:D

Chapter 10

Voodoo Lily is a foul smelling, dark purple flower that gives off a rancid smell of rotting meat to attract flies and other insects.

Immediately turning, she put her hands over her eyes searching for that familiar itch of glamour and finding nothing. It came crashing down quickly around her when she realized she had taken her glamour off last night when she fought with Ginny Weasley, and she never reapplied it. She had been distracted to no end with the words the other witch had spat at her, so distracted that not even finishing her current brews had calmed her and she had packed up everything before collapsing onto the couch in a sheer exhaustion.

You have to tell him…

Ginny's words ringing in her head.

Tell him the truth.

Her tone of accusation, of anger.

Or I will.

Making a decision, she stood up and gulped in air by the mouthful. Ginny had been harsh with her words. But the truth was that Rose always knew in the back of her mind that she would be having this conversation with Neville, telling him the truth, coming clean. But what she said last night still stood.

She didn't want to hurt him, but she had no idea how to tell him without doing exactly that.

"Rose…?" his voice jolted her, she was out of time.

"This is my real eye color." she blurted out loud, turning to face him again. "My real… eye color… I've been wearing a glamour for…"

"Glamour?" Neville dropped the hand towel he had been using on the counter slowly, his eyes narrowing as he looked her over. She could practically feel his gaze as it blazed an invisible trail across her skin, a feeling that usually got her heart thumping with desire.

This time it made her feel like bug about to be stomped on.

That gaze made a full circle and came back to her eyes, at which point he crossed his arms and went into Auror mode. He was thinking. He was thinking hard.

And she watched his eyes widen with realization. He was silent for so long, his body so still, she didn't dare move or speak in fear of what his reaction would be. Finally he blinked, and that quickly his face turned mean.

"You said you went to school with Hannah." he said in a hard voice.

"Neville…" she cautioned.

He walked closer. "You're best friends with Daphne Greengrass."

"Neville wait…" she held her hands up and stepped toward him. "Let me explain…"

He shook his head angrily. "No." And with that single, hard word he walked away from her and her outstretched hands and took the steps upstairs two at a time.

"Where are you going?" Rose asked, following him as quickly as she could.

"To get my boots." he growled bitingly. "Then I'm leaving."

"Why? No - Wait. Let me talk."

He banged through the doors of her bedroom, heading straight for his boots sitting right next to her reading chair. He tripped up on the edge of her rug and the clumsy move only fueled his anger more. "Neville let me talk!" she tried again.

"No." he jumped on one foot as he angrily forced his other foot into his boot reminding her for the first time since she moved to Diagon Alley of the boy he had once been. He repeated the action with his other foot and gave her a look of cold fury.

She rushed back and closed her bedroom doors, turning quickly to press her back into them. "Stay and let me talk." she tried again.

He crowded her space, marching directly up to her. "Move. Out. Of. My. Way."

"No." she pressed even closer to the door, blocking his way.

"Don't make me hurt you." he said, shifting to make up for the space lost between them, his rage barely contained.

"You wouldn't." she put her hands on his chest, but refused to move from his path. "You wouldn't."

"How do you know that?" he leaned into her, trying his best to intimidate her. It was working. Almost.

"You wouldn't hurt me. And neither would I hurt you."

He made a strange noise of disagreement through his teeth, his head shaking in a definite no. "Like. I. Would. Believe. That."

"You!" she hit both her hands against his shoulders, mirroring his anger though she wasn't in the least bit. No, what she felt was desperation. "You held me down on that bed right over there." she pointed her finger as she said the words. "You said you wouldn't hurt me. 'Rose, I won't hurt you.' That's what you said. That - that is what you said!"

She was speaking so quickly, she was running herself out of breath - a habit she had had since childhood that never did her any good. She wasn't expecting any miracles, she knew this was, best case scenario, likely to end poorly. But she had to make sure Neville wasn't hurt.

"Ahh…" he very slowly, very deliberately placed both his palms on the door beside her head, effectively trapping her with his body. Her heart stuttered painfully. She never wanted to make Neville mad again. "But that isn't your name, is it?"

So slowly she raised her fingers to his cheeks, the rough bristles of his stubble itching her skin, and put every ounce of truth into her words. "Neville, it is my name."

"No it isn't…" and then he said, "Pansy."

"Don't call me that." she hit him again on his shoulders. "Don't you dare."

"Why not? That's your name. Pans-"

She slapped her hand over his mouth."That isn't my name!" she shrieked so loud he actually winced and took a step back away from her. "I'm sorry - I'm so sorry. Neville please. Be as mad at me as you want, yell and scream, storm out, I don't care. But not before you tell me you understand me when I say I'm Rose. I am. That girl is dead. Gone. And she is never coming back."

oOoOo

He was silent for a long time, until eventually he slid backwards into her bar stool and said, "I don't know what that means."

Because he hadn't a clue what to say otherwise. The moment he had realized where he recognized her from had been a punch to the gut, her vivid violet eyes a direct conduit to a time in his life when he hadn't been strong, hadn't been confident, when he hadn't been in control.

And in that moment he realized he had been had. This witch had gotten under his skin so deep and then pulled the rug right out from under him. It didn't matter that she seemed upset, or that she wanted to explain. It didn't.

What mattered was that she lied.

He hated liars.

And just like that, every moment they had spent together slammed together with the hurtful memories of his boyhood until it all blurred together into a caustic mix he doubted he could ever untangle. Rose and Pansy merged into one, a witch he hated. A witch who lied to him.

And, though he hadn't spared Pansy Parkinson a glancing thought in over 15 years, he hated her, no doubt about it. A girl who had pushed him down and bullied him, who stood in his way and made fun of him, a witch who spoke out against Harry Potter and all his friends. A girl who had permanently scarred his eyebrow with a harsh curse.

Yes, he hated that witch. But his mind whispered... his witch, Rose, didn't act like Pansy Parkinson acted. She didn't sneer and belittle like Pansy Parkinson did. And she never shrieked like a banshee the way Pansy Parkinson did. Until now.

The sound had pierced his ears and made him step back, giving her a chance to speak.

That girl is dead.

Shaking, she followed him until she could lean against her drawing desk and he widened his legs making room for her, though he couldn't tell why he had done that. She looked scared and he decided he hated that too.

So despite wanting to run out the house and slam the door behind him, he put a hesitant hand on her arm silently gesturing for her to continue.

"After the war… things were difficult for me. Mostly because of my own actions, and I accepted that a long time ago, but it was difficult. Since I was having such a time of it… I didn't realize just how sick my father had gotten. Right before Christmas that year, he passed away in his sleep. My mother had always been rather delicate and she -" she paused, trying to find the right words. "... decided to follow him."

Suicide. He wondered briefly if she was spinning a tale to get him to be sympathetic towards her, if this was more of some elaborate prank she was pulling on him. His mind thought back to their time spent together looking for clues that he missed, looking for something that should have told him he was being had. But then he thought of Penny, and when Rose - er - Pansy leaned a fraction closer as if seeking comfort, he decided to listen further before he made any judgements. He squeezed her arm and she continued speaking.

"I was 18 and I felt very alone… and lost. So I left. I had money from my parent's estate, I traded it in and disappeared into Muggle London with every intention of never returning. No one wanted me here anyways."

"Why would your mother just leave you alone like that?" he asked angrily, but without the cold fury that had been riding him before. He knew would've been lucky with his parents, even though he didn't really know them and they never got to know him either. He still knew he would have been loved had they had a chance to live their lives. He couldn't imagine his mother, or any mother for that matter, just choosing to leave their child to fend for themselves. But then, he thought, she had been 18 at the time.

Sucking in a steady breath, she answered him. "I've had a long time to think on this Neville, and the truth is that she would've been no good to me anyways. She needed my father to survive, and I was never the daughter she wanted, and I never would be either."

"Sounds like you're just making excuses for her. What does that mean, you were never the daughter she wanted?"

"Don't be mad at her, Neville." she pleaded gently, and though he didn't want to, he felt himself calm down a notch. "It means, I was a bony, boyish girl with an ugly nose who wanted to climb trees instead of play with dolls. Daphne would walk into a room and people would sigh dreamily, as if she were the breath of perfection herself. I walked into a room with sticks in my hair and mud on my face and the only person who sighed was my father in misery."

"That - no that doesn't matter, she was your mother." he pushed further, deciding he might just believe her. He was pretty good at spotting a lie, and so far… well he hadn't seen anything that would tell him there was another story than the one she was telling.

"I know." she shook her head. "It doesn't matter anymore. I got over this a long time ago, but it happened and it pushed me towards leaving for good."

"You didn't leave Penny." he said in such a bad tone he knew he needed to calm down further. But then, him saying the name out loud, Penny, made him realize that Pansy Parkinson would never marry a Muggle man. Torn, he squeezed her arm again.

She didn't respond right away, shaking her head ever so gently from side to side in thought. "The very moment I stepped out of Diagon Alley into London, I ran into some women who asked if I was okay, they asked my name. I had a brooch on my cloak that my mother had given me for my 17th birthday, it was shaped like a primrose. So just like that, I became Primrose Parker instead of Pansy Parkinson. I struggled for months, I didn't understand anything. But there was no pressure, no expectations. No one was mad at me for existing. I ran into a group of people, and they assumed I was a student too, they asked me what classes I was taking and then… next thing I knew I was an art student. And I was better. Much better."

She shook her head again, as if remembering hurt. "Eventually Daphne tracked me down and I realized I couldn't leave my old self behind totally. But she agreed to go along with my new identity, and since Daph agreed, Astoria did too. Since I never ever planned on returning to a magical life, I never worried about it. I was just a better person, I was Rose. Pansy Parkinson is my past, and I am nothing like her." She looked up into his eyes and he felt that punch again. Could he trust her on this? The image of her from the first time they were intimate popped into his head. The way her legs had wrapped around him, her breasts bare and in his face, the black of her hair silky against her skin. The very dark red that surrounded her nipple. And that suddenly, he had a clear, defined image in his head that was Rose. Not Pansy.

He watched as her bright eyes turned smudgy, her cheeks tinted pink. "Then you had Penny?" he said, instead of asking about Phil.

"Yes," she said rubbing under her eyes. Her purple, purple eyes. "We were Married, relatively successful, and pregnant, my magic went crazy and I came clean to Phil about my origins. That conversation made me realize that one day, Penny would have to be apart of the very place I never wanted to be again."

Neville wanted to believe, but he couldn't stop long lost insecurities from making him think that she might be the best liar in the world. That she could be playing the biggest joke on him, wanting nothing more than to hurt him in ways she had as children did. Just because someone was a mother didn't mean they were a good person.

But why?

Then she said, "But I did it. I came back, and ran into my old enemy and he didn't recognize me." she hit his arm as she spoke, punching him softly in mock anger. "I never thought in a million years you would kiss the frosting off my lip, I never thought you would come into my home and make me feel like it was possible to love again after Phil, and I never thought you would be so good to my kid, Neville. Otherwise I would've told you the truth from the beginning. The truth being that my name is Rose Russo, but I used to be a witch named Pansy."

He wondered how he had missed it that day in his shop. She had bent over and he had ogled her ass and somehow completely missed the fact that Pansy Parkinson was in his territory. Maybe because she really was different. He wasn't the same person he had been at 17, but a big part of him was convinced people didn't change that much.

Damnit, he was so torn and so angry. The first woman who could ever hold up to his Hannah, and it was Pansy Fucking Parkinson. Then the punch went through his heart again, in the way only this witch ever could. He grabbed her shoulders. "I'm so mad at you." was all he said before he crushed his lips over hers and gave her a kiss so bruisingly hard she made that damn whimpering sound in the back of her throat he loved so much. He put every ounce of his fury into the kiss, every doubt and insecurity, he crushed it all against her in a kiss that completely wrecked both of them.

When his teeth released her lips after a long minute, she stumbled away from him and put a hand over her heart, and he stood and walked out of the room, down the stairs, and out of the house without another word.

Because, he realized, he was no longer actually mad at her for the lie. He actually believed her. He wasn't mad at her for what happened. He was mad at her because the truth was… she didn't hold a candle to Hannah Abbott.

Rose was better. And he was furious about it.

oOoOo

After several days of Neville blatantly ignoring her, Rose found herself standing on the roof of her shop and yelling at the contractor who originally worked on it when she bought the place. The sun, which she usually welcomed over the usual rain, instead beat down on her like a hot hammer, which only caused her to be meaner to the contractor than she planned. When the man huffed and begrudgingly agreed to fix the holes in her roof, she stomped herself and her bad mood down the ladder and into the shop below ready to get back to stocking the shelves with her new and fresh products. Daphne sat by the window, her laptop on the tops of her thighs and a cellphone at her ear as she spoke quickly and snapped orders to her team of real estate managers. Her wand stuck out from behind her ear, but other than that not a single hair seemed out of place. Yet Rose felt as if she were disheveled and sweaty personified after only a few hours of working.

"What, don't you have an office anymore?!" she snapped at her longtime friend who absolutely didn't deserve to be on the receiving end of Rose's temper. But she couldn't help it. She had been in a bad for for several days now, and not even Penny's happy demeanor and general merriment couldn't pull her out of it. She slammed vials and bottles down along her white shelves and sneered meanly at the Voodoo Lily Daphne had brought with her. It smelled of death and rotted meat. "And you better get that thing out my shop!"

"Hold on a sec - Rosie will you shut up while I'm phone? Some of us have to work for a living." Daphne smiled brightly even though her words dripped with acid.

"Argh!" she stomped to the other side of her shop, continuing her mission to stock her shop even though she really wanted to take Daphne's laptop and throw it into the street. She wouldn't even know what a laptop was if it wasn't for Rose!

That stupid Lily was stinking up her shop and pissing her off to no ends. She was already pissed off, but that was besides the point. It served only to further her rage. When she asked Daphne why she even brought the foul thing, her friend had only said it had been a gift and she hadn't been home yet to drop it off.

Her eye kept going to Daphne's thin, lean thighs that supported the laptop. Daph was dressed in business attire, a tight silk cream skirt that an equally expensive red silk blouse was tucked into. Who wore silk in the summer? Honestly! Rose herself was working in a dirty tee-shirt that had nearly a decade's worth of paint stains on it, and a pair of grass stained jeans. Her fingernails were chipped and dirty. Her face felt gritty and gross. And Daphne looked like she'd walked off a magazine page.

"Argh..."

Rose's hand absentmindedly rubbed the outside of her own thigh. Her huge, thick, ginormous, never-ending thigh. If that wasn't bad enough, the other one matched. Two! Two GINORMOUS thighs. Maybe if she had thighs like Daphne, stupid Neville Longbottom wouldn't be ignoring her right now.

Maybe if she wasn't such a complete mess... Maybe maybe maybe!

She shook her head, trying not for the first time to clear it of her chaotic, irrational thoughts. She needed to calm herself and get over it, because it was obvious Neville wasn't going to forgive her for her lie. Not after the way he had treated her the last couple of days. Straight up ignoring her as if he couldn't even see her.

His childish antics had at first put her off, but now… she couldn't even think straight. She couldn't even stock her shelves in straight rows. She pulled all the bottles off and tried again, lining them up as neatly as she could while trying so very hard not to think about that damn kiss he had laid on her.

Hungry.

Maddening.

Needy.

He had kissed her to within an inch of her life. She would've died right then if he had continued, but instead he had stomped out of her room, out of her house, and out of her life apparently.

Her hand spasmed just thinking about it, knocking her bottles from their line and out spiraling in every direction. "Damn - it - to - hell!" She snapped, stomping her foot.

"Mama?" Penny's sniffling pulled her out of her rage so quickly, she almost got whiplash turning towards her daughter.

"Penny what's happened?" she said dropping down and enveloping her daughter's smaller form in her arms. Her tears were so rare, Rose hardly saw them. If something made Penny upset, the young witch usually got mad. The tears might come later, but she had too much of her father in her. Phil never got upset. He just did something about it until he was happy again.

Sniffing again, fat crocodile tears spilling down her face, Penny mumbled incoherently for a moment before bursting into hard sobs. Daphne immediately hung up her phone, slammed her laptop shut, and shoved both items to to the side before coming to her niece. Rose shushed her daughter softly before saying, "Baby girl, shh. Calm. Calm. Tell me what's happened."

Penny immediately started speaking again but it was garbled up underneath the tears and river of snot coming out of her face - an unattractive trait she got from her mother. Rose was an ugly crier too. It went on like that for several minutes before Penny was able to calm down enough to say, "Neville promised me he would take us to see his greenhouses! When I went over to the shop today, he yelled at me and kicked me out and told me not to come back!"

A hiccuping cry followed that statement, "What did I do wrong Mama? Why is he so mad at me?" and it broke Rose into two. Her baby girl was on the cusp of becoming a teenager, but at this moment she looked nothing more than her tiny child who had come to her with scraped knees too many times to count, begging for kisses to make it better.

Daphne must've seen the look on her face, because the witch immediately grabbed Penny from her and started cuddling her. Rose stood up, her fists curling in her rage. But her voice was calm when she said, "You did nothing baby girl. This isn't your fault at all, do you understand? He's just mad at me and took it out on you unfairly, is that understood?"

And without a second thought she was out the door with the Voodoo Lily in her hands and walking through Neville's open shop door with purpose. Though there were several customers milling about, and Ian sat behind the register as he usually did, she could clearly see Neville through the giant arch on the back wall that led to the gardens.

Ian looked quite startled to see her in such a state and the moment she caught sight of Neville and began marching over to him, Ian let out a low whistle and said, "Oh shit." just as the customers began muttering amongst themselves about the commotion that was clearly about to happen.

Rose didn't care. She only cared that Neville had dared break a promise to her child. And she was going to make him pay for it.

Emerging back into the sun after stepping through the arch, her huffing and puffing causing Neville to turn towards her curiously, she lifted the heavy pot in her hands and threw it with every ounce of strength she possessed right at Neville's stupid head. It would've hit him dead on if he hadn't immediately ducked with quick reflexes honed from years of working as an Auror.

"What the fuck!?" he cried when the pot soared through the air and landed in his rose bush with a crash, the pot shattering.

"You - rotten - piece - of - absolute - dog - shit - NEVILLE LONGBOTTOM!" she shouted, unafraid, and unconcerned about causing a fuss. She marched right up into his face and put her finger right into his nose.

He swatted her hand away angrily, frowning at her as he did. "What is the matter with you, witch!?"

Undeterred, she used both her hands to push him aggressively. "How dare you!"

"Ooh," he said dispassionately. "What's wrong, Ms. Parkinson? Your heart got broken? Tough shit."

His words further enraged her until she saw red.

"Are you kidding me?!" she shouted. "I don't give a fuck about my broken heart, Neville Longbottom! Which for the record, you didn't break. Sorry - you're not that good in bed!"

Her bad tempered, and untrue statement drew hearty chuckles from the crowd behind them but she didn't stop. "You can be as mad at me as you want, you can curse and spit my name, I don't care! You can do whatever - the - fuck - you - want! But don't you dare ever break your promises to my kid, Neville Longbottom! Don't you dare take out your anger with me on my child !" She shoved at him again and he didn't resist, stumbling back, stunned into silence.

"The next time I see you, you better be apologizing to my daughter for - being - such - a - prick!" she spat the last part of her sentence and with that she kicked at the nearest plant and turned on her toe. She marched out of the garden, past the gathered group of customers, past a wide-eyed Ian, and past a shocked Ginny Weasley with a set of twins in her arms.