A/N: Just a Hansy drabble, possibly a warm-up for a bigger project in the future. Anything you recognize, I don't own; J.K. Rowling does. Enjoy!

Perennial

He isn't drawn to her because she is haughty, snide, and ruthless. That would be ridiculous. That would be inviting pain and misery into his life, and Merlin knows he's had enough of those things to last him a long time.

He is drawn to her because she is always haughty, snide, and ruthless.

It is not, he finds, an easy thing to explain. But the bar at the Three Broomsticks is about to close and he and Draco—almost friends now—are not as sloshed as they planned to be and the stuck-up (cultured) annoying (brilliant) git just had to ask.

Perhaps your grubby little affairs are none of my business, Potter, and if so do tell me ... but why on earth are you so smitten with her? I mean, she's a bloody talented witch, pretty enough in her way, but I've known her all my life and she's not the easiest girl to get along with, you know ...

No, she isn't. Yes, Harry is smitten with her. And no, it's not any of Draco's business, but Harry tells him anyway because he's trying to understand it himself.

His life is fraught with conflict, danger, and uncertainty. He can manage the first two; he accepts that he must fight and defeat Voldemort for the good of the wizarding world, and that this may very well cost him his own life and the lives of those close to him. It's the last one that hurts the most. Battles end and danger passes, but uncertainty lingers. Not knowing when the next attack will come, who will be targeted, how or if this war will ever end, what kind of life he would have had with his godfather if he'd lived or his parents had lived ... and so on in a brooding downward spiral that has consumed many a sleepless night.

He can't take it anymore. He wants to know something, anything, for certain. His mentor is elusive and constantly withholding information. His two best friends go from liking each other to hating to tolerating to something else entirely. Seeking solid ground he could not find in friendship or education, he stepped cautiously into romance—which he soon learned is the least dependable thing of all. Feelings ebb and flow, flare and fade; a new relationship lasts just long enough to change everything, before the connection itself destabilizes and falls apart. Different sensations are discovered and lessons are learned, but he emerges from them more confused than he was before.

Girls are not simple; he has learned that much. Girls are complicated, sometimes needlessly, sometimes for reasons even they don't understand. Their moods swing without warning, their feelings change like the weather, yesterday's tirade is today's denial, and sometimes Harry wonders if they have any concept of truth beyond whatever new emotion has prevailed. Maybe he's being unfair, maybe it's something wrong with him, or maybe men and women just aren't meant to understand each other.

Whatever the case, Harry tells his not-so-hated rival as the bar empties out and the lights dim, he did not find what he was looking for in Cho Chang or Ginny Weasley.

He found it in Pansy Parkinson, because Pansy is the same person every day.

Whether she's calling Neville Longbottom a "fat little crybaby," deriding Angelina Johnson's hairstyle or mocking Harry's reaction to the Dementors, Pansy has a mean streak longer than Dumbledore's beard. She lashes out at her classmates and makes fun of what others fear. She is arrogant and bigoted, throwing the word "mudblood" around more freely than Draco—not with genuine hatred, as Hermione once explained to him, but because she knows it hurts and that's the important thing: driving others away. Avoiding everyone who didn't grow up a spoiled pureblood like she did because they represent the unknown, a world for which she is vastly unprepared.

Harry's life requires him to be prepared for anything; Pansy's does not. Their respective houses despise each other and share relatively few classes. So it was hard to figure exactly when or why the two of them started crossing paths so often. When he just happened to stumble in on a snakes-only study group in the library and exchange increasingly inane insults with her for twenty minutes, he could only conclude that part of him was deliberately seeking her out. He doesn't want the barbs she throws at him, doesn't need her pettiness or her politics, but in some perverse fashion he looks forward to them. She never lets him down.

Really Saint Potter, have you any sense of self-preservation at all, or are you just barmy? All this running around playing hero is so obnoxiously Gryffindor. Not to mention it's going to get you killed, and then what will I do with my evenings? Panic about my OWLs? Join You-Know-Who?

You could infiltrate his circle and avenge my death, he suggested.

I would probably have to. My dear parents are so upset about the war they're trying to marry me off and go into hiding, so whatever else you are—dunderheaded, holier-than-thou, and did I mention you still stink—you are the best alternative to spending the rest of my life as a washed-out broodmare, so I suggest you work a little harder at keeping yourself alive!

Maybe if you say 'please.'

She scoffs. You drive a hard bargain, Potter. I never say 'please.'

Strange. I recall you saying it about a dozen times last night.

The physical aspect of the relationship is as unlikely as all the rest. While he shouldn't like her, shouldn't enjoy spending time with her, certainly should not desire her pale and skinny body more than a locker room full of Fleur Delacours ... he always does. Her dark brown hair is too short to bury his face in, her painted fingernails leave long scratches on his back and shoulders, and she kicks in her sleep. But he couldn't imagine a better way to spend the night. Her kisses are addictive; her lipstick burns and tingles like sweet venom. She clings to him like he's the only other person in the world.

With other girls, no matter how much he learned about them they left him wondering, who are you? He doesn't have to wonder that about Pansy. She gives him an earful every time he sees her, and anything he's afraid to ask, Draco can answer for him. According to him, she came into first year knowing more nasty hexes than any other Slytherin and casts them with a sense of timing no one else can match. She's run out of fellow Slytherins who are willing to duel her even for fun. She gets merely passing grades in Transfiguration, Potions, and Charms, but she is respected and a prefect because she embodies everything their house stands for.

Strangely enough, it wasn't until Harry more or less stole Draco's girlfriend that the two of them started seeing eye to eye.

I don't understand, Malfoy. Why are we suddenly being civil to one another? Why are we talking about this at all? I thought you'd hate me worse than ever when I started seeing her.

Honestly, Potter, I wanted to hex you senseless. But I doubt I could hate anyone enough to risk making Pansy upset with me. She's downright lethal. Instead we got into a row, I started babbling about the war and what You-Know-You wanted me to do, you talked me out of it and ... well, here we are.

Thank Merlin for firewhisky.

Now we simply have to find a way to save my family and all wizardry as we know it. 'Thank Merlin for firewhisky' indeed.

Madam Rosmerta gently throws them out of the bar, and he shuffles upstairs to Pansy's room.

His friends have not been supportive. Ron thinks he's gone mental and refuses to acknowledge Pansy when she and Harry are together. Hermione is cold as ice. They don't understand, but they don't have to. He may be dating a Slytherin, he tells them, but at least he isn't making a big production out of it or letting her call him "Har-Har." She explains the relationship to her housemates by boasting that she's got the Boy Who Lived wrapped around her little finger.

Other girls might be nicer, kinder, more considerate. They might even make him happier. But they are ephemeral, and if Harry were more ordinary or living in a less dangerous era, he might have time to figure them out. He's living on 16 years of borrowed time with a target literally on his forehead. He can't afford to be patient.

Later that night as they rest in each other's arms, he asks her on a whim: What are your favorite things?

Unicorns, tormenting my inferiors, and boys with funny scars who ask stupid questions. A moment later: I need you, Potter. I've stopped pretending otherwise. But I am who I am. Don't expect me to change for you.

I know you won't, Pansy. That's why I need you.

He kisses her again.