Chapter Text
Neville downed the hungover potion and grimaced at the taste, immediately letting out a hiss of pain. He hadn’t healed the burning her hand had left. By the time he had gotten back to his quarters Susan and Axel had both clearly called it a night. Something that he was increasingly thankful for. He had not felt like explaining.
Could he even explain? Why couldn’t the interactions with her be simple? Casting a tempus charm he summoned Beetrice. “Hello, Beetrice. It is time to wake our Flower. Will you send her a message as well?” He paused and considered. What to say? Sorry? He wasn’t actually sorry. He had wanted to help her. He had wanted to kiss her. He had wanted to do so much more.
She had seemed to have wanted to do more too. She’d asked. Hadn’t she? Well, not last night. Last night she looked so broken. He hadn’t thought. He deserved to be slapped. He deserved even more. Beetrice nudged him. “Right. We don’t want her to be late for her first day. Say, ‘Good morning pretty Flower. Please forgive me. I overstepped last night. Good luck on your first day.’”
He watched his little bee float away and started to get dressed. He considered shaving but one view of himself in the mirror and he decided that the angry red hand mark would do better without putting a razor to it. He considered a shaving cham but had never mastered the look he preferred and knowing they would also sting left it alone.
Normally he’d be one of the first at the Great Hall however today the witch who lived to torment him was there sitting in her spot drinking her mug of coffee and eating her pomegranate. Why won’t she ever eat anything else? Doesn’t she know that's not enough to sustain her for a day of teaching? Maybe Beauxbatons is a slower pace but here in Hogwarts, she was going to need more. He made a mental note to send an elf with some food for her mid-morning as he made his way to his spot where a cup of tea was waiting.
“Professor Parkinson.” He said as he sat down.
“Professor Longbottom.” She said without looking at him.
“I see you are having an early start this morning.” One of these days he would learn to keep his mouth shut but clearly when it came to Pansy he was unable to.
Susan sat on the other side of the Headmistress's empty seat, looked up, and gasped. “Neville! What the hell happened to you?!”
He groaned internally, “Nothing Suzie. It’s not a problem.”
“Clearly something is a problem, Longbottom. Did your Tempus fail you this morning? It seems like you haven’t had time to shave.” He heard Pansy say with an amused tilt to her voice.
He tried to take a sip of tea only to have Susan grab his chin roughly towards her. “If I didn’t know better I’d assume you were slapped. I have some balm in my office. You should come by later today.”
“Thanks, Susan.” He replied, trying to eat a bite of toast that now tasted like sawdust, while Pansy on his other side was cackling.
Thank Merlin, the first few days were mostly introductory stuff because Neville spent the first week distracted. He had spent the whole week trying to talk to Parkinson. He’d send Beetrice first thing in the morning only to find Pansy already at the dining hall eating her tiny portion of fruit, his tea perfectly prepared waiting for him. He’d attempted to make teasing requests for her to come and play, he had tried to Friday he had the last period off and went over to the hospital wing with a firm idea of his next steps.
“Suzzie?” he called as he came into the wing walking past the empty cots headed to the healer's office in the back.
Only for Susan to come out with a bright smile on her face.“Nev! Is everything okay? A bit early for even you to need me, or are you finally going to get that balm for your face.”
“Err…” He had forgotten about her offer from earlier in the week. Although the stinging had gotten better he knew there had been some bruising left. He mildly wondered if Pansy’s hand hurt as much or if she had healed herself. “No, I had forgotten actually I was here to ask for a favour.”
Susan’s demeanor immediately changed, her eyes narrowed and her hands went to her hips. “A favour…”
“Yeah. I…” Why was it that all the women in his life had to be difficult? “Can we go to your office and have some tea, please? I'll explain.”
“And will that explanation include why you are refusing to let me heal the slap Parkinson gave you?”
“Yea—What?! How…” Neville cleared his throat and looked everywhere but at the scary witch in front of him. “I do not know what you are talking about.”
Susan was making her way to her office laughing at him. “Sure Nev. Sure you don’t. Come on, let's crack the whiskey. I feel like I am going to need to be fortified to endure your idiotic manly behaviour.”
He groaned but followed anyway. Once she had served them both and had a burning sip, Susan looked at him as if to say… well?
Neville took a sip letting the drink burn his throat, avoiding looking at Susan. Now that he was here he wasn’t so sure of what he was about to ask for. All he knew was that he needed to get Pansy talking to him like they had and this was the only way he could think to do that.
“So are you going to fess up and tell me why Pansy slapped you so hard you still have bruising or are we going to continue to pretend?”
He let his head hang in misery. “Is it that obvious?”
Susan laughed, “Well unless you have started making a habit of pissing off tiny witches capable of leaving their dainty manicure handprint on your cheek, yes it is. Well at least for me and Axel, I don’t think the others have clued into it.”
“Maybe I did piss off another witch.” Neville groaned at his own weak retort. “What do I have to do for you to drop it?”
Susan narrowed her eyes and after a few seconds answered. “Next DA night you cover for me.”
Now it was his turn to widen his eyes in surprise. “Still? I can’t believe you are still avoiding him.”
“I believe the guy sporting a slap bruise should not be throwing stones.”
“Not throwing stones, just assessing the situation.”
“There is no situation to assess. Hannah was going to run interference but she had something come up.”
“Sure. You know, one of these days I would love to know what happened. It has been, what? A whole year since you left the DMLE? Did you two even date?”
Susan drank deeply from her glass and refilled it. “Neville, you either accept the term or leave.”
Neville knew when to shut it, and so saved his questions for later asked. “I need to know where Parkinson buys her skirts.”
“Her skirts,” Susan repeated with a stunned face.
“Yeah. Her skirts.”
“Which skirts? Pansy has a bigger closet than you, Axel, and I put together.”
Neville exhaled slowly “You know Suze, the one she wears all the time.” The ones that cling to her hips in that sinful manner that made him want to rip them. The ones that made her legs look like they went for miles. The ones that she tortured him with all day, every day.
“Uh-huh. Why do you need to know this?—Wait, is this why you got slapped? For being a creep and asking a grown woman where she buys her clothing?”
Neville could feel his cheeks heating with a blush. “Come on Suze, please? Can you just help me?”
“I don’t know Nev that’s a rather personal question”
“I ruined one of her skirts.” Neville blurted out. “I am not a creep, I am just trying to make amends.” Well maybe he was a creep but he was also a man of his word and he had promised.
He knew that she couldn’t read his mind or memories but something about the way Susan glared suspiciously made him squirm.
“Look, a couple of days ago I asked her to come to my greenhouse and… it… it… it got ripped.” There that was as close to the truth as he was willing to get to. Still, he could feel his nape burning.
“Oh, Nev. Why do you keep on doing that? It can’t make her any happier with you. I know you have this thing of antagonizing her but couldn’t you just go to her office?”
And be stuck in a room with a door that locks with that tormenting temptation? No. If he had been incapable of keeping his hands to himself in the greenhouse, a building entirely made out of glass, the prospect of an utterly secluded spot would not do. “It had to be in the greenhouse. I was showing her her corner.” Which still remained barren.
“Her corner?” she asked, looking more confused than before.
“Yeah, you know. She mentioned she missed her own garden so I cleared a corner out of mine.”
“You did what? Oh Neville I knew you were attracted to her, I didn’t know you had feelings for her.”
“That’s—” Neville was sputtering, “That’s not what it is. I just wanted to do something kind for someone. Why won’t anyone just let me do a kind thing!”
Susan watched his outburst with a lifted eyebrow. Taking a sip of her drink continued. “I never said you couldn’t be kind but that is more than being kind. You cleared out space in your domain for her. That is a lot.”
Neville had downed his drink and had his head hanging off the back of the chair. While Susan wasn’t wrong he hadn’t meant it as a big gesture or a declaration of anything he just wanted… well he wasn’t sure what he had wanted.
“So will you help?”
It had taken him three weeks to finally be able to get the damn skirts. She had not lied, they were designer. They were also expensive and hard to find. He had bought her the black one he had ripped. He had also gotten her a second one, as promised. A deep scarlet one he had been incapable of letting go of as the images of seeing her in his house colours flooded his mind.
He had tried to get her to come to him. Beetrice had been zooming off to her every spare moment he had with increasingly desperate and demanding tones. She never came. Instead, he could expect a very formal owl waiting for him along with his tea in the morning. He tried to talk to her during meal times but Pansy would just smile and talk over him to Minnie or Susan. Often giving her back to him to discuss intricate charms possibilities with Filius. Every time he caught her in the hallway she would say something bratty and walk away. Making his veins boil with the desire to push her against the wall and have his way with her which immediately made him stop trying to reach for her. They were in public. In front of children. He had to get a grip.
It took him another week to finally figure out how to get her alone.