xXx

The Greenleaf Brothel

xXx

Sex sells.

That was the ancient motto of the Parkinsons. It was the reason that Pansy was the first in her year to have sex, and the reason that in 1560 AD, they opened their shop in Diagon Alley, just a hop and a skip behind the old ice cream parlour.

The building itself was nothing special, an old brownstone shop in need of repainting. It bore no signs to indicate what it was, only a sign on the front door that eternally read open. Repelling charms took no basis on age or magical power, but only those who were there to use it could ever open the door. It would hardly be good for a child to open the door to see what was inside, would it?

It was the only shop in Diagon Alley that had never closed, not for a day, not for an hour.

Sex sells and the Greenleaf Brothel housed only the best.

xXx

The first time she went, she hid behind a billowy cloak, the hood covering her face as best it could. She knew the rules of the brothel, but brought her own polyjuice. It would hardly do to be poisoned in the snake den, would it?

The second time, she brought two vials. She was getting married and wanted a night to remember before she shipped herself off to be married. The third night was two days later.

By the time she finally wed, she had spent more money on sex than her wedding, and had spent more hot and sexy nights with a polyjuiced man than her own husband. She knew it probably meant she was a slag, but she didn't care.

She was married to Harry Potter, but was in love with a memory.

xXx

The first time he had gone to the brothel, he was sixteen. It had been a night bought and paid for by his father as a birthday present.

He was disgusted, but at the same time relieved. Since denying Pansy a shag in second year he hadn't had another chance. The majority of the other Slytherin girls in his year were ugly, and going outside his house was far from encouraged against by his father.

Not long after that first brothel night, he found someone he wanted to be with.

She had a mean bat-bogey hex.

xXx

"Memories are nice, but that's all they are."

That's why she never went to him after the war. What they were in the dark nights of her sixth year wasn't what they would be outside the darkness. It couldn't be.

xXx

He was in love with her from the moment she cursed him. They were together two years later, telling no one, saying little.

Then one night, she was gone.

He still had a lock of her hair.

Forty-five hairs tied in a bow.

Forty-five nights to snuff the lights in the brothel and pretend they were still in the middle of the war.

xXx

She had spent thirty-six nights in the Greenleaf Brothel before her wedding, sleeping with a man who drank polyjuice to look like Draco Malfoy. She spent another sixteen nights there over the two months after her marriage.

She stopped going for three years, going through two pregnancies and a miscarriage with her husband during that time.

And then she used the last hairs she had for six last nights in the brothel, having sex with a stranger who wore her former lover's face.

And then came another pregnancy. After her daughter's birth, she told Harry she was done. No more children. She still slept with him, but her heart broke every night in his arms.

She knew that she would never feel Draco's arms around hers, or his hair between her fingers.

The man in the brothel had never been Draco, she knew that.

But when she had the man in her arms, she could pretend she was still sixteen.

She no longer had that. All she had were slowly fading memories.

xXx

He had long since used all of her hairs, though he kept the bow. He had gone every night for the first forty nights after the war, and four more nights scattered throughout the past eight years.

He used her last hair in the polyjuice brothel when Astoria took their son to her mother's villa in France.

But he didn't want to stop.

xXx

She needed one more night, one night to say goodbye and feel him one more time.

She wondered what Harry would say if he knew she was stalking Draco Malfoy.

xXx

He knew someone was watching him, but he never saw who it was. Every night, like clockwork, he could feel their eyes on him. It made him uncomfortable, but he couldn't complain to anyone.

After all, he was stalking Ginny Weasley every morning.

xXx

She raced down the cobbled street. Her hand was firmly grasped around a single blond hair and her breath came out in small huffs.

She yanked open the door and stepped inside, not once noticing the man behind her or the hair he plucked from her head with a simple spell.

xXx

She was in the brothel? He hadn't even known they catered to women.

But he had another hair of hers. He could be in her arms again, knowing she was actually close in reality.

xXx

Sex sells.

That was the ancient motto of the Parkinsons. It was the reason that when Draco Malfoy and Ginny Weasley came in the brothel at the same time, they were sent to the same room for sex.

The proprietors of the Greenleaf Brothel weren't stupid. The two had been coming in the brothel for years to sleep with each other. This way, the two Parkinsons that usually catered to them could cater to other patrons.

xXx

Worn out and sated, she looked at her partner half asleep next to her.

"Last hair," she murmured, stroking his hair.

"How'd you know it was the last hair?" he sat up, confused. Her eyes widened as she realized what had happened.

"You're not a Parkinson. You're Draco. You're really him." She wanted to cry.

"Wait, Weasley? You come here for me?"

End.

Details for the Free Words Challenge can be found on The DG Forum under the Free Words Challenge thread. A link to the forum can be found on my author profile.

The series of words I used were "stalker, sexy, hot."

This was also heavily inspired by rowan-greenleaf's polyjuice brothel plot bunny. This fic is for her. ^_^

"Memories are nice, but that's all they are." belongs to Rikku in Final Fantasy X.