A/N: This chapter has been edited/dulled down to adhere to the rating system of FFN. For the full chapter, check out the story on Archive of Our Own.
Chapter Eleven
September 19th, 2006
Neville opened his eyes to the sound of scratching. Turning over in bed—Hermione's bed, he noted with a happy smile—he spotted the witch sitting up, surrounded by at least five different pillows that had been shaped into a makeshift desk, at which she was writing, an old eagle quill in hand.
"Hermione?"
She bit the left corner of her bottom lip in consternation before tapping her quill against the parchment in her hand. "So . . . rules."
He blinked in confusion and then rubbed his eyes. "What time is it?" he mumbled, reaching for his wand to cast a Tempus. Shocked by the incredibly late—technically early—hour, he yawned and sat up. "Why aren't you sleeping?"
"Can't sleep; I'm wide awake," she said on the end of a yawn of her own.
He smirked. "Clearly."
She yawned again and then added something to the parchment, scribbling away with heavy-lidded eyes. "I work too much and I can't say no when my boss asks me to stay. I . . . I don't want to spend my whole life locked away in the Department of Mysteries."
Neville sat up and, with a permissive nod from the witch, took the parchment from her and smiled affectionately at the very detailed list of rules that she'd made for herself. Despite his exhaustion, Neville warmed to the fact that she was embracing this so openly, and he wasn't about to shut her out over the fact that he was tired. "Will it hurt your job in the long run if you say no?"
She frowned, clearly not a fan of the idea, though torn about it. "I think I need to stand up for myself and that if I don't, then he'll just walk all over me for my whole career. I know I don't want that."
Neville nodded in understanding. He'd met her boss once, though at the time, he'd only been introduced as the Head of the D.O.M. Unspeakables, after all, weren't supposed to be known. Hermione was a special case considering she was famous and it seemed asinine that a witch of her potential would just end up at a simple desk job where she occasionally slipped into the Department of Mysteries. The Head of the D.O.M., a wizard with a nasally voice who thought far too much about himself, had been assigned to help Neville and his partner test out new Tracking Charms in an attempt to locate the Lestrange brothers and Dolohov. In the end, the Tracking Charms had failed, and the Unspeakable had blamed the Aurors for the failure. Neville definitely wanted Hermione to be able to stand up to that git.
"I stress about it and then I don't sleep and—"
"Do you want a bedtime?" he asked with a small grin.
"A what?" She blinked at him and then rolled her eyes. "Be serious."
Taking a chance, he leant forward and kissed her neck, earning a pretty sound from her in reply. "I could make it very tempting."
She let out a breath of relief and then relaxed into the pillows behind her, allowing him to kiss and nibble on her skin. "Do I really have to call you 'Sir'?"
He shrugged. It had never really been a big deal for him with previous partners, he just found that for some of them it was an easy trigger that allowed them to step into a submissive headspace with ease. While titles were fun, he did prefer to hear Hermione call out his name instead. "Do you really not want to?"
"What will you call me?"
Perfection, Neville thought to himself and then answered, "Sweetheart . . . beautiful . . ." and after several heartbeats, he added, "love."
He pulled the quill from her fingers, setting it on the bedside table along with the list. She cuddled up against him when he started running his fingers through her hair, stopping to gently rub at her temples, easing the tension from her head.
"How come . . . how come you didn't want me to do anything to you?" she nervously asked.
"Because it wasn't about me," he replied, shifting slightly when the memory of spanking her came rushing to the forefront of his mind. It felt like a miracle, that she'd been so receptive to his ideas, and so responsive to his touches, soft and hard.
"But you didn't get anything out of tonight."
Neville laughed. "Are you taking the . . .? Hermione . . . you have no idea how much pleasure I got out of tonight." He remembered the sound of her voice getting breathier as she counted, the way she wiggled her hips in response to his smacks. It was a rush, an ego boost the likes of which he hadn't felt since arresting his first Death Eater, and beheading a Horcrux before that. "Just because I didn't . . . just because I didn't orgasm doesn't mean anything."
When she didn't reply, he continued. "Do you know what I feel like when I work with plants? The hard work and effort . . . digging my fingers into the soil," he said and moved one hand from her hair, trailing it down her shoulders and side, eventually resting it in the small crevice between her hip and thigh, letting his fingers lightly dance on her skin, "and planting and culling and tending . . . and then one day, a flower just . . . opens. Bursts in the sunlight and it's alive and it's colourful and I did that."
She sighed happily, pressing into his touch. "Like a potion. You take all the right ingredients and slowly put them together, adding just the right amount of heat and suddenly it's something magical."
He snorted at the comparison. "I would not know how that feels," he said, and she laughed and slapped his chest. "Watching you . . . bloom . . ." he whispered in her ear, "made me very happy tonight. It makes me very happy to take care of you. Even, maybe especially, when you don't think you need it." He kissed the side of her neck again and then mumbled, "What else?"
"Hmm?"
"What else do you want? I'll give you anything."
Hermione frowned. "I want . . . I want this to work out."
He sat up straight and adjusted their bodies so that he could look into her eyes. When he did, he saw anxiety there, written as clear as day. "What's wrong?"
She shook her head and then sighed in exasperation. "I felt like a failure. I know that it was partly the magic but . . . after the war, everything happened so fast, and my marriage to Ron . . . I fought so hard to just keep it afloat and it was so . . . so much work. I yelled so often and I was embarrassed that I'd turned into someone I didn't like with him. I felt like . . . like a replacement for his mother. I don't want to be that way again."
Neville assured himself that their marriage—should she agree to it—would be nothing like the one she had with Ron. While he was still friends with the bloke, Neville knew he was so very little like his former Housemate other than their current profession. He had faith that he could make Hermione happy, mostly because he knew that he would put every last bit of himself into making sure that happened, even if he had to sacrifice things he enjoyed to do it. She deserved it.
"What can I do?" he asked, wanting to get her opinion.
"Not let me turn into that?" she suggested. "I don't even know how."
"Don't keep things from me," he ordered. "That's my rule. You can have your secrets, of course, but . . . if you're upset with me about absolutely anything, tell me. If you want to be left alone for any reason, tell me. If you need me to do something for you, even if you don't know what that is, tell me, and I will . . . I'll do anything."
She looked at him, as though she were trying to gauge whether or not he was telling the truth or if he was making promises that he had no intention of following up on. She smiled at him eventually, and Neville relaxed. "Do you have any other rules?" she asked.
He nodded and thought back to previous partners. Most had very different needs and he adjusted the rules to fit them. One witch had been desperate for submission, and he'd fitted her rules into that. Calling him "Sir" and asking for permission for just about everything when they were together. Another partner had wanted structure, and so Neville used the Protean Charm on a parchment and checked in with her throughout the day. If she'd accomplished her goals, she was rewarded, and if not, punished.
Hermione, however, was different. She was a warrior. She was fire and lightning and she was just so very stubborn about certain things. "No one speaks ill of you. Not even yourself," he said, recalling how she'd blushed and looked awkward when they'd met for their date, as well as outside the pub for her birthday. She wasn't comfortable with herself, and considering how beautiful she was, Neville was determined to make sure she grew to be relaxed in her own skin. "If we do this, then I'm yours and you're mine and we belong to one another. I take care of you and that includes how others speak to you. I want everyone to know how beautiful you are. And then envy the hell out of me because I'm a lucky bastard."
She blushed prettily and Neville regretted having this conversation in the dim light because he wanted to see the colour on her cheeks clearly.
"This feels too good to be true," she whispered.
"Well, I am trying awful hard here," he said with a teasing laugh.
She frowned. "When will the bottom fall out?"
He leant in and kissed her softly, chastely. "Likely when I forget the rinse the bathroom sink after shaving, or bring mud into the house and stain the carpet. I'm generally not in a good mood after visiting my parents, if they've had a bad day, I'm not . . ." He frowned as he remembered a list of things he needed to do the next time he went to St. Mungo's. Clearing his throat, he continued, "And you still have to have dinner with my gran."
Hermione nodded and then bit at her lip before blurting out, "I still have nightmares sometimes. And I work too much and I stress too much and . . . the Weasleys might make things incredibly uncomfortable. I might not be able to have children and—"
"I don't—"
"I know you said it doesn't matter, but that might change and—"
"We'll figure it out," he promised, taking her hands in his.
She smiled softly. "Neville? I'm glad it was you."
He searched her eyes for honesty, for doubt. The bits that he thought he found there were normal and shockingly had nothing to do with certain aspects of his life. Just as she'd said, she was nervous about it all going tits up. Worried about how he'd react to her issues or the fact that they might not be able to have children, and that she worked too much and was a general ball of stress most of the time.
He swallowed nervously and turned over, reaching for his robes which had ended up on the floor beside the bed. Rifling through the pockets, he sighed heavily and then turned back around. "It's officially your birthday. Do you . . . do you want your third present?" His fingers fidgeted with the small black box. "I don't want you to . . . you still have the rest of the week, and I will hold nothing against you, I swear it. If you want to go through another matching, then this will just be one amazing week that we shared together."
Hermione stared at his hand. "Is that . . .?"
Neville opened it, revealing the small ring, a pearl nestled with diamonds on a goblin forged band of gold. "It was my mother's."
Hermione exhaled shakily and then whispered, "Yes."
Neville's eyes widened in shock and he stuttered over her name. "H-Hermione . . ."
She looked at him reproachfully. "Neville. Who else is out there for me?" He blinked, taken aback, and she cringed. "That came out wrong . . . I meant . . . I thought I was going to walk into that matching and meet a complete stranger. I thought someone was going to walk out and tell me that the programme was being tossed aside, that a law was passed, and I would have to marry Malfoy or Goyle or someone twice my age or . . . but it was you. My friend. My . . . my first friend," she reached up and cupped his stubbly cheek in her hand. "You are loyal and brave and caring and I feel very lucky right now."
"All things considered?" he asked, his hand moving back to her hip and then around to her arse, gently rubbing where he'd smacked earlier.
She blushed again, or he thought she did, since she smiled shyly and looked down. "We'll figure it out," she said.
He tried to keep his fingers from shaking as he slipped the ring on her left hand, happy that the bauble was out of the vaults where it had been for the last twenty-five years. "I know we're just friends and . . . and obviously more right now," he said when she pressed her hand against his bare chest, running her fingers against the soft hair there, "but . . . I want you to know that one day, probably one day very soon . . . I'm going to love you."