Hello friends! I am finally back with chapter three!
I just want to preface this chapter by saying that I know literally nothing about physical therapy, and I apologize for any mistakes I may have made.
Thanks again the Lady Ylla for looking this over for me, you're ideas are, as always, amazing, and this fic couldn't happen with out my friend!
any and all grammatical mistakes are my own.
Chapter three
Pansy waited outside of Hermione's office, tapping her foot in annoyance.
This happened every time one of the bloody war heroes did something stupid and had to be brought into St Mungos for treatment. They would see her there, just trying to do her job, and would completely fly off the handle.
She had thought that Potter or Weasley would be the worst, but after a shocked double take, Harry sat in silence while Pansy assisted in mending his broken arm. When she was done, he looked at her for several long moments before thanking her politely and taking his leave.
Ron Weasley, on the other hand, looked as if he would like to have said quite a lot-if it wasn't for the fact that Hermione was his wife and giving him a look that told him to keep his mouth shut as she siphoned blood from his broken nose.
Ginny had actually went for her wand before Hermione had pulled her to the side and had a hushed conversation with the fiery red head. When the two returned, Ginny sat on the exam table, quietly glaring at Pansy as Hermione finished fixing her broken hand before leaving the room without a word or a backwards glance.
The handful of times Pansy had seen them outside of the hospital, doing her shopping alone in Diagon Alley or picking up take away for one from the Leaky Cauldron, they had politely said hello in passing.
Neville Longbottom has taken her by surprise. She had expected indifference, at most. Not outright hostility.
But then again, she did bully him in school. And try to sell out one of his best mates to the Dark Lord.
And had stood idly by while the Carrows cruelly punished him for majority of their seventh year.
Hermione's arrival brought an end to Pansy's thoughts. The bushy haired witch looked annoyed as she stalked down the hall, snapping out orders to other healers as she passed.
"He's ready to begin his rehabilitation, Pansy," Hermione said as she came to a stop in front of her office door. "And I promise he will be civil from now on,"
"You don't have to fight my battles for me, Hermione," Pansy said. "I deserve whatever it is they have to say to me,"
"You've changed, Pansy." Hermione said, her tone softer than it was before. "Everyone else has forgiven you, Neville can learn to do that too,"
"We'll see," Pansy said with a grimace before she turned to head back to room 16.
"Pansy?" Hermione called after her. Pansy turned. "I consider you a close friend. And I don't like when a friend of mine is being mistreated. If he's rude, just let me know."
Pansy nodded, and with a small grin continued to Neville's room.
Pansy peeked around the door frame and found Neville laying back on the pillows, one arm laid across his eyes, his injured leg still uncovered. She took the time to finally get a proper look at him.
The first thing Pansy had noticed was that he had definitely changed in the years since the war. Gone was the timid, accident prone boy who hid a spine of steel beneath hideous jumpers. In his place stood a man who had been tried by the fire of war and came out stronger, sure of himself...hardened. Gone was the boy who genuinely smiled and laughed with his friends, and in his place was a lonely teacher, whose smile no longer reached his eyes.
Pansy wondered if his friends were too busy with work and their children and life in general to notice.
"Are you going to hover in the doorway or are you going to come in here?" Neville growled, causing Pansy to jump. "The sooner we get this started the sooner it will be over and your company will no longer be forced on me."
Pansy has forgotten that this man had led a resistance and worked as an Auror before becoming a teacher. Of course he would know what was going on in the room around him without even opening his eyes.
Pansy cleared her throat and marched to his bedside.
"Alright, Longbottom," she said trying to infuse her her voice with an acidity she didn't actually feel. "If that's how you are going to be, let's get started."
Pulling a sheaf of parchment from her robes, she gave him the outline of what his therapy would involve, keeping her tone as bored as she could. As she continued to read, she became more and more agitated.
"Are you even listening?!" She snapped, slamming her stack of parchment down on his bedside table.
"Of course. What makes you think I'm not listening?" Neville asked, still not removing his arm from his eyes.
"You're not even looking at me!" She exclaimed, exasperated.
Finally removing his arm from his eyes, he fixed her with a glower. "Just because I'm not looking at you doesn't mean I'm not listening," he snapped, sounding equally as frustrated.
They glared at each other for a few minutes until Pansy took a deep breath, closing her eyes and letting it out slowly.
"I apologize, Mr. Longbottom," she said stiffly. "May I continue?"
Neville waved his hand in a vague gesture and lay back, placing his arm over his eyes again.
Now he was just being obnoxious on purpose.
Rolling her eyes, Pansy continued. Once she got to the end of the therapy outline, she stacked her pieces of parchment back together and tucked them back in her robes.
"I will be back in an hour," she informed him. "We will go down the hall to the therapy room to begin the first session,"
Neville, arm still thrown over his eyes, lifted a hand in acknowledgment, but stayed silent.
With one final glare for her rude patient, Pansy turned on heel and marched from the room, fuming.
Neville removed his arm from over his eyes and struggled into a sitting position the moment he heard her march from the room.
Hermione had said not to be rude, and Neville knew that if he looked Pansy in the face for too long, he would be reminded of what had happened his seventh year. He would be reminded of Pansy standing off to the side of the torture chamber that the Carrows had the nerve to call a classroom and watch as the twisted siblings took turns slicing through his skin with curses, burning him with the end of their wands, or becoming so frustrated with his refusal to join their ranks or give up his friends whereabouts that they cast aside their wands and barbarically beat him within an inch of his life.
Pansy might not have joined in on their torture, but she didn't step in to try and stop it either.
The rational part of Neville's mind whispered that she was just as terrified as everyone else, doing whatever she could to survive. But Neville was too angry to be rational.
In the years following the war, Neville had befriended a fair number of Slytherins; as strange as it is to imagine, he counts Draco Malfoy a friend. Perhaps not a close friend, but close enough that Draco sometimes made an appearance at Saturday night dinner gatherings. After learning exactly why Draco did what he did during the war, it was far easier to forgive him, and that forgiveness led to a friendship Neville never thought he would have.
So, after finding out why Pansy did what she did during the war, why couldn't Neville just forgive her too? Surely the activities (or lack there of) of a frightened seventeen year old girl could be excused? Weren't they all just trying to survive the best way they knew how?
Neville closed his eyes and groaned. If he was being honest with himself, he had forgiven her years ago, around the same time as he had forgiven Draco, for what she had done in terror. Hermione had been right; they had all made mistakes during the war. Some mistakes had faded from peoples minds, and others wedged themselves so firmly into everyone's memories that they had become a part of life.
So why was it so hard to forgive this one woman?
Neville was still fighting with his thoughts and memories when Pansy stomped back into the room. Her shoulders were tense and her expression stormy when she came to a halt next to his bed.
"It is time to take you to the therapy room for your first session, Mr. Longbottom," she said rather stiffly, her back poker straight, her gaze fixed somewhere above his right ear.
Neville looked at her for a moment, and decided to at least heed Hermione's advice and be civil. They didn't have to be best mates after all.
And the sooner his healing began, the sooner he could wash his hands of her.
"As you wish, Miss Parkinson," Neville said, as politely as he could.
Pansy narrowed her eyes but didn't meet his gaze. She waved her wand at a small closet on the opposite side of the room, and a wheelchair rolled out and came to a stop next to her.
"I was worried you were going to make me walk," Neville said, genuinely relieved that he wouldn't be asked to stand on his bad leg too soon.
"Don't be ridiculous," Pansy muttered, folding the blanket to the foot of his bed. She hesitantly held a hand towards him, and with an apologetic look, Neville placed his hand in hers, allowing her to help him to sit on the edge.
Pansy held his hand and his elbow in a surprisingly strong grip, and helped him stand and shuffle around to sit in the wheelchair.
Once Neville was situated in the chair, Pansy tied his hospital gown closed and pushed him out the door and down the hallway. He could feel her anger washing over him as easily as he could hear her rubber soled shoes squeaking on the floor.
Neville fidgeted with the tie on his hospital gown, wanting to get the session over with so he could send an owl to Harry and ask his advice on the situation. If anyone had experience forgiving and forgetting, it would be Harry Potter.
"Watch your elbows," Pansy snapped as they approached the door at the end of the hall.
Still angry, then, Neville noted, trying his best to tuck his six foot four inch frame into the small wheelchair.
Pansy waved her wand at the door and it sprang open the moment before they reached it. She pushed the chair into the room and slammed the door behind her.
Neville looked around the room, taking in the padded athletic table, the waist high parallel bars, the netting that held back exercise balls of every size, and the shelves stocked with resistance bands, athletic tape and dumbbells.
"What are we going to do today?" Neville asked a bit nervously.
"Not much, Mr. Longbottom," Pansy answered, her tone as stiff as her back.
She snatched the chart hanging from the back of the wheelchair and came around to face him.
"This first week will be a lot of sitting exercises," she began, flipping through the pages of his chart. "Range of motion tests, stretches, that sort of thing. Next week, if all goes well and Hermione decides to stop experimenting with those ridiculous stitches, you will move on to balancing-" she waved an arm vaguely in the direction of the exercise balls. "-and incorporating the stretches you learn this week along with that. Of course you would know all of this if you had actually been listening to the outline earlier,"
"How long will I be in rehabilitation?" Neville interrupted her.
Pansy glared at him before answering. "As long as it takes to get you walking on your own again with minimal discomfort," she said. "Let's hope for both our sakes that you heal quickly,"
Neville looked at her, keeping his expression neutral. "Thank Merlin I have a high pain tolerance," he said evenly.
Pansy stared at him andNeville knew she was thinking about those hours spent with the Carrows.
"Let's get started," she said quietly.
She had Neville move from the wheelchair to a straight backed wooden chair. Sitting herself on a low stool on rollers before him, she helped him straighten his bad leg out completely. After giving him a moment to adjust, she had him start to bend the knee slowly, stopping him frequently. Her small fingers felt the bones and muscles of his leg, putting slight pressure on the sore spots, helping him adjust to the new angle.
After forty five minutes and his knee bent only a few degrees, Neville looked up, breathing through his nose, trying to control the pain that had began to seep through the numbness of the potion Hermione had given him. For the first time he noticed that the far wall was completely covered in a mirror.
To distract himself from the pain, he focused on his reflection. His light brown hair was in need of a cut; it had begun to curl behind his ears, and at the back of his neck. He could just make out the scar over his right eye and the stubble across his jaw. He looked ridiculous in the pale green hospital gown, the color washing his skin out and making him look ill. He would need to figure out how to get some of his own clothing to the hospital.
Then his eyes fell on the reflection of the back of Pansy's head. The glow from the light filled bubbles that gathered on the ceiling caught her raven strands and made them dance with reddish streaks when she moved her head. For the first time since she had turned around in his room and he had yelled at her, her shoulders seemed relaxed, her back wasn't as stiff.
Neville took his eyes off the mirror and instead looked at her face. Her brows were drawn together in concentration, and her lips pouted slightly and she poked and prodded his knee and leg.
But it was her violet eyes that held his attention. Her eyes looked softer than he could ever remember seeing them, and there was something hiding just out of reach behind them that felt familiar in the vaguest sense.
"Are you okay?" She asked, pushing slightly low on his shin, urging him to bend his knee just a little more.
"Hmm? Oh, yes," he said, blinking and looking at his leg.
"Any pain?" She asked.
"No more than when we first entered this room," Neville answered.
"Then I think we should stop there for the day," she said, slowly straightening his leg back out.
"I felt as if we haven't done anything," Neville said, flexing his toes and scratching around the bandage on his thigh.
"Physical rehabilitation is a slow process, Mr. Longbottom," Pansy said, pulling a crumpled quill out of her pocket and scribbling a note on his chart. "But you did well today,"
"Thank you, Miss Parkinson," Neville said, hoisting himself back into the wheelchair.
Pansy looked at him for a moment, as if trying to figure out a puzzle.
"You're welcome," she said softly, looking back at the chart.
Pansy hung the chart on the back of the wheelchair, unlocked the brakes, and pushed him out of the room and down the hall.
"How do I request an owl?" He asked as he was wheeled past room after room. "I have a couple of letters I would like to send,"
"I'll bring you the proper forms," she said, her tone stiff and overly professional now that they were back in the hallway.
"Thank you," Neville said, forgetting to tuck his elbows in and banging one hard on the doorframe of his room.
"You're welcome," Pansy replied.
He swore he could hear the smirk in her voice.
I hope you you enjoyed the chapter! I will try to get chapter four posted as soon as possible! I can also be found on tumblr as kendrasowlpost!
