Prompt: Neville Longbottom and Pansy Parkinson

Quotes: "Give me a hand."

Pansy cursed her all of her friends as she hurried through the grounds.

"Some great friends they are," she muttered, "forcing me to walk all by myself . . ."

Once she arrived at the greenhouse, she scanned the room for her bag. Spotting it in the far end, she moved, but she'd barely made it two steps before she tripped.

"Bloody— Longbottom?!"

Sure enough, lying on his back beneath her, was Neville Longbottom.

"Er . . . hi, Parkinson."

"Don't you 'hi' me! You made me trip, you idiot!"

"Sorry—"

"Are you completely out of your mind? What are you even laying here for? Are you really as stupid as they think you are? Oh, everyone's going to hear about this! I'll tell them all about the imbecile who sleeps in the greenhouse and makes people fall. I could have gotten severely injured, I'll have you know! And—what . . . why can't I move? Longbottom, what did you do?"

Longbottom made a miserable face. "I didn't do anything. It's the plant."

Pansy's eyes traveled down to her legs, seeing vines wrapping themselves around them. She screamed.

"Get them off! Get them off!"

She turned back to the Gryffindor, noticing this time that his hands were tied down by the vines as well. She saw how he grimaced, and realized her screaming must have busted his eardrums. But she didn't care.

"I'm going to burn this whole building down if you don't tell me how to get rid of them!" she said. Pansy wasn't stupid, she knew you couldn't say whatever spell you fancied at magical plants, but she also didn't want to get strangled to death by one. And next to Longbottom, no less. What would people say when they found their bodies?

Oh, Merlin, what would her mother say?

"Parkinson, the more you struggle, the more it's got you, so please calm down."

Pansy sent him a glare, but she was surprised to see it didn't affect him. Instead, he appeared to be in full business-mode.

"I need for you to grab your wand and do a Severing charm at the vines. Can you do that?"

She nodded.

The vines had reached her thigh now, but she managed to reach into the pocket of her robes and pull her wand. She attempted to direct it at her legs, but couldn't get the angle quite right. Having no desire to mutilate herself, she settled on releasing Longbottom from his vines.

He gave a hiss of relief, and rubbed his wrists.

"You'll have time for that later," said Pansy. "Get these things off me!"

"You shout a lot," said he, but grabbed for the wand he'd dropped on the ground next to them.

"Don't mess this up, Longbottom," said Pansy, "If I lose my leg, I swear to Salazar . . ."

He cast the charm, and to their shared relief, no limbs were lost.

However, that's when Pansy realized just how close she was to Longbottom's face, and how her whole body was pressed against him.

With big force, she pushed herself off of him, and tried to stand. Too late she noticed that her legs were a bit wobbly, and so she immediately crashed back down on the floor.

Meanwhile, Longbottom was already up and collecting the broken parts of the plants.

Pansy huffed. "By all means, care for that dead, withered piece of compost. I'll just sit here."

Longbottom turned, an incredulous expression on his face.

"Are you deaf? Give me a hand!"

The boy seemed to finally catch on to what she was saying, because he quickly moved toward her and grabbed hold of her hand and hoisted her up. Pansy stood, and while she dusted off her robes, she examined the windows. Once she was sure no one was around, she looked at the Gryffindor in front of her, grabbed hold of his red and gold tie, and pulled his lips down to hers.

"See, was that so hard?" she asked when they parted.

"Sorry," he said, smiling. "I get so caught up, I sometimes don't notice anything else."

Pansy sighed. "I wish you'd talk about me that way someday."

He stroked her cheek. "I will. How long do we have?"

"I told my friends I'd only gone to retrieve my bag, so perhaps another ten minutes before it gets suspicious? Can you believe none of them offered to follow with me?"

Longbottom chuckled. "I think I've made my opinion on your friends clear before, haven't I?"

"And I share most of those, but you know; appearances. Although, not all of them are bad," she said, thinking about Daphne and Theo. Perhaps they'd understand.

"You can tell anyone you like," said Longbottom. "I want to tell everyone, shout it from the Astronomy Tower, if only you'd let me."

Pansy sighed. They'd been over this before. "Just a bit more time."

Longbottom kissed her forehead. "Okay. But perhaps there's one thing we could do," he started.

"What?"

"Well, I wouldn't mind being on a first name basis with my own girlfriend."

Pansy laughed, and kissed Neville again.