Written for 'Would You Rather…' Challenge! [Always Open!], Fanfiction Marathon Competiton/Challenge, and The Snakes and Ladders Challenge - SIGN-UPS RE-OPEN.


Neville looked at the woman sitting next to him on the grassy hill. Her long blonde hair, streaked with gray, was loose and falling over her shoulders like a waterfall. She had attempted, before they arrived here, to tuck it behind her ears, but the wind had ruined that plan.

"It's odd," she said, her voice still crisp as it had been when she had lived in a mansion with her proper pure-blood husband, one that wasn't considered a blood traitor to everyone who still abided by the old ways. "To be sitting here next to you like I've always been doing it."

Neville understood exactly what she meant it. It didn't feel like it had been only a few months since they shared a kiss that tasted like champagne and freedom, since she shook off her husband that had only brought her pain in the recent years.

Narcissa had been wealthy, had been successful in her marriage and her life. But she had given that all up for Neville, and he knew that each and every day, he needed to thank her.

"Why?" he had whispered one night in their small apartment. "Why give it up?"

"Because I would rather be poor in a better age, when I know more about my life and what I want, than rich in one where I have no idea," was her response.

"I'm twenty-three year younger than you," he whispered. "How are you certain that I know what I want?"

"I don't. But already, you are poorer than I was."