Fluff. Just a little bit of happy little fluff to get me writing again.
Happy New Years :)
(Oh yeah, and I own nothing. All belongs to JKR and her publish people.)
Neville Longbottom was running late. Very late. To something that might end up being a very important date, but he couldn't quite tell yet. It wasn't his fault, to be fair, he'd gotten held up at St Mungo's, visiting his Mum, and then it was busy out, and then he'd completely lost track of time...
It was twelve minutes past eight when he finally got to the Leaky Cauldron. Pausing for breath outside, he checked that he had everything. Flowers, money... Was that all he needed? At this stage, he could only hope.
He walked through the door, and, aware of the time, he scanned the room for her. Hannah Abbott, who had been in Hufflepuff when they were at school. They hadn't really spoken much back then, but he'd bumped into her about a week ago and they'd started talking, and then they kept talking, and when it was too late to keep talking, they'd arranged a date. He was meant to pick her up when her shift finished at eight. Then again, he was late...
"I thought you weren't going to come for a while there," she said, walking across the pub.
"Erm, yeah, sorry about that. I didn't forget though. I think."
Hannah smiled. "I hoped you wouldn't. Listen, I'll just go tell Tom I'm leaving, ok? Thought I might as well help out a bit as long as you weren't here."
Neville smiled awkwardly as she half walked, half ran towards the bar. At least you didn't forget, he thought. That would have sucked.
She hurried back about a minute later, and grabbed his arm, wearing a large smile. "So. Where are we going?"
"This Italian muggle place, I heard it's pretty good," he said, slightly awkwardly. Dating wasn't the sort of thing that Neville Longbottom did very often. Talking to an old friend was fine, but there was something about the formalities of dating that threw him sometimes. That and the fact that he'd never actually really been on one before.
But if there was anyone to go on a first date with, he reasoned, then it could be no better than a smiling Hufflepuff.