"Thank you for coming, Neville." She said softly, almost so softly he didn't hear her.
He nodded as she absently flicked her wand to cast a silencing charm around the table.
They were back in the same place. The Leaky Cauldron, where the biggest regret of Neville's life had begun seven weeks ago. Where the party to celebrate graduation from Auror Training had been held. Where the three women Neville had loved had all been present with their current spouses or boyfriends: Luna with Draco Malfoy, Hannah with her American businessman who was way too old for her, and Susan with Michael Corner. Where Neville had drunk way too much of the firewhiskey and butterbeer he began to suspect George Weasley of spiking with something that enhanced, shall we say, romantic feelings, as Harry had proposed to Ginny in the middle of the party, Malfoy had taken his wife home early with an unmistakably wicked gleam in his eyes, and Ron and Hermione were practically making out on the bar. Where Seamus had finally made his relationship with Dennis Creevey public by snogging and groping the poor boy in front of everyone. Where a girl with glossy dark hair and smoky eyes and too much red lipstick had asked him to dance, and the whiskey made him say yes. Where he found himself spending the evening with her, even though he had been warned she had graduated from Quidditch groupie to Auror groupie, because he didn't want to be the only one alone tonight. Where after a couple hours of drunken clumsy grinding against her on the dance floor, she had led him into the back room of the bar and given Neville his first blow job. Where half an hour and two more shots later, she had apparated the two of them back to her flat and he had lost his virginity. To Pansy Parkinson. And to make sure he was well and truly deflowered, he had repeated the action. Several times. Then he had awakened hung over and disoriented in a strange bed and had to apparate home to Grimmauld Place, realizing as he hit the front door what Seamus and Michael had been talking about with the "Walk of Shame" as Harry and Ron had cheered his arrival, not knowing where he had spent the night.
She flipped her dark hair over her shoulder and took a deep breath, her lips parting as she prepared to speak.
He wondered for the dozenth time what had made her owl him and ask to meet for tea.
"I'm pregnant." She murmured, and he felt all the air in his lungs whoosh out through his lips as her words hit his chest with the force of a train.
"It's yours, from the night of the graduation party. In spite of my reputation, I don't make it a habit to sleep around. I'm not asking for anything from you, and I understand if you don't want to be involved, but I wanted you to know."
She looked up at him with sad resignation in her eyes.
He took a deep breath, surprised somewhat that his lungs filled normally and nodded. "I know some people. I can arrange a discreet adoption."
Her expression crossed through outrage into pure fury in a heartbeat. "You will not!" she shouted so loudly that he glanced over to make sure the silencing charm had dampened her outburst. "If you don't want anything to do with our child, fine! But it's my baby, and I will keep it!"
"No." he quickly backpedaled. "I was just giving you an option. I know … this isn't really … what either of us planned." He looked at her curiously. "Or at least not what I planned."
Suspicion began to grow in his mind at her lack of response.
"Was it what you planned?" he asked, barely holding on to his anger.
She looked around the room for an alarmingly long time before turning back to him and answering. "Yes and no." she shrugged.
"What did you do to me?" he growled, his temper making its way dangerously close to the surface.
"Look, I'm alone, all right?" she cried. "My older brother was killed by the Order for following Voldemort. My parents were killed by Voldemort for not following him. Daphne and Blaise got married and moved to Greece. Draco is so wound up in his wife and the baby on the way. Greg is positively whipped by his gorgeous Beauxbaton who wouldn't have looked at him twice if it hadn't been an arranged marriage. Do you know what Millie is doing now?" her voice was almost a screech by that point.
He shook his head no.
"She lost all that weight, starting our sixth year at Hogwarts. She goes to healer academy during the day and she's a stripper in a muggle bar at night. She's got more friends than any of us! And I'm alone!"
She broke off with a shaky breath. He discreetly pushed her teacup every so slightly closer to her, and she took a deep drink.
"So I just decided that night, that I wouldn't use the spell. I mean, you're a pureblood, you're a good looking bloke, you were incredibly brave to stand up to Voldemort and his whole army, and you're obviously both smart and tough if you graduated from auror training, right? Those are all good qualities to have in my baby. I figured, if it happened, it was meant to be, and if it didn't, it wasn't. So I didn't do anything to enhance the chances of conception, but I didn't do anything to prevent it either."
He stared at her, his emotions ricocheting between anger, disbelief, betrayal, shame, sorrow, and self-satisfaction that Pansy Parkinson, Slytherin pureblood snob, had deemed him worthy to father her child.
And the startling realization that in her belly grew his only family, other than his grandmother, who had married Aberforth Dumbledore and moved to Hogsmeade to carry on with her own life.
"We have to get married." He said, stunning himself as well as her.
"No." she shook her head. "Save the noble Gryffindor shit. Slytherins don't work that way."
"But the baby … " he gestured vaguely at her.
"Will not suffer for having unmarried parents." She answered with a note of finality.
"It wouldn't be much different for us than all of the other purebloods who have arranged marriages." he shrugged.
"I'm sorry, but even though I loved my parents dearly and miss them more than anything, I'm glad they're not here to force me to marry someone I don't know." She frowned.
"We're not exactly strangers." His face flushed. "We, um, knew each other pretty well that night."
"It's not exactly like we became best friends afterward, though, is it?" she almost snorted. "At least you left a note. That was decent of you."
"Sorry." His blush deepened. "I wasn't really sure what to do the following morning, and I was sure it was going to be awkward."
"It's always awkward." She waved her hand dismissively. "It didn't have to be any more awkward because I was a Slytherin. Just handle it the same way you would have if I had been one of your little Gryffindors."
He wondered if it was possible for his face to get any redder. "I've never had a morning after with a Gryffindor. Or anyone."
"You've never spent the night before?" she mused, one corner of her mouth turning up.
"I had never done that before at all." He whispered to the tabletop.
"You were a virgin?" she asked incredulously.
"Yeah." He replied defensively. "I mean, everyone is at first, right?"
"No, not that." She smirked. "I didn't know. You acted like you knew what you were doing."
"Thanks. I think." He wondered if it was possible to die of mortification.
"So does all this mean you want to be involved?" she pinned him with her stare.
He swallowed reflexively. "I don't know what I want right now." He told her honestly. "But I can't imagine having a kid and not being part of their life."
"It's my baby." She narrowed her eyes at him. "I'm going to carry it for nine months and I'm the one who has to push it out of my vagina ..."
There went his blush again.
"So don't even think for a minute that you're ever going to take my child from me because you're some badass auror."
"No." he shook his head. "I wouldn't separate my child from his mother. Her mother."
"Good." She nodded. "I'm glad we understand one another."
A/N - ! #$%^&* rabid plot bunnies...