Written For:
- Hogwarts Funfair/Horse Race: (prompt) Paperclip
- Flash Fiction Competition 18/06/16: (pairing) Neville/Hannah
Pairing: Neville/Hannah
Word Count: 329
Paperclips
Neville grumbled as he stacked together the sheet of parchment pieces that Hannah had thrown in his direction. Managing the Leaky Cauldron already wasn't an easy job, but while Hannah was poorly, things were made even more difficult.
Normally, Hannah managed all of the paperwork and accounts side of things. Neville's responsibility was lugging the delivery boxes in, cooking in the kitchen and filling up the beer barrels. Hannah maintained front of house, whilst also keeping the whole inn in check.
"Hannah, I can't do this," Neville shouted across the bar, exasperated. Hannah was sitting alone in a booth near the bar, pressing an ice pack to her aching head. Neville hated bothering her while she was so ill - he knew that she'd been dealing with a shocking headache, as well as an unbelievable amount of nausea every morning. "How am I supposed to keep them all together without getting them stuck? I don't want to have to use a sticking charm...I was never that good at those..."
"I gave you some paperclips!" Hannah shouted. "Use them to hold the pages together."
"Paper...what?" Neville thumbed through the pages until he discovered the small pot of tiny, metal clips. "What on earth are these?"
Hannah jumped up from her seat, before storming over to the bar to see what Neville was doing. "It's a Muggle device," she snapped irritably, snatching the paperclips out of Neville's hand and grabbing one out of the pot. Neville watched, awestruck, as Hannah folded the corner of the page inside the smaller section of the metal clip. She held it up afterwards, demonstrating how the pages were now clipped together neatly.
She was trying to remain irritable and annoyed, but her expression softened at the way Neville's mouth hung open. "Amazing, Muggles are," he muttered, taking the stack of pages from Hannah and beginning to stick the paperclips to the corners of every couple. "Sometimes, I think they're more magical than we are."