It's Not Just Sex

It’s Not Just Sex.

Summary: Sequel to ‘It’s Just Sex,’ Harry’s horcrux hunt is in progress aided by his two best friends but is hampered by their dislike of his new girlfriend, Pansy Parkinson
Rating: Adult+
Pairings: Harry Potter/ Pansy Parkinson, possibly some Ron/Hermione, like in the canon.
Author’s notes: Well you lot asked for it. So here it is. I’ll blame you lot if it sucks. ;-P This one is probably going to lean more heavily towards plot than smut, I’m afraid. For one thing there’s no sex at in this: the first chapter. Despite the warnings above I’m unsure how much attention R/Hr will get; they may end up getting some explicit scenes, they may not. It depends if I need more smut to balance it the plot a bit.


Chapter 1: Reunion.

In the gathering gloom of the summer night, the old manor house looked better than it did in the full light of day. Although the house was undoubtedly old and fine, there was also no doubt that it had seen better days; the bass relief and paint on the walls was faded and chipped. The gardens were well kept but the high hedges that surrounded them were obviously newly grown; showing that much of the Manor’s lands had recently been sold off, being too large and too hungry for gold for their upkeep.

The darkness also help hide the fact that one of the ground floor windows was now in the process of being opened and that a young woman was secretively trying to climb out; first throwing out a bulging bag obviously stuffed to its fullest extent and then dropping out of the window herself. Despite the very short drop, the girl landed poorly, dropping to her knees in the long grass and stifling a gasp of pain. Working past her distress though she removed a length of wood from her pocket, which very few observers would have recognised as a magic wand, and tapped it against the window frame, which promptly shut firmly and a brief translucent glimmer seemed pass over the window. The girl stood very still and listened very hard for any alarms or suspicious noises. After a few moments she seemed decide that she must be in the clear and that she’d reapplied the anti-break-in charms sufficiently well not to trigger anything. She picked up the bag, slung it over her shoulders and started walking towards the nearest hedge. Her gait did not possess the easy stride and self confidence it would have exhibited even a couple of short months ago. Instead she took small almost shuffling steps in a careful fashion as though she didn’t want to pull anything.

Just a bit further… she kept telling herself. She just had to get a bit further. She only had to get over the side of the hedge. Please let her get to the other side of the hedge, she pleaded silently to no-one in particular. She shouldn’t have been worried, she thought, the entire house was asleep as far as she knew, and she was good friends with what few guard dogs remained in the kennels but she still did because if they did find her out... She shuddered violently at the mere though and put on another burst of speed. Finally reaching the hedge at a trot that showed evidence of a slight limp and a persistent stumble.

The girl stared up at the hedge, in her current state it seemed she impossible for her to climb; even if she’d been experienced in such acrobatic feats, which she was most definitely not. Luckily for her, climbing was not nearly her only option to bypass this obstacle. The wand appeared in her hand once more and she pointed it down between her feet, she muttered a couple of magic words and suddenly it emitted a small spray of silvery blue stars. In total defiance of the commonly held principles of action and reaction, the jet of spark served to lift her off her feet and into a great arc over the hedge and down to a landing with a soft thump on the hard tarmac pavement on the other side. She glanced back at the way she came; doubtless her father would be alerted now she had breached the manor’s outer wards but that was alright: she’d be able to escape now.

Out of a side pocket of her backpack, she pulled out an old yellowing sheet of paper; taken from one of the manor library’s archives. It was about four or five years old and the reason she had taken it was the black and white picture printed with the main article. It showed a slightly plump woman standing in front of a ramshackle house apparently berating the unfortunate camera man vociferously. The girl started at the picture; concentrating on the lines and appearance of the house with careful deliberation.

Everything went back for a second. Then there was a faint popping in her ears and she opened her eyes.

Everything had changed and she was standing exactly where the photographer must have been. She silently breathed a sigh of relief. She was here. She’d made it. They would help here, they had to. She took a step forward. A high pitched wail rent the air. She stumbled, clapping her hands to her ears. She never saw the one legged man lift his own wand; she only had the vaguest impression of a rushing sound and a flash of red that pierced her squeezed tightly shut eyelids.

There was an Impact. The darkness took her once more.

~ O ~

Harry Potter’s feet slammed into the dusty ground of The Burrow’s backyard but tired as he was he just managed to keep upright, next to him Rubeus Hagrid was not so lucky; the battered half-giant collapsed with a resounding crash. Instantly, Harry found himself approached by two women, a large and anxious Mrs Weasley and smaller slimmer girl; with shoulder length glossy black hair and beautiful grey eyes that were flashing silver in worry. It was, in fact, Pansy Parkinson: a Slytherin girl who had, against all odds, become his girlfriend over the preceding school year. Harry had no idea why or how she could be at The Burrow and he didn’t care. Even as he answered Mrs Weasley’s rapid fire questions and she assured him she was glad he was alright, Pansy engulfed him in a tight hug which he returned; arms wrapping around her neck and pulling her tight, feeling the solid warmth of her body.

“I can’t believe you’re here,” He whispered gratefully into her ear. By way of answer she just squeezed him more tightly.

As they parted from their close embrace, he saw that Mrs Weasley had run off to fetch a bottle of whiskey for Hagrid and the previously unnoticed Ginny Weasley was standing just inside the kitchen door, she did not look as pleased as she might have to see him. Her brown eyes were cold and hard and her lips were a thin white line. It was not surprisingly though, Harry thought after all her father and a good portion of her brothers had still not returned as she was kind enough to inform him pointedly.

For the one moment of happiness and exaltation he felt on finding his girlfriend at hand, Harry paid dearly, after that the blows started falling thick and fast. He was the first to return. He was supposed to have been third. The prior two groups not having made it back at all. The forth group: Lupin and George made it back, minus one of George’s ears but Harry didn’t have time to worry about this because Lupin dragged him off to give him the third degree. Shortly joined by an irate Kingsley Shacklebolt, who joined in a fretful conversation about how the plan had gone wrong, how despite all their precautions Voldemort had known enough to ambush them that night. Slowly the remaining members of the Order trickled in; Mr Weasley, desperate over the condition of his son; Lupin behaving oddly to a returned Tonks, (this at least provided some small comfort to Harry as he watched Hermione greet Ron in much the same why Pansy had greeted him) but the night had been saving its worst blow for last; although Bill and Fleur returned they brought with them news that Mad Eye Moody had been slain by the Dark Lord personally.

The mood plummeted like a boulder through a pond. Mad Eye Moody was a fearsome Ex-auror, heavily scarred but regarded by all as their most formidable member. He had been a symbol of invincibility and now he was gone.

There was clearly only one answer to this: Alcohol.

The firewhisky got passed around and everyone drank to Alastor ‘Mad Eye’ Moody.

That was when things got nasty, Fleur proclaimed that that someone must have leaked the plan intentionally or unintentionally to Voldemort. She was looking at Hagrid when she said this.

Everyone else seemed to be looking at Pansy.

Harry bristled and opened his mouth to object but Pansy was already sticking up for herself.

“Yeah, right guys, I admit it! It was me!” She said, with biting sarcasm, “It was easy, what with the way I haven’t left the house since I got here a month ago. Especially considering the way you put every single thing I brought with me through the secrecy sensors about three times apiece”

Ron, Mr & Mrs Weasley and Tonks at least had the decency to look abashed. The other’s expressions ranged from indifference (From the twins,) concern (from Bill and Lupin) obviousness (Fleur and Hagrid, the former still eying the latter suspiciously) and down right hostility (from the two remaining women: Ginny & Hermione)

“Well, zhere must ‘ave been someone who…” Fleur tried to say but Harry gracelessly cut through her.

“No.” His words seemed harder than usual and floated through out the room with ease, with surprise Harry recognised that he had slipped into his ‘leader’ voice from when he had taught the DA, “There’s no-one in this room, that I don’t trust. No-one here who would sell me to Voldemort. We all have to believe that or we don’t have anything.”

And for a moment he seemed to have complete control over the proceedings, everyone paid listen to him and paid his words heed. Respect seemed to flow around the room, embracing Harry much as Pansy had. Only Remus Lupin seemed to look at him oddly, as though he would have liked to object. The Weasley twins, loyal to a fault, choose the moment he would have spoken to voice their support of Harry, expressed as usual through bad jokes. So the moment and the respect seemed to stretch and linger.

Then Remus announced there was work to be done and the moment shattered. Harry wanted to help but the entire room shouted him down. Even Pansy; who gripped his hand so tightly as though scared he might disappear if she let go. The subject quickly turned to how he’d escaped Voldemort once more but again, no-one wanted to hear what he was saying. He told them that his wand had saved him, acting by itself to destroy Voldemort’s but they tried to contradict him. They hadn’t been there at all but they felt confident enough to tell Harry that he must be mistaken, he must have beaten Voldemort himself. But Harry had been there and he knew what had happened. Any thoughts of a possible counter-argument however were stopped when he felt his head rip apart down the line of his scar. He yelped slightly, setting down his glass and mumbling a barely coherent phrase about needing fresh air.

He burst out back into the yard; the cold air felt like a slap in the face but did nothing to cool his burning brain, he staggered across the courtyard and caught hold of the fence or tried to. Suddenly he was not in the Burrow at all, he was some place entirely and he was torturing the renowned wandmaker, Mr Ollivander.

When he came back to himself he was curled half fetal on the ground, shivering near uncontrollably. Pansy was crouched next to him, gently shaking his shoulder, her face completely pallid.

“Harry? Harry?!” she asked desperately.

“What..? I’m good... I’m fine. Nothing’s wrong.” Harry lied obviously. Then he noticed Ron and Hermione standing over him looking scared but knowing.

“Busted, Harry.” Ron said in a faux jovial tone, as Pansy helped him to his feet again, “What did you see?”

“I saw Ollivander, the wandmaker,” Harry shuddered, “Voldemort was torturing him. He wanted to find out why my wand destroyed his last night,” Hermione tutted here as though she wanted to insist he’d done it himself again, but subsided as Ron laid a hand on her shoulder, “He was using someone else’s wand you see. Ollivander told him it would work but it didn’t it. Ollivander said he didn’t know why but Voldemort… Voldemort doesn’t believe him.”

Harry shuddered violently again and Pansy tried to support him. Hermione was, of course, much too annoyed that Harry had seen anything at all to wonder about the information they had gained.

“But Harry,” she moaned, sounding terrified, “Dumbledore wanted you to close your mind. You’re not supposed to be seeing things, at all! The connection was supposed-”

Pansy rounded on her.

“Leave off, Hermione.” She snapped, “He can’t help it.”

“And what do you know about it?” Hermione retorted, voice snapping like a whip. The tension in the air was suddenly palpable even for the two boys.

“All I know is that Harry’s exhausted.” Pansy said coolly and then tried to mollify Hermione, “You all are. The way you got here… It’s not surprising. He needs to rest. He’s staying in your room Ron? Fine, I’ll take him there.”

And with one arm around him, she gently but firmly led him away. Harry was grateful, the long flight and fight, the seemingly endless tension between everyone, the booze and his scar pains all seemed to melded together in one terribly medley in his head. Every one of his limbs suddenly felt like they were lined with lead. It was a relief that Pansy didn’t expect him to do more than to put one step in front of the other. Her sharp grey eyes seemed to make everyone else shy away as they wound their way through the most populated part of the house, full of Weasleys and members of the Order. They went up several sets of flights of stairs, heading up the familiar, to Harry at least, path to Ron’s room where as always he would have a camp bed.

“I still can’t believe you’re here.” He said to Pansy as they reached the third floor landing and took a break before attempting the next, “How did you get here?”

“I apparated.” She said solemnly, “Didn’t know where you lived of course, but The Burrow’s been in the paper a fair few times. Gave me an idea where to go.”

Befuddled as his tired brain was, Harry realised that she had dodged the real intent of his question but was unable to think how to drag the truth out of her. Instead he smiled gratefully, nodded and they attempted the last flight of stairs up to Ron’s room. Harry’s rucksack with all his stuff had thankfully been moved up early in the evening, perhaps by someone trying to occupy themselves instead of waiting for returning friends. Pansy quickly managed to retrieve his pyjamas from the top of the rucksack and helped him change into them; her soft hands moving with great familiarity over his body. They discarded the travel worn clothes, which had been covered in dust, terror sweat and even blood from where Harry had briefly had a tooth knocked out and pulled him into the pyjamas. Pansy still fussed over him as he collapsed into the camp bed, stroking his dark hair, lovingly.

Harry quickly realised however, that despite the exhaustion weighing down every limb; he was wide awake, unable to let go and sink into sleep for all the terrible thoughts still zooming around the inside of his head. He knew even if he managed it, his sleep would only be full of nightmares. His hand found Pansy’s and squeezed gently.

“Stay with me, please?” he asked. Pansy looked absurdly grateful and sat on the corner of the bed, still her fingers still toying with his hair.

“You do need to sleep, Harry” Pansy said with a smile.

“Can’t,” Harry muttered, embarrassedly, “I keeping thinking about… George and Moody.”

“It wasn’t your fault Harry,” Pansy said softly.

“Wasn’t it? They were only out there to get hurt tonight because of me!” Harry said, and then seemed, “Well not for me. For the boy-who-lived, the bloody chosen one.”

Pansy sighed but seemed to have idea. She quickly kicked off her shoes.

“Move over a bit, Harry, onto your side.” She quietly instructed as she slipped under the covers behind him. He felt her warm body push against his back as one her arms moved under his to hug him securely.

“This is nice.” Harry said slowly, luxuriating in the closeness of Pansy’s body.

“It is.” Pansy agreed, her lips nearly brushing against the back if his ear, “I don’t know ‘The-Boy-Who-Lived’ Harry. I’m betting George and Moody went out there tonight for the same reason I fell for you, because you are an amazingly kind, fair and good man who doesn’t deserve to suffer.”

And when she said it; with him nestled in her curves of her body, Harry could almost believe it and safe within her arms, he managed to sink in a deep and dreamless sleep.

~ O ~

The next morning, Harry began to stir but was still so drowsy and so comfortable that he didn’t want to get up at all; he just lay as still as possible as light began to pour through Ron’s window, listening to Pansy’s soft breathing and feeling it against the back of his neck. Such simple pleasure’s never seemed to last for him though and this one was broken when there was a slight gasp from the doorway and Harry’s eyes flickered to the door way long enough to catch a glimpse of a frowning Mrs Weasley, before, with a distinct 'tut-tut' noise, she shut the door which seemed to snap as it closed, loudly enough that both Pansy and even Ron, who was notoriously a heavy sleeper, were woken.

“wazzat?” said Ron, sleepily rubbing his eyes and sitting up.

“Umm.. your mum, I think.” Harry replied, still rather confused.

“Well what did she want?” said Ron, sounding as though he thought Harry was being deliberately obtuse.

“I don’t know, I just saw her closing the door again. She didn’t look Happy.”

Ron looked from Harry to Pansy, who had herself just sat up, and chortled.

“Oh I wonder why, Harry? Mum doesn’t like the idea of hanky-panky in the house. Well not unless you’re married of course.”

“Hanky-panky?” Harry said, incredulously, but Ron was too busy laughing at the look on his face to be embarrassed. “But we didn’t do anything! Look! Still fully dressed, mate!” He spread his arms and showed off his pyjamas.

“Good thing to,” said Ron, with a funny look on his face, “I don’t want to wake up to that sort of thing, you know.”

“Don’t worry, Ron,” said Pansy, entering the conversation with a wicked grin spreading across her face, “I’m reasonably sure you’d sleep through it.”

Harry spluttered loudly and went bright red, recalling an escapade in the hospital wing where they’d counted on him doing exactly that. Ron thankfully either did not realise something was amiss or was considerate enough not to mention it.

“Well if it was up to me, Harry,” he said, shrugging, “I’d’ve found somewhere else to sleep and you two could sleep up here but Mum, insisted Pansy slept in Ginny’s room along with Hermione.”

“And with one eye open.” Pansy muttered, darkly. Harry shot a surprised look at Ron over this but got one back that clearly said ‘Girls, right?’

“Anyway, you better look out for Mum, Harry. She’s been cornering us and trying to force us to tell her what we’re going to be doing instead of going back to Hogwarts. We’ve managed not to let anything slip but she’s sure to try you too.”

“It wasn’t hard,” Pansy said, still with a slight edge to her voice, “I don’t actually know anything to let slip.”

“Well she shouldn’t should she?” said Hermione, a couple of days later when Harry had repeated this phrase to her.

Mrs Weasley had been as bad as Ron had said, attempting the grill Harry in the scullery over a sock. Harry had firmly told her that it was a mission Dumbledore had wanted him to see to in secret and that he couldn’t share any details with her at all. Although she had seemed to take it well; her mood had done an abrupt shift to the pleasant but over the next few days and she managed to find enough wedding work to occupy all four of them, separately. For whatever reason she also seemed to take special care to make sure that Harry and Pansy were always separated even if it made it more like he and Ron or Hermione, the actually conspirators could talk. So Harry had barely been able to exchange smiles with his girlfriend, let alone kisses.

They were in Ron’s room, which Ron was supposed to be tidying, Harry and Hermione had been able to escape from their jobs, which had been not needed in Harry’s case and already accomplished in Hermione’s and were talking about recent events, the death of Mad-Eye Moody and their coming quest. Harry had been meaning to ask them whether they really wanted to come with him on the horcrux hunt but he hadn’t, firstly because they’d have just ignored him as usual and second because he pretty much had to take Pansy with him, and he couldn’t think of a graceful way to deny his friends the same opportunity and still take her.

“It’s going to be hard not to tell her, when we’re out there looking for them is it?” Harry said in what he hoped was a calm reasonable tone. Predictably, Hermione exploded.

“You’re not bringing her with us are you?” she said sharply.

“I thought we’d been over this already,” said Harry angrily, “I’ve got to. What else is she going to do? Go back to Hogwarts and live alongside a bunch of Slytherins who know I care about her? How long would she last there?”

“Well we can’t take her with us. Dumbledore, gave us the mission Harry. Not Pansy.” Hermione retorted.

“It not like Dumbledore didn’t know about her, Hermione.” Harry said.

“Oh really?” She said scathingly, “Dumbledore told you to trust the girl on the basis you’d been casually screwing her all that year, did he?”

Harry’s green eyes became slits as he fought with his temper. Why did Hermione have to make this so damn hard?

“Not in so many words, no.” He growled. Ron was looking between the two of them, trying to figure out how to calm them down. It looked, to Harry, as if Ron wanted to agree with him, but since his new policy towards flirting with Hermione amounted to ‘must not ever contradict her, ever’ he was a bit stuck, “Dumbledore told me that he couldn’t tell me who I should trust but that I should trust my own judgement.”

That was overstating the truth, Dumbledore’s advice at been more along the lines of; “I’m not saying that you can’t trust her, its just that you can’t trust her.” But there was no way he was going to give Hermione, more ammunition to use against him.

Luckily he was saved in that instant by the arrival of a furious Mrs Weasley, who had never looked more like a sabre-tooth tiger to Harry than she did then but as the trio hurriedly moved through the house to start sorting wedding presents, Hermione shot Harry a look that clearly told him their argument had merely been postponed to a later date…

[End notes: Thanks for reading this far! Please Review, I'd like to hear what you are thinking!]