Title: Concatenation
Author: Olivia Lupin
Rating: PG-13 || Status: Complete
Summary: Pansy wants what she shouldn’t.

Archive:
Concatenation @ Skyehawke

Oh, Ron/Pansy is my guilty pleasure. *heart* This one is so CUTE! I love Pansy’s characterization — how confident she is, and how she holds her own against Seamus’ flirting, and then the contrast between that and her ginormous crush on Ron. XP And then Ron giving Pansy his quill and her using all the time (SO OBVIOUS!) and then Ron and Pansy beginning to hang out all the time and doing homework and flying and the kiss! GAH! So much love for this fic! *heart* And also, the little nerdy moment when Pansy admires the notes in Ron’s textbook.

She leans over suddenly and grabs his textbook, flipping pages until she gets to the part that details the kinds of problems that they’re talking about and before he can get the book away from her, she sees it.

Percy’s notes, neat and thorough, detailing the alternative method in the margins of his hand-me-down book.

He feels the flush burn his cheeks. Hermione’s incredulous ‘What do you mean, you’re not going to charm it clean?’ rings clearly in his memory; her lofty disapproval had been the cause of strain between them for days, and even now she frowns whenever she sees the book. He feels his chin rise defensively but when Pansy’s eyes meet his, there’s no condemnation. There’s humor and what looks a lot like envy.

“Bloody lucky. I’ve never found a used book that’s had anything useful written in it.” She pulls it a bit closer and flips through it some more. “We have a bookshelf in the common room down in the dungeons where people donate especially useful textbooks like this one.” She flashes him a grin. “They’re supposed to be community property, but they have a habit of being ‘adopted’ for the year by students particularly in need of them. There’s not an Astronomy textbook half as nicely edited as this, though.” Her tone is admiring and she examines the book, now open to an earlier chapter where Percy’s derivation of a complicated formula is clearly written in the margin. She pores over it. “This is brilliant.”

Ron pulls back a bit and considers her. “You don’t think it’s cheating to use it?”

“Cheating? Of course not. It’s not like the problems are done. These are just derivations and different methods. The derivations just help you understand the formulas better and the methods won’t be of any use unless you really know what you’re doing.” She taps Percy’s neat script with one slim finger. “I mean…plugging the numbers in is one thing, but actually knowing which numbers to use and how to do the calculations is a whole different story. Not to mention interpreting the results.”

Also, this part:

It occurs to him that she could ask to copy Percy’s notes as her prize, and that maybe he should offer, but before he can make himself do any of those things she looks up at him and her eyes are huge and soft and he feels her hands find his waist and her face tilts to one side and he knows what she’s going to say before she even says it but he makes himself wait, partly because he wants to make absolutely sure he’s right and partly because he really wants to hear her actually say the words and then she does.

I LOVE IT! <3 Go read!