Pansy had always known her fate. It was stitched into the seams of every dress her mother had ever forced her to wear, written in the way her father glanced over the Prophet with a scotch in hand and said things like “He’s from the Selwyn line. You’d do well to charm him.”

It was in the way her hair was brushed, in the pureblood dinners, in the expectation that one day she’d marry a fine man—a proper man, with a family tree older than God and eyes like ancient coins.

She never questioned it. Because to question something meant you believed you had a choice. And Pansy hadn’t felt like a girl with choices since she was four years old and told to keep her chin up and her voice down.

But fate, however well-handcrafted, rarely held up against what the universe built with its bare, chaotic hands. Like you.

You, who had shared her bedroom since you were eleven, who had seen her cry without eyeliner, who had laughed at her dramatics and bandaged her knuckles after she punched a wall out of heartbreak in fifth year. You, who sat with her under the Common Room arch after curfew, legs tangled in wool blankets, drunk off firewhisky and teenage disillusionment. You, who held her secrets without judgment, and your own even tighter.

And it was you, wasn’t it—always you—who had made her ruin everything.

That night was supposed to be nothing. A borrowed joint from Theo, a joke between girls, smoke curling into dark velvet curtains. Your laugh in the quiet dormitory, your lips pink and a little bitten from the cold. You’d passed the joint back to her with a wink, and she’d said something stupid, something dry, something meant to distract from the way her fingers shook.

And then she’d kissed you.

It wasn’t even planned. Merlin, it never would’ve happened if she’d thought about it. But your lips were soft, warm from laughter and weed, and you’d kissed her back. You’d leaned in like it meant something—like you’d been waiting.

But then came the silence.

Days of it. Five, to be exact. Five days of you pretending it never happened. Of you brushing past her in the shared bathroom. Five days of her heart bruising against her ribcage every time you smiled and didn’t look at her the way she needed.

She was unraveling by the fifth.

So when the others left for dinner early that evening, when the dormitory settled into the hush of low candlelight and drawn curtains, Pansy sat on her bed, legs crossed, arms stiff around her stomach, and called your name.

Her voice was tight, as if stretched too thin over too many emotions. “Are you ashamed of it?”

You blinked at her from across the room, a cardigan half-on, your head tilted like you hadn’t heard her properly.

“The kiss,” she clarified, eyes narrow but not cruel. Never cruel with you. “Did it disgust you? Was it… wrong? Because it was me? Because I’m—” her voice faltered, and that in itself felt like a betrayal of her own making.

She swallowed hard. Looked down. Picked at a thread in her sleeve.

“I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it,” she admitted, voice low now, barely more than breath. “About you. Your mouth. The way you looked at me right before.” She looked up, grey eyes too honest for her own liking. “I think about kissing you again. Constantly.”

The words were brittle and terrifying.

Pansy had always been the girl meant to marry well. But what did that mean, really, when her skin still buzzed where you’d touched her? When the only person who made her feel seen had been sleeping four feet away for seven years?

So she sat there, proud posture cracking just slightly, looking at you as if waiting to be condemned. Voice quiet, face unreadable, but hands clenched in the duvet like it might save her from drowning.

“Just tell me,” she said finally. “Tell me if I disgust you. So I can stop hoping you’ll kiss me again.”