Unworthy

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Goldensnitch18

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Rated M

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Summary: Pansy Parkinson believes herself unworthy of a great many things, not the least of which is love. This story is a twelve days of Christmas story which will be updated daily until complete on the twelfth day.

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Disclaimer: I am not profiting from this story.

Anything you recognize belongs to the great and mighty JKR.

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Dedication: Each day I will be dedicating this story to someone who helped me along my fanfiction or writing journey this year. Today, that person is RooOJoy. This beautiful woman is my friend first, but she has also been my beta for work this year. She is a fantastic cheerleader, a promoter of positivity, and a light in my life. Lady, you are so damn special. I am blessed to have 'met' you this year and to have you in my life. Thank you so much.

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Inspiration: The first Paneville I ever read was Darkened Skies. Thank you for introducing me to the pairing thewaterfalcon and for being the very first person to read this and make me feel like I was doing something right here. Also, the plunnie for this was born late one night while reading From One Professor to Another by kci47. Yes, you should go check that out as well.


September


The smoke was thick in the air around her. Somewhere in the back of her mind, her mother was reminding her in a perfect mixture of condescending and proper that cigarettes were a Muggle triviality, but Pansy couldn't bring herself to give a fuck. Some things Muggles just got right, and this beautiful rush of nicotine hitting her blood was one of them. Besides, no one was around her here on the grounds. If there was no witness to her chain-smoking her way through a good portion of a bottle of Firewhisky, then it couldn't be held against her.

Years had passed since she had felt this way, her entire body aching to do something, even though she knew there was nothing to be done. The letter had arrived at breakfast. Hundreds of students laughing and talking while she read the words. Days. Maybe a week, her mother wrote. Pansy had suffered through her lessons, all the while thinking, I wish it was you.

She was going to have to get someone to cover her classes, a task she abhorred. Her colleagues were nearly all fucking unbearable. They would want to know why she was leaving, and their fake sympathies would make her feel utterly ill. Maybe, she could ask Potter. She could tell him to fuck off and not feel bad about it. He was shagging her best friend, so he was at least used to her now, even if he still didn't understand her. Though, it wasn't as if he made any more sense to her than he had when they had been students, so she couldn't really blame him. Maybe she could even convince Draco to do the asking for her, avoid the entire encounter. The Headmistress was sure to frown on that, but …

"Pansy?" a soft voice asked, and she jumped.

Her cigarette fell into the grass, and she shifted her leg quickly to stomp it out with her foot. "Fuck," she declared, glaring at him behind her.

"Didn't mean to scare you," Neville said, frowning at the bottle in her hand and the pack of cigarettes in the grass. Neville ruddy Longbottom, of course. He was the bane of her bloody existence, always showing up at the worst possible moments. "What are you doing?" he asked.

"What does it look like I'm doing?" she snapped and lifted the bottle to her lips to display just how much she didn't care that he had caught her.

"It looks like you're drinking and smoking behind my greenhouses," he said, not backing down. She much preferred Longbottom before he had helped defeat Voldemort. He was so easy to intimidate before that. He was so easy to ignore before that.

"What are you doing out here anyway?" she asked. She'd specifically chosen this spot because there was no reason for anyone to be here this late. If he was a student, she would have docked him points and given him detention. Unfortunately, Longbottom was the Deputy Headmaster, a position that gave him much more authority than the Ancient Runes Professor.

"Working," he replied as if this was obvious. Perhaps it was. He was wearing a pair of those ratty jeans he always wore in the greenhouses when the students weren't around. She'd seen him like this so many times now that it was almost as familiar as his robes. His dark shirt was clinging to his chest despite the cool night air. She supposed, upon reflection, he did seem to spend many of his evenings holed up out here, his hands in the dirt, his mind on whatever it was that Neville Longbottom found interesting enough to think about. "Can I have some of that?" he asked, bringing her attention back to the bottle in her hand.

Pansy stared at it, contemplating whether or not to share, and decided that he couldn't get her in trouble with McGonagall if he had some as well. It was ultimately an act of self-preservation. He had never given her a reason to suspect he would turn her into McGonagall for being human, but that didn't mean it was an impossibility. She held it out to him, and he fell into the grass beside her. "Bum a smoke?" he asked just before the bottle touched his lips. She nodded. He handed back the Firewhisky and moved to pull a cigarette from her pack. He lit it with his wand and inhaled deeply.

"You smoke?" she asked. She had never once seen him with a cigarette.

He exhaled. "Just for a bit after the war and occasionally when we all go out." He was silent for a few beats, and then, "Why don't you ever come?" He had turned to face her, his eyes traveling along her hair, her face, her legs crossed in the grass. She moved her gaze away from him, her eyes back on the trees at the edge of the forest.

"It's one thing to deal with Potter. I don't have any choice, but the rest of them …" she trailed off, trying not to imagine what it would be like to be out with all those bloody Gryffindors. Intolerable at best.

"Harry likes you," Neville said, reaching for her bottle again. She let him take it.

"Potter puts up with me," she retorted. "Not the same thing." Bloody Potter was always on her about forgetting the past and embracing new friendships. It made her want to vomit. There was not enough Firewhisky in the world to allow her to pretend to be friends with Hermione Granger, or Weasley, or whatever the insufferable woman went by these days. She was pregnant, had been promoted, again, and was saving the world one new law at a time. Some things never changed.

"If you say so." He shrugged as he nestled the bottle back into her lap. The tips of his fingers grazed her trousers as they moved back to his own lap. "So, what did it say?" he asked.

"What?" she looked over at him, trying fiercely to ignore the stubble on his chin. Somehow, Neville seemed to maintain this slight shadow of whiskers at all times. It was unclear if he just didn't understand how shaving worked, or this was some intentional attempt to drive her crazy. Pansy hated it.

"The letter this morning," he explained as he met her eyes.

"That is none of your business," she told him, but even she had to admit that she wasn't able to conjure her normal venom behind the words. She knew he wasn't asking out of curiosity. He was concerned because that was who he was.

"You don't have to tell me," he shrugged and pulled at the cigarette again. The silence swirled around them, even thicker than the smoke. Pansy tried to think of something to say. She knew that he was trying to be nice. He was one of them, a bloody Gryffindor, and he didn't know any other way, but she didn't need nice. She hated nice.

"I need to go say goodbye to my father. He's dying." The words tumbled from her mouth unbidden, and she instantly regretted them as they caused her throat to tighten and her eyes to sting. He was really dying. There was nothing she could do about it.

"That's shit," Neville concluded, his eyes full of emotion. Pansy let out a low, quick laugh before she remembered herself and moved her lips back to their sullen frown. "Drink some more," he told her. She pushed the bottle against her lips, drinking deeply. "So, a letter?"

Pansy sighed loudly, trying to expel some of the hate rushing through her body at the thought of her mother's lack of concern for how this news might feel coming in a letter. "It's perfectly proper to send a letter, Longbottom. No pesky emotions involved that way. You don't have to touch anyone or admit that you might be upsetting them." She reached up to rub at the tension in the back of her neck. The stinging was still there in her eyes, threatening to push tears down her cheeks.

She felt his hand on hers, as she tried to keep herself in check. She breathed in sharply, looking up at him. He held her gaze, not caring that she was obviously affected by the movement. She told her hand to pull back, but it refused to comply. "I'm really sorry," he squeezed the fingers surrounding hers once and then again. "When Gran got sick, and, well, it was hard being alone. You should be around people. Stop hiding in your office all the time."

"I like my office," she lied. Her office was quiet, clean of memories of past lives and mistakes. It was easy to get lost in her work there.

"You can come hide in mine, if you want, I mean, just, if you want company," he stumbled through words, climbing over the last to get to the next as quickly as possible. She nearly smiled. This was Longbottom from before the war. Every once in awhile, he still showed up to amuse her.

"Do you and Potter have some sort of poll going?" she asked as she was finally able to get her hand to cooperate. She moved it away from his to wrap around the bottle where he couldn't grab it again. "Who can get Parkinson to be their friend first?"

"I know you like me better than him. I don't snog Malfoy in front of you," he grinned, and his eyes nearly twinkled in the soft light. There was something wrong with this man, or perhaps with her.

"True," she told him. She wanted to keep looking at those twinkling eyes, so she did the only thing she could and pushed herself up from the ground. She brushed off her trousers as she stood. Neville handed her up her cigarettes, and she pushed them into her back pocket.

As he stood, Neville told her, "You should quit. Those things are terrible for you."

"Don't worry, Longbottom. I only smoke when I need to piss off my mother." She began her walk toward the castle, and he fell in step beside her, his hands pushed into his pockets. His gait was so very Neville - sure of his steps, but reserved in execution. They walked in silence, him seemingly unaffected by the chill of the night as she shivered.

"I can cover some of your lessons if you need." She was still looking straight ahead, but she knew he had shrugged, his arms rolling up as his fingers stayed in his pockets, as if it was no big deal for him to offer. "I can't do them all, but …"

"Yes," she said quickly at the lull in his speech. "I mean, that would really be helpful."

"I can talk to Harry, too. See if we can cover them between the two of us." Pansy sighed at this as if it meant nothing at all that he knew exactly what she had been dreading and removed the issue.

"Yeah, I guess, I'll need them covered," she told him, letting her eyes move over to look at him once more. He nodded, a small smile on his face.

"Just send me what you need. I'll take care of it," he said, and the subject closed. At the door of the castle, they went their separate ways without another word.


A/N: I hope that you like this first chapter/bit/day of this story. It was a little something that jumped into my brain and wouldn't let go, so I just had to write it down. I meant it to be an OS, but it got a little long for that, so I turned it into my Christmas project.

I'll be back tomorrow with another chapter !

xoxo

Meg