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Part Three | Burn with Me

50. Now We Do

An end, once and for all.

Surely she couldn't have been the only one whose brain felt foggy, shrouded in a heavy cloud of disbelief, exhaustion, the spark of hope most definitely there, but held there warily. She was half-scared to believe. Surely it wasn't over? Surely they couldn't have happiness now, real happiness?

Surely not.

The Dark Lord had hit the ground with an underwhelming thud, just as the first light of the day began to streak through the windows, the enchanted ceiling, not that she'd paid it a whole lot of attention, was magically altering itself, from menacing and swirling dark clouds, to a clear, bright blue morning sky. The Hall itself may have been bright, and threatless now, but a distinct air of sorrow still surrounded them.

The sight of Voldemort's fallen body made her feel somewhat queasy, and so Pansy opted not to look at it. Instead, she watched Potter as he was embraced by Weasley and Granger, they way he always had been.

He actually did it

She knew she wasn't the only one who hadn't believed he'd had a hope in hell of actually defeating Voldemort.

Around them, people were beginning to celebrate; cheers and shouts filled her eardrums. Everywhere, she could see people clutching at each other. In elation, and possibly also in grief.

His arms were already around her as she turned herself into him. She gripped him, the same as she had a hundred times before, and yet somehow it was entirely differently that time. Holding him with her very existence, just as she knew he held her with everything he had and she wondered, fleetingly, what twisted entity of Fate would possibly have entrusted his pure, too good for her heart, to her.

She'd never felt so grateful for anything more than she was for that.

At Neville's insistence, Pansy found herself sitting in the line, waiting for Madam Pomfrey, or any of her volunteers, to take a look at the gash on her chin. It hadn't yet closed or shown any signs of stopping bleeding, and it was only after she'd looked down and seen the steady stream of blood present on the front of her top, did Pansy realise she had possibly been bleeding steadily for hours.

She hadn't actually felt faint until that moment.

"Theo?" Pansy said, elongating the o sound and realising that now she very, very much felt incredibly dizzy.

Neville had several people to celebrate with apparently, and he'd entrusted Theo and Millicent to sit with Pansy whilst he spoke, and consoled, a number of people Pansy cared very little for. Instructing the pair to not allow Pansy, as she had tried to argue, to just go back to her bed in the Head's quarters, and sleep it off.

She watched, hazily, as Theo opened his mouth to reply, but hear it she did not.

For some insane reason, she was now, despite the fact Pansy was certain she'd just - a second before, been sitting with Theo and Millicent waiting to get her stupid chin checked over, lying in the Hogwarts hospital wing.

Well, this is weird, Pansy thought as she blinked awake, the brightness of the room overpowering.

She felt his hand in hers a mere second before she heard his voice. It was strong, yet gentle, and had she not already been lying down, would have melted her. "Hi, Beautiful."

Turning her head to the side hurt far more than Pansy knew it ought to. "Hi," she said, or so she tried to anyway, what transpired was a sort of frog-like, unattractive croak. Oh, lovely

To his credit, Neville didn't laugh.

"Why am I in bed?" Pansy asked, her voice now in a particularly unattractive region between a husk and a grunt.

"You collapsed baby."

"Oh."

From somewhere over to the side, behind Neville, Pansy watched the blurry at first familiar figure of the Hogwarts matron come into focus.

"Ah, Miss Parkinson, how are you feeling?"

"I've felt better," Pansy croaked, wrinkling her nose at the way her entire body seemed to ache as one.

Madam Pomfrey busied herself with gathering a myriad of potions together, which, after both she and Neville helped pull her into something close to a sitting position, Pansy was handed, one by one.

"Thanks," she said meekly.

Madam Pomfrey smiled stiffly. "Get more rest," she instructed, before moving to the inhabitant of the bed beside Pansy's.

"How long was I asleep?"

Neville frowned at his watch. "About a day and a half."

"A day and...a...wha'..."

She blinked open her eyes, the light was lesser this time, perhaps it was nighttime.

"About bloody time," she heard Draco's familiar drawl comment.

Fucking cheek

"It's good to see you too," Pansy replied, her voice, if anything, even more croaky. Fantastic.

Looking around as best she could, Pansy saw Draco was sitting, in robes far grander than she was used to seeing him wear, in a chair at her bedside. Neville, she could see, was in a similar chair just off to the side, his head slumped. He looked fast asleep.

"He's barely left your side, you know," Draco said.

"How long has it been now?"

"Three days," he frowned, "no, almost four."

Pansy raised her eyebrows in disbelief. "Holy shit." As if a cut on my chin could cause this much trouble

As it turned out, when said cut was cursed the way Pansy's had been, the amount of trouble it caused could be rather large.

"I know, lazy arse."

"How is everyone else?"

"Oh, you know," Draco began, "Daphne is now friends with everybody we've ever known, because of course she is. Blaise is already finding excuses to get out of all the lunches she's made plans for."

Pansy let out a soft laugh.

"She's been amazing though," Draco said, "she volunteered to help with the injured."

"She's always been amazing," Pansy replied proudly. "What about Theo and Mills?"

"Theo is...being Theo," he shrugged. "But they broke up."

"What?"

"Yeah, I don't know, something about being better as friends."

"Oh."

"Are you okay?"

He smiled. "I will be, I think. I, uh, I've met up with Potter, actually, a couple of times and-"

She hoped she'd have another time to grill him over the worrying drinking habits he'd displayed over the course of the year, knowing that then wasn't the time or place, and tell him as bluntly as she wished she could that they were stopping, whether he liked it or not, and she certainly now needed to know why, at the mention of his bizarre meetings with Potter were causing something that resembled something of a blush on Draco's cheeks, when the realisation hit her like a ton of bricks. "Oh my gosh, Draco, I left Winky at the cottage, you need to go-"

"No, you didn't," Draco replied dryly.

"I did, I told her-"

"I know what you told her, but when has that elf ever done what we've told her to do? She's in the Head Quarters, had been since the battle ended. Only comes out to come here, insists she be the one to change your sheets, that sort of thing. Because she's your elf, oh yes she is."

Pansy took in a long breath. "I'll kill her."

"Well I wouldn't tell her that if I were you."

Pansy was discharged from the Hospital Wing the following day. She'd spent her final hours there with Neville, Draco, Daphne, Blaise, Millicent, Theo and Winky. The latter entirely unapologetic for her disobedience, despite Pansy's annoyance.

"Miss Pansy is barking up the wrong tree if she is hankering after an apology from Winky, oh yes she is," Winky replied firmly as she busied herself plumping Pansy's pillows.

Professor McGonagall had been to see her also. Any other year would have seen her roll her eyes at the prospect of a meeting with the head of Gryffindor house. Now, however, each of the two witches held something of a respect for the other.

"The pair of you didn't involve yourselves in the hurt, or torture, of any of the students of Hogwarts, this past year?"

"No," Draco replied.

"And you both tried, to the best of your abilities, to thwart the Carrows' efforts to do so."

"Yes."

Minerva McGonagall regarded both Pansy and Draco over her spectacles. "That was very brave of you both," she said. Her eyes travelled over the group. "Of all of you."

"Thanks," Pansy replied awkwardly.

"There is one last matter to attend to," the Professor was saying, "since the school year has technically now ended, albeit rather prematurely, "and you two are no longer Head Boy and Girl. It is customary for the House Elf granted to yourselves to return to the service of Hogwarts. Yours, however," McGonagall paused as she looked at Winky, whose floppy rabbit-ears were bobbing slightly, "has expressed a wish that her ownership be granted to you, Miss Parkinson, on a permanent basis. Is this something you'd wish for, also?"

Pansy's answer was tumbling from her mouth before her brain had fully engaged the magnitude of the situation.

"Yes, I...please, if that's okay?"

"I imagine it usually wouldn't be, but it seems you and, uh, Winky here have gone through more than most go through. And I think Professor Dumbledore would have allowed it."

"Thank you."

"Then I, as reappointed headteacher of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, do forth transfer ownership of the House Elf known as Winky, to Miss Pansy Parkinson. I can get your contract, or..." McGonagall trailed off, clearly the transfer of House Elf ownership was not something she was used to dabbling in.

"Pah!" Winky replied. "Winky needs no contract, no she does not."

"Very well, I hope you heal well, Miss Parkinson." She turned to leave. "And, thank you. To all of you."

"I have no desire to return there."

"Are you sure, she might…" Neville gestured vaguely, clearly running out of words.

"She didn't even come see me when I was in the hospital wing!"

"She did, actually," Neville replied sheepishly. "Once."

Pansy stopped. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because," his eyes refused to meet hers, "I didn't want you to be mad at me."

Narrowing her eyes, Pansy regarded him. "Neville?"

"Hmm?" Neville appeared to be examining a the nail on his right pinky.

"Why would I be mad at you?"

"Well, I know you don't always like her, and everything, but you might have been mad to learn that your boyfriend started, uhh, yelling at her...in the corridor...and, well…"

"You yelled at my mother?"

"Well she didn't even take your hand," Neville replied, raising the hand that wasn't holding hers and gesturing animatedly, "or really ask how you were, just sat there stiffly and I just, I remembered everything you told me...and I got mad...so I waited until she was leaving...and I yelled."

"You yelled at my mother," Pansy repeated.

"Are you mad? Oh, you're mad aren't you?"

"I...think I'm actually a bit turned on," she replied honestly. Turning back down the corridor once more, they continued walking.

"Oh." Neville was clearly taken aback. "Well, that's good."

"I could go to Daphne's," Pansy mused. Freya Greengrass had invited her openly during a visit late the previous day, She'd offered kindly, with a certain look and in a way only a mother could. As a mother should, Pansy thought.

"You could," Neville agreed, "or mine. My gran is desperate to meet you properly, you know."

"That's a scary thought," Pansy snorted a laugh.

"Or there's Draco's, he said earlier you're more than welcome to stay at his."

"Yeah," Pansy replied absentmindedly. "He did." Draco's father was now in prison, he had explained. Along with the rest of the rounded up Death Eaters, including the Carrows and both, Pansy's mouth had dried as Draco had informed her, both her father and Rabastan. The pair had been found, in the same place Pansy and Neville had left them, stunned and covered in rubble, by Kingsley Shacklebolt and his team of aurors, after a tip off from Neville himself to search there.

Pansy considered the invitation. Her desire to go stay at Draco's was on par with her desire to stay at the Greengrass's, not unpleasant in any way, but right then simply unwanted.

"Winky knows where to go, oh yes she does," a small voice said from somewhere near Pansy's elbow. "Enough of this walking, you will both take Winky's hands, yes you will."

And they did.

The air smelled soft and familiar, but this time with a hint of something else they hadn't had before: freedom."

Pansy sat, at Winky's insistence, in her usual spot, just as Neville did the same. She knew Daphne had taken the lease for the place for a year, therefor they had months left to stay, but Pansy knew that once she worked out a way to secure what portion of what lay inside the Parkinson vaults was hers, she'd buy it.

"It feels different now," he remarked, taking in the cottage's living room. "It's only been a few days, but...I don't know, it's different."

"I know," Pansy replied. "This time, it feels…" she couldn't find the words. Out the window she could just see the rolling fields she'd grown so accustomed to seeing. If she were to get up, part of the river would be just visible. The sky - the same sky that she would be able to look at the stars again on - was the same bright summer blue that had been present every day since the battle hung overhead, the lightest she'd seen it in months, she realised.

Winky's large tennis ball eyes beamed up at both Pansy and Neville. "Like home," the small elf said. "It feels like home, yes it does."

"Yeah," Pansy breathed as she leaned into Neville's chest, "I've never had one of those, not really."

She felt Neville's arm wind around her shoulders as his lips gently kissed her cheek.

Winky positively beamed. "And now you do, Miss Pansy."

"Correction, Winky," Pansy said with a soft smile. She pressed her side into Neville's, feeling, for the first time in a long time, truly happy. "Now we do."

-The End-

To you, Reader. Thank you, thank you, thank you for coming on Pansy and Neville's journey with me.

I'll miss you, Darkened Skies.

Love, thewaterfalcon