Disclaimer: All original characters, situations and plot ideas belong to JK Rowling. I make no profit from this.
Warning: This story is rated M for sexual situations and scenes, language, and darker themes later in the story.
A/N: Thanks for the reviews! They make me squee. No joke. My boyfriend gives me weird looks! xD
A Riven Heart
Chapter 14
August 5th, 2006
She was torn between wanting to clean her entire house and being too afraid of her wand to do anything. She felt anxious thinking about when, if, Neville would show up for their date, knowing she didn't want to encourage a married man's affair and also knowing she wanted to fall into a dark bed with him and live out the rest of her life indulging in dark, unhindered passion.
Several times she caught herself picking up her wand to set her laundry folding or to get a good scrub on the cooling cabinet, when the moment her hand touched the cool grooves of her wand, she felt it again. The wood felt haughty, as if by acknowledging that she could in fact summon her wand to her, she had joined in on some kind of game. Like it had been waiting for her.
The note Neville had sent earlier in the week lay open on her coffee table, and every time she walked by her eye went right to the bold lettering proclaiming he would meet Pansy at her house at 6. Folded into the parchment was a single rose petal, deep red in color. The first few days the petal scented the entire room with its delicate scent and made Pansy sigh happily.
Now she wondered irritably just how in the hell a single petal could make her living room smell so good. And why wasn't it wilting?
Frustrated, she grabbed at her hair and tried to calm herself.
Coughing potion.
Fill your cauldron with ice water and cough once.
Gently separate asphodel leaves and grind them finely.
Mix the powered asphodel with one medium sized root of dandelion and grind the two together.
Pour this mixture into your ice water and set a low heat to the cauldron. Clear your throat.
Take essence of baneberry -
Her mind betrayed her. She suddenly wondered if he ever did the same for Hannah, showering her with delicate flower petals and plants and that was how it started. Her thoughts went on the war path and no amount of recipe reciting could calm them.
As the sun made its way across the sky counting down to 6 o'clock, Pansy worked herself into a fervor, bitterly thinking about last Saturday. About how much they kissed, and damn that Gryffindor because he could kiss, and how they talked about things that mattered. About their magic sparking together and the sheer chemistry they shared. Did he go home to his wife after spending the whole day with her? What kind of scum was he?
Was he married to that smug faced witch from the tea shop? The one who just had to say something to her? "Scraping the bottom of the barrel there, aren't you?"
She could just picture them together and she wanted to shred that picture into little pieces.
When her mother's antique grandfather clock chimed 4 o'clock she was so worked up, she wanted Neville to show up just so she could properly hex him, the Department of Magical Law Enforcement be damned. So when she heard the tapping, she assumed it was Neville, even though it was early, and rushed down the stairs, forgetting to check the peep hole, to wrench open her door and give him a piece of her mind. Finding her door step empty and the sound of tapping continuing, she turned and saw an owl at her living room window.
Gently shutting the door, she walked over and let the small brown owl in. It hopped across the table and landed in front of her, setting down a letter with familiar bold lettering addressing it to her, and flew off immediately. Breaking the seal, she unfolded the parchment and another petal fell out. This one, a sweet pink, smelled just as good as the red one. Maybe even better. Unlike the delight of the first petal, this one enraged her.
Bringing the letter up to her face, she quickly read the short paragraph. "He'll be here at 6," She said to no one. "And be ready because we have things to talk about?"
Ooh boy do we have things to talk about, you bastard scum of the earth. Married! You're married! To that witch!
She threw the letter down on the coffee table next to the other letter, the petals swept up in the breeze it created. She marched through her kitchen and went down into her basement, where she immediately started cleaning out her many cauldrons. The hard scrubbing allowed her to release the pent up energy she had been keeping in all day. When all the cauldrons were clean she moved on to reorganizing her ingredient cabinet. Then she did it again. No amount of cleaning or potion recipe reciting helped soothe the aggravation.
She was sitting on her work bench with Lacewing bits in her hair and cleaning suds sticking to her chin when she heard it.
Thump thump thump.
And then... her grandfather clock gave its distinctive chime six times. Groaning but feeling determined and straight pissed off, she walked up the stairs into her kitchen, purposely ignoring the mirror that hung behind the basement door, and the sticky, sweaty feeling on her neck. She marched through her living room and up to her front door not caring about her dirty jeans and tee shirt or the smears of cauldron gunk that remained on her arms up to her elbows. The bits in her air and the suds on her chin would just have to wait. She peered through the keyhole and then opened the door wide.
There he stood, looking just as delicious as always. It further enraged her.
"Yes or no?" She said in a clipped voice to the man on her door step.
So much taller than her, chocolate brown hair ruffled like it hadn't been combed, and a hard jaw line that hadn't been shaved for a few days, he was delicious in every way to her senses… and for the first time in over a week, Pansy had no desire to kiss him.
He shifted from one foot to the other before saying, "What do you mean?"
"Are you or are you not married?"
"Well that's a - "
"Yes or no?"
"There's a grey ar-"
"This is an easy yes or no question!" She crossed her arms and the transparent bit of the Lacewing fell from her hair.
"Pansy..." However she didn't want to hear it. She grabbed the door in her frustration and tried to slam it in his face, but his hand shot out and held it firmly.
"Just admit you're married to that pig Hannah Abbott!" She snapped, putting all her weight into the door, while he held only his hand against the opposite side. "Tell the truth!"
"Fine, I'm married to that pig, Hannah Abbott." He said through clenched teeth. "Happy?"
"No! I am not happy!" She screeched back at him, throwing every ounce of her weight into the door again, gaining barely an inch on him.
"Damnit, Pansy, then let me explain!"
"What would you have to explain about? Breaking a magical bond, spitting on your wizard's vows? Or did you have one of those old fashioned ceremonies where the woman vows everything and the man just stands by and gains himself a faithful servant!"
"No – of course not – no," He groaned. "Pansy I wouldn't do that! Just LET ME EXPLAIN!"
"No. You're a pig! You spent all day with me last week. Then you went home to your wife and probably had a good laugh!"
"That is absolutely not what happened." he huffed, still holding the door open with little effort and debating whether he should just force his way in. "I left you and went to my apartment by myself... where I live alone."
"You admit your married... you two live separately?"
He could tell she was getting curious so he told her the truth. "Hannah and I had a muggle wedding!"
His words stopped her up; she stepped back from the door in confusion and watched as Neville stumbled in a step, the door swinging all the way open with the force he was holding on it.
He held his palms up in front of him, "Can I please, please have a chance to explain without Heather around to interrupt me, or you trying to shut my face in a door?"
"I – yes... come in..."
He tentatively stepped into her living room, closing the front door behind himself.
She shifted away from him feeling more confused than ever, and offered him a seat on her living room couch. She thought he fit right in as he sank into the cushions. After a moment, he leaned forward and clasped his hands together. She sat opposite of him and mirrored his position, the both of them slowly leaning towards each other.
"So –"
"So –"
They both began at the same time and stopped. He reached out and took her hands in his and she felt time stop. She spent all day thinking of exactly what she would say to him. How could he? Did he have no respect for himself, her, or his wife? She thought of all the contemptuous, scathing remarks she wanted to say to him. Weren't Gryffindor's supposed to be honorable? Wasn't he supposed to be a good man?
All of these thoughts left her. What was a muggle marriage? Obviously it had to be different from a Magical Wedding, not having magic to bind together… but she had no idea. What did it mean?
"So," he began. "I didn't expect to have to tell you all about my – well, Hannah – so soon."
His odd tone of voice made her hesitate. "What did you expect, Neville?"
His thumb began rubbing those gentle circles he was fond of on the back of her hand. It immediately reminded her of their time spent last week in his gardens – and she knew, he expected exactly what she had been expecting. Tongues melding, bodies touching. She was addicted to his mouth and his dry smile. He wanted the same.
"I've been thinking about last Saturday all bloody week, woman. Have you? Or am I just crazy?"
"You're not crazy." She said shyly, though she kept eye contact loathing to look away from his deep blue colored eyes, she dipped her chin so her bangs fell into her face, giving her a shield. "Why don't you – er – start at the beginning and then we can go from there." She suggested.
He sighed with relief. "Hannah and I sort of reunited at Harry and Ginny's wedding last year. I hadn't seen her since school and we both had a lot to drink that night – pretty sure half the people there did – and we woke up together the next morning and decided to be a couple."
As he spoke, his face got harder and harder.
"I'm not exactly sure how it happened, she was fairly sneaky about it all looking back on our time together, but a month later we were living together in her flat above the Leaky."
"That seems really fast." Pansy commented.
"She was sweet at first. In the back of my mind, yeah, I knew we were moving really fast but she convinced me that we were it for each other. A few days after we moved in, she told me her father was dying. He was a Muggle-Born, and her mum had been killed by Death Eater's back in Sixth year. She told me…" he paused and anger flashed behind his eyes. Pansy leaned in further and gripped his hands harder when she realized how stressed he was.
He flashed a tense smile and continued. "She told me her father wanted nothing more than to see his daughter walk down the aisle. Next thing I knew, we were getting married in a Muggle church, like her father wanted."
"That is fast."
"Yeah," he laughed bitterly. "She started planning our Wizarding wedding and she, well she changed a lot after those first few months. I kept catching her in little lies, like I didn't understand why someone would lie about something so insignificant. She would tell me we were out of milk when we weren't, or we didn't need milk when we did. She would go out with one friend and tell me she was with another. Then she would get mad at me for questioning her about it. Why didn't I understand her? She would ask. Why marry her, if I was just going to question her all the time. And I would feel like shit and apologize to her. Fuck. Why didn't I realize sooner? She controlled me… she hated when I went to work, but hated when I didn't give her space. I tried so damn hard…"
"Did you ever love her?" Pansy asked, unable to help herself.
"I – I think… thought… I did."He responded, caught off guard by her question. He thought about the first month of his and Hannah's relationship. How it just felt like they had been together for years and years, as if they had skipped the beginning and got right into the middle of a relationship.
"Heather said some things…"
"I just bet she did." he said bitterly. "She helped you know… she would egg Hannah on, give her ideas. I wish I knew what they were playing at."
"I'm sorry… I didn't know."
Neville rubbed his fingertips over hers, feeling that familiar spark between them. It was addictive. He couldn't help when he said it. "But you know, I never showed her my greenhouses."
Pansy sucked in a breath and his hand left her to push her bangs out of her face.
"You have the prettiest eyes, Pansy." he said softly.
Her stomach did a flip. Then another one. Even after only a week, she knew how much time and effort Neville had put into his gardening, how much it meant to him. And he had shown it to her. She suppressed a grin as he continued.
"Maybe I didn't. Love her I mean, we just jumped right into the thick of things without ever talking about it. She just expected so much out of me, but I couldn't get anything out of her. She wanted me to be – er well – controlling if you get what I mean, without actually being in control of anything. Finances, the household, our social life, the sex – nothing, I controlled nothing. About a week before our binding ceremony, she finally met my Gran, and that's when I realized she was just not the witch for me. Gran tore into her after only 5 minutes, asking what spell she had put me under, what had she done to me. That's when I realized how unlike myself I had become. It made me so angry. We haven't been able to be in the same room since, not without fighting."
He took a deep breath and set his jaw, his gaze focusing slightly away from her like he was expecting her to yell at him or something. Pansy processed everything he said and bit at her lip. She didn't like Hannah before, now she hated the witch. Fully admitting to herself that she might be biased, she didn't care either way. She'd been on one date with Neville and snogged him senseless twice. She had spent way less time with him than Hannah and still, she knew him better than the blonde witch ever would.
Pansy realized the witch had done a major number on Neville. Neville, who was rather dominant, wasn't allowed to be in control in his last relationship. She thought of the letters he had sent and the petals that had come with them, leaving her no room for negotiation on their dates, except she didn't feel forced into anything either. He was dominant, but a protector. He was a romantic, but realistic and competent. And by all the gods, the Gryffindor could kiss as well.
She leaned forward and interlaced her fingers with his, pulling his gaze to hers. "So, you are married to Hannah, but you two aren't bound?"
He nodded, with the same guilty look he had in her shop.
She continued, "Excuse me for my ignorance in muggle marriage, but is there any way to get out of it? I assume you would if you could."
He nodded again, the guilt replaced by anger. "I've been trying. And, as far as the Ministry of Magic and the whole wizarding world go, I'm a free man."
"Then… I no longer think you are scum." She tried at a joke, keeping her voice light.
It worked, his lip twitched into a small smile and his eyes darkened in a way that made heat flare in her stomach. "And I happen to think you are the exact opposite of scum."
Pansy grinned. "Thank you. That is possibly the most romantic thing anyone has ever said to me."
"You're lacking in romance? I can do romance." he gave her a killer smile that she felt jolt straight to her core and she remembered what he said about her eyes. She didn't doubt he could do romance for one second.