Author's Note: Beware the M rating. No actual sex, but nudity and heavy innuendo.
Moving In With Hannah
Before dinner, Neville spent a couple of hours in his old bedroom, while Gran, Enid, and Algie greeted guests and mourners. It was a bittersweet experience to go through all of his mementos and school things again. Most of his stuff had been packed away before his grand tour, and he hadn't thought to unpack the boxes since he had been living and working in Diagon Alley.
There were photographs of his family and school friends, and textbooks that had gotten lodged in the back of his closet. He kept the photographs but sorted through the books: the only ones he kept were the Herbology and Charms books, as well as the basic Transfiguration books. He contemplating burning the Potions textbook, but finally decided against it — one never knew when it would be required to make a potion, and as long as Severus Snape wasn't threatening him with certain death or disembowelment, he could make a decent potion, he supposed. So he tucked that one in the box to keep, too. But the rest were thrown in a discard pile.
Old clothes that no longer fit were also tossed aside, as was a defeated broomstick he'd only used once (because Uncle Algie had insisted). He discovered a Quidditch rosette from his sixth year buried amongst a small box of Gryffindor trappings, which also included a banner that was starting to fade, a drawing of a lion Dean had done once that was no longer roaring, a Gryffindor scarf, and a Gryffindor cravat; these, he kept.
After glancing about the room again, he realized that there was nothing else he wished to take with him. The furniture had been his great-grandfather's, the curtains were Gran's creations, and she had been quite strict about him not putting up any posters of longhaired bands or rough Quidditch teams, so there was nothing to take down off of the fading and peeling wallpaper.
As the sun dipped below the horizon, Neville chucked the pile of things not wanted, and placed the items he did want in a small trunk. He then sent the trunk downstairs with a wave of his wand and placed it near the door.
After a dinner of mixed items brought from various mourners and friends, he asked Uncle Algie if he would send the trunk to the Leaky Cauldron for him, and he said goodbye to his remaining family. Aunt Enid complained that she still thought the whole idea of returning to the pub was ridiculous, while Uncle Algie's eyes twinkled as he shook his great-nephew's hand and told him to come by for Sunday dinner the next weekend. Gran also hugged him, and gave him a smile that meant she was at peace with the situation.
With that, he finally stepped into the darkness beyond his grandmother's Victorian country home.
For nearly an hour, Neville meandered along the winding country lane, always keeping within the shadows of the hedgerows and overhanging trees as he passed through tiny villages that were settling down for bed for the night. His mind was clear for the first time in a long time it seemed, and he slowly separated his thoughts.
His parents' deaths had definitely made him re-evaluate his life. He had been living in a dream world for the past three months, staying at the Leaky Cauldron and working at the little plant shop, surrounded by friends and drinking buddies, laughing whenever someone pulled a prank on someone else, or whenever Ginny told them of something funny that happened at one of her Quiddich practices, or when one of Luna's letters were read aloud to the group. He had been flirting with Hannah over the bar and having maddening fantasies about her in his room at the inn, he'd been visiting with Harry, Ron, and Hermione, going out with Seamus and Dean, having ice cream sundaes on Sunday afternoons, and laughing when the Choker Vine swayed menacingly as a customer approached the door of the Magical Beans.
But now his parents were dead, and an overwhelming sense of both loss and freedom swelled up within him. His parents were gone and it was time to move on with his life in general, but he didn't need to continue to live as if nothing would happen the next day except what had happened the day before. There were a lot of things to decide. What did he really want in life? What were his strengths, his weaknesses? How should he proceed from this point to make something of himself, instead of just being remembered as "Neville Longbottom, the Boy Who Once Defied Lord Voldemort"?
By midnight, while standing on a bridge over a small river, Neville decided he had the answers all lined out like a map in his head. With that, he Disapparated from the bridge and reappeared in Charing Cross Road.
For a few minutes, Neville waited outside the door of the Leaky Cauldron after he'd knocked. He was sure Hannah was in bed, and it would take her a few minutes to descend to the ground floor and let him inside. Patiently, he studied the wood grain with centuries of wear, until at last he heard the locks and bolts sliding back on the other side. The door creaked open, and Neville felt his chest constrict slightly as Hannah's beautiful blue eyes gazed back at him in confusion in the light of her wand. Before she could ask questions, he slipped inside, shut the door, and bolted it back.
Then he turned to look at her. She was beautiful, standing before him in a long pink robe and fuzzy slippers, with her hair tumbling in loose curls down her back and over her shoulders, and he had to fight to keep from running his fingers into it.
After a long pause, she stammered, "I though you were with your family tonight..."
"I was." He paused, then reached out and cupped her face, leaned down, and brushed his lips against hers. "And now I'm with you."
"Neville..." she protested weakly. But one of her hands had already slid into his hair, and she was starting to nibble his lower lip and jaw. "I thought you would stay with them longer than just a few hours... I thought you'd stay there several days."
He sighed and slid his fingertips over her cheek, marveling at how warm her skin was. "I think we need to talk," he said gently.
For a couple of seconds, she looked worried, but then she said, "Yes, I think we do." And without waiting for an answer, she took his hand and led him back across the room, into the corridor, and up the staircase.
However, instead of going to her quarters above, she led him to his room.
Once inside, Hannah flicked her wand at the fire, and it stirred, casting a small glow around the chamber. Everything was just as it had been before he'd left to be with his family a few nights earlier, except that now his trunk was here.
Neville sat down in one of the two chairs beside the fire, and to his relief, Hannah sat in the one opposite of him. He was grateful she hadn't sat in his lap, or he wouldn't be able to talk to her at all. As it was, in the dim light of the embers, there was a soft red glow to her hair, and her eyes seemed midnight blue instead of their usual light, sparking color. The robe was clingy, and he cleared his throat and looked at the coals, to avoid staring at her breasts.
After a moment, he explained, "Gran suggested I come back here, actually. She thinks it's the best thing for me."
He saw the soft smile curve her mouth as she realized the implication, and he quickly added, "But I've been doing some thinking, too. While my parents were alive, it was as though I were constantly tied to my family. Now they're gone, and... well... I think it's time for me to move on."
At the words 'move on', he noticed a tiny frown line appear between her eyebrows.
"What do you mean?" she asked slowly.
"I've been living here like tomorrow will be the same as yesterday...like nothing will ever change. But life is always changing. I haven't been thinking about the future at all. So the first thing I intend to do is to tell Digby I only want to work part-time at the shop."
"Part-time? But...what will you do with your free time?"
"I've been taking these journals, see?" He picked a journal from the magazine rack beside his chair. "They're Herbology and Charms journals. I've been really interested in the Herbology ones, and I've drafted a few articles I want to submit to the editor. I want to see if I can find new ways to grow magical plants, or new ways to tend to old ones. These journals pay a good deal of money for expertise articles. I know I'm not an expert, but I want to make myself one, because Herbology is what I'm good at and I love it. So I'll keep up with my studies, too. I can do that on my own."
"I think that's an excellent idea, if it's what you want to do. But what about money? Even if they pay well for one article, you'll still just be working part-time for Digby..."
Neville chuckled. "There's plenty of money in Gringotts. I'd be all right even if I quit at the shop completely."
Hannah paused, and picked at a thread on the arm of the chair. She kept her eyes diverted from him, and asked, "You're going to find a flat, too. Aren't you?"
He sobered instantly. She had said it calmly, but he had still caught the trace of hurt in her voice. Somehow, she had already known he was thinking of leaving the Leaky Cauldron. The pub had been a lot of fun to live in, but it didn't seem practical for long-term residency while he'd been walking through the country lanes and villages, thinking of the future.
"Well... I think I should," Neville said slowly. "It's been wonderful staying here, but you may need the room for a real guest. Not a permanent boarder."
Hannah fell silent at this statement; her eyes stared into the fire for a long time. Neville fell silent as well. He hated leaving her, but she had been alone before he came, and it was arrogant to think he had created that much of a difference in her life.
However, a few minutes, she murmured, "Neville? I'd rather you stay here. Please? You can move upstairs with me, if you like."
He stared at her. "What?"
"Yes." She roused herself, and pulled her gaze from the embers to look at him instead. "You've loved being around all your friends — I can see it in your face every time you're with them. If you find a flat, you'll be alone again. And I have plenty of space upstairs. Then the room would be free, and —"
"But those are your quarters."
She shrugged. "Well, they can be ours. We can share."
"Hannah, that isn't fair to you —"
"Why not?"
"Because...!"
He trailed off. Why wasn't it fair? The answer should have been on the tip of his tongue, but it wasn't. She wouldn't have asked him to stay if she hadn't had an underlying motive, and that thought hit him in the gut, hard. He could tell her that if he found a flat nearby, he could still drop by any time and visit, to see her or his friends. But he knew she wouldn't have asked if there hadn't been something incredibly important lurking deeper. The answer danced in front of him, and he grasped at it.
"Is it... that you don't want to be alone?" he asked hesitantly.
Hannah's lower lip trembled and he felt a momentary surge of panic. The last thing he wanted was for her to cry! But (thank God), she swallowed and held the tears in check, and whispered, "No. I don't like being alone. And I thought you were in love with me."
Startled, he almost laughed. "I am in love you! I'm mad about you." And without thinking, he reached out for her and she rose from the chair and sank into his lap. Together they snuggled into his armchair. Neville kissed the top of her hair, and sighed softly. The fire was slowly dying in the grate, but he didn't have the energy to lift his wand to re-ignite it. He suddenly felt at peace, perfectly calm, sitting alone in a semi-dark room with Hannah curled up against him. She needed him. Someone actually needed him; someone wanted him. His body relaxed, his mind slipped into a lull, and the map he'd planned out for his life began to unravel away into nothing. He had never expected to stay with Hannah in her quarters. He would have to rethink things entirely, now. His eyebrows knit slightly; what was he going to do now?
Or maybe he was just being stupid, and maybe he should just let everything flow, rather than try to plan his life out perfectly. It suddenly made better sense — Hannah had asked him to stay because she was lonely here, because she loved him, because it was painful for her to think of him leaving. And honestly, he loved her too, so there was no reason he shouldn't stay with her. Why had planning his life out seemed like a good idea when he'd left Gran's?
They sat together for so long that Neville lost track of time, and it wasn't until the fire was almost completely dead that Hannah shifted and kissed the corner of his mouth. She slid off his lap and waved her wand; the fire extinguished, plunging the room into darkness.
"Let's go upstairs," she said softly. "You can bring your things up tomorrow."
Neville rose to follow her, and together they walked up the dark, rickety staircase to her quarters. They passed through the small living room and into a second door that led to her bedroom.
When Hannah lit the fire in the grate, Neville couldn't help but look around in surprise. His first impression was that the room was warm and cheerful, done in the yellows and blacks of Hufflepuff house. There were photographs crammed all around the mirror of the vanity and a beautiful clock on the mantel. But then Hannah turned to him, twined herself around him, and kissed him softly on the mouth.
Neville sighed against her lips. She was soft and supple and melted right into his hands. He heard her wand slip to the floor with a light clatter, and his joined it. After a moment, the kisses became more frantic, more desperate. He felt her hands unfastening the buttons on his shirt.
His own hands seemed to be moving by themselves, as well. One tugged the sash of Hannah's bathrobe out of its knot, and slid beneath, skimming the silky fabric of her lingerie against her hip. He realized it was maddeningly short; his fingers brushed the bare skin of her thigh when they moved downward, and he felt her breath suck inward against his own mouth. One of her hands came up, cupping the side of his face, while the other slid into his shirt and around his ribs to his back.
He stuttered, "I thought we were talking...?"
She breathed, "We've already talked. And if you still want to, then I think it can wait until a little later. Don't you?"
His eyes flickered to the bare shoulder — the robe had fallen to the floor, and the strap of the tantalizing lingerie had slipped down to her elbow. He bent awkwardly and kissed the bare skin, tasting her. She was soft and hot and smooth, and he wondered why he had even made the suggestion of talking some more in the first place.
The fire was almost dead, but every few moments a flame would leap up, glowing gold or yellow against the dark red and black embers. The room was completely dark otherwise, like a secret cocoon wrapped away from the rest of the world.
"It's like our House colors," Hannah had murmured lazily at one point, gazing towards the grate. "Red and gold, black and yellow. Hufflepuff and Gryffindor were always fiery, sexy houses." She had kissed him again then, teasingly, and he had grinned back at her. She was right, he had to admit that. Fiery. And damned sexy.
Neville glanced down at her now. Her eyes were barely open, watching him through her lashes with a gentle expression in the faint light, and her head was tucked against his shoulder and chest. Her hair was slightly damp, and had spilled across his arm. One of her arms was around his waist. It had been at least an hour since she made the remark; in another hour or so, it would be dawn.
He didn't want dawn to come. This was perfect — the darkness, the glow of the embers, the feel of Hannah's slick body twisted around his, the way her hair tickled the inside of his elbow. He sighed and closed his eyes again.
"Neville?"
"Yes?"
"Are you all right?" she asked, tentatively.
His lips curved upwards. "What sort of question is that?"
Hannah pushed up beside him, resting her palm against the sheets. Her long hair cascaded in mused curls around her shoulders and over her breasts, and when he opened one eye to look at her he had to bite back a groan. Merlin, she was gorgeous.
"I meant...about your parents, actually." Her voice was hollow, and she traced her finger over his chest, over the contours and muscles she had memorized earlier.
Neville shifted his gaze to the canopy above him — now inky black. He could just barely make out the thin yellow stripes in the fabric. It was so comfortable, lying on the damp sheets, with Hannah sitting beside him and his head in a fluffy, large pillow. Somehow, the memories of his parents, lying helplessly in St. Mungo's, didn't hurt at that moment.
"I'm fine. I promise. Two weeks ago I would have said no, I wasn't fine. I wouldn't have even wanted to talk about them. But now..."
Her gaze flickered to meet his. "They're at peace," she said softly.
"Yes. That's just it. They're at peace."
She swallowed, and her hand stilled on his stomach. "How did you do it? All those years, while we were in school? How on earth did you not go... crazy?"
Neville smiled sadly. "It was hard. Do you remember our fourth year? When that fake Professor Moody showed us the Unforgivable Curses? When he showed my class the Cruciatus Curse, I thought I was going to throw up, or pass out. That was how my parents were tortured — how they lost their minds. No one knew, of course, but Hermione must have seen it in my face. She begged him to stop doing it, because she realized it was freaking me out."
Hannah closed her eyes, as if pain. "I remember when I saw them in that first class that year, too. I thought they were so frightening. It must have been absolutely horrible for you."
He nodded slowly. "What was worse was finding out that the man we all thought was Dumbledore's friend was actually one of the ones responsible for my parents' insanity in the first place. He could have killed me at any time if he'd wanted, that year."
"I hate Death Eaters." She said it with so much vehemence that he was taken aback. "Why were they like that? Why did they have to ruin everything?"
Neville sat up beside her, crossing his legs under the sheets, and slid his hand over her bare shoulder. "Hannah..."
"They murdered my mother just because they saw her cast a protection charm over a Muggle house as she was passing by, and they tracked her down and accused her of being a blood traitor. The Aurors said she put up a good fight, but it was six against one, and there was no way for her to come out of that fight alive..." Her voice was choked with tears now, and Neville pulled her tightly to his chest.
"The Ministry pulled me out of school and my great-aunt wouldn't allow me to return. The Aurors allowed me enter the house after they'd finished their investigation. To collect anything that hadn't been smashed into pieces." A sob racked her body. "There was blood everywhere! I was so sure I was going to go crazy that day. When I walked inside, it was the worst thing I had ever seen. I started shaking and crying, and the Aurors who had come with me had to take me back outside and calm me down. One of them agreed to walk with me through the house to get some of Mother's things so I wouldn't have to do it alone...she was the only Auror who was nice to me. The rest were so cold and withdrawn. She told me... She had been in Hufflepuff, too..." Hannah wiped one of her eyes with the back of her wrist. "She said she understood how I felt, because her cousin had been killed by Death Eaters. She helped me get my mother's clock," Hannah nodded towards the mantel, "...and a vase...a teacup from my grandmother's china... She even stayed with me through the funeral. The whole house was just destroyed, Neville. There were only fragments of furniture and...and glass...charred wood...and I thought that I had cried all the tears I'd ever had in me, but now I'm crying about it again!"
She fell silent at the end of the outburst, and after a few moments, Neville asked quietly, "Why on earth did they let you go back in the house, if it was so destroyed? If there was blood everywhere?" The very thought horrified him. He wasn't sure he could have been so strong.
"They wanted me to take what I could. Anything that wasn't destroyed, that I wanted to keep. To remember her. The house was too damaged to save; they obliterated what was left after I'd gotten a few things out. They wouldn't let me look at my mother's body. The Auror named Tonks... the one from Hufflepuff... She said I'd go mad if I saw it. She wouldn't allow them to show it to me."
Neville held her tightly. "I'm so sorry."
"I always thought...I always thought that must have been the worst way to lose someone you loved, you know. To walk into your home and see your mother's blood splattered all over the walls and floor...to see all of the furniture and her possessions destroyed. To feel as though you would never be happy again for as long as you lived." She paused, then whispered, "But I was wrong about that."
"Wrong?" Neville frowned. He was sure that seeing a person's blood all over your childhood home — and knowing the blood belonged to someone you loved — was truly the worst thing he could imagine at the moment.
She drew back and looked up at him. "My mother could have been like your parents, Neville. Alive, barely existing... Living, but insane... Unable to recognize me... That would have been a hundred times worse than my mother being killed fighting bravely against a group of Death Eaters. She was the reason I fought in the Battle of Hogwarts, you know. I didn't want to do any less than she had done, and at the time, I had no one left, so I thought... if I died fighting to save the others, it wouldn't matter."
Neville stared at her. He wanted to cry for her, because clearly, no one else had. No one, except the one Auror named Tonks, perhaps. He said quietly, "I'm sorry she was killed. It wasn't fair to you, just like it wasn't fair for anyone who lost those they loved in the war." He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "It hurt to see my parents every holiday and every summer. Closed up in the hospital and mindless. They didn't know me, or what was going on around them. And worse, I had always seen photographs in Gran's house of them laughing together. The two people in the hospital were complete strangers, nothing like those pictures. It may sound really odd...but..." His head dropped a little. "I feel relieved now that it's all over. Am I a bad person because I feel that way? Should I be more upset over their deaths?"
Hannah was silent a moment, her fingers gently brushing his hair back from his forehead. "You aren't a bad person, Neville. You never have been. I can understand how you feel. I really do."
"I just think... That now, they can't ever be hurt again." He kissed her softly, and tasted the salt on her lips. "We've both had our lives damaged by Death Eaters. But it doesn't mean that our lives are ruined completely."
Hannah tucked her body against his, and whispered, "No."
Neville hugged her tightly, wrapping his arms around her back. "I'm not going to leave. I love you."
She sighed heavily, and after a few moments they lay back down and curled up together under the coverlet. This time, Neville's mind wasn't on the soft, supple curves that slid sensually against his body and made his brain implode, but on the terribleness of what she had been through — how alone she had been before this night. He told her he wouldn't leave her, and he knew he'd meant it.
As the minutes passed, Hannah gradually drifted to sleep, the tear tracks still glistening on her cheeks. Neville gazed at her for a long time afterwards, even when the fire died out completely.
It was time for both of them to start living again, but this time, with each other. His planned ideas for the future that he'd made hours earlier now seemed so silly. All he needed was her.
