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Countess Pansy Parkinson was just passing the entrance to Knockturn Alley, her pockets filled with Shrunken purchases, when she heard something that stopped her in her tracks.
"Let go of me!"
Rage clouded her mind as the adamant words reached her ears. Who dared to touch him? Who dared to cross her?
“Why should I, Harry? Don’t you like it?"
Pansy drew her wand at the first word from the half-blood's lips. It was Miss Cho Chang; she would recognize that simpering, wretched voice anywhere. Before now, Pansy had never spared the Ravenclaw any real attention; in the coming days, weeks, years, Chang would regret getting her particular attention in this way.
There was a reason, after all, that the Sorting Hat placed her in Slytherin even faster than it Sorted Earl Draco Malfoy.
She turned to her left and growled. The sleazy witch blocked most of Earl Harry Potter from view, but she could just see Chang's nearest hand feeling up his arm.
"Let me go!" Harry hissed. “This is your last warning, Chang.”
The sound contained anger and disgust; it was the disgust that pissed Pansy off the most. No pureblood ever needed to worry for their safety when she was around. She didn't care if Chang went around spoiling Mudbloods left and right. But purebloods deserved better than that.
Nothing was more crass than a pureblood’s refusal being ignored.
Chang couldn't have Harry. He was hers!
"Get your hands off him, you filthy half-blood," Pansy spat. The words had a vicious edge to them.
If Harry were less of a gentleman, he would have shoved Chang away from him to escape as soon as she approached him. Pansy wished he had. She would like to see Chang on the ground, at her feet, where she belonged.
Chang glared, but that did nothing to hide the fear in her dark eyes. "Get lost, Parkinson. This is between Harry and I."
“Harry and me,” Pansy corrected automatically. How had Chang gotten into Ravenclaw? Everyone knew she was a bully.
"Don’t correct me!" Chang scoffed. "What do you know? You’re just a stupid—"
Pansy hit Chang with a vicious Stinging Hex, smirking when the witch yelped. Unfortunately, she didn’t move away from Harry in the process. Her filthy hands were still all over him.
Harry was the Potters' only son, and his parents doted on him. What was he doing in Knockturn Alley alone? It was too dangerous! He should have at least brought his godbrother Draco with him. Then again, Harry might have been hauled off into Knockturn Alley from Diagon Alley.
That was more likely than Harry going there without back-up. Harry wasn't stupid. Even for those with Dark Magic, like them, Knockturn could be a perilous place.
“Chang, so help me Mordred—”
“Piss off, Parkinson. Harry and I are going on a Courtship Date together,” Chang spat.
"Mordred would give up Black Magic before that happened," Harry snarled. His glare spewed hatred at Chang.
Ah, it seemed Chang was at the end of Harry’s gentlemanly patience. It wouldn’t surprise Pansy in the least if his magic Blasted Chang down the alleyway or through a storefront. An enraged Potter was ever so vicious.
“You don’t mean that, Harry,” Chang said as she stroked his arm.
This was about to escalate to potentially-fatal proportions. “Chang, back off or I’ll—”
"The pathetic Parkinson Countess. I'm so scared," Chang mocked.
There was nothing pathetic about Pansy Parkinson. She was so far above Chang that it was insulting to have to speak with her. For all that her blood was too distant to claim the title, she was Olde Blood.
"That’s the smartest thing you’ve ever said," Pansy said with dark delight. "After all, I remember my lives."
Chang flinched. She tried to disguise it as shifting her weight, but she failed miserably. "Did you know, filthy half-blood, that I used to be the Dark Lady Gwenore?"
“No,” Chang gasped, hand clenching Harry’s arm tighter as her eyes widened with fear.
"It took me a while to put all of the memories in order, but I succeeded." The ritual to absorb her knowledge from her past lives had been … Pansy didn't know a word in any language to explain it. Excruciating just didn't cover it.
She stared over Chang's shoulder into Harry's eyes. At one point in time, she had described them as "green as an envious witch's heart, when the wizard she cherishes is in another's bed". That was during their fourth lifetime together. Harry's face was present in the memories of all her lives. He had been hers since Mother Magic wove their souls into existence. She was not going to lose him now.
“If you would be so kind as to move to the side, Countess Parkinson,” Harry said, eyes darkening as his magic surged.
“See, Parkinson! I told you he wanted—”
Harry’s magic rolled out of him in a wave of light so opaque it must be tangible. The theory was immediately proven correct when it wrenched Chang away from him and threw her so far down Knockturn Alley that Pansy couldn’t see her anymore. Though she did hear a scream of pain.
It was Knockturn Alley. No one came to investigate Chang’s screams.
"I abhor her," Pansy said, livid at the thought of what might've happened if she hadn't gone shopping and overheard the confrontation.
Chang had been so insistent on sharing a meal with Harry that it wouldn’t have surprised Pansy in the least if the witch had a love potion on her. Pansy would have killed Chang for dosing Harry; then she would have taken him away.
Harry had sworn his entire being to her when they lived in the time of Morgana and Merlin. Chang couldn't have him. No one could. He was hers.
"I’m sorry you had to see that," Harry said. He offered her a tight, uncomfortable smile.
“I will never regret being at your side during conflict, my hertis rote,” Pansy replied without delay.
When he didn't object to the endearment, pleasure tingled along her nerves. Did he remember? Some lives he remembered her from the beginning, and in some he didn't. Pansy preferred the lives where he knew he had sworn himself to her in Morgana's presence.
He always waited for her to come for him. Harry never once sought her out. She had asked him why once, lifetimes ago, and his response still baffled her: I wait for you, because you might tire of me someday. When you don't come for me, I'll know you've moved on.
To this day, she didn’t understand how he could possibly think she would ever tire of him and move on.
A thousand-thousand lifetimes from now, Pansy would still want him in her heart and magic and bed.
Harry straightened, gaze calculating. His eyes glimmered a deep peridot in the sunlight. His ebony hair hung to his shoulders in loose waves, complementing his fair skin. He was fierce, powerful, and never broke a promise he made her. Even after all their lifetimes together, he still made her ache for him. She knew that wouldn't ever change.
“You came for me, culver,” Harry said as he took a step toward her.
Pansy’s heart skipped a beat. It had been much too long since he last called her by her favorite endearment, the one he chose in their third lifetime: dove. She remembered when he breathed it against her bare skin on their bonding night in that lifetime, saying she was his dark culver for she made his heart take flight.
“I always will,” Pansy swore.
His fingertips brushed her face before falling away. Gwenore railed in her head at the loss of contact. Pansy's magic wanted to twine with his, but after what he had just been through, she denied it. She would wait for him to reach out first.
It didn’t take long.
Given the endearment he had used, that meant he remembered her already. And since he did, he was aware that she would never hurt him.
“I missed you, culver,” Harry whispered as he caressed his magic along hers.
"And I you, Harry," Pansy said, savoring the taste of his name on her tongue. It would take a while to get used to it, even though that had been his name for the last eighteen years, because he had so many others in her memories: Harold, Hadrian, Henricus, Humfrey, Hargham, Hemgrave, and, of course, at their beginning he was Hywel.
Her magic rushed out to weave through his. Their combined magic glittered like shadows refracting off broken nightmares. Their magic settled, binding Harry to the Revered and Most Ancient House of Parkinson. Unlike him, Pansy had no younger siblings to inherit the title. So, he was now Earl Potter and Earl Parkinson.
"Home," Harry whispered, head lolling to the side.
Pansy purred her agreement. "Home."
A loud commotion on Diagon Alley had them spinning around. Pansy turned just in time to see Duke James and Duchess Siriana Potter, as well as Marquess Frank and Marchioness Alice Longbottom, enter Knockturn Alley. Their jaws dropped as they stared at her and Harry.
Siriana’s eyes narrowed to slits as she took a threatening step forward. "Explain yourself, Countess Parkinson. Immediately."
Pansy wrapped an arm around Harry's waist. She didn't want to fight with his parents, but she would if it came to that.
"I felt his magic from the other end of Diagon Alley," Siriana bit out. Her magic rippled across her skin and, even with all her accumulated knowledge from the lifetimes she had lived, Pansy didn’t want to cross wands with Siriana Potter.
Regardless of her bonded name, Siriana was a Black to the core. When she drew her wand against someone she saw as a threat, people died (if they were lucky) or were maimed for life (if they weren’t).
"Mum, it's not—"
"Peace, darling," James said. "I can feel that Chang chit’s magic down the alley. It seems she was bothering Harry again and he got tired of putting up with her."
Siriana didn't seem to be reassured at all by the words her husband spoke. If anything, she appeared to be wondering if Knockturn Alley would be an apt place to dump Pansy's dead body.
James's nose wrinkled as he said, "Countess Parkinson is a better choice than Chang. But did you really have to pick a Sly—"
"No," Harry said. "I didn’t have to. But I’ll never choose anyone else as long as she wants me."
The smirk on his face heated her blood and serenaded her. Pansy groaned at the sight and shamelessly rubbed her magic against his. Lifetimes ago, he consumed all that she was; she consumed him in return.
Harry. Harold. Hadrian. Henricus. Humfrey. Hargham. Hemgrave. Hywel.
“And do you, Countess Parkinson?” Siriana asked with a biting frigidity in her voice.
“I wouldn’t have just bonded with him for the eighth lifetime in a row if I didn’t,” Pansy replied, staring straight into Siriana’s piercing gray eyes.
The grin that split Siriana’s face was so viciously sharp that Pansy had no idea how the witch had talked the Sorting Hat out of putting her in Slytherin. “I like you, Countess Parkinson. Welcome to the family, Daughter.”
Pansy offered the formalest of flourishing curtsies and grinned just as sharply, “Thank you, Mother.”
"Pansy?"
“Yes, my hertis rote?” she asked without looking away from her new mother-in-law. It wasn’t wise to look away from a predator.
"I want you to myself," Harry whispered in her ear.
"We're leaving. You can Owl me later to set up a time to visit," Pansy said.
"Expect it tonight," Siriana stated. Her gaze narrowed even more. "Take care of him."
"Always," Pansy swore.
She grabbed Harry's hand and led him out of the alley, past his parents and godparents. Once they turned the corner into Diagon Alley, she stalked to the Apparation Point and Side-Along Apparated Harry to Parkinson Manor. Her parents were out of the country for the summer. It would allow them more privacy to reconnect.
Harry stared around the grand entryway, a blush dusting across his cheeks. "I…"
Pansy smiled and tangled their fingers together. In each new life, he was always shy about physical intimacy in the beginning. It was endearing.
“I’m famished. How does a picnic in the gardens sound?” she asked, reminiscing about the Royal Garden they met in at Camelot when High King Arthur Pendragon lived and ruled all of Avalon.
“It sounds perfect,” he said as he smiled gently at her.
Pansy remembered Hywel, kneeling in chainmail at her side, as Lady Morgana le Fay pronounced them bonded through eternity. Waiting for Harry to be ready was always worth it. They had nothing but time.