An hour or so later, Harry mentally groaned as Neville started talking while picking at his purchase. The noxious smelling peppermint candy was doing nothing to slow or stop his speech, as he rattled off statistics about a rare plant he deeply wished he could study up close. They came to a stop when Neville started looking in the window of the broom shop they were passing.

"Remember when my broom went crazy, Harry? Back in First Year?"

Harry hummed. "Uh-huh," He agreed distractedly.

"Ooh, they've got an Athyrium thelypteroides in the window! You know, typically…"

Harry stopped paying attention as the boy launched into a lengthy explanation about the plant, still studying it through the window. Suddenly, beautiful, bell-like laughter echoed in the street, carrying over the sounds of the milling students. Harry looked for it's source, having never heard the laugh before, and spotted Achesan standing in front of the menagerie, laughing gracefully. She was with Snape, and Harry felt a spark of incomprehensible, white hot anger flair in his chest when she touched the Potions Master's arm very…familiarly. As he watched, the DADA professor leaned over to coo at a pet in the shop window, and Snape turned to gaze over the street. Ebony met emerald, and Harry turned suddenly to the boy clinging to his hand, drawing him into an insistent kiss.

It was uncomfortable, and almost painfully awkward, but Harry chalked that up to the fact that he'd interrupted the other Seventh Year mid-sentence. When the taste of peppermint, more noxious than the smell, became too much to bear, Harry pulled away. He looked immediately back down the street. A triumphant smirk darkened his features when he saw that Snape had vanished and Achesan was staring around as if she'd lost something. He turned back to Neville, satisfied, and frowned at the dazed, lovesick look on the thankfully silent boy's face.

Why had he done that? It didn't make any sense. The date was going fine, but it certainly wasn't worth a kiss. And what had that spark of anger been beforehand, or the pride that had followed? He had never felt anything like that before, and had no idea of how to catalogue it. He mentally tucked these questions into his 'answers will come' file, and then dismissed them. Dating was new and foreign, and he had nothing to go off of.

Even so, kissing Neville hadn't been horrible, awkwardness and flavoring aside. It had certainly been better than kissing Cho, his only point of comparison. For that matter, still in comparison, the date was going swimmingly. And, the kiss had served to shut the other boy up, for now. Suddenly feeling ill, Harry quickly led the way to the stationery shop. All of a sudden, he wanted nothing more than to return to Hogwarts and pretend that none of this had ever happened.

-Break-

The next morning, Harry realized the full consequences of what he'd done. Snape had said nothing of the kiss during their walk, remaining stubbornly taciturn, but breakfast heralded a return of Neville's lovesick clinginess. Harry sat down at the table, completely unaware of what was to unfold. Before he had even finished spooning eggs onto his plate, he found a second dark purple petunia held out by the boy beside him. He set the spoon down and took the plant uncertainly.

"Uh, Neville," He started carefully.

"Yes, Harry?" His fellow Gryffindor said, staring at him with hopeful, ardent hazel eyes. A persistently sweaty palm slid into his.

Harry blushed under the scrutiny and glanced surreptitiously at his friends. They all knew about the kiss, as Neville had told them all with a fluttery, girlish need to gossip as soon as they'd returned to Hogwarts. So what was he going to say? If he turned the other boy down, they'd all, Hermione especially, want to know why he'd kissed him. And he didn't honestly have an answer for them, or even for himself. Besides, the date hadn't been that bad, and there wasn't any harm in a little hand-holding, right?

He cleared his throat. "I, uh, need my hand," He said, extracting his fingers from his friend's grasp.

Neville immediately blushed and turned back to his own breakfast. Harry could feel his fellow Gryffindor staring at him out of the corner of his eye, and as soon as he'd done filling his plate his hand was tentatively grasped again. Seeing no reason to pull away again, Harry began to eat and simply allowed the contact. Unfortunately, the grasp persisted through the corridors for the rest of the day, Neville almost never leaving his side.

By the end of the day, they were established as a hot topic couple within Hogwarts. Harry found he didn't so much mind this, in spite of his misgivings. When the boy wasn't talking about plants, he was pleasant to be around, and his palm wasn't all that sweaty. Harry still wasn't sure how he felt about being a couple, since being with Neville felt no different than when they'd just been friends, save the new aspect of the hand-holding, a minor thing really that he could probably get used to, but couldn't find reason enough to turn the boy away. And, it felt kind of nice to have someone interested in him romantically. Given the chance, he might even come to feel similarly.