It started when Neville Longbottom tugged his earlobe. Pansy, in a lethargic post-Trelawney induced stupor, hazily let her gaze linger over said earlobe in its perfect soft rotundity, the curve separate from the slender and even softer-looking curve of neck beside it, a single dark freckle almost at the hairline, and wondered what it would be like to delicately run her tongue, like outlining a constellation, from bare shoulder to neck to freckle. Her fantasy ended with a satisfactory tug of the earlobe with her even, pearly teeth.
But with the vain reference to her own teeth, Pansy came to herself startled and flushed. F antasies about Neville Longbottom were not to be borne. It was only logical that if any other boy had chosen exactly that same warm spot of bench Longbottom was currently shifting uneasily in, she was certain only the name, not the thought, would change. Reassured, she turned back to her former occupation of leering over Blaise's shoulder to catch his answers for the exam and letting ink dribble off her quill. c
A cough snatched her gaze back to the perpetrator, who was now resting his cheek on his hand as he wrote. He turned his head fleetingly and Pansy stared at his bottom lip (caught lightly between his teeth) and she wondered if his mouth—another guilty panic arrested her with a slight unbidden gasp and Blaise glowered before shielding his parchment with one forearm.
There sat Neville Longbottom, who bled crimson and gold. There sat Neville Longbottom, who was only proficient in things grown in dirt. There sat Neville Longbottom, who was everything wrong with purebloods. And here sat Pansy Parkinson, thinking that Neville Longbottom might be delectable.
Her own personality was such that Pansy immediately forced the blame on the idiot Dido's incense and consigned herself to a headache and box of Valrhona after class.
Whether due to the almost constant replay of tongue, neck, and tugging in her mind, or the way Draco had been flirting with none other than that disgusting first year Slytherin even the Hufflepuff boys wanted, Pansy could not resist the idea of desiring a Gryffindor.
It was a two-way seduction, Pansy concluded. He was unconsciously seducing her, but she would seduce him with perfectly lucid calculation, and he would be the first to fall. Her honor would remain intact and any and all observers would be none the wiser. It was simply a passing fancy, a way to torture without revealing the authentic source.
Yes. This would work out perfectly.
The prussian-eyed boy who had whet Pansy's appetite only the day previous hardly knew what emotions he further kindled as he bit his lip and concentrated on cutting a particularly fatty piece of roast. The chunk paused at his open mouth, however, as his eyes caught hers.
She was giving him a look so distinctly feral he almost choked on the bite still being masticated. Blushing from neck to crown, he murmured excuses and half-rose from the table only to sit numbly and stare at his plate.
If his every shy glance could induce suppressed shivers of delight in her, she reveled to think of the total and complete bewitchment she would lay on him with every turn of her heel. His half-full plate and glazed stare sent triumphal waves of pleasure coursing through her being. Pansy wiped her mouth prettily with her napkin and left the Great Hall feeling Neville's presumably lustful eyes on her with every minced step.
He was already hers.
Not in the least. Neville explained his disgust so rapidly to Trevor he kept tripping over his words. "She thinks she can get me she's why want and girls never like me like that look and what would Gran say if any of my friends or but she thinks I'll give in or it's so stupid Trevor really the girl's a brat and I wouldn't touch her even if—" Neville stiffened. Trevor sagely pretended that was all his master wanted to explore openly at this time. Such was the conclusion and the conclusion remained such.
Until precisely ten-thirty the next morning, that is. Neville was placidly shuffling down one of the longer stone corridors whose length constituted many a lazy student's full capacity for daily exercise until they reached their classroom huffing, newly asthmatic. Neville never huffed, but he did trip, and and in one instant all his possessions had escaped his arms and gleefully scattered as far from their owner's reach as gravity and bad luck made possible.
"Let me help you...no one ever stops to help." Neville was instantaneously cheered with the unexpected and dreamy missive.
"Thanks, Luna." Neville's smile receded quickly as he glanced past the blonde curls to the legs beyond them. Long, clad in sheer silk stockings, they ended in feet so perfectly arched in their heels as to be abnormal. One toe was paused atop a vial inscribed with Neville's handwriting. Pansy was still chattering blithely with her friends as if it was customary habit to stop rolling vials with her foot. Luna was cooing over illustrations in one of Neville's books and pretended not to notice him walk over to Pansy, whom Luna considered to be demon incarnate.
"I, uh, I think you're..."
"Yes, Longbottom, I am."
"I—"
"Yes, Longbottom." He ignored the tittering of her friends as Pansy, in one liquid motion, caught up the bottle and placed it in his outstretched hand, closing his fingers over it. Her advances were so subtle―the almost pout, the way her fingers lingered over his a half second longer than should be proper, the way her eyes shyly glanced at his mouth before she bit her lip as if to contain herself, and that unnerving expectation of his weakness, her own vanity, behind it all. Neville's resolve hardened at once. He left her and collected the rest of his items from Luna.
It was here at precisely ten-thirty, which statement has been pointedly referred to before in an annoyingly omniscient manner, that Neville's unyielding resolve to never accede to the temptation that was Pansy Parkinson snapped in two. Or rather, it was crumbled to particles so fine a mote was never recovered. He looked back with the same cold demeanor to find himself staring at a face so full of anxious vulnerability he tripped again. The silk-covered legs walked away, Luna was heartily repeating herself, and Neville was lost.
