Written for sleepygrimm on tumblr who requested: Neville Longbottom x Pansy Parkinson. Prompts: "I wish I could hate you." "I've seen the way you look at me when you think I'm not looking." "Is there a reason why you're naked in my bed?"

I am so proud of myself for branching out and writing a rare pair. I think I'm going to write a handful of new drabbles because my brain is a little shot on new content. :) It would mean the world to me if you would leave me a review and tell me what you think. Thank you for Frumpologist for the beautiful cover.

I have decided to stick with love.

Hate is too great a burden to bear.

Martin Luther King Jr.

Following the war, he didn't hold with the ideology that everything was going to fall into place. As nice as that would have been, it was wholly unlikely. No, he was used to everything going completely fucking sideways.

For a moment, the summer really, he thought it was routine. He visited his parents in St Mungo's. Alice Longbottom liked to hold his Order of Merlin, and he was content to leave it to her. Frank gazed at it, his eyes glassy with the briefest look of recognition, and Neville couldn't imagine not leaving it to the two individuals who taught him what being a hero was all about.

It only made sense, didn't it?

He wasn't expecting much from returning to Hogwarts. He'd already gone through his seventh year once as a warrior; he wasn't sure how to repeat it as a student. He imagined he would still keep one eye over his shoulder, his wand gripped tightly in his hand. There were some horrors that could not be scrubbed away by fundraisers, galas, and galleons.

Gods, the money — he couldn't stand it.

The Ministry was in the thick of it these days. Officials were either slamming former Death Eaters - those who could escape a Kiss - or the families thereof with fines, or they were giving their thanks in monetary value.

Neville donated the money he was awarded before taking out a spot in the Daily Prophet with the single quote: Change Not Currency.

As much as he liked to think it was witty, it really wasn't.

His grandmother was overjoyed when he received what he hoped to Merlin was his last Hogwarts letter, and a pin fell onto the dining room table.

It was scarlet, and gold, the same colours he'd been sported for years now. Head Boy, he mused before glancing at the letter. His counterpart was Hermione. As if he'd thought it would be anyone other than her.

His grandmother set to talking about him - never to him, it felt these days - of his accomplishments.

Slaying Voldemort's snake, his ruddy Order of Merlin, and now Hogwarts' Head Boy.

He could feel the bile rise in his throat.

The first week was the hardest. The Sorting Ceremony was painful as only a fraction returned. Ron and Harry were noticeably absent, already in auror training. Hermione sat at his side, her enamel pin shining proudly at the front of her robes.

It was the smallest class he'd ever seen sorted, and it was a damn shame.

As they ushered students to their dormitories, Neville stopped to help a small Slytherin who had seemingly been left behind. "Hi, sweetheart," he murmured, crouching down. His fingers brushed against the ancient stone of the castle. "Lost?"

She nodded, her eyes brimming with tears. "Unfortunately," she muttered, bitter. "I was with my brother. He's in third year and he promised he wouldn't let me get lost. Little liar."

Neville chuckled. "I'm sure he just got separated. I'm Neville, what is your name?"

Blue eyes widened and she hid her face behind tendrils of blonde hair. "Everyone knows who you are. You cut off the snake's head."

He snorted. "Heard about that, did you? Did they mention I have the tendency of tripping over my own two feet?"

She looked positively aghast. "Well...no. They didn't put that on your chocolate frog card actually."

Right, he forgot about his likeness on the cards, a moving photo of a moment that truly wasn't sorted for children.

She continued. "Oh, Merlin! What if you'd tripped during the Final Battle? What if you'd landed on the sword?"

He blinked. He actually hadn't thought of that. "Good thing I didn't. Let's get you to the dungeons."

Her nose wrinkled in disgust. "Is it really so gross down there? Oh, my name is Leana."

Neville smiled as she held on to the fabric of his sleeve and he led her through the winding staircases, and into the dungeons. Of course, he couldn't go any farther. "Parkinson!" he barked, recognizing the familiar curtain of black hair.

She pivoted on her foot to face him, her dark eyes narrowing as her mouth set into a thin line. "Yes?"

All he really saw was the woman who attempted to give Harry to Voldemort. Neville glanced down at Leana, who was bouncing on the balls of her feet. Right, be the example, house unity. He sighed. "Leana got lost. Would you please show her to her dorm?"

Parkinson gave a stiff nod, and stepping forward to take the young girl's hand was the closest she'd ever been to him.

Neville didn't turn to leave until he was alone in the corridor. Old habits died hard, but he was struck by a thought -

She really wasn't deserving of the cruel nickname Pug-Faced Parkinson anymore.

They had Potions together. Followed by Defense Against the Dark Arts. In a gross twist of fate, they were permanent partners for the year.

"Don't catch the cauldron on fire." she hissed in Potions.

"Missed your step there," he smirked when he cast a jelly legs hex at her in DADA.

It wasn't the best way to spend to back to back hours, but -

He found himself looking forward to them way back when he didn't realize it.

Neville almost - should have, he corrected - gave her detention when he caught her out after curfew. At the tail end of his rounds, she should have been grateful he was the one to come across her in the Astronomy Tower rather than Hermione.

It was a shifting point, but neither of them mentioned it. The next day would remain the same with the verbal sparring she would win in Potions and the literal sparring he was getting quite good at.

She was crying, her shoulders barely shuddering as she hung her head. Parkinson didn't say anything when he silently sat beside her, his legs mirroring hers as they dangled off of the side of the stairs.

"Are you going to give me detention?" she asked. Parkinson didn't wipe her eyes. She only glared at him, daring him to poke at her. At the shake of his head, she froze. "Why not?"

"Do you want me to give you detention? I mean, I wouldn't be against it, but we all need a place to hide sometimes, don't we?"

He expected her to snap at him, to tell him how he was too whimsical in his thinking, too soft-hearted.

She murmured, "I'm not hiding." Her knuckles turned white as she gripped the level beneath her. "I don't hide."

Neville dipped his head. "Of course not. It was rude of me to assume."

It carried on, but now their routine was out of order.

His eyes drifted to her in between classes, even as she never spared him a second glance in the corridors, and meals in the Great Hall were the worst.

She wasn't eating, but he wasn't in the position to point it out to her.

During another moment, he'd traded rounds with Hermione for good, in the Astronomy Tower, she was forthcoming.

"Why did you come back?" he asked, legs tucked beneath him.

She shrugged. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail, and there were purple rings beneath her eyes. Clearly, she wasn't sleeping. "I wanted to prove I had nothing to be ashamed of."

It sparked his curiosity and he rose his head to glance at her. "Are you ashamed?"

"Yeah." she replied, her hands fidgeting in her lap. "Why did you come back? From what I hear you could have gone on for whatever. All of you could have." She didn't have to say who she meant.

Neville had given it a lot of thought over the eight weeks they had been back. He still didn't have a straight answer. "I'm not sure. I think part of it was that I'm comfortable here. I want to go through auror training like my parents, but...this is more than you wanted to hear, isn't it?"

She surprised him. "No, I think I'd like to hear it."

He didn't ask her to Hogsmeade, no matter how it looked. And it definitely wasn't that he would have minded if they had gone to Hogsmeade together, but this - fuck, they always ended up with the other it seemed.

"Butterbeer?" he asked when she slid into the booth across the table from him. Her cheeks were stained. Neville wasn't at all used to the sight outside of midnight, outside of whispered meetings. "What is it?"

"Slytherins," she moaned to herself quietly. "They're out for their own skin, not mine and —"

His eyes narrowed dangerously. "What happened?"

Parkinson's head snapped up at the harshness of his voice. "What's it to you, Longbottom?"

He didn't offer a reply.

She sighed. "Malfoy is just being a ponce. He was going to visit the Astronomy Tower as well last night, but he saw us."

He tilted his head to the side. "Is it a problem for you that you've been seen with me?" Neville asked. His heart rate had picked up as he waited for her reply.

Her pale lips parted. "No," she replied quickly, shaking her head. "He's just…" she trailed off. "He isn't dealing with the new term all too well and I've always been a pillar for him. But now I'm not."

"You're barely able to be there for yourself." Neville pointed out, not unkindly. "He can't expect you to put him before yourself."

She shook her head. "He doesn't, but he believed if I needed anyone that I would go to him."

Funny, though he liked the thought of it, he hadn't considered that he was the metaphorical pillar for her. Really, he was only a bit selfish and she saw him as more than the guy who lopped the head off of a snake. "What did he say?"

Her breath caught. "He mentioned that I was the one who tried to hand over Potter and that I was only trying to be so close with a Gryffindor to put myself in a better light. His house rivalries are very much still present."

Neville took a long drink from his tumbler before setting it down. "Is that why you're around me?"

She scowled. "You know what, if that's what you really think, I think I'm better off on my own!"

In hindsight, he could have phrased it better.

He could time it to the exact second Parkinson became Pansy, that just another Slytherin became a pretty black haired girl with pale pink lips, and eyes that were dark enough to resemble the night sky they often stared at.

"Neville!" she screamed as she walked into Potions the following Monday.

He spluttered and dropped his wand into the bubbling cauldron. "Bollocks." he muttered. "What?" Neville snapped, squaring his shoulders and towering over her as she jabbed her wand into his sternum.

Their peers were watching partly in amusement, partly in anticipation.

Her eyes flashed. "Draco has been in the hospital wing all weekend."

He nodded. "I heard. Unfortunate thing, really. Bloke should really watch himself."

"You hexed the shite out of him!" she shrieked, a smile curving both sides of her lips that he was so fixated on.

"Huh," he murmured. "You're right. I did do that."

And then her head tipped back as she laughed.

Oh, he was fucked.

At Christmas, he did ask her to Hogsmeade. Unofficially of course.

She rolled her eyes and told him they were getting firewhiskey instead of butterbeer.

She was dressed nicely. Wearing a dress that cinched around her waist, and a pair of heels, Pansy dared passerbys to say anything about them.

His eyes were drawn to the necklace that fell to her breasts.

Somehow he was pretty sure the placement was intentional.

"I wish I could hate you." Pansy told him when she came back from the holidays. "But I don't, not even a little."

They sat shoulder to shoulder in the Astronomy Tower. He thought it was curious how a place that held so many bad memories had turned into one of his favorite places.

The admission stung. "Why do you want to hate me?"

Pansy didn't meet his eyes, but she laid her head on his shoulder. "My father wants to plan a marriage for me."

He nodded, laying his head against hers. His lips brushed her hair. "Is that what you want?"

"It doesn't matter."

"It does." he rumbled, smoothing his fingers against her spine.

Her shoulders slumped. "I can't do anything to stop it. Lately, it's all he talks about in his letters. I'm no fool; I've never expected him to care about how my term is going."

He blinked, and bit his lip. "What if I promise I won't let him marry you off?"

She sat up so quickly he nearly bit the top of her head. Hissing, she massages her scalp. "Are you mental? You couldn't —"

Neville shrugged, smiling. "I could. Haven't you heard? I'm the guy that killed the snake."

Pansy didn't grin often, but gods, when she did. "You hate when people mention Nagini." she paused. "How would you stop him?"

Quietly, he opted for making her laugh rather than discuss the worst things.

But at the end, before they parted ways, she murmured, "I've seen the way you look at me when you think I'm not looking."

Valentine's Day.

She wasn't quite his girlfriend, but she was more than his friend. He wasn't sure what to refer to her as when he'd spent nearly all of his nights with her discussing anything from herbology to the war to the future and to what was waiting for them when they graduated.

All Neville really knew - and he didn't like to admit it - was that she was important to him. She was beautiful, funny and far too intelligent for him.

So when the day came, he ate his breakfast nonchalantly, occasionally looking across the Great Hall. An owl delivered the parcel, swooping low and dropping a rectangle box in her lap.

She opened it carefully, tugging on the scarlet ribbon. Pansy smiled, lifting her head and meeting his eyes from across the room. It was all very cliche, but he thought it was worth it to see her chat excitedly as Daphne Greengrass turned to her.

"Is there a reason you're naked in my bed?" The words left his mouth before he could decide to not sound like a bumbling third year.

She grinned, sitting on her knees and letting his sheets fall from her chest. "Well, if you must know," Pansy said wickedly, "I thought that since you were kind enough to buy me something, you deserved to see me wearing it."

"I did earlier —"

She crooked a finger, motioning him toward the bed. "I know you saw it earlier, fool. I meant you could see me wearing only it."

The bed dipped below his weight. Neville had imagined kissing her more than he would like to admit. Were her lips as soft as they looked? Would she be harsh and demanding, or would she let him take the lead?

It was the second.

His fingers cupped the nape of her neck, threading through soft strands of her hair. Pansy whimpered as his tongue traced the seam of her lips. He laid her backward, his hand slowly sliding between her breasts.

"More." she demanded.

He chuckled. "There's my witch."

Her nipples stiffened below feather light touches. Her back arched prettily when his tongue flicked over them.

If she noticed he was inexperienced, she didn't mention it.

His fingers found her clit, slipping between her folds and rubbing. Neville paid attention to just how she liked it, the pace, the way she mewled and threw her head back.

He liked to lessen the pressure just to see her squeeze her eyes shut and listen to short pants of, "Neville, please, I'm so —"

Watching her fall apart was exquisite from the vantage point between her thighs, his mouth on her cunt while she writhed beneath him.

Pansy crawled to her knees, still shaking, and didn't wait for him to kick his trousers off. Instead she straddled his hips while his sat with his back to the headboard, his hands gripping her hips while she slid down her cock.

He would never tire of the way her head fell back, exposing the hollow of her throat, and the way she rolled her hips against his. "Merlin," she gasped.

Neville tightened his arms around her waist, slowly picking her up and pulling her down, fucking her torturously slow from under her.

He took one nipple into his mouth, flattening his thumb against her sensitive clit. "One more just for me?" Neville rasped when she told him she couldn't possibly come again.

He hadn't paid attention to the reactions of the students when Pansy grabbed his hand in the corridor.

Nor had he bothered when she grabbed him by the lapels of his robes and snogged him in the middle of the corridor.

He was rather dazed really. "Not that I'm complaining, but what was that?"

She made a 'hmmph' sound while she folded her arms across her chest. "Girls stare at you."

"Do I have something on my face?" he asked.

Pansy looked like she could hex him. It wasn't far from the realm of possibility and he took a step back. "Like you've said, they remember that you're a war hero, and that you're rather fit now. I'm not a war hero."

His features softened. "You're fit."

She swatted his chest.

Neville tugged her close, looping an arm around her middle. "You're lovely, and the best part of my life. If anything, you've made returning for this term worth it."

Pansy mumbled something against his chest.

"What?"

"It's not important." she replied, her red cheeks betraying her lie.

She sat on his bed, her shoes kicked off, while she chewed on the end of a sugar quill. "Are you still planning to enter auror training?"

The sight of her plump lips around the sugar quill was detrimental to his sanity, and his throbbing erection. Neville cleared his throat. "Yes, but I think only long enough to capture the Lestranges."

Pansy's eyes widened. "I hadn't even thought of that."

"There's no need to apologize. I don't think I want to be an auror for the rest of my life. What do you plan to do?"

She swallowed. "I was thinking I might like to be a healer. Father is against the idea since he wants me to marry and stay home to pop out heirs. Can you imagine? All he wants is for me to lay on my back and get properly knocked up."

The topic hadn't come up in months. It made him angrier the second time around. "Marry me?" he blurted.

She giggled. "What?"

Neville's face was surely red. "Nothing." he stammered.

Pansy leaned across the bed to kiss his cheek. "I know what you meant. It's just rather adorable to see you blush. You don't have to marry me, not yet anyway." She winked.

"Eventually?" he joked, but there was a very real hope that crossed her face. And just as quickly, it was gone. "Pansy?"

"Yeah?"

"Nothing."

It wasn't the right time.

The right time turned out to be the last day the would set foot in the castle as students.

"What are we doing here?" she asked, gazing over the railing.

Simple answer: this was the place that brought them together. He couldn't forget it, not even it was the site where their former headmaster had fallen.

"Neville?"

He cleared his throat. "I wanted to come here one last night. We've spent most nights in my dorm now."

She nodded. "Spit it out."

"What?"

Pansy rolled her eyes. "You've never been too clever. Not to mention you've been muttering to yourself all day. If you have something to say, then just tell me."

"I want it to be perfect."

She gave a short laugh. "If it's coming from you, it's perfect." Pansy said.

He arched an eyebrow. "That's sappy."

Pansy threw her hands up. "You've rubbed off on me, I guess you could say then." She was all smiles as she stepped toward him. "And to be fair, I think I've been waiting on this for a long time."

He had it planned, the flowery prose to describe just how much she meant to him. But then his mind went blank.

"I love you." he murmured, pressing his lips to her forehead.

Her hands slid up his forearms. "I know." Pansy pressed her lips to his throat. "I'm so fucking in love with you it scares me sometimes." she paused, pulling away to look at him. "Are you going to tell me about the keys to the flat in London, or do I have to wait for that too?"

He grinned. "Cheeky."

Not for the first time, or the last, he was wrong.

Things did fall into place.