Garden of Sun and Tears Chapter Two
Nov. 20th, 2005 04:27 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
why_me_why_notTitle: Garden of Sun and Tears: Chapter Two
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
why_me_why_not
Rating: I'll say PG for now, though nothing actually happens yet. Future chapters will be R or NC-17, for character death, implied violence, and sexuality.
Pairing: Ron/Pansy
Summary: Time passes as it always does, War or not.
A/N: Thanks is due my lovely betas,ltlredhairdgirl and mimiheart, as always. Special thanks goes to ltlredhairdgirl for the inspiration of the pink elephants.
Previous Chapters can be found here.
“I brought you some of your things from the Manor,” Ron said, walking into the living room and sitting down in a chair across from Pansy.
“Really?” She looked up, her eyes bright with excitement. She smiled at him, the first genuine smile he’d seen from her since he had brought her here a little over a week ago. He rather liked it.
“Yeah,” he answered, warmed by her enthusiasm. “I couldn’t get much because I was working on a tight timeframe.” He deliberately left out that if he had been caught at the Manor, his job would have been in jeopardy, especially if he had been caught taking items out of a room no one else knew about. “I put the stuff upstairs in your room. Except for this.” He reached inside his robes and pulled out a stuffed pink elephant.
“Bona!” she exclaimed, reaching for the animal and hugging it close. “Thanks, Ron!”
It was the first time she had ever called him by his first name. He liked the way it sounded, and found himself blushing slightly at the implied intimacy of it. “I have a question, though… Why pink elephants?” Besides the stuffed toy, it was obvious that pink elephants were a prominent theme in Pansy’s dungeon. Even several articles of the clothing he had picked up had the animals on them.
Pansy glanced at him shyly, a secretive smile on her lips. “Well, once, when Draco and I were younger, we snuck off from Diagon Alley when we were shopping with our mothers. We managed to get into Muggle London and there was this center with all these children there … it was almost like a school, but they weren’t really learning anything. They were watching … this black box with moving pictures. Not like wizarding photographs; it was more like someone had drawn a story and brought it to life! It was amazing!”
“You and Malfoy snuck into London and watched a Muggle cartoon?” Ron interrupted, disbelief evident in his tone.
Pansy’s smile disappeared as quickly as it had come. “I should have known better than to try and tell you anything, Weasley,” she muttered, turning away from him.
Ron cursed himself for his inability to filter the words between his brain and his lips, a curse he’d always been afflicted with. He leaned closer to Pansy, almost reaching out to touch her arm to get her attention, but pulling back at the last moment. He remembered how she always seemed to be afraid to be touched. “Pansy,” he said softly, waiting for her to look to him before continuing. “I didn’t mean anything by it. I was just surprised, okay? You have to admit, you and Malfoy doing anything Muggle is pretty hard to imagine, especially since we didn’t exactly know each other when we were younger.”
Pansy nodded her head slightly in acknowledgement but didn’t say anything.
“So, tell me about the cartoon?” he asked, giving her his most earnest look.
She gave him a half-grin before looking away. “Well, there was this elephant with huge ears, and he had a mouse friend that went with him everywhere, and they lived in the circus. At one point, they were drinking something I assumed to be wine and they apparently got tipsy—can you imagine? Tipsy animals! Muggles certainly are strange!” She was shaking her head at the thought. “Anyway, they started hallucinating and seeing all kinds of elephants of different colors, and there was a song that was something along the lines of ‘Pink Elephants on Parade.’ I had so much fun that day!” Her eyes were glittering with the happiness of the memory, and she looked back at Ron before adding in a conspiratorial whisper, “Pink elephants have been my secret obsession ever since.”
Ron smiled, sitting back in his chair. He had a feeling Pansy’s secret obsession really was a secret, probably known only to Draco and maybe her former Hogwarts roommates. He couldn’t explain why it felt satisfying to have her confide in him, but it did. “So, what’s this fellow’s name, then?” he asked, indicating the stuffed toy Pansy was still cuddling.
“Bona,” Pansy replied. “Her name is Bona. Draco bought her for me after …” her voice trailed off softly and the light in her eyes disappeared. “After I came to the Manor,” she finished in a low tone.
Ron opened his mouth to respond, but before he could speak Pansy abruptly stood up.
“I’m going to wash up for dinner,” she told him quietly, before walking out of the room.
Ron stifled the urge to hit something as he watched her walk up the stairs. He hated not knowing what had gone on with Pansy, hated not being able to comfort her, but most of all he hated not being able to fix it. There were very few things he couldn't fix, either directly or with the help of his friends and family. But Pansy … whatever she had gone through, she wasn’t telling. It had left a mark on her soul, though, and it was keeping Ron up at night.
Ron had grown up a lot since graduating from Hogwarts. His work with Draco and Blaise had shown him a different side of the Slytherins. They were people, too, with lives and hobbies and dreams and friends. Ron didn’t know what had happened to Pansy, and despite everything, he wasn’t sure he wanted to know. Although, if it had happened to Ginny, or Hermione, or Luna … well, Ron would have hunted someone down, and Harry, Neville, and his assortment of brothers would have helped him.
Pansy only had Draco. Draco had done what he thought was right. He had done what he could to protect Pansy and still keep his spy status under wraps. Not that it mattered now, since Draco’s true loyalty had been exposed and, because of this, he would be on restricted duties even after he recovered from his injuries. Draco had killed Pansy’s father, had said he deserved it. Obviously, the man had something to do with what had happened to his daughter. The thought boggled Ron’s mind, but then again, the actions of most Death Eaters would do that. How could a parent not love their child enough to protect them at all costs?
Whatever had happened to Pansy, she refused to let anyone touch her. A few days after Pansy had first come to the Burrow, Molly had met Ron at the door in tears. She couldn’t stand the idea that the girl recoiled from her touch. Molly had always been very affectionate with all her children and with all their friends. When Pansy was helping her around the house or in the garden, Molly wanted to pat her on the back, offer her a hug, or demonstrate any of the dozens of small gestures she showed her own children, but Pansy jumped at the slightest touch, her eyes going wide and her breathing becoming ragged. Molly cried for the nightmarish memories that plagued Pansy, her heart breaking as it went out to the young woman. Ron felt guilty that this was another thing he couldn’t fix: his mother’s heart.
With a sigh, Ron stood up and made his way into the kitchen, automatically going to the cupboard to pull out the dishes to set the table. Molly didn’t comment on the fact her son had been at the Burrow for dinner every night since Pansy had arrived, but she did take note of the fact. Instead, she asked about his day, and he helped her put the finishing touches on the meal as he told her about the latest workings of his department. Molly was the confidante of all her children; she probably knew more than most Ministry officials. She was the center of a world that extended beyond her immediate family, an integral part in holding the Order itself together.
Ron and Molly had just finished placing the last dish on the table when Pansy entered the kitchen from upstairs and Arthur called a greeting as he came in the front door. The four of them settled down to eat, the conversation carried mostly by the older Weasleys, though the atmosphere was decidedly less tense than it had been at the beginning.
After dinner, Ron excused himself instead of staying for the evening like he had been doing. He needed to talk to Draco.
“Weasley.” Draco nodded by way of greeting when Ron walked into the library of Nivalis Home.
“Malfoy,” Ron returned, crossing the room to drop into a chair by the fireplace. “How’s the recovery?”
“Slow.” Draco closed the book he had been reading and set it down beside him. “How’s Pansy?”
“She’s settling in okay. She’s been helping Mum in the garden, staying busy. She has gone through almost all the books we have in the Burrow, though. I’m sure you know what she likes; can you recommend some books for me to take to her? Maybe there’s something here in the Nivalis library?”
Draco laughed. “Pansy’s got quite an appetite for books. She went through everything we had in the Malfoy library … but, of course, there wasn’t much else for her to do. I doubt there’s anything here she hasn’t read. I’ll make a list for you to order through Owl Post. Some books and some other things for her too.”
Ron hesitated before saying quickly, “I got some of her things from Malfoy Manor.”
Draco’s eyes narrowed as he studied Ron. “The Ministry has finished their investigation, then?”
“Well, no, but…” Ron looked away as his words trailed off.
“Damnit, Weasley!” Draco voice was raised and exasperated. No doubt he would have jumped up and started yelling if he had been fully recovered. “What the hell are you playing at? If you would have been caught, you would have been sacked and probably put on trial! There’s nothing there that can’t be replaced! Why, in the name of Merlin—“
“She needed her own things, Malfoy,” Ron said calmly.
“I would have bought her new ones!”
“She needs the old ones; it’s a form of security for her. And I didn’t tell you this so that you could yell at me.”
“Then why are you telling me?”
“Because that’s what friends do. If I were to go by Harry’s flat and borrow his favorite set of dress robes, or eat the last piece of chocolate caramel cheesecake in his fridge, I’d leave him a note. So I’m telling you that I went into your home and retrieved some of Pansy’s things.” He waited a minute, studying Malfoy, before repeating, “That’s what friends do, Malfoy.”
Draco sat silently for a moment. “Did you get her elephant?”
“Bona? Yes, I did. I reckoned it must be important to her. Turns out I was right.”
The look that passed between them was acknowledgement that Pansy had told Ron the significance of the pink elephants, but not the one of Bona in particular.
Draco nodded slightly before changing the subject. “So, going by Potter’s and raiding his food is something you do regularly?”
Ron laughed. “Harry’s a good cook, but he sticks mainly to desserts. The cheesecake is one of my favorites. You should ask him to bring you a piece sometime.”
“Potter doesn’t talk to me, in case you haven’t realized. He’s reconciled with Severus. The two of them even work together, but he won’t say two words to me. He’s more likely to turn and walk out of the room if I’m there.”
Ron shook his head. The rivalry between Harry and Draco was still going strong, despite the fact that everyone else had put aside the past and moved on. War changes people, but apparently the war wasn’t enough to erase the tense history between those two particular men.
The next several weeks passed by quickly, with Death Eater activity heavier than ever against members of the Order. There was definitely a spy in their midst, but they had no way of knowing who it was. After the incident with Peter Pettigrew, they all knew it was possible for someone they knew and loved to be a traitor. They also knew, after the incident with Severus Snape, that it was possible for someone they considered a traitor to be the utmost ally.
Ron found he almost forgot what his own flat looked like. He divided most of his time between Nivalis Home and the Burrow, catching odd naps here and there in either place, though sometimes he managed to make it home to his own couch. Ginny tried harder than ever to persuade him to move in to Nivalis Home rather than keep paying rent on a flat in Muggle London that he barely saw, but he refused. The flat was his and his alone. It was a matter of principle – after spending so many years crowded into a house with too many siblings, not enough space, and only one bathroom, he cherished the idea of a place of his own – even if the flat didn’t exactly feel like “home.”
Nivalis Home was full of tension. If the War effort and the threat of a spy wasn’t enough, there was the constant noise of the activity in the house. When the Order had moved into the funeral home to use it as Headquarters, Kreacher had come along with Harry, as well as Dobby. The two bickered constantly, and Kreacher steadfastly refused to serve anyone else in the house other than Harry, while Dobby was happy to oblige any of those that he considered to be Harry’s family. Ginny, entering her last month of pregnancy, was constantly complaining about the restrictions Neville had placed on her. Draco, who had recovered rather well from his injuries, was grievously upset by the orders that he was not allowed to leave Nivalis Home. He took to sitting in the kitchen at odd hours, waiting anxiously for someone to come in so that he could listen to all the details of the engagements he was missing. He was a rather good strategist, which Ron guessed he should have expected from a Slytherin, and was often able to point out changes that could be made to their battle tactics that would be more efficient. Of course, Harry denounced these tactics if they were said to come from Draco, so the others took turns taking credit for them. Ron wondered why everyone thought he was the stubborn one.
At the Burrow, Ron and Pansy started spending the evenings on the back porch or walking around the edges of the Burrow’s property, enjoying the change of seasons as spring gave way to summer. For Ron, all the seasons since the end of Hogwarts had run together. He often failed to pay attention to their passing, but Pansy delighted in pointing out every little change. She took special pride in the blooming of the flowers she had helped Molly plant. Sometimes they would discuss the War, though Pansy didn’t care much for the details as long as they were still fighting, and hopefully winning. More than once, she voiced a concern over the fact Draco wasn’t allowed to come to the Burrow, though she always agreed to the necessity of his staying put. Ron discovered by accident that she was a Chudley Cannons fan. She actually knew quite a bit about Quidditch, so they found common ground there, even if it was only rehashing old games and stats since professional Quidditch had also been a casualty of the drawn-out war. Sometimes, Pansy asked Ron questions about Muggles and the Muggle way of life. She seemed amused by the fact that his flat was in Muggle London and boasted none of the traditional wizarding comforts. Other times, Ron would listen to Pansy’s account of her day, and he learned how to control his laughter at the mishaps she seemed to continually have in the kitchen.
Overall, the two of them had a nice rapport going. They both avoided any mention of their feuds at school, and stayed as far as possible from the subject of Pansy’s experience with the Death Eaters. Ron’s only complaint was that there were far too many times he wanted to touch her, to take her hand, to put his arm around her shoulders, to pull her into a hug the day she finally managed to make a full meal without setting the kitchen ablaze. If she had been Hermione, or Ginny, or Luna … heck, if she had been any other girl in the Order, he would have done it. But every time he got close to her, she gave him that frightened look, and retreated to a place he could not follow. Each time it happened, she excused herself and fled to the safety of her bedroom. Each time it happened, Ron cursed himself for an even bigger fool.
Go to Chapter Three
Author:
why_me_why_notRating: I'll say PG for now, though nothing actually happens yet. Future chapters will be R or NC-17, for character death, implied violence, and sexuality.
Pairing: Ron/Pansy
Summary: Time passes as it always does, War or not.
A/N: Thanks is due my lovely betas,
ltlredhairdgirl and mimiheart, as always. Special thanks goes to ltlredhairdgirl for the inspiration of the pink elephants.Previous Chapters can be found here.
“I brought you some of your things from the Manor,” Ron said, walking into the living room and sitting down in a chair across from Pansy.
“Really?” She looked up, her eyes bright with excitement. She smiled at him, the first genuine smile he’d seen from her since he had brought her here a little over a week ago. He rather liked it.
“Yeah,” he answered, warmed by her enthusiasm. “I couldn’t get much because I was working on a tight timeframe.” He deliberately left out that if he had been caught at the Manor, his job would have been in jeopardy, especially if he had been caught taking items out of a room no one else knew about. “I put the stuff upstairs in your room. Except for this.” He reached inside his robes and pulled out a stuffed pink elephant.
“Bona!” she exclaimed, reaching for the animal and hugging it close. “Thanks, Ron!”
It was the first time she had ever called him by his first name. He liked the way it sounded, and found himself blushing slightly at the implied intimacy of it. “I have a question, though… Why pink elephants?” Besides the stuffed toy, it was obvious that pink elephants were a prominent theme in Pansy’s dungeon. Even several articles of the clothing he had picked up had the animals on them.
Pansy glanced at him shyly, a secretive smile on her lips. “Well, once, when Draco and I were younger, we snuck off from Diagon Alley when we were shopping with our mothers. We managed to get into Muggle London and there was this center with all these children there … it was almost like a school, but they weren’t really learning anything. They were watching … this black box with moving pictures. Not like wizarding photographs; it was more like someone had drawn a story and brought it to life! It was amazing!”
“You and Malfoy snuck into London and watched a Muggle cartoon?” Ron interrupted, disbelief evident in his tone.
Pansy’s smile disappeared as quickly as it had come. “I should have known better than to try and tell you anything, Weasley,” she muttered, turning away from him.
Ron cursed himself for his inability to filter the words between his brain and his lips, a curse he’d always been afflicted with. He leaned closer to Pansy, almost reaching out to touch her arm to get her attention, but pulling back at the last moment. He remembered how she always seemed to be afraid to be touched. “Pansy,” he said softly, waiting for her to look to him before continuing. “I didn’t mean anything by it. I was just surprised, okay? You have to admit, you and Malfoy doing anything Muggle is pretty hard to imagine, especially since we didn’t exactly know each other when we were younger.”
Pansy nodded her head slightly in acknowledgement but didn’t say anything.
“So, tell me about the cartoon?” he asked, giving her his most earnest look.
She gave him a half-grin before looking away. “Well, there was this elephant with huge ears, and he had a mouse friend that went with him everywhere, and they lived in the circus. At one point, they were drinking something I assumed to be wine and they apparently got tipsy—can you imagine? Tipsy animals! Muggles certainly are strange!” She was shaking her head at the thought. “Anyway, they started hallucinating and seeing all kinds of elephants of different colors, and there was a song that was something along the lines of ‘Pink Elephants on Parade.’ I had so much fun that day!” Her eyes were glittering with the happiness of the memory, and she looked back at Ron before adding in a conspiratorial whisper, “Pink elephants have been my secret obsession ever since.”
Ron smiled, sitting back in his chair. He had a feeling Pansy’s secret obsession really was a secret, probably known only to Draco and maybe her former Hogwarts roommates. He couldn’t explain why it felt satisfying to have her confide in him, but it did. “So, what’s this fellow’s name, then?” he asked, indicating the stuffed toy Pansy was still cuddling.
“Bona,” Pansy replied. “Her name is Bona. Draco bought her for me after …” her voice trailed off softly and the light in her eyes disappeared. “After I came to the Manor,” she finished in a low tone.
Ron opened his mouth to respond, but before he could speak Pansy abruptly stood up.
“I’m going to wash up for dinner,” she told him quietly, before walking out of the room.
Ron stifled the urge to hit something as he watched her walk up the stairs. He hated not knowing what had gone on with Pansy, hated not being able to comfort her, but most of all he hated not being able to fix it. There were very few things he couldn't fix, either directly or with the help of his friends and family. But Pansy … whatever she had gone through, she wasn’t telling. It had left a mark on her soul, though, and it was keeping Ron up at night.
Ron had grown up a lot since graduating from Hogwarts. His work with Draco and Blaise had shown him a different side of the Slytherins. They were people, too, with lives and hobbies and dreams and friends. Ron didn’t know what had happened to Pansy, and despite everything, he wasn’t sure he wanted to know. Although, if it had happened to Ginny, or Hermione, or Luna … well, Ron would have hunted someone down, and Harry, Neville, and his assortment of brothers would have helped him.
Pansy only had Draco. Draco had done what he thought was right. He had done what he could to protect Pansy and still keep his spy status under wraps. Not that it mattered now, since Draco’s true loyalty had been exposed and, because of this, he would be on restricted duties even after he recovered from his injuries. Draco had killed Pansy’s father, had said he deserved it. Obviously, the man had something to do with what had happened to his daughter. The thought boggled Ron’s mind, but then again, the actions of most Death Eaters would do that. How could a parent not love their child enough to protect them at all costs?
Whatever had happened to Pansy, she refused to let anyone touch her. A few days after Pansy had first come to the Burrow, Molly had met Ron at the door in tears. She couldn’t stand the idea that the girl recoiled from her touch. Molly had always been very affectionate with all her children and with all their friends. When Pansy was helping her around the house or in the garden, Molly wanted to pat her on the back, offer her a hug, or demonstrate any of the dozens of small gestures she showed her own children, but Pansy jumped at the slightest touch, her eyes going wide and her breathing becoming ragged. Molly cried for the nightmarish memories that plagued Pansy, her heart breaking as it went out to the young woman. Ron felt guilty that this was another thing he couldn’t fix: his mother’s heart.
With a sigh, Ron stood up and made his way into the kitchen, automatically going to the cupboard to pull out the dishes to set the table. Molly didn’t comment on the fact her son had been at the Burrow for dinner every night since Pansy had arrived, but she did take note of the fact. Instead, she asked about his day, and he helped her put the finishing touches on the meal as he told her about the latest workings of his department. Molly was the confidante of all her children; she probably knew more than most Ministry officials. She was the center of a world that extended beyond her immediate family, an integral part in holding the Order itself together.
Ron and Molly had just finished placing the last dish on the table when Pansy entered the kitchen from upstairs and Arthur called a greeting as he came in the front door. The four of them settled down to eat, the conversation carried mostly by the older Weasleys, though the atmosphere was decidedly less tense than it had been at the beginning.
After dinner, Ron excused himself instead of staying for the evening like he had been doing. He needed to talk to Draco.
“Weasley.” Draco nodded by way of greeting when Ron walked into the library of Nivalis Home.
“Malfoy,” Ron returned, crossing the room to drop into a chair by the fireplace. “How’s the recovery?”
“Slow.” Draco closed the book he had been reading and set it down beside him. “How’s Pansy?”
“She’s settling in okay. She’s been helping Mum in the garden, staying busy. She has gone through almost all the books we have in the Burrow, though. I’m sure you know what she likes; can you recommend some books for me to take to her? Maybe there’s something here in the Nivalis library?”
Draco laughed. “Pansy’s got quite an appetite for books. She went through everything we had in the Malfoy library … but, of course, there wasn’t much else for her to do. I doubt there’s anything here she hasn’t read. I’ll make a list for you to order through Owl Post. Some books and some other things for her too.”
Ron hesitated before saying quickly, “I got some of her things from Malfoy Manor.”
Draco’s eyes narrowed as he studied Ron. “The Ministry has finished their investigation, then?”
“Well, no, but…” Ron looked away as his words trailed off.
“Damnit, Weasley!” Draco voice was raised and exasperated. No doubt he would have jumped up and started yelling if he had been fully recovered. “What the hell are you playing at? If you would have been caught, you would have been sacked and probably put on trial! There’s nothing there that can’t be replaced! Why, in the name of Merlin—“
“She needed her own things, Malfoy,” Ron said calmly.
“I would have bought her new ones!”
“She needs the old ones; it’s a form of security for her. And I didn’t tell you this so that you could yell at me.”
“Then why are you telling me?”
“Because that’s what friends do. If I were to go by Harry’s flat and borrow his favorite set of dress robes, or eat the last piece of chocolate caramel cheesecake in his fridge, I’d leave him a note. So I’m telling you that I went into your home and retrieved some of Pansy’s things.” He waited a minute, studying Malfoy, before repeating, “That’s what friends do, Malfoy.”
Draco sat silently for a moment. “Did you get her elephant?”
“Bona? Yes, I did. I reckoned it must be important to her. Turns out I was right.”
The look that passed between them was acknowledgement that Pansy had told Ron the significance of the pink elephants, but not the one of Bona in particular.
Draco nodded slightly before changing the subject. “So, going by Potter’s and raiding his food is something you do regularly?”
Ron laughed. “Harry’s a good cook, but he sticks mainly to desserts. The cheesecake is one of my favorites. You should ask him to bring you a piece sometime.”
“Potter doesn’t talk to me, in case you haven’t realized. He’s reconciled with Severus. The two of them even work together, but he won’t say two words to me. He’s more likely to turn and walk out of the room if I’m there.”
Ron shook his head. The rivalry between Harry and Draco was still going strong, despite the fact that everyone else had put aside the past and moved on. War changes people, but apparently the war wasn’t enough to erase the tense history between those two particular men.
The next several weeks passed by quickly, with Death Eater activity heavier than ever against members of the Order. There was definitely a spy in their midst, but they had no way of knowing who it was. After the incident with Peter Pettigrew, they all knew it was possible for someone they knew and loved to be a traitor. They also knew, after the incident with Severus Snape, that it was possible for someone they considered a traitor to be the utmost ally.
Ron found he almost forgot what his own flat looked like. He divided most of his time between Nivalis Home and the Burrow, catching odd naps here and there in either place, though sometimes he managed to make it home to his own couch. Ginny tried harder than ever to persuade him to move in to Nivalis Home rather than keep paying rent on a flat in Muggle London that he barely saw, but he refused. The flat was his and his alone. It was a matter of principle – after spending so many years crowded into a house with too many siblings, not enough space, and only one bathroom, he cherished the idea of a place of his own – even if the flat didn’t exactly feel like “home.”
Nivalis Home was full of tension. If the War effort and the threat of a spy wasn’t enough, there was the constant noise of the activity in the house. When the Order had moved into the funeral home to use it as Headquarters, Kreacher had come along with Harry, as well as Dobby. The two bickered constantly, and Kreacher steadfastly refused to serve anyone else in the house other than Harry, while Dobby was happy to oblige any of those that he considered to be Harry’s family. Ginny, entering her last month of pregnancy, was constantly complaining about the restrictions Neville had placed on her. Draco, who had recovered rather well from his injuries, was grievously upset by the orders that he was not allowed to leave Nivalis Home. He took to sitting in the kitchen at odd hours, waiting anxiously for someone to come in so that he could listen to all the details of the engagements he was missing. He was a rather good strategist, which Ron guessed he should have expected from a Slytherin, and was often able to point out changes that could be made to their battle tactics that would be more efficient. Of course, Harry denounced these tactics if they were said to come from Draco, so the others took turns taking credit for them. Ron wondered why everyone thought he was the stubborn one.
At the Burrow, Ron and Pansy started spending the evenings on the back porch or walking around the edges of the Burrow’s property, enjoying the change of seasons as spring gave way to summer. For Ron, all the seasons since the end of Hogwarts had run together. He often failed to pay attention to their passing, but Pansy delighted in pointing out every little change. She took special pride in the blooming of the flowers she had helped Molly plant. Sometimes they would discuss the War, though Pansy didn’t care much for the details as long as they were still fighting, and hopefully winning. More than once, she voiced a concern over the fact Draco wasn’t allowed to come to the Burrow, though she always agreed to the necessity of his staying put. Ron discovered by accident that she was a Chudley Cannons fan. She actually knew quite a bit about Quidditch, so they found common ground there, even if it was only rehashing old games and stats since professional Quidditch had also been a casualty of the drawn-out war. Sometimes, Pansy asked Ron questions about Muggles and the Muggle way of life. She seemed amused by the fact that his flat was in Muggle London and boasted none of the traditional wizarding comforts. Other times, Ron would listen to Pansy’s account of her day, and he learned how to control his laughter at the mishaps she seemed to continually have in the kitchen.
Overall, the two of them had a nice rapport going. They both avoided any mention of their feuds at school, and stayed as far as possible from the subject of Pansy’s experience with the Death Eaters. Ron’s only complaint was that there were far too many times he wanted to touch her, to take her hand, to put his arm around her shoulders, to pull her into a hug the day she finally managed to make a full meal without setting the kitchen ablaze. If she had been Hermione, or Ginny, or Luna … heck, if she had been any other girl in the Order, he would have done it. But every time he got close to her, she gave him that frightened look, and retreated to a place he could not follow. Each time it happened, she excused herself and fled to the safety of her bedroom. Each time it happened, Ron cursed himself for an even bigger fool.
Go to Chapter Three
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-12-05 10:39 pm (UTC)LOL. Priceless.
Whee! I'm tickled pink that you use the name I suggest (Bona) *g*