For the wonderful ChatterChick from chocolatecheesecakes (author of amazing fics such as 'Murder Mystery' and 'Never Test a Rumour').

Quite Literally Kidding

There really was no suitable explanation for why Neville had decided to take a walk outside, fifteen minutes before the beginning of the famed Hogwarts Christmas dinner, across the snow-covered grounds of Hogwarts. He pulled on his cloak over his shoulders, jammed a hat onto his head and stowed his trembling hands deep into his pockets.

Maybe it was because it was snowing. Yes, that would be the excuse Neville would use if anyone asked why the Herbology Professor was walking around outside barely fifteen minutes from dinner. Snow changed everything – it turned green to white, smothering the trees and grass and covering everything in an ethereal blanket. If he were late for tea, he would have a simple and worthy excuse.

Neville smiled across at the Lake, remembering days spent chucking snowballs around with his friends, ducking behind trees and hiding within bushes. Although some said that his generation (that being, the generation that helped defeat Voldemort) hadn't had a childhood to speak of, that was far from true.

Although… Maybe they did have to grow up a little too fast. Neville remembered the moment that he lost his innocence in vivid detail, with the acute memories and pain that came with the whole depressing package. He shoved his hands a little further into his pockets, tucking his arms into his sides, trying to keep the cold at bay.

Lily, Harry's only daughter, was sitting at the edge of the Lake next to her cousin Hugo. Neville smiled and shook his head slightly, making a beeline for his goddaughter clean across the grounds, leaving a slightly stilted track of footprints in his wake.

He knew that Hannah would have wanted him to bring his stick out with him, even on a quick walk such as this, but Neville was only in his thirties. He wasn't an old man yet, and his limp was perfectly manageable without a cane to lean on.

"What are you two doing out here on such a cold day?" Neville asked, pausing just behind the two first years, a knowing smile playing on his features. "Got sick of snowballs, eh?"

The cousins jumped at the unexpected voice, but then Lily jumped to her feet, hugging Neville around the middle. "It's Christmas, I can hug you," she said into his stomach. "Professor Longbottom."

Neville rubbed at the back of his neck, chuckling lowly. "You can call me Neville outside of school, you know that," he reiterated, for the umpteenth time. Lily never stopped teasing him, calling him by his professional title even over the summer. "And hugs are fine, just not in the middle of Herbology."

"In my defense, Uncle George bet me twelve Galleons to do that," Lily pulled away, crossing her arms and sticking her tongue out.

"That doesn't mean you should," Neville sighed, hiding a laugh behind his hand. "But in any case, shouldn't you two be up in the Great Hall?"

"Shouldn't you?" Hugo piped up, a curious expression on his still young face. "I mean, you are our Herbology Professor."

"I needed fresh air," Neville justified, grinning openly. "Seriously though, you two get back up there. Hannah will kill me if I let you two get ill out here."

"Hey, is this about the thing Uncle George tried to tell us about?" Lily asked, tilting her head and batting her eyelashes bashfully. "You know, the icky thing. The one that grown-ups like way too much…"

Neville's ears flushed pink, his entire face heating up despite his willing it not to. "Uh, no…" he insisted, reluctantly retracting his hands from his pockets and placing them on a shoulder of each first year, steering them up towards the castle.

"It totally is," Hugo whispered to Lily, his face screwed up in disgust. "Oh god, Uncle Neville and Aunty Hannah are going to do the icky thing later…"

"I am never going to do that when I'm older," Lily said solidly, looking at the snow with a patented glare. "EVER. I mean, ew…"

Neville, who could hear every scrap of this conversation, cleared his throat nervously. "Hurry up or you'll miss the cake!" he improvised hurriedly, face bright red. Luckily the two students seemed to buy his (admittedly pitiful excuse) and sped up their pace, talk of 'the icky thing' forgotten.

Even if the cake hadn't been broken into when they got back into the school, the Christmas dinner was about to begin. Neville had the foresight to quickly return back to his first-floor room, knowing that being a little late was better than being ripped into by his wife for not using a walking aide.

Christmas dinners at home with his aging grandmother were lovely and all, but the conversation was always bland (money this, how bad the youth of today are that, how's that Harry Potter then?) and Neville now had an actual, viable excuse to stay at Hogwarts over the holiday period. And Augusta Longbottom would spend Christmas with Ron and Hermione, so Neville had no reason to feel remorse.

Well… Maybe a little. He was going to see her later on tonight. It was only the dinners he disliked; he did truly admire his grandmother. Still going strong (and yelling strong) at ninety-seven.

"Still no children, I see. In my day, you'd have five children by the time you were thirty…"

"You okay there?" Hannah's voice cut into his thoughts, and Neville nodded, a smile sliding across his face as he took his wife's arm. "Nostalgic much?"

"A little," Neville admitted, glancing at his wife as she pulled him aside, just outside of the Great Hall. "Is everything okay? We're already late."

Hannah rolled her eyes, playfully hitting Neville on the arm. "Stop fussing and listen to what I have to say," she grinned. "It's a good 'un, I swear."

"We…" Neville was cut off as a large burst of laughter burst out of the Great Hall, and he relented, if reluctantly. "Oh, okay then. What do you have to tell me?"

Hannah cracked a small smile, and subtly patted her stomach, raising an eyebrow up at her husband. "Well, do you remember last month?" she began, deliberately teasing him with seemingly useless pieces of information.

"What about last month?" Neville's face scrunched up as he thought. "Well… I started Mandrakes with the second-years…"

"Really?" Hannah dropped the eyebrow, and pulled her arm out of Neville's grasp. "You and your plants. I know I shouldn't have brought you that Pitcher plant for Christmas last year."

Neville's face lit up almost immediately. "Pitcher plants are amazing!" he gushed. "How can you ever top that present Hannah, my god. Whatever you've got me this year is just going to curl up and die in comparison-"

"What about if I said we were getting a kid for Christmas?" Hannah interjected, before Neville's rant about Muggle plants could continue to new and 'exciting' heights. "Well, not for Christmas, obviously, but I guess as I just found out and it is Christmas Day…"

She glanced up again, to see her husband's jaw hanging open, just like it had been last year, when Hannah had presented him with a plant that digested things.

Oh. She'd broken her husband, again. This was becoming a regular Christmas scene for the Longbottom family.

"A… A kid?" Neville repeated weakly, just in case he'd misheard and this was all a dream. "You're kidding me, right?"

"Why would I kid?" Hannah asked, wrapping her now free arm around Neville's shoulders. "Pun not intended. I'm not lying, Neville. I'm pregnant."

Finally, the Herbology professor seemed to get the hint and slowly began to grin, wider and wider and wider until it seemed like his face might split into two.

"That's amazing!" he almost gushed, grabbing his wife by the shoulders and pulling her in for a kiss. "Oh, we have so much to plan for… Like what colour we'll paint the baby's room, and the godparents…"

"Don't get ahead of yourself, now," Hannah laughed, patting Neville on the shoulder and stretching up to give him another kiss. "Now isn't the time for planning. We'll be late for the Christmas feast."

Neville exhaled, eyes still sparkling with excitement. "As long as we can tell people," he said slowly. "I don't think I can hold a secret this big for long at all."

"Neither can I," Hannah replied, biting her lip and glancing into the Great Hall. "Come on then… Hadn't we better get in?"

Neville smiled and wrapped an arm around his wife, before guiding her into the Great Hall, paternal instincts telling him that one wrong move would break Hannah into a million tiny pieces of sprinkled glass.

"Hey, Nev?" Hannah spoke up, when Neville decided to pull her chair up for her as well.

"Yes dear?"

"I'm not going to get a splinter pulling a chair out, love."