A/N: Thanks for the reviews all! They totally make my day. Just chuggin' along on this word monster train. Is there an end in sight? Maybe so, just hold on tight!
Chapter Thirty Four
(All's well that ends well only works when everything isn't on fucking fire)
"Trip jacks, ace high baby," Pansy laughed maniacally as she laid out her hand, with flourish. Of course. But Neville got caught up in the sheer volume and ringing of that laughter like never before. It rang out until the sound surrounded him, far bigger than her defined, but petite form. Always, that personality made her seem bigger and taller than she actually was. "Can I be the first to say you suck at cards, Longbottom?"
"You're cheating, Parkinson, I know you are," he growled, discarding his measly pair of 6's. Sleight of hand was her thing after all. He wouldn't be surprised one bit if she had a few face cards up her sleeve. "Let me shuffle this time."
"If you insist, honeybun," she purred at him, handing him the battered deck of cards, indigo eyes shining with joy.
What a feeling. He'd never seen Pansy so happy in her entire life and there was no one else here—only him. She felt happy to spend all these years with him.
And so did he.
"Stop calling me honeybun."
"Okay, babycakes."
"That too." He shuffled and pretended to be grumpy about it.
"How about hardass?" she flirted, wiggling her eyebrows suggestively and chomping her teeth, drawing his eye to her lips. "Because I've felt that ass before and baby I would 10 out of 10 do it again."
He reached across the card table and grabbed her by the neck, pulling her forward. "My name is Neville."
"How about you deal again, Neville. But if I wiiiin..." she pushed his hand away, refusing to fight. He'd been trying to get her to fight for ages.
"You'll make me play cards into eternity?" he sighed, but dealt the cards. He secretly loved it. When was the last time he sat down and just played a game? 6th year at school maybe. He felt as if he'd been fighting ever since anyways, no time for fun. No time for games.
But poker aside, he'd been trying to goad her into a fight since the moment he slipped into Pansy's mind. Into this weirdly delightful place that made no sense and yet perfectly matched Pansy.
After all, it was her mind.
And in that mind, time was stuck between day and night, a constant twilight. The sky but moments from true darkness, a streak of deep purples and blues and dotted with gray clouds that sometimes rolled and turned black, letting out bits of cold rain or snow.
Neither did anything to the fire beside them, which kept them quite comfortable despite being rather small in size. It crackled happily whenever Pansy laughed.
And boy did she laugh. He found himself pulling out every joke he could think of, just trying to get her to made that addicting sound.
"Maybe I'd like you to chase after me again," she grinned. Mouth full of teeth, the scar on her lips stretched into a thin white line as she took her new hand and gazed over the cards intently. Her poker face, no surprise, gave nothing away.
Hmm. Chase after her. He did it for years. In the real world. Real life. The one he remembered quite clearly. His goal was to wake her up to that reality. But Pansy was ornery as ever and she refused to give him what he wanted.
"If I win, you wake up with me," he reiterated, leaning over and getting into her face.
She leaned in, nose to nose, not intimated one bit. Her chin jutted out stubbornly and she leveled him with a hard gaze he'd seen time and time again. "You know I'm a cold blooded murderer don't you?" she whispered softly, her previous joy gone in an instant.
"Me too, kitty cat," he said, not missing a beat.
"Not like me," she told him forlornly, looking down at her cards and backing away.
The guilt written all over her face.
They played another hand. He lost. But it made her grin.
"You won," he said, leaning towards her and putting his elbows on the table. "What do you wanna do?"
Pansy stretched out, arms above her head, and faked a yawn, her shirt riding up and revealing her bellybutton. Fighting in the pit had given her more definition and a plethora of new scars that broke up her pale skin. He knew men who didn't like that on a woman, men who wanted soft and supple and smooth.
Pansy could play at soft, but Neville loved her hard fought brawn… because he knew exactly what she could do with it. She caught him looking and kept stretching, giving him more time to look. "I think…"
Neville smiled, knowing exactly what was coming. His heart jumped into overdrive.
Then she darted out of the folding chair so fast it tipped over. He tore off after her. They didn't get tired here, they could both run forever if they wanted to. And Pansy loved to run, so he followed her while they laughed the whole time. Sometimes he out maneuvered her and sometimes she purposely let him catch up, but whenever that happened he always let go so she could run again. So he could catch her once more.
She ran through gardens and dirty streets that looked like home and others that looked like foreign places he couldn't identify. Through bright city lights and quaint country roads and dusty forgotten places. Through a field of sunflowers before she stopped in a more familiar place.
"What the hell are we doing here?" he asked, catching his breath with familiar air.
She stepped out from behind a forest giant and they wandered a bit until they stood at the edge of a grassy hill, in the distance the tall towers of Hogwarts castle poked into the night. "Right here."
Pansy pointed down to the gentle hill they stood on. Right below the hill was a small slope in the land blocked off by a crumbling bolder and several smaller rocks all covered in grassy moss and small yellow and gray mushrooms.
"What happened, then?" he asked curiously. The grass felt dry and springy beneath his boots so he went down on his back and sprawled out, looking up at the purple and black sky dotted with thousands of stars. The sky never looked the same anywhere as it did at Hogwarts.
She joined him, laying close enough their arms touched, and said, "I lost my virginity to Theo."
Hell no she didn't just go there. Neville jumped up and began wiping his jeans off in disgust. "Are you kidding me right now?"
"Nope," she said with that signature shit-eating grin. "Right there on that big rock." And she made a rude gesture, demonstrating exactly what she and Theo had gotten up to once upon a time while moaning inappropriately.
With a growl, he got back down in the grass and laid next to her. "On a rock, really? That's the best he could come up with?"
"I'll have you know it was my idea. And I was on top," she added proudly.
"Not surprised," he folded his arms over his head and relaxed into the grass, turning his focus back to the stars. She loved being on top.
"No?" she turned on her side and gave him another smile. Gods, he could get used to her smiling. "I was a different person back then. So innocent and naive."
She reached out and ran fingers through his beard. And he realized it had grown several inches since their fireside card games, puffing out around his face.
How long did he chase her? His beard had never been so long before, as if he hadn't shaved in years.
"No. You were younger. Same person. Hellish fiends don't change their scales."
Delight lit her face. "No, we just shed them and grow whole new ones."
Matching her position, he rolled on his side and looked her dead on, lifting a finger to the scar that split her lips dramatically. A thick blade caused that wound and it hadn't healed well afterwards either. "Growing some new scales?"
"No, not again, not this snake," she turned away and laid flush against the grass, still refusing to fight. He missed the feel of her hand on his face immediately. "Only waiting for you to leave me alone so I can die in peace."
"Peace? You?" Yeah right, but he had to keep trying. "Fine, I'll just get back to work then. Enjoy your inevitable death."
"When did you get so dramatic?" she jumped up after him, following him towards the castle. Seraphina tasked him with 'repairing' Pansy's mind. Whatever that meant. School seemed as good a place as any to start. His teenage years had certainly left a mark on his life, after all.
"Since your damn sister came to live with me," he complained. Something would set her off eventually, then they could fight. Fighting led to talking. The talking led to… other activities, but he couldn't go that far. At least, according to Seraphina. It was difficult to resist the intimacy of the Mind Shards.
Too difficult.
That had been obvious from the start. From the very moment he spotted Pansy sitting by the fire and she began sassing him, all his feelings went right to the front where he couldn't ignore them. Where they made a stand, screaming in his face.
He needed her to get into a fighting mood, but ironically, her mind seemed nothing but joyful, her demeanor almost euphoric.
"Excuseee, me?" Pansy caught up easily and walked beside him as he searched for the road that lead to the front castle.
"You heard me, kitty cat," he made his strides purposefully long to annoy her.
"I'd prefer you not take such a coarse tone when speaking of my little sister, Longbottom. Unless you want—Oh. Oh! I see what you're up to."
"Walking?" he asked dryly.
Pansy darted in front of him and stopped him with a hand on his chest. "I can't put my finger on it exactly… but there's something different about you, honeybun."
His hand lifted and he placed it over hers, rested against his heart. Which sped up at her touch until they both could feel it, thumping loud enough to make Pansy smirk.
Aahhh, the very sight of that little tilt on the corner of her mouth made him dizzy in love and needing to explain. "I know it's not your fault," he said softly, mouth going dry. "You and Pearl went missing last September."
"And now?" she asked just as softly, fingers curling into his chest.
"Tomorrow is the last day of July," he mumbled. "You've been gone a long time."
She shook her head, the dark strands bouncing softly around her head like a halo. His hair wasn't the only thing growing. "We've spent years apart before, this is something new."
His mouth parted, body suddenly aching with the memory of Pearl standing over him, pushing little pink crystals of Glimmer into his skin just see how much more he would scream. He even caught a whiff of gnarly burnt Glimmer and whatever delicate scent Pearl smelled of.
Before he could tell her the inescapable torture Pearl put him through not only haunted him months and months later, but also made him ten times stronger in the process, the ground beneath their feet cracked with a silent shift.
They both looked down and watched the dewy grass covered hills that surrounded Hogwarts begin to split with a hazy, purplish scar that looked like skin that had stretched too much.
"What are you doing?"
"Not me," she withdrew her hand, the both of them shifting to battle stance. "I told you before… the damage is done. You should have just left me in the damn Pit, Longbottom."
"Never gonna happen, kitten."
"Even if we get out of this, Ellie is my mate, you think he'll just up and let us live out our lives?"
"Ellie?" Did he just hear her right? She had a nickname for the man that imprisoned and violated her?
The ground heaved, the scars growing ever wider. One stretched maliciously towards their feet and they reached out towards each other instinctively. "Run!"
They sprinted over the rumbling grounds heading flat out for the castle entrance, jumping over giant cracks as they appeared and narrowly avoiding spiky rocks that poked from the dirt with deadly speed. Overhead, the sky rolled with black clouds that blotted out the remaining light, a heavy snow beginning to fall.
They skidded to a stop as a wide break appeared in the ground, dirt rolling downwards into the abyss of earth creating a steep cliff, the other side far too short for the both of them. "Jump now," he stopped and turned to her, grabbing her around the hips and shoving her across the void with all his strength.
That, combined with her own strength as she pushed off, sent her soaring perfectly through the air and landing on the other side with grace. Another short jump and she cleared the biggest of the scars, landing at the bottom of the entrance stairs. He shouted, "Keep going!" as he took his own running leap. He didn't land nearly as gracefully as she did, coming down hard on his knees and rolling badly.
Fuck. Fingers dug into the damp ground, nails breaking off from the force, but he rolled too hard and fell over the far cliff. He caught the edge by his elbows, barely holding himself up. From the deep cracks, long silver and black vines began to emerge from the dirt, a sickly ooze dripping mercury and acid.
"Of fucking course," he grunted as he swung his leg up and rolled onto the small piece of flat ground. He had no time to catch his breath before a vine slithered right at his ankles with nightmarish speed. He couldn't go back, the ground quaking too violently to be safe. He jumped towards the stairs, no time to position, and the vine wrapped around his ankle mid air with bruising force and an acidic sting he felt through his jeans. He landed with two feet on the other side of the chasm, pulling the vine with him even though it began to burn with rapid intensity.
Neville reached down to yank it off when it jerked his leg out from under him, sending him to the ground again where he fell hard on his back with a grunt. He leaned forward quickly, gripped it with two hands, and pulled, the silver acid burning his bare hands.
"FUCK!" he had to let go but pulled with his leg before the damn vine took him into the now endlessly deep pit of dirt. Flat on his back he craned his neck and looked for Pansy, spotting the steps up to the castle only a few feet away instead. He rolled over and began to crawl, pulling the vine with his leg. It gave for a few seconds, his muscles straining, before it began to pull back. Taking him all the way to the chasm.
Just how he always wanted to go out, dragged into a dark, never-ending pit of dirt and toxic spewing vines. Digging his battered hands into the churned up grass, he gave one last heave, trying to pull the vine loose, when he felt air whoosh past him. He turned over and yanked his leg as hard as he could, bringing the vine flush against the ground.
Pansy's two pronged sword sprouted from her hand, slim and silver and icy cold, before she swung down a hairsbreadth from his face and chopped the vine in two. It curled away in pain and the bit wrapped around his ankle shriveled into silver goo before it burned a hole in the grass beneath it.
"Fuck you Vistain!" she shouted, her sword slashing through the vines that sprung at them. She moved like water, the sword an extension of her arm as the vines slithered at deadly speeds towards them only to be cut to pieces as Pansy danced.
Muscles moving fluidly underneath her t-shirt and black jeans. It caught his eye and his heart jumped into his throat. Neville didn't know anyone who could fight like Pansy did, with elegant, perfect movement. She wasted no energy, her breathing even with every smart strike.
With the vines retreating for a brief moment, she turned and snapped at him, blade dripping acid ice, "Get on your fucking feet, Longbottom!"
Then Pansy grabbed his arm around his bicep and pulled him up effortlessly. "God, you got strong," he admired, a little dazed and achy where the first vine had gripped.
"And you're still as graceful as a dead rock. Let's go," she pulled him along up the stairs and through the two giant doors. They slammed shut behind them with a deafening rumble that tapered out into silence. The sudden stillness was difficult to adjust to, especially now that they stood in the darkened entrance of Hogwarts.
There should have been noise everywhere. Students and teachers bustling about but the stone room echoed with stillness.
She gasped for breath, "You're stronger than I remember…"
"I thought you left me behind," he panted.
"Idiot. No one is allowed to kill you, 'cept me."
"Right, but we're in your fucking mind, remember? That's why it's a bloody nightmare in here."
"Are we? Oh riiiight, that's why you keep trying to get me to wake up. Sooo," she leaned over into his space, flushed from the fight. "If I don't wake up, does that mean you die here with me?"
"That's what Seraphina said," he told her, swallowing hard and wiping the sweat from his forehead. Would it be too much to ask that she not look so delighted by the thought of his death? But she did just save him. Then...
"Did you say Seraphina?" her eyes bulged out in anger. "Neville Longbottom, did you lose my diamond?!"
"First, it wasn't your damn diamond. You stole it."
"Twice!" she hissed.
"Secondly, I definitely lost to that crazy bitch. She had me on my knees between one second and the next. What the hell is she?"
Straightening up, Pansy sauntered forward in a move that drew his eye downwards. And she moved towards the grand staircase, before turning to look over her shoulder. The shit-eating grin came back. "My lover."
Lover? He followed after her and reached for her hand. "Pansy…" She turned back to him at the foot of the stairs. Prepared to give him all sorts of hell, he knew. But he spotted that hint of vulnerability she only ever showed with him. "She hurt you," he realized.
"Don't they all?" she asked quietly. Their fingers tangled together before she lifted his hand, palm up. "That's how you got in here. Sera. And her sneaky little Mind Shards."
Pansy jerked up to meet his gaze, looking angry for a long second before she decided something with a nod, the sour look fading away to curiosity.
There in the center of his hand was a large, round red burn that looked very much like a Glimmer scar. Their other hands came so each of their palms were face up, an identical scar on all four. But he knew it wasn't Glimmer, but the shards that made those marks.
She reached out and pushed his sleeves up, revealing the scars on his left arm where Pearl had introduced him to Glimmer in foul fashion. And since it was her, Pansy, standing in front of him alive and mouthy as ever, he didn't tell her to back off. The only woman he'd ever been comfortable being exposed to.
He spent about 10 hours thinking he would never get to speak to her again. He itched to grab at time they should spend together.
With a gentle finger she traced each and every scar, one by one.
"I guess you are in my mind," she added after a minute of examining. "I'm a selfish person, Longbottom, you know this. If I don't wake up, you'll die here with me. And I don't want to wake up. Why would you come to me like this?"
Neville felt his lips tilt up with a smile. "Selfish, yeah." That was true. What she said after wasn't. "You've never been able to lie to me, kitten."
"I'm done fighting," she pushed his hands away and started up the stairs, jumping over the trick step that had gotten him time and time again. "I've been fighting my whole life. It's all I'm good for and I'm done."
He followed as quick as he could. "Oh please, never took you for the self pitying type."
"Read my fucking lips, Longbottom. I am done fighting."
"Fine, be done fighting. You don't have to fight to live anymore," he argued. "You aren't in that pit, Pansy."
"I've been fighting long before I got thrown into that fucking place," she continued to run ahead of him, climbing stairs up and up as he chased her again. They rushed past cold stone and empty portraits, unlit torches and quiet classrooms. "Doesn't matter where I go or who I fuck. My lovers end up dead or trying to kill me, and I end up having to fight to stay alive. You know that, damn it."
He stopped and panted, realizing they were on the 6th floor already. He looked up as she sprinted up the 7th floor staircase and began rushing along the balcony railing, towards the astronomy tower. "You know what I learned this last year?" he called out to her, taking the steps 3 at a time.
"I'd rather be infuriated, tortured, and miserable with you in my life than without! Yeah—How's that for dramatic!?"
Pansy slowed, but instead of taking the ladder up into the tower, she walked past and into the far corner, pushing in a random brick that looked like all the others. A small lever Neville had never noticed before appeared by the large arched window of the lower tower. She pulled it, and the window opened inwards like a giant door to reveal a large room that shouldn't have been there. She slipped in silently and the door began to shut almost immediately. He darted forward and made it just in time, the window hitting his ankles as it closed.
"Listen to music with me," she demanded, pushing him into an overstuffed chair. Suddenly, she wore her school uniform. Black robes, a Slytherin green tie loose around her neck, a black pleated skirt with white knee-highs, and a black pointed hat pulled down over her dark bangs, the same hairstyle she sported in school. "Huh, I forgot how light your hair used to be."
Neville flopped down into his seat with an oof, Pansy's strength unlike any others, except his obviously, and he ran his fingers through his hair, finding himself clean shaven and his hair the color it was when he was a boy, a dirty blonde that apparently came from his mum.
With a smirk, she danced to a large turntable cabinet. He looked around and spotted several similar couches and cushions, with low hanging crystal lights that cast a dim, easy glow across the room. There were no windows and a low ceiling which made the place seem very cozy and secluded.
Make out spot. Definitely.
He looked down and groaned. She wasn't the only one to experience the outfit change. He wore his old school uniform too, his tie far too tight around his neck, and when he checked his pockets, he pulled out a very disgruntled Trevor the Toad.
Wonders never cease.
"Hey buddy," he held up his old pet, absolutely flabbergasted. Before Neville began staying in the Room of Requirement on a more permanent basis in 7th year, he'd released Trevor into the lake by the docks where the other toads liked to sing. Especially when it rained. He hadn't seen his toad since that forgotten day.
"I used to make all my friends listen to my records up here," she shared and he could hear a smile in her voice. And something else. A youthfulness that had long since gone.
He watched her walk and when she turned back to him, her face was that of a 17 year old. No scar marred her face and her eyes were softer than he remembered. "My father would send them through Owl Post, a different surprise each week. Hmm, what kind of music do you like, I wonder?"
She pulled out the top drawer... and it burst from her hand and crashed into the room with a huge bang! Records spewed from the inside with deadly speed, causing the whole drawer to spin in circles, sending Pansy tumbling backwards over the nearest squishy couch.
"Yikes!"
Neville dove down after her, cradling Trevor in his elbow and using his other arm to cover her head as hard cardboard and flying vinyl buzzed around them. He growled, "Why are you trying to kill me, woman?"
"I think, yep," she pulled them further into the corner, trying to find more cover. "It's basically every song I know."
"Yikes," he mocked. It might've been the mildest swear he'd ever heard from her.
"What would you prefer?" she asked with a dark tone, pulling the top cushion off the couch and pulling it over their heads.
"Go vertical," he ordered, already shifting to lay on top of her as they got pelted by records.
"Not the best proposition for sex I've ever had," but she laid on her back as he came in on top of her, Trevor hopping onto her chest, before she pulled the cushion over them. Then she smirked despite the giant toad between them. "Not the worst, either."
"No sex," he chided, though their position certainly reminded him of previous nights with her. Well, minus toad. "I don't do that with dead people."
"Oohh?"
"Wake up with me, kitty cat," he couldn't help but smile back at her. Damn that smile of hers—it made his heart do all sorts of jumps. "I'll do whatever you want me to do."
Trevor let out a deep ribbit before he hopped away, clearly unimpressed with all the commotion.
"Is that another promise?" she whispered softly, purposely leaning up to put her mouth close to his ear. She smelled of birchsap. "Do you remember the first promise you ever made me?"
"To catch you," he pushed his forehead against hers and breathed in her scent. Seraphina didn't lie. Now that they were lying together, touching each other, it was impossible to resist. Like the night they visited Club Dread, once they started they couldn't stop.
"That's the one you kept," she mused, bending her knees upwards to cradle his body while her fingers cupped his cheeks. "What about the one you broke?"
Indigo eyes met his and turned accusing, and in the distance far below the castle, he could feel the rumble of the earth quaking. "What promise?"
"In front of the mirror?" she breathed out when he breathed in. "You said if I ever touched another man you would show me true violence. Well? Longbottom? Do you know how many times I fucked Ellis Vistain before you came to get me? Do you wanna know all the places he fucked me right back?"
Above them the records all fell to the floor with a clatter of noise and disruption before the room went still.
Her words turned his entire body to stone. "I kept my promise," he informed her in a hard voice.
So hard she tensed up, sensing the danger.
"I jumped right into that pit with you and killed anything that stood between us, and I would do it again."
The quake stopped, the castle going still as they stared each other down without blinking. Without moving. A true battle of wills, because he wasn't going to back down on this one, his words a new promise. His only regret was that he didn't go after her sooner. Because when she came back to town and stole The Fern, things between them changed. For better or worse, they changed.
And he shouldn't have assumed things would go back to normal. That she would blow back into town months or years later and cause chaos enough to turn his life upside down.
He should have followed his gut and gone after her right away.
A slow, deliberate blink. She said, "Sinatra. I bet you're a Sinatra fan."
"Change back," he demanded, pulling on the lapel of her robes and just barely resisting the urge to kiss her. "I want my Pansy." Not the soft student she used to be. He wanted the hard woman he fell in love with.
"And you'll listen to music with me?" she gasped, eyes flashing with intensity as he manhandled her. Yet, he felt confident she enjoyed it too.
"Yes," he promised.
She blinked and underneath him, still entangled, her eyes turned harder and older as her robes thinned and morphed into her snarky t-shirt, her skirt into her tight jeans, the scar across her lip reappeared and her hat disappeared, showing her short hair that laid flat against her head.
"Me too," he added, but his beard was already beginning to sprout from his face again, the color of his hair darkening as it had over the years. The tie around his neck disappeared as his own casual outfit appeared, his boots back in place.
"'Your' Pansy?" her eyebrow rose as she rolled away from him and up on her feet, began searching through the records.
Neville followed, taking a seat in the closest chair. A squishy yellow monstrosity with a high back and arms. "Sounds right."
"Your Pansy," she repeated, as if testing the words. "Aha!"
She held up a record that had lost its case before she turned to the turntable with zeal. A moment later and a smooth instrument he couldn't identify filled the room as Pansy twirled around with a deep grin, perching on the arm of his chair. She put her feet in his lap. "This, my musically challenged comrade, is Sinatra."
Trevor jumped onto his shoulder.
And he listened, absently massaging Pansy's ankles and calves, but he refused to tell her she was right—he did like it. It sounded like something his Gran used to listen to. She listened along with him, a slight bob in her head as she got comfortable. Really comfortable.
Half way through and she burst into song.
"Some people get their kicks, stompin' on a dream. But I don't let it, let it get me down. 'Cause this fine old world it keeps spinnin' around…"
As dazzling as he remembered her voice being, that day at Mungo's, hearing it while he delved into her mind was another thing entirely. Rich and husky, her song nearly lifted him out of his seat with the realization of a whole new intimacy he had never experienced before.
Seraphina's warning didn't prepare him for this.
He leaned back and watched Pansy sing, her head tilted back, eyes closed, mouth moving as more sound came from inside her than he would have thought possible. Unlike at Mungo's, she wasn't attempting to influence him or force his actions, but her song seduced him all the same. His muscles relaxed enough to stop hurting. Mellowing him into a calm trance he'd only felt around her before.
They listened to all her favorite songs. It took years. And she sang the entire time, immersed in the nostalgia of her childhood and years at Hogwarts. He enjoyed that merry look in her bright eyes as she sang to him, and he fell head first into the intimacy of it all.
Because she sang for him. All the time spent in her mind meant he knew exactly how extraordinary an occurrence that was. Something Pansy hadn't done for any of her lovers. Except him. And Neville didn't want it to end, so much so he lost track of time.
Not realizing that their hair had grown and age lines had appeared on their faces. His beard had salted when he wasn't looking, too busy listening to Pansy and falling even more in love with her and her mind. It was only when he spotted the silver threading her usually dark hair, he remembered they had somewhere to be. They had people waiting on them.
There was a war going on. Ellis Vistain needed stopping for what he'd done. Magic needed fixing. And…
"Posy," he said when Pansy finished a song, voice cracking in such a way he almost thought Trevor the Toad had said it instead. "I need to learn a song for Posy."
"My sister?" she asked, breath catching in joy. "I miss her."
"A song about horses," he remembered. "I promised to learn the words so I could sing it to her."
"Wild Horses?" Pansy's smile grew even brighter. "My Papa used to sing it to me when I was very young. I sang it to Posy when she was a baby."
She didn't need a record for this song, taking a deep breath before she began singing. He listened to the words, and tried to memorize them for later. But Pansy's allure was too great, and with every line he learned more about Pansy and Posy. She glanced down and their eyes met, until he was drowning in her indigo colored life.
I have my freedom, but I don't have much time...
When she finished, Neville reached up to wipe the tears from her flushed cheeks. Wanting to linger for as long as possible. But there were new lines on Pansy's face that hadn't been there before. It should have alarmed him. Should have sent him into a frenzy to get back to real life and the promises he made.
Instead, he held Pansy in a tender moment that wasn't their norm, his hold as gentle as he could. "Not exactly a lullaby, is it? It's sad, kitten."
"Yeah," she nodded, but didn't move away from his touch. Instead she leaned into it. "Strange man, my father. I think sad things made him happy. But I know he loved us, Po and I. I know he did."
"And you?" he pulled her into his lap, still cupping her cheeks with his hands that seemed older. More weathered. "Do you love your sister? Because she loves you and she misses you."
"Of course." Pansy's eyes watered all over again, bright indigo orbs that were so similar to Posy's… and yet so different. "Of course I love her. You're not suggesting otherwise, are you? Hate to have to add your name to my list."
Her tone turned threatening, but he didn't mind. He never did. "I told Marcus Barton that Posy is like a daughter to me."
Her fingers dug into his face, poking at the gray bits in his beard. "That's what changed in you," she bit down on her lip. "You became a parent. To my sister. Very strange."
"I don't want her-" he gasped when she moved her hands to rub into his neck just under the ears, massaging the muscles as she sat in his lap. "I don't want her to lose anymore family."
"So that's it then? You want me to wake up so you can be Posy's hero?"
Hero? No. He didn't care for being the hero, but his entire life what he wanted more than anything was to do the right thing. Say the right thing. Be the right guy. He wanted to do right by Posy, who had from the moment they met been the most important thing in his life. And he worried about the choice he made, coming after Pansy and leaving Posy behind.
It felt as if he had chosen one sister over the other.
But Neville realized then what he suspected Posy knew all along. He didn't have to choose between family. If he hadn't come for Pansy, he would have done a major disservice to Posy. To the family they were trying to make, one they weren't born into, but one that was theirs regardless. By coming after Pansy, he was choosing Posy too.
And his desire to keep his promise to her finally broke through the hazy trance of the Mind Shards.
Hands came out quick to grab at Pansy's shirt, dragging her closer until they were nose to nose. "No, I want you to wake up so you can be Posy's hero. You don't have to do it for me, though I was fool enough to fall stupidly in love with you."
She gasped at his words, the fervent whisper sending chills down the both of them. But he continued despite the chill and goosebumps that broke out across his skin and down his spine. "If family isn't enough reason, do it for revenge. That's more your style anyways, kitten. Vistain took you and your mum. He put that collar on you and forced you to-"
"Stop," she patted his shoulders, thumb brushing over the scar she gave him. It sent a zing through his body. "I know what he did. I know what he is."
At the tail end of her words, the secret door in which they'd come through burst open and fell to the ground, sending up a cloud of dust and a long lasting rumble they both felt. Looking over they saw the deadly vines from earlier had completely encompassed the castle, creating a tight structure over the door way.
Trapping them.
They pulsed with energy, silver and black and oozing death and dripping acid. Neville realized then the vines represented the mate bond between Pansy and Vistain. Perhaps paired up with the enslaving element of the collar, the bond had invaded Pansy in the worst way. Slowly killing her as it trapped her.
He stood, ready to fight but Pansy stopped him with a hand on his chest. "There's a price," she told him, sounding like herself. "I'll wake up with you, Neville Longbottom."
"What must I do?"
"A kiss," she blinked up at him, the vines pulsing in threat.
Oh no. He couldn't.
The intimacy of the Mind Shards was potent, they both knew it. If he kissed her, he wasn't sure he could ever stop. Not in this place, a place where they didn't get tired or hungry. It was never just a kiss between them. They couldn't only kiss. Anytime they did, they ended up destroying whatever house they were in as they fucked their way across it. Unless someone interrupted them. And by the wicked gleam in her eye, she knew what she asked of him.
"I have another reason for this request," she continued, standing in front of him plainly. "I need someone tough. Tough enough to take on my mate bond, to break it."
They turned to look at the myriad of vines, thousands of them, crisscrossing and weaving until they completely covered the walls outside their little room. He could almost feel them tightening on the castle.
"Think you can take it on?" Pansy asked, sounding like a dare.
"With a kiss?"
Pansy nodded. "I can hack away at them all day and all night long, but it'll never end. I need something else besides a sword and a fist to fight him off."
That something else being him. Neville already admitted he loved her, now he had to prove it. He reached out and wrapped his fingers around her neck, not squeezing, not harming. Just holding. Then he stepped forward.
She stepped back.
Until he had her against the far wall, his hard body pressed into hers. "You seem to have forgotten," he started, their eyes meeting in a clash. "That you belonged to me long before you were his."
Pansy's plump lips parted on a small gasp which made his abdomen tighten as blood rushed south. He watched her breathing falter and her dark eyelashes begin to flutter. He tightened his hold around her neck, making her eyes snap up. "Keep them open and on me."
"Just one kiss," she breathed out, chest pushing against his. Her hands came up to rest on his upper arms as he braced one hand against the wall beside her head. The other tightened slightly around her throat, the hold possessive and strong.
"One kiss," Neville leaned in, his thumb tilting her chin upwards.
Lips met with a dizzying impact as they recreated their first kiss. His hand rough around her throat, pinning her to the wall as creeping vines surrounded them. They hadn't been running for their lives, they weren't cut and bloody this time, but his kiss felt just as desperate, just as provoking. It said he wouldn't lose her again. Not this time.
Never again.
…
Palm aching from a fading burn, Pansy sat up and spotted her reflection across the room. As she scooted off the edge of her bed and stood in front of that old cracked mirror, other bits of her body shot off odd pangs that said she'd been hurt quite a lot recently. It seemed hard to breathe, her ribs clearly broken. Her right knee felt stiff and swollen, her shoulder bruised and achy, and every one of her knuckles were split.
None of that compared to the dusty black and gray scarring that circled the entirety of her neck.
Hands bracing against the mirror, she leaned in and watched an unfamiliar woman look back at her. A bitter, hostile woman. A gruesome scar split her lips and dark bags bruised her eyes. And though she clearly remembered chopping off her hair during a particularly nasty fight in the pit, it now hung down past her shoulders.
More concerning was that it no longer looked black in color. But rather the aged silver that looked exactly like her father's had later in life.
The ache in her palm turned into a beat she couldn't ignore and she retracted her hands from the mirror to take a look, finding two identical burns in the dead center of each hand.
"Fuck," she shook her head in anger, knowing exactly what caused the burns. She resisted the urge to throw up.
A groan from behind had her turning quickly, ready to fight. How she missed him was beyond her. Longbottom laid across her bed, sitting up with a hand on his head as if it ached. Yet he looked at her with a playful grin, hair and beard salted with gray and white. "Kitten?"
Vaguely, she remembered being happy to see him when she raided the Ministry of Magic. But that seemed ages ago. Buried under the mountain of guilt and disgust she had for herself, for the innocents she slaughtered in her quest to stay alive and human. For letting Vistain do the things he did to her.
For killing Hal.
And this man dared get informal with her after all she'd done?
Then she spotted the similar burns on his hand and realized her worst fucking nightmare had come true.
She dashed across the room quickly and summoned her strength, slamming him down before he could get on his feet. "Don't get familiar with me, Longbottom. What the fuck did you think you were doing making a deal with Sera?"
"Deal?" he wrapped two massive hands around her wrists, attempting to escape her hold but she already spotted an old friend by the bed.
Her dagger.
She grabbed it with her left hand and held it flush against his throat. "Move and you die."
It pleased the hostile side of her to see the light disappear from his gaze. Even looking heartbroken. "I guess you don't remember then."
She remembered… a heartbeat in her ear. Before that was the cascading lunacy of that damn collar, going in constant circles—round and round down memory lane. Reliving every god damn moment of her god damn life.
But she knew what the burns on her palms meant. The sense of betrayal staggering, overriding all the other foul feelings churning in her gut. "I'm quite familiar with those little stones Sera grows, so how long did you spend transgressing about in my mind? Did you have fun violating me?"
"Violate?" he growled, but she didn't see it any other way. She saw first hand how Sera used those stones to mind fuck her lovers, keep them compliant as she used and abused them. Kept them alivev for years longer than they should have been, an unwitting slave.
"Long enough to turn our hair gray," she spat at him, pressing her blade into his neck dangerously. "How could you?"
He sucked in a breath and on the bedside table a ping went off.
"Could be Posy," he growled, all traces of playfulness gone.
"Why would my sister be messaging you?" Pansy refused to let him move. She wanted answers.
"Damn it, Pansy. I'm her guardian now. What's the last thing you remember?"
That blonde bitch breaking her collar. It got too fuzzy after that to recall with any certainty, though she would bet good money that she spent the majority of that time fighting in the pit for Vistain. Somewhere along the way, always-gotta-be-the-bleedin-Hero Longbottom came along with a couple of Sera's Mind Shards.
Too bad for him, Pansy was done being a fucking pawn. And she would never forgive him for violating her mind in such a way.
His phone went off again.
"Don't move," she warned, dagger steady as she reached across to pluck his phone from the table. She frowned seeing the date, the last day of July. And again when she read his latest message. "'Susie' says they put Posy in the King's pin. What does that mean?"
But then Pansy watched something she'd never seen before. She thought she'd seen Neville angry before. Gods knew she had been the cause of his frustration time and time again. But her words brought out a new level of rage Pansy could relate to, but never thought she would see on the usually self contained man.
For the first time her life, Pansy felt an instance of fear towards Neville when he spoke. "Get your fucking blade off my throat, Parkinson. I have to go kill someone."