Oh, you can fit me
inside the necklace you got
when you were sixteen.
Next to your heartbeat,
where I should be.
Keep it deep within your soul.
And if you hurt me,
Well, that's okay, baby,
only words bleed.
Inside these pages, you just hold me
And I won't ever let you go
"Photograph" — Ed Sheeran
Apparating to Longbottom Manor, Hermione's heart pounded in her chest. While she told herself that it was from the squeezing pressure of apparition, she was aware that it was truly from her anxiety around whatever Neville wanted to talk to her about so much that he would invite her over an entire two hours before the rest of their friends were due to arrive.
She walked up the long drive to the front door, taking a moment to enjoy the sunshine. It was an uncharacteristically lovely day, and she was grateful for the light breeze which seemed to blow off some of the weight upon her shoulders. At least if today ended in disaster and heartbreak, she could go to the park near her home and read a book to try to forget.
Arriving at the front steps to the home, she lightly rapped the knocker, knowing that the wards of the house would make sure that the occupants would know that she was there regardless of where in the home they might be. After a brief moment, the door opened and Augusta Longbottom, in all of her splendor, opened the door.
"Miss Granger! I'm surprised to see you so early. I thought Neville told me to expect people at one."
Hermione nodded, a little anxious as always around the older woman. Augusta was a formidable person, and she was well aware of the power that the woman-despite her age— had wielded only a few short years ago during the battle. Her eyes were still clear and bright, her spine straight despite her age. There must have been some sort of finishing school at Hogwarts during the periods that she and McGonnagal went through, because there was a certain grace and poise that the generation of witches had that Hermione knew she would never be able to emulate.
"Neville told me he had something he wanted to talk to me about, and asked me to come a bit earlier. I'm sorry if I'm intruding, Mrs. Longbottom. If you point me in his direction, I'll get out of your hair."
Augusta gave her a wry smile, and gently took her elbow. "Well, fortunately for you, Miss Granger, I think my chignon is doing a fair enough job keeping my hair under control, so I don't believe there's anything for you to get out of. I'm sure he's in the greenhouses— I've hardly been able to get him to spend time anywhere else since he came home. I'll show you where it is, so you can find it on your own next time you come to visit."
Hermione walked alongside the elderly witch through the stately home, half listening as she pointed out various portraits and artifacts as they passed them, describing the provenance of various pieces. The other half of her was whirling through the scenarios and outcomes of whatever was waiting for her in the greenhouse. Would she be able to go back to just being Neville's friend if it turned out that he was seeing someone else after all? Not Luna, apparently, but that didn't mean that half of the women in England wouldn't gleefully trade over their wands for the sensitive, daring wizard. By the time her mind caught up with her body, they were standing at a large set of double doors, and Augusta was waving a hand towards a path in the grass.
"Just that way, darling. The path will lead you through the box hedges and straight to the greenhouse. Take care to make a fair bit of noise on your way in— I'm sure you of all people remember how engrossed he can get when he's in there. I'd hate for you to startle him and cause him to drop something. Merlin knows he can get in a right state if he thinks he's done something to cause damage to one of his precious plants."
With a surprisingly strong push, Augusta nudged Hermione toward the pathway and firmly shut the doors behind her.
This was it.
It didn't take long to make her way through the hedges and down the path, arriving at a beautiful greenhouse. The door was open, and she could hear Neville inside quietly singing a song that didn't seem to have any specific tune to it. It shouldn't have been anywhere near as endearing as it was, and she felt a quick pang in her chest that today might not end the way she hoped it would. She could only hope for the best, but steeled herself regardless to expect the worst.
She stepped into the greenhouse, making sure to loudly stomp her shoes on the mat at the door, feigning at brushing off dirt even though the soft floor of the greenhouse was far from spotless. She could still hear him, but upon stepping inside realized that there must be an expansion charm on the structure, as she couldn't see him through the surprisingly dense foliage.
"That you, Hermione?" she heard from somewhere down the narrow aisles of flowers.
"Yes, good morning! Where are you?" she called, lightly craning her neck to try to look over the tops of some of the tallest plants.
A light pop sounded behind her and she whirled around, smacking soundly into Neville's chest. She likely would've fallen backward if his hands hadn't flown up to catch her by the biceps. He gently slid his hands around to her back, pulling her close to his chest. She let her arms wrap around his waist and accepted the hug, which was definitely both closer and tighter than one would typically hug a friend.
"It certainly is a good morning, now that you're here," he said into her hair. Involuntarily, her arms squeezed him tighter around the middle as she pushed her face into his chest, breathing in the smell of warm, wet soil, something like bergamot and sandalwood, and the leather from the gardening apron and gloves she knew he usually favored.
He gently stepped back, sliding his hands up to her shoulders to look her square in the eyes— something he rarely did with anyone. Surrounded by all of the greenery, his hazel eyes were tending away from brown and the green around the outside of his iris looked as if it dominated as he stared at her with an intensity that sent the butterflies in her stomach alight.
"I have something that I want to show you," he said, suddenly letting go of her shoulders and placing one hand on the small of her back, gently leading her down the aisles of growth. Although herbology was not one of her many passions, she was in awe of the wide variety of flora that he was cultivating.
"How have you managed all of this in only a couple of weeks?"
"Well," he said, palm still hot through the fine linen of her shirt, "I had an extended tent that I used while we were travelling. I bought a wizard's tent— I think you stayed in one at the World Cup?- and I used an extension charm, although I don't think it's quite as undetectable as yours was. Anyway, I was able to bring most of these around with me while Hannah and I were travelling. Gran took care of some of the easier ones for me while I was gone, too."
As they walked through the greenhouse and he described the plants around her, she was focused on the feeling of his hand lightly trailing up and down the small of her back as he led her through his plants. The feeling of his slightly calloused hand lightly catching on the linen of her shirt made her vitally aware that he was someone who was likely very good with hands.
Hopefully she would get an opportunity to find out if the rumors were true.
They finally stopped before a bed of roses that were a peculiar light brown color— like toffee or caramel.
"Here we are. This is what I wanted to show you. Well— the first thing I want to show you, at any rate."
Hermione looked at the roses, and their pale brown petals ringed around the edges with a deeper brown. The stems appeared far more thorny than most roses, and the very tips of the petals were slightly wavy.
"It took me quite some time, but I think I've finally managed to perfect a new variety of magical plant. It was the last thing that I needed to do to complete my mastery, so if this works exactly as planned and I get approval from the Magical Plants Division of the ministry, then my mastery will be complete."
She whirled around to look at him. "I had no idea you were working on a mastery!"
He lightly smiled at her, and the butterflies took off again.
"I was nervous about the practical aspect of it, so I kept it secret for a while. I spent most of my childhood reading herbology texts, so the written work was fairly easy. But I've spent quite a bit of time breeding these roses," he said, bringing up a hand to lightly rub the back of his neck, a blush on his cheeks.
"But what makes them magical? They look like ordinary roses," she asked, trying to see if there was anything besides their color and shape that made them unusual.
He took a deep breath and a couple of steps backward, away from her. "Smell them," he said, lightly gesturing toward the flowers.
She looked up at him, surprised by his slight withdrawal. Why would he pull away? Was there some sort of danger here? No, of course not. Neville never would've brought her to a dangerous plant and told her to shove her nose into it.
She tucked her hair behind her ears so it wouldn't fall down into the roses and get caught in the thorns, and carefully leaned over the flowers, breathing in deeply.
"I don't smell anything," Hermione said, more than a little confused, eyes darting up to meet his. He wouldn't be asking her to smell a rose without a scent, right?
Neville smiled wryly, and flicked his wrist, wand slipping into his palm.
"Still trust me?" he asked, smile widening slightly. She nodded, knowing that she would trust him to do nearly anything to her. After all, he'd been in her life longer than even Harry or Ron, even if only by a few hours.
With a swish and a couple of flicks, he cast a bubble head charm over her. "Try again."
The bubble head charm immediately freshened the air around her, and the sweet, warm smell of the greenhouse instantly vanished. She leaned forward, the charm stretching to include the roses when they got near the boundary of the charm.
Warm leather. Petrichor. Sandalwood. And warm, wet earth.
Her eyes flew to his again, and he bit his lip before releasing it to take another deep breath.
"What—"
"Don't say anything yet," he interrupted her, hands coming up as if to fend off the rest of her sentence. "You asked what makes it magical. It took me quite a few years of work to breed the roses to get them to look correct, and even longer to figure out how much potion to add to the soil while it's growing— and at which stage it needed to be added to the soil, at that. It took even longer still to figure out how to get a flower to smell like someone's amortentia without having any of the effects that drinking it would have produced."
He took a deep, slightly shaky breath, lifted his eyes to stare directly into hers. "I bred the petals to be one of my favorite shades of brown, and the edges of the petals are my second favorite shade. It took me ages to figure out which species to cross to get that curling— the scalloping— on the edges of them. Grasp the stems, if you want to. The thorns won't hurt you if you don't intend harm to the flower. Before you tell me anything about what you smell, I want to tell you what I do. When I smell those roses, I smell old parchment, strong tea, ink, and woolen yarn.
"Hermione, it's okay if you don't feel the same way that I do, but I can't bear to go another day without telling you that I have loved you since I was eleven years old. Even when I was on the other side of the world and thinking I would be able to make a life with another woman, I have never stopped thinking of you—caring for you. I know that I'm clumsy, and I can lose myself in the garden and forget to spend time with those important to me, and I know that I may not always be the bravest, or the strongest man, but I have always tried to be a good one. You make me want to be good, and I—"
He loved her. Neville Longbottom had loved her since they were children. Had been thinking of her while he was across the world, travelling and reading and studying. He had made a rose with petals the same color of her eyes tipped in the same color of her hair, and had even found a way to curl the tips of the petals like the way that her hair refused to lie straight.
Not letting him finish, she surged forward, hands on his cheeks, as she lifted up on her toes and pulled his face down to hers to connect their lips in a bruising kiss. His hands flew into her hair, pulling her tight against him. She could feel his heart pounding in his chest, and his hands shook slightly even as they twined into her curls.
His tongue swept out and lightly ran over her lower lip before she met it with her own. She couldn't have told you how long they stood there in the greenhouse, bodies pressed together, sharing a single breath back and forth as they stood surrounded by the roses. With her Bubble Head Charm gone, she was surrounded by the smell of him, and the feeling of his body pressed up against hers from waist to mouth left her feeling lightheaded.
She dropped back onto her feet, calves slightly smarting from having been lifted up for so long to meet his mouth. Neville gazed down at her, eyes wild and chest heaving as he tried to catch his breath.
"It's the leather of your gardening kit, soil, and your cologne. That's what I smell. Neville, you are everything to me. And it took me far longer to figure out than it took you, and for that I am so incredibly sorry. We could've saved ourselves an awful lot of waiting if I hadn't—"
He lowered his lips to hers again, cutting her off. Unlike the forceful, passionate kiss they had just shared, this one was sweeter and slower— lazy, almost.
"You have absolutely nothing to apologize for," he whispered, voice lower than she had ever heard it. "You are worth waiting for, and I would do it again in a heartbeat if I knew that you would be waiting on the other side when I was done. Working on these roses helped me. With the waiting, I mean. Every time I had to uncap a bottle of amortentia it was like I was surrounded by you."
"Tell me about it," she whispered back, more than a little curious about the work he'd put into their cultivation.
"I call them Rosa helenafilia. They're you, or as close to you as a plant could get. They're beautiful, obviously. They're unique, and they're breathtaking. They're incredibly thorny— and I don't mean that to be an insult to you. They're ever so slightly sentient, and they can tell the intention of a touch. If someone means to do the plant any harm, the thorns will do what thorns are known to do. But if it's a gentle touch, from one who means well, the thorns are softer and won't cause any damage— although they will remain firm enough to remind you of their potential to bite."
Helenafilia. Daughter of Helen. Hermione was the daughter of Helen of Troy, according to the Greeks. He'd quite literally designed a flower as a physical manifestation of his affection for her.
His fingers swept over her cheekbones, brushing away tears that she hadn't realized had begun to fall. "Don't cry, love. Please. I really don't want you crying for this next bit."
The next bit? What else could he have to show her?
She nodded, and tried to steel herself. Her heart pounded, and she was overwhelmed with the knowledge that Ginny had been right, and that this wonderful, courageous, caring man cared so deeply for her— and apparently had for years.
He reached into his pants pocket, and pulled out a flat, square jewelry box. He carefully lifted the lid, and she noticed that his hands were shaking again as he fumbled the clasp on the side of the box.
"My dad gave this to my mum on their first anniversary. He spent ages dragging Gran around trying to find it. It was one of the only things that she was able to save after the way the Lestranges destroyed our home. I carried this in my pocket nearly every day during fourth year, and if you'd gone to the Yule Ball with me I would've given it to you then, and told you how I truly felt—feel— about you. But this was my mum's and I want you to have it now. I want you to have it, and I want you to wear it, and I want you to be my girl."
Inside the jewelry box was one of the most beautiful lockets she'd ever seen. It was an oval locket and the face of it was brass and filled with pearl. Two small pink birds in flight were inlaid in the pearl, surrounded by delicate gold flowers.
She lifted a hand to lightly touch the face of the locket, finding the metal surprisingly warm to the touch. "Does it open?"
He nodded, and she flicked the clasp on it, opening the face of the locket. Inside on one face was a picture from the sole dance they had shared at the Yule Ball, and the other face held one of the roses that grew beside her, shrunken to fit into the locket. She leaned in to lightly smell it, and was hit with the smell of him.
"Will you put it on for me?"
He let out a breath she hadn't realized he was holding, and lifted the locket from the velvet case. She lifted her hair up to free the back of her neck, and turned to face away from him so he could see the clasp. His warm hands skimmed the skin of her throat as he brought the necklace around her neck, and he closed the delicate clasp with a sure-fingeredness that revealed his relief. When he finished closing it, the necklace fell warm and heavy between her collarbones. If Slytherin's locket had filled her with anxiety and coldness, this locket filled her with light and love.
She lightly skimmed his hands across her shoulders and down her arms, leaning down to press soft kisses behind her ear and the back of her neck. The light scrape of the scruff on his chin and cheeks tickled the sensitive skin, and she shuddered against him.
"Neville…"
He spun her around, slanting his mouth against hers— their earlier heat rekindled. His large warm hands moved to her waist, and he gently lifted her, pulling her up to drop her on the edge of the work table beside the roses. Neville's hands dropped down to her knees and he pulled her legs apart to step between them, pressing his body against hers.
With the force of their bodies connecting, each one of them let out a soft moan and she felt a heat run through her from the feeling of his body lining up against hers. She could feel the long length of him through both of their trousers, and bucked his hips into her with a force and rhythm that made her gasp out his name.
The sound of her saying his name pulled a deep moan from him that had her pushing forward to increase the contact between them.
"You're going to be the death of me, Hermione Granger," he groaned into the skin of her neck, lightly sucking at the skin behind her ear. "I have quite literally been dreaming of this for as long as I can remember, and you're somehow still even better than I imagined. The things I want to do to you…"
A shiver ran down her spine with his last sentence and she grabbed his face to connect their lips again. She might not have wanted this for as long as he had, but in this moment she knew that she would never want anyone in the way that she wanted Neville Longbottom. She brought her hands to the buttons on his shirt, slipping them free to trace the dark hair that muttered his chest. She knew him well enough to know that he preferred to do most things in his garden himself—without the aid of magic— and the effort of lifting so many bags of soil had obviously done something to his arms and chest to leave them this firm.
The smell of him was still heavy and heady in the air around her, and that coupled with the persistent rolling of his hips against hers through their clothes was leaving her breathless. His hands slipped up the back of her shirt, and he was just bringing them around to her front when a bright patronus of a raven burst through the plants around them, startling them both.
"Your friends have begun to arrive. I recommend ensuring that you're decent and making your way back up to the house," it said in Augusta's voice before vanishing into a silvery mist.
He gently rested his forehead on hers as they both fought to catch their breath, and he eased his hips back from hers with a soft sigh.
"It's probably for the best that we don't go much further than that in the greenhouse," Hermione said, working on redoing his buttons.
He smiled and straightened her shirt for her. "Not the first time, at least. It's probably a good thing we didn't get much further than that, because I don't know if I'd be able to get myself under control to go back into the house."
"Seems like it'll be hard enough as it is," she said with a laugh. He gently goosed her side, and helped her jump down from the table, adjusting himself in his trousers with a heated look at her.
"After brunch though, you're mine."
She lifted up again on her toes to kiss him, softly before grabbing his hand and leading them out of the greenhouse. "I think I'm okay with the thought of being yours. At least if it means that you're mine."
"Until the day I die."