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if there was anything more piercing about blaise zabini than his gaze, it was his laughter, the authentic laughter reserved for extreme excitement. or extreme GRIEF. it rings through the wake of the latter now, hollow and yet obese all at once, echoing through the space and consuming him raw. but it’s evident when it ends that this is not a cry for celebration. it’s a call to arms. “ piss off, pansy, with all o’ tha’ bullocks! you shouldn’t'a done tha’, blaise! you shouldn’t'a done this, blaise! ya shouldn’t love me, blaise! ya shouldn’t follow me to the ends of this bloody earth! and i’s my fault, yeah? for LETTING myself love you? please, pansy, let’s get this straight. i didn’t LET myself do anything, and if i could turn it off, i'da done it a week ago, but i can’t, so you can take all this - self-deprecating bullshit to someone else because it ain’t me. i CHOSE you, but i didn’t choose to love you. trust that there’s a difference. either way, don’t you dare stand there and blame me, and don’t you DARE stand there and try and make me believe that you don’t deserve it or that i could'a done better because that’s not me. that’s not even you! that’s everyone else! that’s draco and that’s ya parents and that’s - whoever else told you that you weren’t enough or just a little off or not quite there. because you were ENOUGH FOR ME. and i’m not everyone else, so don’t try and blame me.”

and the anger is a firecracker, quick to explode and just as quick to fizzle out, his flexing muscles and grinding teeth slowing with as much as haste as they’d intensified. because he hates being angry. he hates being VULNERABLE. he hates feeling as though all he’d ever put forth for these people were things he himself hadn’t chosen. and he wants to kiss her because it’s common knowledge, even amongst THEIR sort, that this is what you’re SUPPOSED to do in an argument. that is how you end it. that is how you WIN. that is how you get the girl. and he takes a step forward but then takes two steps back because blaise zabini is not a fucking cliche, and he doesn’t want to win because he shouldn’t HAVE TO COMPETE. and so instead he takes his seat again, closing his eyes and laying his head back, allowing that rage to drain from his chest and clear his airway. even so, he is acutely aware of her movements, perceptive to dissipation of proximity between them and only FULLY relaxed when she takes a seat. and he tells himself it shouldn’t be this hard. then he tells himself it wouldn’t be worth it if it wasn’t. and that’s to assume that there is still something to be SALVAGED.

          at this point, she’s about ready to give up. her nostrils flare and they burn and she blinks a couple of times because he’s angry and she’s confused –– and it’s never a good combination between them. and of course she should have known that he’d STOP loving her if he could, because who would choose to love her when they could love someone else? she turns to the sofa and observes the upholstery with a detached sort of interest, tries to swallow every sentimental retort gushing out from that part of her that refuses to be cold and cynical and all the things she’s brought up to be, like blood pouring out from an open wound. nothing she can say can fix this. nothing she can do can make it better. she might as well stop trying now, cut her losses and run back to the relative safety of her own wretchedness. 

          she wants to tell him she wasn’t playing at anything, and more than hurting him what she really wanted was to protect herself. she’d been wearing her heart on her sleeve too much as of late that it’s become an easy target. certainly, it’s been battered enough the past few days that she didn’t think it could take any more. they’ve reached a stalemate –– that much was obvious. they both ran into the walls they built around themselves, and there’s really nothing else to do but turn around and walk away. she pulls at a loose thread on the sofa so hard that it snaps, and turns to face him. “if you’re not moving then i will, because i can’t do this.” it was too hard. all she really wanted was for something real to hold on to, and draco gave her some semblance of that before he started to slip away. she can’t be sorry for that, no matter how much it hurts sometimes. no matter how much she’s grown to resent him. even now that she knows how blaise feels, she’s still not sorry. she may have apologized for unknowingly hurting him, for not recognizing his actions for what they were, but she won’t be sorry for her affections and where they lay. things might change sooner or later, and part of her wants to try to change them, but there’s now and there’s the truth, and the last thing she wants is to be responsible for his suffering when he cares about him.

Harry Potter Spells

hp names + flower meanings

↳ pansy parkinson

there’s a moment, JUST a moment, of gentle calm where he allows his demeanor to shift into a man his mother would be proud of, a man his mother would love enough to MURDER when she’s had her fill. his eyes gleam with an uncharacteristic bout of emotion, lips twisting into this sweet smile no one could ever say they’d laid eyes upon. but pansy has a lot of privileges that others could NEVER claim to have. he isn’t surprised.

“ ah, right, of course. because you and draco malfoy are the only ones who get to have pity parties. because shutting me out the ONE time i admit to feeling SOMETHING is perfectly fine. after - after everything i’ve - ” putting his hands up and dropping his eyes as though he’d walked in on a compromising position, he steps back and shakes his head. “ apologies, pansy. the thing is…” his movements change once more, coming to attention with fingers stroking his chin. “ you see, i’ve TRIED to make everything about you. i’ve been trying really bloody hard to make it all about you. all of it. and i tried to protect you.” the laugh is bitter, acidic, burning his throat and making him ILL with shame. “ i would have done anything to keep you from getting hurt. and i knew that if i couldn’t, i had to at LEAST protect you from yourself… and from me. and you didn’t let me because you assumed i was hiding something from you when in reality i was hiding YOU from something like this. and…”

            “no, blaise. that is NOT what i’m getting at. but i have no idea, no idea what to do. you walked away ANGRY the last time, and i couldn’t just pretend that didn’t happen. had i not distanced myself, had i APPROACHED you –– what would you have done? you’d have pushed me away!” her voice shook with conviction, hands balling into fists at her sides as she matched his imposing height with her anger, with her BRAVADO. it didn’t ease the guilt churning in her gut like butter, nor did it ease the building pressure in her chest, making her feel like she’s about to COMBUST into a thousand shattering, razor-sharp pieces. the truth is she pushed him away first so he couldn’t do it to her. it was a SELFISH thing to do, but pansy never claimed to be anything else. she’s SICK and TIRED of being left and pushed aside, of being made to feel important only to end up being insignificant, expendable, an option instead of a priority. it was her life’s life’s recurring theme. she’s always the one trailing after the people she loved, fighting for their attention as they focused on other things and never on her. he thinks he’s the only one who’s ever felt that, but he’s wrong. and it’s why she’s struck so hard by the CULPABILITY –– because she’s never meant to make him feel that way, but she ended up doing so ; she ended up being the kind of person she resented. pansy would’ve begged for forgiveness if only her own sense of self-preservation wasn’t so strong, her HUBRIS so overpowering –– but she can’t help the way she’s made. she can’t rewrite her code overnight and repress the all-encompassing urge to put herself first and foremost.

          shutting everyone out seemed like a good place to start –– and she knew it might hurt him, but she hadn’t imagined it to affect him this way. she hadn’t imagined affecting ANYONE the way she seemed to be affecting him, and it stumps her –– this kind of reaction. it stumps her that he loves her, it stumps her how OBVIOUS it is now because she’s never paid attention before. and he’s hurting, she knows that, she’s aware of it because she’s hurting too. “you should’ve told me.” ( i could’ve loved you earlier. we never could’ve gotten here, where there’s too much pain and resentment between us that we can’t seem to move past it anymore. ) “you tried to protect me and now we’re both hurting –– and by god, if anyone needed protecting it would’ve been YOU. you should’ve never let yourself love me. you of all people should’ve known better, blaise.” and it wasn’t strictly because she loved someone else, neither was it because she couldn’t love him. it was because she didn’t deserve HOW he loved her. how it was SELFLESS and PURE and GOOD –– everything she isn’t. for all intents and purposes, pansy will never be deserving of him, and how much she still wants to KEEP HIM despite that only serves to CONFIRM what she already knew. had she been a better person, she’d want to let him go, let him find someone more worthy of what he can offer, someone who can offer something back –– but she’s SELF-SERVING and GREEDY and long CORRUPTED by the evil she grew up with, and she doesn’t want him to go anywhere at all.