Disclaimer: JKR owns everything associated with Harry Potter, and I used the prompt "Why exactly do you need chloroform at 2AM?" from a list on tumblr by toxixpumpkin. So basically, I own nothing. Enjoy!
"Hannah. Hannah. Hannah! Wake up! Hannah!"
Hannah groaned, rolled over and pulled the pillow over her head. "I'm asleep," she said. The pillow was lifted off her head.
"Hannah," Neville said. "I need help." He was covered in dirt and wearing what looked like a bee-keepers' hat, and she didn't think she'd seen him look so gleeful in years.
"I'll say," she muttered. "What's going on?"
"The Mandrakes are hatching! I need your help," he said, all but bouncing on the bed.
This got her attention. "Right now?"
"Right now," he confirmed. "Come on, come on!" He pulled back the covers on her bed, and she pouted, pulling them back towards her. It was spring, but it was still cold. Especially without her boyfriend in bed with her. "You need to get dressed, come on." Grumbling and very grudgingly, she climbed out of the bed. "You were the one who told me you wanted to see them be born!"
"Yes, but I didn't think it would happen in the middle of the bloody night," she muttered. Regardless, she pulled a huge jumper over her (rather short) nightie.
"You're going to need more clothes than that," Neville said. She looked at him inquisitively.
"I thought you were keeping it warm," she asked. "For the babies?"
"I am," Neville said, "but it's not that. I don't want any of my students to see my girlfriend wandering about like that in the middle of the night!"
"Are you worried someone might get the wrong idea?" she teased.
"No!" he replied. "I'm worried they'll start fancying you."
She huffed, and he looked confused, but she pulled on a skirt anyway. They flooed through from the pub to his office at Hogwarts, and then snuck down to the greenhouses. Walking around the school in the middle of the night still gave Hannah something of a thrill, both of delight and of terror. She hoped they didn't bump into Professor McGonagall; even though she was Neville's boss, she'd probably give them both detention. And Hannah would be intimidated enough to do it.
"Wait," he said, throwing out an arm as she prepared to enter the greenhouse. He reached inside and pulled out a second beekeeper hat. "Put it on, and pull the netting down."
"Are there bees?" she asked.
"No," he replied. "But the netting has been charmed to keep out the effects of this." He held up a spray bottle. "The smell, and the...effects. It's sort of like chloroform for plants. It helps with the births; it can slow things down if they're moving a bit too quickly to be safe, and sort of numbs things too. You don't really want to be breathing it in yourself—it wouldn't kill you, but it wouldn't do you much good, either."
"Oh, good," said Hannah faintly. "You work in a school filled with tiny children and you're wandering around with bottles of chloroform. And when someone says 'Ah, Neville, why exactly do you need chloroform at two in the morning?' you'll say 'Oh no no no, it's for the plants I swear!' which doesn't sound weird at all, and then they'll bang you up in Azkaban and I'll have to come and get you out, even though I've got three deliveries coming tomorrow. And I bet your bail will cost a fortune, too."
"Number one," Neville said with dignity, "it's not actually chloroform. It just sort of...mimics the effects. On plants. It's made with magic! So it's fine. Number two: the school is not filled with tiny children, it's filled with obnoxious teenagers. And number three: I could get out of Azkaban very easily."
"How? I've heard it's supposed to be an impenetrable fortress."
"I'm good friends with Harry Potter, I'll have you know," Neville said. "That's got to count for something." Hannah snorted. "Now, are you in or not? It's not every day you get to see Mandrakes hatching!"
"It isn't," Hannah said, and she put on her bee-keeper hat. "I'm in."
Around three in the morning, she asked, "Why is it called 'hatching'?"
"Hmm?" Neville asked. He had a pair of secateurs in between his teeth, and was holding a particularly difficult plant in both hands.
"I said," Hannah asked, twirling up to him, removing the secateurs and twirling away again, "why do you say the Mandrakes are 'hatching'? I thought, with plants, it was...seeding. Or sprouting. Or whatever. Hatching's what birds and lizards do, isn't it?"
"Well," Neville said, "that's a very interesting question. Can you get that one—no that one, yes. Thanks. Right. So. The field of Magizoology is very strange, because a lot of the time, you get crossover between animals and plants that you wouldn't get in the non-magical world. It was Henrietta Haggletoad, who, in 1743, wrote a paper that..."
It was, actually, a very interesting answer. That was what she loved about Neville. He made everything interesting. Once, he'd read her his shopping list and made toilet roll and red peppers—not green, never green—and potatoes in a tin sound exciting. She'd laughed so hard she'd given herself a stitch as he pranced around, telling her all about his previous experiences in the veg shop. It was, really, a remarkable talent.
At about half-past four, she was helping with a particularly difficult hatching. He came over to stand next to her, hovering by her left hand side, and she felt an immediate sense of relief that he was there, waiting to take over if it all went wrong. But it didn't, and, fifteen minutes later, she had sorted everything. He smiled at her, and went on his way.
At a quarter to six, when it was still dark outside, Neville surveyed the greenhouse. "I think," he said cautiously, "that we might have finished."
In response to this pronouncement, Hannah sat down on the floor of the greenhouse, heedless of the dirt and compost that was also there, and, a second later, flopped back too. "Ow," she said, without any great feeling, as her head hit the floor.
"Hannah!" Neville's slightly alarmed face loomed over her. "Do you have a concussion?"
"Nope," she said, with finality.
"How do you know?"
"I just do," Hannah said, and yawned hugely. "All the...baby Mandrakes," she added, sleepily, waving an arm around the greenhouse expansively.
Neville smiled, although, with her eyes closed, she couldn't see this. "All the baby Mandrakes," he agreed. "They're all hatched. It was a bumper crop this year."
"Mmm," agreed Hannah.
"Hannah."
"What?"
"Don't fall asleep."
"Not going to," Hannah said, voice becoming progressively sleepier.
"Hmm."
Hannah sat up with a shriek, and Neville stood over her with a watering can, looking terribly evil. "You're awful," she told him, and he put the watering can down, coming to lie on his stomach next to her.
"I know," he agreed cheerfully.
"Neville?"
"Yes?"
"Will you take that silly hat off?" Laughing, he obliged, then, very gently, took her silly hat off, too. It made lying on the ground much more comfortable, and she told him this.
"You can sleep now," he teased. It was a running joke between them that, even though she was the one with a job with much more unsociable hours, she needed her sleep a lot more than he did. Anything less than eight hours meant she was absolutely horrible the next day, whereas he could—and often did, when he was wrapped up with some new plant—survive on two or three hours a night at most for several weeks. "I'm impressed, you know."
"'Bout what?" Hannah asked sleepily.
"That you managed to stay awake long enough to see all the Mandrakes hatched," Neville replied absent-mindedly. Although he was lying down, he was on his front, leaning on his forearms with his head up in the air so he could survey the night's work, but everything seemed to be in working order so far. Because of that, he didn't notice Hannah's eyes open, or her sleepiness vanish.
"I said I wanted to see them, and that I'd come to help," she replied.
"Yeah, but I thought you meant...you'd pop in between the lunch and dinner rush, if it was convenient," he replied, still scanning the rows. "Not give up an entire night's sleep."
"'Course I'd give up an entire night's sleep for you," she said, and Neville happened to glance down, catching her serious expression.
He smiled. "I know," he said. "That's why I'm going to marry you."
"I know," she replied comfortably.
A beat passed, then they both sat bolt upright. "You what?"
"Well..." Neville said, struggling. He waved a hand. "We'd sort of...talked about...if we..." Hannah pulled a face at him. He regrouped. "How do you know, anyway?" he asked, attempting indignant.
"Oh," she said off-handed. "Your Gran told me."
"What?"
"About the ring that you'd bought," she continued. "She said that you'd gone out and bought a ring and got my Dad's permission and you were going to propose properly like, but that she thought I should know about it because a body could grow old and die—and I think she meant herself here, but thinking about it, she might've been talking about me—before you actually got around to doing it. But I think she was generally supportive about it, mostly. Actually, I'm surprised my Dad hasn't said anything, but he tends to be a man of few words, you know? And he likes you, and you know my Auntie Jean—you know, the one who plays Witches' Brimstone with your Gran—she likes you, too. And she doesn't even like me, so you must be alright. ... Neville?"
"When did...when did Gran say all this?" he asked faintly.
"About six months ago," Hannah said cheerfully. "It was definitely before Christmas, at any rate."
"...oh," said Neville.
"But it's okay," she said. "Really." And then: "Neville?"
"Yes?"
"Can I see the ring?"
He tried not to smile, and used his wand to summon his travelling cloak from the other side of the greenhouse. He dumped the cloak on Hannah, who gave a groan of pleasure and snuggled into it, and rootled around in one of the pockets. He pulled the ring box out and opened it, and Hannah gave the tiniest of gasps.
She reached out, almost touching it with her index finger, but suddenly withdrew, as though she had been burned. "Aren't you going to say something?" she asked.
"Like what?"
"How about 'will you marry me'?"
"Yes," he nodded, and they caught each other's eye and burst out laughing.
"Me, too," she said. He took three attempts to get the ring on the right finger, but she just laughed and let him. She held out her left hand, and in the light from the lamps they'd lit, watched the tiny diamond sparkle. "Neville," she breathed, "it's beautiful."
"For you," he said, as though this wasn't obvious, "my beautiful diamond."
She kissed him then, leaning over across the dirty stone floor, the smell of mud and earth mingling with the smell of Neville, let his hands wander across her body as their lips pressed together again and again and again...
As the sun started to come up, they fell asleep, tangled in each other's arms. But they couldn't have been asleep more than twenty minutes before—
"Professor Longbottom!"
Hannah sat up in utter horror, and the first image that jumped into her mind was of the Hufflepuff hourglass in the hallway, the tiny gems falling and falling.
Professor McGonagall was looking down at them, her face inscrutable. "I...uh...the Mandrakes!" Neville said desperately. "They are...all hatched now. I sorted them all. Hannah helped!"
Hannah tried to look helpful.
"I am glad to hear the good news," said Professor McGonagall. "Nonetheless, breakfast is served in the Great Hall in twenty minutes. It perhaps would not do for your students to find you on the floor of the greenhouse with your girlfriend, should they choose to take a turn about the grounds this morning as I did, even though I am sure she has spent the night being of great assistance to you and the Mandrakes."
"I'm terribly sorry, Professor," said Hannah at once, visions of Neville losing his job jumping into her brain. "It won't happen again; I was only trying to help with—"
"She's not my girlfriend," Neville butted in. Even Professor McGonagall looked surprised at this. "I mean—we're engaged. We just got...engaged? We...wow. So she's my..."
"Fiancée?" supplied Professor McGonagall. She smiled down at them. "My warmest congratulations to you both; I hope you have many happy years together. Now, please both of you get up and try to make yourselves look presentable before the students rise."
"I'm terribly sorry Professor," Hannah began again, earnestly, still worried about Neville being fired. "We didn't mean to fall asleep, but after—"
"After the excitement of the first batch of Mandrakes born her without Pomona Sprout's influence, combined with your own news, it is not at all surprising the two of you were overcome with exhaustion," said Professor McGonagall. "As I say, however, it would probably be for the best if, next time, you do not do so in the school greenhouses."
"Of course Professor," Hannah said, accepting the hand Neville offered her, and getting to her feet. She tried to look dignified and grown up, but slipped on a piece of damp earth and gave a tiny squeak, clutching hold of Neville's cloak to stop herself tumbling down in the process. Neville made a chocking sound as the material pulled around his neck.
Professor McGonagall gave a tiny sigh. "Miss Abbott, due to the change in the nature of your relationship with Mr Longbottom, and his position at the school, I trust that, in the future we will be seeing more of each other, in a non-educational capacity," she said. "I think, therefore, it is perhaps time you began calling be Minerva."
"Oh—of course Professor. I mean—!" She kicked herself.
"Never fear," Professor McGonagall said, her lips twitching. "Your finance himself has not got the hang of that one yet." She caught sight of the mirrored looks of amazement on both of their faces at the word, and had to supress a smile. "I believe," she said, addressing Neville, "that, as it is Thursday, your first class is not until after break?"
"Yes, the third years," Neville confirmed.
"Well, I think we can probably manage without you at breakfast, as long as you're back for then," she said.
"I'm sorry?" Neville asked.
"My dear, I have personally fought with Lord Voldemort himself, but I fear a more dangerous fate would be in store for me if I deprived Augusta Longbottom of the news of her only grandchild's engagement," Professor McGonagall replied, allowing herself a tiny smile.
Hannah giggled. "Thank you, Professor!" she said, taking Neville's hand. "I'll be sure he's back in time," she added. "I promise we won't fall asleep this time."
"No, I'm sure you'll find something else to be doing with your time," she said, almost insulted by how scandalised they looked. "Do have fun!"
"Oh, we will!" promised Neville, and, laughing, the two of them walked into the new day together.
(Professor McGonagall waited a suitable amount of time so it would not appear she was following them out of the greenhouse, then walked into the grounds back towards the castle itself. It would not do, she knew, to keep this news from the staff, when they had been waiting for it for so long.)