It's Just Sex

[a/n; Final Chapter, Chaps! Salon Kitty: It's only fair to mention plainly, that not only have I read ‘Mad Snorkacks & Englishmen’ (go read it you guys!) but I am currently re-reading it, and fess up that its opening chapters were a significant influence on the previous chapter of 'It's Just Sex'. Hopefully not to the point where it becomes offensive to you. One of the reasons, I’m wavering on doing a DH themed sequel to this is a desire not to have it end up as MS&E lite]

Chapter 8: Acceptance.

[tags for the chapter: NoSex, sorry guys, just a lot of talking in this one.]

“Just what do you think you’re doing!?”

The shrill voice broke through the sleepy haze blanketing Harry’s mind, bringing him halfway to consciousness, so that he was only aware that he was totally relaxed, comfortably warm and wanted to go back to sleep. It was an odd question though he thought Pansy knew exactly what they had been doing and for some reason she now sounded like… Hermione. Which was very odd wasn’t it?

“Whu-huh?” he managed to reply, incoherently.

“I said, just what do you think you are doing here, Harry?” said a voice that was definitely Hermione’s.

Reluctantly and with great effort, Harry cranked open one eye. He was, of course, no longer wearing his glasses but he could still tell, although the world was slightly fuzzy, from the rectangle of light flooding into the room , that the door had somehow become open and two figures were standing just inside the frame; one tall one that Harry’s eyes were insisting to his brain was literally on fire and a closer shorter one who seem to be topped with a very large patch of light brown that was talking with Hermione’s voice.

“Well, right now,” said Pansy, her drowsy voice seeming to emanate from his armpit, “we’re trying to get some sleep.”

“Harry,” Ron said loudly, and Harry got the impression he was trying very hard to ignore the hot naked girl sprawled all over his best friend, “You do realise that that is Pansy Parkinson right? You know: Malfoy’s girlfriend?”

“No,” said Harry, finally conscious enough to string a sentence together, “No, she’s not. Not Draco’s I mean. She’s mine.”

Hermione made a noise somewhere between an outraged snarl and a disgusted snort.

“Fine.” She said in a clipped voice, “Fine. Whatever. I’ll just leave you two to it then. Have Fun.”

She stormed out.

Harry had finally found his glasses, and sliding them on to his face he saw that Ron had a very strange expression on his face. His ears had gone bright red with embarrassment, and his mouth opened as though to speak but no words came out as if he was struggling to process this revelation.

“Uumm.. Ron,” Harry said, hesitantly, “I get that you probably have questions and stuff you’d like to say to me but do you think we could talk later? Say, when I have clothes on?”

Ron flushed brighter still, nodded and abruptly fled, closing the door behind him.

The couple were alone, once more.

Harry dropped his head back into the soft embrace of the pillows as Pansy snuggled up to him again, gazing up at his face with her chin resting on his chest.

“Well, that went well.” Harry said, sarcastically.

“Ha,” laughed Pansy, “we’re didn’t get cursed did we? Better than I hoped for.”

“hmmpf” groaned Harry, “I guess somebody forgot to tell the room we didn’t want to be disturbed?”

“Hey, I just asked the room to be whatever you wanted, so I’m thinking that on some level you wanted your friends to find us, right?” Pansy said with a frown, “Besides what’s this about being your Girlfriend, huh? Don’t I get a say in this?”

Harry face’s fell, he went red and began to splutter slightly.

“Well.. I’m sorry… I just assumed.. I mean.. After last night…” He trailed off as he realised Pansy was laughing at the look on his face.

“I’m sorry,” She said, stifling another giggle, “That was cruel but the look on your face...”

The giggles overwhelmed her for a time but when she recovered she lent in and planted a long soft kiss on his lips and smiled at him.

“You know,” said Harry, “We could just stay here and do this all day.”

“Well, I’d like that,” Pansy said, “But you did just promise to talk to your friends about us.”

“Right. I did. Damn,” Harry said, discontentedly, “I don’t suppose you could help me out? Maybe, talk to Hermione? You know, girl to girl or something?”

Pansy rolled her eyes and shook her head.

“They’re your friends, you wuss,” she said, mirthfully, “You talk to them. I, on the other hand, have no intention of being attacked by conjured canaries today, so I’m going to steer well clear of Miss Granger.”

“Why you wuss, you!” Harry said; laughing and trying to find his clothes.


~ScEnEbReAk~


It took half the day but he finally managed to find the girl he was after. He intercepted her halfway down a corridor and with a firm grip on her arm and directed her into an empty class room. He had a very serious look on his face.

“So what’s this all about then?” he said gruffly.

Pansy gaped at him for a second.

“Why, I don’t know, what you’re talking about, Ron Weasley,” She said, staling for time and wondering whether to pull her wand out of her pocket.

Ron just rolled his eyes at her.

“Let’s not play games already. I did just catch you and Harry, completely starkers, right?”

Pansy wilted slightly under the force of his gaze and just nodded.

“So you’re in a relationship?” He asked.

“I don’t think that’s any of your business,” Pansy attempted to dodge the line of questioning with some self-righteous indignation.

“Look,” said Ron, sighing slightly, “I don’t want to drag you over the hot coals here. It’s only my business, as far as this: I don’t want to see Harry getting hurt, ok? Now I’m going to assume that the answer to my last question was ‘yes’ and I’m going to assume it has been going on quite some time. Maybe even all year, well apart from after Christmas for a bit”

Pansy could not stop her jaw from dropping.

“Y-you knew all along?” she guessed.

“Ha!” Ron laughed, running his hands ruefully through his shaggy red hair, “Hadn’t a clue but I had noticed Harry seeming happy all this year when he had no reason to, and when he was in an especially foul mood for a bit after Christmas. Given what I saw earlier the connection was not hard to make. I’m not Hermione, you know, but I’m not completely dumb”

“Never crossed my mind,” Pansy lied, “So what now? You going to give us a hard time about it?”

“A hard time? No.” Ron replied thoughtfully, “Look, I was involved in a spectacularly stupid relationship this year and Harry had the good grace not to interfere with it, or try to talk me out of it, no matter how much of ass I was being. So I’m trying to do the same. Turnabout’s fair play after all. I’d just like to give you some advice, if you’ll listen to it.”

Pansy shrugged. She could always ignore whatever he said.

“Knock yourself out then.”

“You hurt Harry, I’ll hurt you. Otherwise; have fun and watch out for conjured birds.”

And with a nod and a wink of a sparkling blue eye, he was gone.


~sCeNeBrEaK2:ScEnEbReAkEr~


Meanwhile, Harry stood at the entrance to library just trying to pluck up enough courage to go in. He’d checked everywhere except here and the Girl’s dormitory, and if Parvati Patil was to be believe she wasn’t there either. So unless she’d spent the day hiding out in a girl’s lavatory she must have been in here, which was not a far fetched notion at all. With a sigh and a great effort; he forced himself into the stuffy, book filled room and looked around. In the deepest depths of the library; there was Hermione; writing on a long piece of parchment and surrounded by reference books. The only remarkable thing about the scene was, Harry released, that Hermione just happened to be sitting at the very same desk that, approximately nine months earlier, he and Pansy had sat at doing essays.

Quickly, and slightly jerkily, Harry walked across the room, afraid his nerve was going to fail him and slid heavily in to the seat opposite his friend. She looked up, her brow furrowed into a mighty frown and she returned her attention to her parchment. The scratching of quill was obviously and deliberately louder than it should have been. It was clear that she was not going to start any sort of conversation and was probably going to explode if Harry had the temerity to say anything to her himself.

Harry mentally sighed to himself. He just wanted to run and hide and not have to do this at all but Hermione would just sit here and grow angrier and moodier and more self-justified as time went on and he’d just get it worse when her top finally blew. Luckily she did not seem to have her wand to hand, so he’d have some lead time if she chose to set her infamous birds on him. Harry still found it inconceivable to attempt to start a conversation with ‘So I’m going out with Pansy Parkinson’ even though it was completely true. He cast his mind out about for another relevant topic and remembered what he had stashed in his pocket. He shivered slightly at the recollection and fished out the fake locket that Dumbledore had effectively given his life to retrieve, along with the note from R.A.B that it contained.

He hung it from it chain and swung in front of Hermione’s vision before letting it drop and the chain coil up on the desk above her parchment. She looked up at him sharply and gazed at it. Obviously curious despite herself.

“What is this then?” she asked, voice still rather curt and clipped.

So Harry explained what he and Dumbledore had done the previous evening, forcing himself to keep his voice level through out the retelling. How they’d gone to the same cave Voldemort had visited and terrorised orphans in when he was a child. How the locket was hidden in a pool of poison and how they had retrieved it and escaped and how, after he found Dumbledore’s body at the base of the Astronomy Tower, he had found they locket where it had fallen out of Dumbledore’s pocket; open, with the note that revealed it to be nothing more than a fake. Hermione listened to the whole gut wrenching tale, totally impassively. She said nothing for the longest while, just studied the fake locket in a non-commital way. Harry having said his piece; couldn’t think of a way to draw a response from her. So he just waited.

“So…” She said at long last, still in a cold un-Hermione like voice, “Does Pansy know about this?”

Harry frowned, he didn’t know whether to be grateful she had broached the topic, so they could get it over with, or horrified she'd remained fixated on it given all he had just told her.

“No,” He said, shortly, “She doesn’t know anything about the Horcruxes. You and Ron are the only people I shared that with.”

“Oh, how fortunate, I feel.” She snarked, “To be more trusted than the girl you sleep with.”

There didn’t seem to be any sensible reply to that. So Harry set nothing and let Hermione unload if she wanted.

“But seriously, Harry! What is with that? I mean did you just decide, ‘oh I’m sad about Dumbledore, I’ll just shack up with the nearest women and it’ll all be alright?”

Harry flushed, and tried very hard not to reply angrily. He figured the way she’d found out had been a bit shocking for her, but still her interpretation of events was simultaneously horribly insulting and eerily accurate if off by about nine months.

“So you think,” he said, carefully, “That’s what I did yesterday then? Jump on the nearest person I found for support?”

Hermione usually so quick was so pre-occupied with her anger that she missed his implications and just ploughed straight on with her diatribe.

“And with Pansy Parkinson of all people. She hates my guts! She hates your guts! She’s a hateful cow who tries to make our lives as miserable as possible.”

“Oh I don’t know,” Harry said lightly, “ She’s been a lot better recently, say since the start of this year. I wonder why?”

“And what poor Ginny’s going to thin-” At this point, Hermione’s vaunted brain managed to break through her temper and deliver it’s analysis, “And what do you mean since the start of this year!?”

But Harry’s brain was unencumbered by high emotion and had picked up what Hermione was just saying and was puzzled.

“Why would Ginny care who I go out with?” He said, confused but Hermione ignored the question.

“How long exactly have you been shagging that bitch?” Hermione hissed over her pile of books.

Harry ground his teeth together and tried to count to ten before answering but Hermione started tut-tutting impatiently.

“Look, Hermione.” He said, each word snapping in his mouth, “I’m trying to be understanding here. I know it was a shock seeing us together but please: Don’t. Call. My girlfriend. A Bitch. Again.”

They both subsided: glaring at each other furiously. Then Hermione said very quietly.

“I’m sorry, Harry. You’re right, this has been a shock. But, honestly, I need to ask, because I don’t understand: why?” The last word came out as a plaintive moan.

Harry winced. He knew the answer was not going to go down well at all. He attempted a sort of casual shrug.

“Well, I was lonely, sort of.” He said, guiltily. Hermione looked at him, flabbergasted. “You and Ron were involved in your own little squabbles and were barely talking to me, I’m not blaming you” he added quickly seeing the look on her face, “But that was when we met. I was alone in the library. Here, as a matter of fact.”

“So I was right,” Hermione snorted, temper rising again, “Feeling Down? Find a girl and jump on her. Typical Man. I expected better than that from you Harry.”

“Now you see,” words seemed to flood out Harry now, though he restrained himself from just shouting outright, “Maybe that’s exactly why I did it. Because it was a stupid thing to do. It’s the exactly the stupid kind of thing that normal teenagers are supposed to do. Screw the consequences and screw the girl. Why, Pansy? She’s good looking and she offered. Pretty shallow right? Well maybe that’s who I am: a pretty shallow guy. Not a goddamm hero, not the chosen one or the boy-who-lived. Not the best, last, hope of the wizarding world. Maybe that’s not what I want, I just wanted to be normal if just for a bit.”

He stopped to breathe, short rapid breaths. The books on table had been shuddering slightly from poorly restrained magic. Though his voice hadn’t raised enough to get them chucked out the library, which was empty apart from them and a very red eyed Madam Pince. When he’d calmed down enough, he shrugged again and continued.

“Besides, It was just sex,” he said, knew she wouldn’t approve of that anyway and added, “Until it wasn’t. Look, I’ve been involved with her since September and even when we weren’t talking in January she still didn’t betray me to Slytherins. I trust her now and I like her, very much, even aside from the sex but I’m very sorry that this has upset you.”

Hermione who looked somewhat quelled under the force of Harry’s speech, seemed to be searching for words.

“We were your friends, Harry. Me and Ron. Still are, as a matter of fact. You should have trusted enough to tell us.”

The words were half condemnation and half olive branch.

“I was just worried you were going to take it…” Harry muttered, “Well the way you just did really.”

“Well, anyway, what more can you tell me about this Locket and RAB?” She said in a matter of fact tone of voice.

Harry looked at her in surprise.

“I’m not going to say I approve Harry.” She said off of his look, “Or that I’m going to start liking Pansy but in the end, it’s not my business, who you sleep with is it? So let’s just agree to disagree or something. What is my business, as your friend, is helping you with the Horcruxes. So lets get on with it shall we? While we still have this-” she indicated the library with a sweep of her quill holding hand, “-at our disposal?”

And so the conversation moved back into the safe realm of Horcruxes, Voldemort and the possibilities of the mysterious RAB, though the talk was still rather tense on both their parts.


~ScEnEbReAkWiThAvEnGeAnCe~


The next couple of days were among the strangest of Harry’s life. His mood changed violently from minute to minute; ranging between guilt and sorrow about Dumbledore, anxiety and futile rage about his new-found, and in all probability impossible, quest and finally purest elation when was with Pansy, which usually send him tumbling down to guilt and sorrow again; how dare he think about being happy when Dumbledore was dead and murderers like Snape and Voldemort were on the loose?

Still Ron and Hermione were talking to him again, though Hermione had a new tendency to speak to him rather formally and become oddly deaf and withdrawn if he and Ron discussed things she didn’t want to know about it and she had also gloated, unbecomingly Harry thought, when she discovered information about the Half Blood Prince that tallied with her claims from earlier in the year. For his part, Ron, although he was self-professedly ‘put-out’ that Harry had not told him, otherwise had seemed well resigned to the fact of the relationship even before Harry had had a chance to speak to him. However, he seemed to regard the knowledge that Harry and Pansy had been physically intimate with a sort of awe that was only very slightly tinged with jealousy, which usually expressed with self-deprecating stories about Lavender and his love life. He was still willing, however, to cover for Harry as much as possible, when he was having trysts with Pansy and even Hermione had not released the information about them to the school at large. So more or less, all was well on that front.

On the third day came the Funeral of Albus Dumbledore. Which was a long solemn ceremony, and an event that seemed to include everyone in the wizarding world Harry had ever met and what was worst of all was that the students had been seated according to their School Houses and given the long standing and heated nature of the relationship between Gryffindor and Slytherin they had been seated as far away from each other as possible to avoid disruption. This meant that Harry was about as far away from Pansy as he could be and with Ron and Hermione comforting each other he had to sit alone, emotions in turmoil as the words and sorrow washed over him.

When enough kind words had been said, enough tears had been shed and a great White Tomb had been formed from phoenix fire, they were at last allowed to leave. Harry, after being bumped by a passing and very stony faced Ginny Weasley, was very annoyed to find himself being accosted by the Minister For Magic, Rufus Scrimgeour before he could find Pansy. In result, he was rather short with the man and refused point blank to do what he asked, as Scrimgeour retreated towards his entourage, he saw Pansy striding towards him and sending dark looks towards Scrimgeour; Harry noted that her right arm was held very close to her robes so as to conceal the fact that she was armed with her wand. He smiled, slightly proud of her obvious willingness to defend him.

Still as soon as he looked into her eyes, he knew that she knew exactly what he was going to say. Words he should have said, as soon as Dumbledore died, words he should have said instead of giving her false hope, instead of trying to reconcile Ron and Hermione to a relationship that couldn’t last. He steeled himself to say it, he opened his mouth and-

“No,” said Pansy.

Which brought up Harry short.

“No, what?” he asked weakly,

“No.” She repeated. “I know what you’re about to say but the answer is no.”

“I wasn’t going to ask a question.” Said Harry, now completely off balance.

“Well that would have been rude,” said Pansy, trying to joke, “don’t I get a say in this relationship?”

“If Voldemort found out about us, you’d in terrible dange-,” he said

“I don’t care,” said Pansy before he’d even finished.

“How would I feel if this was your funeral and it was my fa-,” he tried but even as he spoke he felt two strong hands clamp around his face and Pansy pulled him into the hardest, most obvious kiss they had ever shared.

When it was over; he began to hear the muttering and see the face in the crowd of watchers that they had drawn: Theodore Nott, Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle, all Slytherins, all sons of loyal, known, Death Eaters. A shiver passed through Harry.

“Now they know,” said Pansy, “And it will be as dangerous for me here, as it will be for me to be with you.”

Harry could only splutter as he realised just how handily he had been outmanoeuvred.

“I’m never going to leave you Harry,” Pansy growled fiercely, “I said it. I meant it.”

Harry knew he should have been angry or dismayed, he had only wanted what was best for her; for her to be safe and she had stopped him and brought herself into the most terrible danger because of him but all he felt was the greatest sense of relieve. For the first time that he could remember: he knew that there was someone who loved him. Unconditionally. Someone who would never ever leave him. And he believed it. A smile grew uncontrollably. Tomorrow; he would have the face his mission in life, his destiny. Tomorrow he would have to plan how he was going to destroy the most evil being imaginable, tomorrow he would have to commit himself to a quest that would mostly likely result in his death fighting evil and along with him; everything he had ever known or cared about. But that was tomorrow and not today.

Today, he was just an ordinary boy. An ordinary boy who knew he was in love, and knew he was loved in return.

So he walked away hand in hand with Pansy Parkinson.

~Fin~

[end notes: Well that, as they say is the end of that. Reviews via the archive review function or via email to daye_49(at)yahoo.co.uk are greatly appreciated.

Some quite long notes for this chapter have been added to forum thread here: http://www2.adult-fanfiction.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=14314 if any of you are forum goers and interested in that sort of thing]