down until it’s firmly on his shoulders, determined to finish what they started.

“The rune,” he says, sounding like he’s just paddled the length of the Black Lake. 

The fog of pleasure in Pansy’s eyes dissipates only enough to acknowledge what he’s said. Instead of licking up the blood that continues to pulse from where she bit him, she drags a finger through it, watching him hiss against the sting. 

She paints the rune with his blood, smearing it across his thigh.

It’s gory and gentle and it fills him with emotions too complex and massive to fit inside his chest. 

Despite the physical overwhelm he’s experiencing, the same thought rotates like a spit in his mind: he’d never have had the courage to imagine someone like her. Never.

He wants to keep driving with her and listening to shitty music on the radio because Pansy’s lyrical observations are so accurate and vicious. He wants to build handmade frames for the stack of photos she has piled on her chest of drawers, to fix the creaky steps on the stairs, to press her frigid toes to his calves so she can warm up. 

He wants to fuck her on the porch and fill her with his babies and watch her ruin his birthday cake because her tastebuds these days are completely fucked. 

He wants too much.

“Ealneġ tegadura,” she says, climbing to her feet. The smallest shimmer of light winks from her fingertips.

Ron guides her onto his lap, supporting her back and holding her shaking hand as she positions herself over his weeping cock. Somehow he's harder than ever. Blood drips along with precum and both disappear when she sinks down, eliciting a groan from the depths of his soul.

“Ealneġ tegadura,” she chants, lifting herself again. He helps, gripping her hips and pulling her down hard as he kisses the column of her throat.

This magic is earthy and ancient, like great mossy vines wrapping around them, binding what’s volatile, guesswork, with something solid. Dependable. It’s not so much transfiguration as it is resetting a broken bone. 

It’s relief.

“Ealneġ tegadura,” he joins hoarsely. 

The blood-written rune heats on his thigh, scorching him until his bones know it just as well as his skin. Purple light emanates from the shape, hot hot hot until the violet embers cool and go out. 

Ron feels the thrall, that desperate need to push himself past the point of comfort, vanish. But he’d known the desire was his own, that it would stay. Up until this point, there might as well have been a sheet erected between them because he’d only been feeling the outline of her body until now.

Now he feels all of her. 

Every touch, every glide of fingertips against skin, of grasping hands and the wet slap of their bodies meeting, pulls him closer to the edge of a cliff. He doesn’t know what he’ll find at the bottom but he knows Pansy will be with him, and that’s enough.

She settles a hand on his chest and drops her forehead to his, gasping over and over as orgasm pitches her off the cliff’s edge. He can feel her clench tight around his cock and that’s all it takes before he’s spilling inside her, following her all the way down. 

Wrung out physically and emotionally, Ron kisses the sweat from her cheeks, her nose, her forehead.

She lets him, her cheek resting hot against his collarbone. His muscles relax and soothing magic crackles and hums beneath his skin.

There’s a word for what he’s feeling.

It slips away from him, though, when the most baffling clamor of noise erupts in the hallway. The serenity between them evaporates as what sounds like a bowling ball pinballs between the walls, unholy shrieks and screams bursting through the door in a blaze of pink.

Ron’s knee-jerk reaction is to pull up the covers to protect them both, but Pansy’s scrambling off of him in a fury of tangled limbs and yelling, “Oh my god, get out!"

She hurls a pillow at what looks like a tiny pink pig squealing back and forth at the foot of the bed, just waiting to unleash violence on the first toe that drops to the floor.

It takes Pansy throwing a bottle of lotion out the door to lure the pig away. 

She jumps off the bed and slams the door shut, stark naked and flushed from her chest to her ears. Her fringe is wild, her chest is heaving, and their combined desire shines against her inner thighs.

She’s precious to him.

“Well,” she says, pressing a hand to her sternum, “Now you’ve met Juice Box.”

Chapter Text

"So you saw that pint-sized demon," Ron says, "and thought to yourself, yeah, that’s ideal. Who needs more than three drops of blood per meal?"

Redressed and armed with strawberries, Pansy slinks through the hall ahead of him, light on her feet as she peeks around every corner they turn. Juice Box can't have full reign of the house.

Hence, the bait.

"She was hoisted upon me, I assure you," Pansy says. 

Bernie had bought the pig for his granddaughter under the impression that she'd be a cute pet instead of an outlaw wanted in all fifty states. He'd kept her corralled in his office at The Bijou for exactly two days before Pansy asked about the thunderous clattering she could hear from her seat five rows back. 

The rest was history.

"I should've stolen from Vic. See how she likes it when JB suddenly pops into existence in her office," she says. Then she frowns. "Now that I'm thinking about it, I'm not sure why it didn't occur to me that doing so would've solved my blood problem."

If she hadn’t been surviving on mere sips of air at the time, maybe she would've had the wherewithal not to feed from Ron at all.

It's just another lie she tells herself. 

Add it to the pile, bitch.

Because there's a reason she hadn't manifested as a succubus until this road trip. According to the ritual book, the transformation can only be kicked off when a mature succubus is within close proximity of an ideal mate. 

From what she can glean, it's based on a combination of compatibility and genetics rather than waiting to be plucked by the hand of destiny. It's less romantic but also less chaotic, and that's nothing to sneeze at.

Pansy has kept a tight leash on her imagination, only allowing herself glimpses of what could be—snatches of sunlight in dappled shade.

The possibility of matehood hadn't seemed like relevant information for him to know since they'd be going their separate ways at the end of the week. She holds that knowledge close to her chest like the Little Match Girl, creating a wall with the curve of her fingers to keep the flame from blowing out.

Ron pulls her back by the elbow, yanking her out of thoughts more fit for a pre-teen's diary than she'd be comfortable admitting. "Hang on," he says. "Juice Box was your collateral?"

She blinks up at him, taking more than a few moments to remember what they'd been talking about. 

"I couldn't think of anything more valuable than my meal ticket," she says.

He shakes his head, laughing ruefully.

"Does anybody really know you?" he asks. It's a cloak-and-dagger question, unceremoniously gutting. "I'd assumed it was a signet ring or something equally expensive."

He's not trying to hurt her. She knows this objectively, knows they'd left behind their petty squabbles several hundred miles ago. It's just that it does hurt. 

He's disemboweled her and she's walking around with her hands clutched to her stomach, trying to keep her emotional innards from spilling between her fingers. The gruesome thought guides her as she leads them to the atrium, where Juice Box lives a life of sunshine and magically self-cleaning straw. 

She'd thought Draco had truly known her. 

When she's honest with herself, she can admit that maybe he did. 

Maybe that's the punchline. He knew her.

And still, he left.

"What if I told you expensive things are still important to me?" she tosses back, straightening her spine. "What if I said I couldn't imagine wearing an itchy wool sweater when I know Vicuña wool exists, that I would buy that instead even though it's astronomically expensive? What if I want nice things for myself so I get nice things?"

Ronald Weasley is many things, and stupid isn't one of them. 

He picks up on her out-of-the-blue vehemence and sets his hands on her shoulders, stooping to look her in the eye, demon pig forgotten.

"I want you to have nice things too," he says, gazing at her warm and steady. "Full-stop."

She narrows her eyes.

"You're judging me."

Ron laughs mirthlessly, tipping his head to the vaulted glass ceiling and running a tired hand over his face. She can't help being who she is, and who she is is exhausting.

"Probably," he concedes, glancing back at her. "What makes you think that's a bad thing?"

Pansy guffaws, brushing past him so she can at least pretend to remember what they're doing. The sun bathes the room in golden light, heating her skin, warming her up.

"Because you're you, and I'm me," she says. 

Ron doesn't get a chance to respond before Juice Box comes flying in from behind them, ramming her wet snout into his calf and almost knocking him off balance. Instead of trying to scramble away, he leans down and shoves the pig onto her side, scratching her belly.

The squeals subside, replaced by happy little grunts. 

"That's a good point," he says, ignoring Pansy's shock that he's managed to tame the tiny despot with nothing more than a nudge. "We've hated each other for years."

JB lies comatose at his feet, her eyes closed and luxuriating in the sun. She stays like that when Ron stands and grabs Pansy's hand, pulling her to him.

"Years," Pansy repeats, voice raspy.

Both his thumbs are anchors behind her jaw, a pleasant heat against her cool neck. He brushes them back and forth in a comforting gesture.

"And what do you think now, Pansy?" he asks. "Do you think hatred is what I'm feeling?"

She's been focusing on the top of his left ear to keep from looking directly at him, like he's the sun, like she's not already blind. Now she meets his gaze and she was right. It hurts.

"I think you're a very good person," she whispers.

Because he is. 

His eyebrows come together and he takes a deep, frustrated breath.

"So, what? I've done this all for charity?"

He really expects her to spell it out for him.

"A combination of that and a desire to drag your feet so you won't have to spend much time at the lake house."

Now he full-on glares.

"You might not be as clever as I thought," he says.

Pansy won't apologize.

"You make me stupid."

Everything about him softens. She melts into him and his arms wrap tightly around her as he sets his chin on top of her head.

"Mutually-assured destruction," he says, kissing her hair.

Pansy is forever pressing her nose up against the glass of people's lives, never good or kind or brave enough to be let inside. She's watched relationships unfold and bloom and never once has she knocked or asked to be a part of it.

But Ron? 

He makes her want to smash a window.

◡ · · · ○ · · · ◡

It's evening by the time Pansy's practiced tracing enough to feel like she might be able to fling them to Michigan. Dusk floats like oil above water on the horizon, pinks and oranges fading into purples and blues.

Ron watches as she winks in and out of existence, awe and fear taking turns crowding inside his chest. 

She’s coming with him. Their bond practically assured it but tentative hope still watched over his shoulder until she confirmed it. 

He already sent George a text that took him an entire hour to compose, partially because of how tiny the bleeding buttons are and partially because he wanted to get it just right. He tendered his resignation but offered to stay on for a month or two so they could transfer his duties to Lee.

George's response?

Lee's already taken over. Happy for you.

Ron turns the words over in his mind, poking and prodding, checking for bruises. Nothing about it stings. There's only relief.

"Alright," Pansy says, trudging over to him with a faint sheen of sweat on her forehead. "I don't want to run out of steam. I think it's time."

He nods, feeding the last strawberry in his hand to a contented Juice Box.

Ron takes one last look at the dilapidated mansion. His fingers flex at the thought of giving it a fresh coat of paint, fixing the shutters so they don't dangle from their hinges.

He doesn't want to leave.

"You sure you feel well enough to do this?" he asks. 

A gleam of mischief broadcasts her answer before she opens her mouth.

"What, are you offering me something to drink?"

He grins. It feels boyish and bright and pleased.

Pulling her by the loops of her black jeans, he slots them together, grunting as soon as her belly presses against his hard-on. He kisses her wrist, eyes intent on the hunger that eclipse her irises.

She doesn't hesitate, either.

Ron hisses when her fangs pierce his skin, roiling heat burning its way through his veins. She sucks and he dips his head to kiss her neck, to bite her skin.

"It's so good, Pans," he growls, nipping the tendon that strains as she sucks. "So fucking good being the one to feed you."

She rolls her hips into his, gasping and squirming when she finds him hard.

"You gonna let me take care of you?" he asks, his voice hoarse. The thought of doing this for the rest of his life makes him ache. He wants it so badly. "You gonna let me fill you up?"

Wrenching her mouth from his wrist, she looks up at him. A dozen emotions flit across her face, none staying long enough to read. Blood wells from the puncture wounds, forming a droplet that she catches with the tip of her tongue.

They watch his skin knit itself back together. 

Pansy takes his breath away when she reaches down and squeezes him, running her palm up his length, his chest. She traces the slope of his arm, landing on his wrist, tangling her fingers with his.

The only thing that tells him she's overwhelmed is the proud lift of her chin.

"Hold onto me," she says.

The next thing he knows, everything shrinks. He's a particle of light hurtling through space, his surroundings a blur of mostly white around him. He's so small he threads the space between atoms, a needle rocketing through a tapestry without misplacing a single thread.

It doesn't last long enough for him to be afraid. 

He blinks back into existence, overstimulated by the feel of his trousers rubbing against his thighs, by the heavy weight of his head on his neck. A branch tickles his scalp.

Pansy steadies him with her hand on his elbow. 

Rows and rows of squat trees spread out in every direction, their shapes silhouetted against a gradient of indigo. Ron breathes deep, savoring the sweetness of the air, of lush earth and fallen fruit.

"That's better than Apparating," he says, trying to remember how his knees work. The overwhelm of his senses is vastly better than feeling like he's toothpaste being squeezed from the tube. 

Pansy agrees, reaching past him as she stands on her tiptoes and plucks something from a branch. Polishing it on her shirt, a few moments pass before she straightens, stepping close enough that he feels her heat.

Something cool presses against his lips. Ron opens instinctively, but Pansy only pushes it halfway past his teeth. 

"Bite," she says.

Ron obeys, sinking his teeth into tender flesh. Juice spills out over his tongue, his teeth, his lips. It's sweet and decadent and he wonders if this is even a fraction of the pleasure his blood brings Pansy. 

"Cherries," she breathes, her thumb catching a wayward drop of juice. He watches as she licks it. "Welcome to Michigan."

◡ · · · ○ · · · ◡

The edge of the cherry orchard butts up against a two-lane highway. Headlights pass over them like an abbreviated sunset, illuminating a quaint white shack with a corrugated metal awning. 

A sign juts from the ground with red, hand-painted letters. SEYMOUR FARMS.

Below it, each item has its own wooden board.

APPLES

CHERRIES

FRESH HOMEMADE PIES

Even as Pansy reads it, another board drops from the back of the one advertising pies, dangling from chains like all the others. 

BROOMS

They look at each other.

"Not happening," she says, reading Ron's mind. "Just give me a minute."

Pansy pulls out her phone, typing the name of the fruit stand into Google Maps. It pops up and she taps on it, then enters the address of the lake house, sighing when it says the distance between the two is forty-five minutes by car.

"Come on," Ron says. 

She ignores him, trying to find the street view of the lake house. It wasn't a perfect solution but that's how she'd traced so close, just from looking at the pictures captured by the Google van. It's better than nothing.

She curses when the internet refuses to cooperate.

"Pans," he says, running his fingers from her elbow to her palm. "This won't be like your first time."

Nothing has been like her first time with him. 

"No, thank you," she says, stomping up to the empty tip jar on the counter. The shelves in the shack are empty save for a metal box with a piece of paper taped to it.

DEPOSIT MONEY FOR BROOM RENTALS HERE — HONOR SYSTEM.

She scoffs.

"Look," Ron says, appearing on the other side of the counter. He drops into a squat, pulling out a long, slightly crooked broom. "We could be there within the hour."

Pansy watches him appraise it with a sinking feeling in her gut.

"I'd rather hitchhike."

It doesn't help that he's watching her like he understands, that compassion isn't a difficult emotion to access when it comes to her. 

"We'll start slow," he promises, dropping money into the box and exiting the shack with a spring in his step. "I know how to keep it steady. And if we get up there and you're still scared, we'll fly low."

The fact that she's considering it tells her more than she wants to know about her feelings for him.

"Alright," she says reluctantly. "I'll try it."

He doesn't gloat, just kisses her temple.

"Proud of you."

And then she's swinging her leg over the broom, stiff until Ron's chest presses into her back. He wraps his arm around her torso and holds on tight.

"Ready?" he asks.

The answer is no, but she nods anyway.

They don't shoot off like she expects. It's a slow and steady climb, the wind gently ruffling her fringe and the ground not too far beneath them.

"This broom isn't bad," Ron says, chattering away. "It's smooth because it doesn't even have the capacity to zip around like a Quidditch stick. Decently comfortable, too."

It’s not as terrifying as she remembered. The knot of anxiety in her throat slowly unravels while she stares straight ahead, not entirely convinced she won't lose her balance if she looks up or down.

Ron leans forward and they speed up.

"I've got you," he says in her ear, the wind whipping past them. He tightens his arm and she closes her eyes.

This is nothing like flying with her father. She'd clung to the broom like a barnacle, her fingers so stiff and her dress smelling of urine that she cried when they dismounted. It was a humiliation more layered than an English trifle.

"Open your eyes," Ron says after a while. "Look at the water."

It's a yawning stretch of velvety black, a constantly changing surface with winks of moonlight that dazzle her eyes. The shore is light in comparison, and she watches as it grows in size as they get closer, close enough to skim just above the surface.

She's never seen anything this beautiful, never felt this safe. She's held and protected and in completely over her head.

"I want to stop," she says, urgency lending her voice a certain tautness. Her breath is coming fast and panic is upon her with almost no warning.

He points the broom down immediately. 

The broom curves to the right as Ron guides it, gliding to a halt on the sand. It feels uneven beneath her combat boots as she stands, stepping over the broom like she didn't see the offer of his hand. 

She needs to be alone.

"Are you alright?" Ron asks, following her with broom in hand. His lengthened stride has zero problems keeping up because of course it does. She can't catch a break.

"Fine," she says, cutting him a glance. "I'll be back."

"No."

Pansy stops short, then whirls around on him.

"What do you mean, no? I'm going over there and you're staying here."

He drops the broom in the sand.

"No," he says again.

They stare at each other. Ron’s hair needs a good comb and he could use a deeply moisturizing lotion on his hands but he is tall, brave, kind and honest. She wants him exactly as he is.

He steps forward and kisses her, holding her like they're a Klimpt painting and this isn't a disaster. And because she’s a fool, she lets him. 

"Pansy," he says, caressing her nose with his. "I quit my job."

Her stomach's a cauldron that's been nudged off a table, something dangerous inside sloshing out from the jolt of impact.

"You did?"

He kisses her again and again, each one somehow desperate and chaste at the same time. She sinks into it like a toad being boiled alive. Like cotton candy on the tongue.

"I want to fix your shutters," he murmurs, trailing kisses down her neck.

It's radio static behind her eyes.

"You want to...fix my shutters?"

"I think you hate hurting the things you love," he says, "so you pretend to hate them instead."

She sinks her fingers into his hair, half wanting to punish and half wanting to cry. He hoists her up, guiding her legs to wrap around his torso, and presses his mouth against the valley of her collarbone. 

"I'm only saying things I mean," he says gruffly, squeezing her tight. "That was the deal."

Pansy blinks back the sting behind her eyes. She cradles his head to her chest, holding in a sob by sheer force of will.

"You could change your mind," she whispers.

He rubs the small of her back, her arse, his fingers curling underneath her inner thigh.

"So could you." 

It's the first time Pansy realizes she wields the power to hurt him. This isn't a hate-fuck, a convenient distraction, or a fit of combustible chemistry.

This can stand on its own two feet.

She pulls back, tilting his face until their eyes meet.

There's a chance this won't end well. 

Maybe several of them. 

But Pansy's fear has shifted, the weight of losing him scaring her more than opening herself to potential obliteration. The scales tip and she makes the call. 

"Okay," she says. It's a surrender, a sigh. "Okay."

Ron kisses her one more time before he allows her to slide down his body. Her feet don't feel any more solid on the ground but he holds her against his side, bending down to pick up the broom.

They fly and this time she doesn’t close her eyes.

It only takes another half hour before they're weaving through trees, landing quietly in front of a huge, green-shingled cottage that backs up to the beach. Flower boxes underline every window and white Adirondack chairs circle a fire pit to the side. 

Somehow it's quaint despite being so luxurious.

Light spills from the windows, slanting against the red brick walkway and broadcasting the life inside. She can see the back of Granger's unruly hair curled up on a sofa, a taller, blonde head turning to press a kiss against her cheek.

Pansy's breath catches in her chest. 

Ron knits his fingers together with hers and pulls her down the sidewalk, the muted crashing of waves against sand and her heartbeat pounding in her ears.

Because here’s the thing: Pansy has read about the formation of stars. 

She knows it starts as a bunch of dust and debris, nothing weighty enough to do anything but be flung around by the whims of larger celestial bodies. Millions of years pass and enough of those smaller bits collide to become a whole, a ball that burns so bright and spins so fast it can string together entire solar systems.

She feels that weight, like her sheer existence is enough to pull a person closer. 

It’s a better metaphor than anglerfish. 

The vaulted portico of the cottage is practically spilling with plants and herbs, perfuming the cool night air. Basil. Mint. Tomatoes. Fingers of ivy grow in a grid up the wall to the left.

She breathes it in, letting it fill her lungs to bursting. 

Beneath the loam, a sweet note cuts through, clinging to the back of her palate. 

Salted caramel. 

She listens to Ron’s heartbeat and starts a countdown from ten in her head. 

Taking a fortifying breath, Pansy knocks on the door. 

fin.