Author's Note: So much for two weeks... I'm so sorry I disappeared! Real life stuff caught up to me and I've had to put my focus in other areas, but I'm back now. And with the longest chapter so far! Thanks so much for reading!
A thick layer of dirt lay caked onto Neville's forearms, pulling at the skin and the hair that it covered every time he moved. Neville ignored it as best as he could, focusing instead on properly relocating his sick Mimbulus mimbletonia into a larger pot. The pressure to do this correctly, to be gentle as he handled this life, wore into his shoulders, which hunched with enough tension to make him sure that they would ache later. But that was a small price to pay. This last ditch effort to save his plant had to work. In his mind, it alone stood between Neville's personal success and the last resort of asking his former professor for help.
The plan consisted of five parts: give the Mimbulus mimbletonia more room, make sure its roots were spread, place it in fertilizer enriched soil, water twice a day, and leave it in direct sunlight. Each step comprised a basic technique to keep any plant, magical or not, alive. Neville hoped that that fact would make this work and might prove to be the missing piece to saving his plant once and for all. Thus far he'd focused so much on the fact that this was a magical organism with specific properties and abilities when, maybe, he just needed to treat it like he would any other plant.
He worked in the corner of his grandmother's sunroom. The large windows that made up all but the room's interior wall created the most greenhouse-like environment he had access to. Warm light could get in from sunrise to sunset, a vast improvement over Neville's east-facing bedroom windows that lost most direct sunlight by midday. He had been nervous to ask Gran for permission to set up this little worktable there, but she gave him a pleasant surprise with her quick allowance of it. It wasn't that Gran had been hostile ever since the debacle of the morning after Harry's birthday party, that wasn't the right word to describe it. She just met Neville's eyes less, spoke more stiffly around him, and failed to call him down for dinner a few nights. He took all the blame for that last one, though, given that they always ate dinner at five o'clock sharp. But time had been getting away from Neville more and more as of late, slipping his mind and passing at what seemed to be an accelerated pace.
This thought made Neville look down at his watch. Dirt covered its face so he had to brush his hand on his trousers before trying to wipe it off as well.
"Damn," he said, his hands immediately going back to the dirt to finish packing it in around the Mimbulus mimbletonia's base. It was already 4:25, and he had agreed to be at Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions at 4:30.
After a quick casting of Aguamenti, Neville rushed inside to wash off his hands in the kitchen. He was patting them dry when his grandmother entered the room.
"What are you hurrying for?" she said.
"I've gotta go, Gran," Neville said.
She arched one of her thin eyebrows. "Wherever to? Do you have a job I haven't heard about?"
That stopped him like a blow to the stomach, but only momentarily. Neville bit back the urge to respond. He didn't have anything to say anyway, but he wished he did. Instead he pulled his wand out of his pocket, grasping it tightly as he turned on the spot and apparated away.
Neville gasped for breath when he arrived, partially due to the relief that his chest could expand again but also with the shock of running directly into a rack of robes that promptly fell over.
"The shop is closed for a private group!" Madam Malkin shouted.
Neville was trying to right the large, metal rack, and so didn't respond.
"It's alright," he heard Harry say. "He's with us."
A moment later Ron was there and helping Neville put the robes back in their proper place. "Thanks," Neville told him. He turned to address the room at large, his face hot all over. "Sorry!"
He and Ron walked over to join their friends where they stood with Madam Malkin and two seamstresses, all in their mauve uniform robes. Neville was a bit surprised to see Ginny and Hermione.
"Your trousers are covered in dirt," Ginny said, just as Hermione asked, "What happened to you?"
"Working with my old Mimbulus mimbletonia," he said. "I wasn't expecting you two to be here."
"Well I want a say," Ginny said. She scowled before adding, "And Mum insisted that either she or Hermione had to come and make sure everything stays on track."
"That makes me feel very welcome," Hermione said with a smirk. "Thanks Ginny."
Ginny rolled her eyes, but offered a warm smile to the other girl. "You know I like having your opinion anyway."
"Speaking of," Madam Malkin said, seemingly perturbed at having lost control of her shop and the appointment. "What style is it that you'd like to start with?"
Harry and Ginny shared a look. "Simple," Harry said.
"Going to need a bit more than that," Malkin said.
Ginny frowned, glancing around the shop more. Hermione seemed to notice and spoke up.
"Perhaps we could look around a bit? Just to get an idea of what our options are," she said to Madam Malkin.
"Of course," the squat, older witch replied. Something in her tight smile and rigid posture suggested to Neville that she may have been regretting shutting her shop down for his friends. Nevertheless, Madam Malkin motioned towards a rack of dark gray robes and Harry and Ginny followed her deeper into the store, the two attendants trailing behind them.
Ron watched them go. "That's alright," he said to the large group's back. "We'll manage on our own."
Hermione sighed, turning to some of the racks near them that displayed black robes with patterns woven into them. "I wish Ginny would be more organized about all of this, helping her plan is making me a bit mental."
"Has it really been that bad?" Neville asked.
He wasn't sure how this stuff usually went, but he figured there couldn't be that many decisions to make. But then again, he hadn't been involved in any of the planning either.
Ron shot him a warning look. "Don't get her started mate. She could spend an hour just ranting about picking out bridesmaids dresses."
"That's selling me short, Ron," Hermione said. She turned back to look at him with a smirk. "We both know I ranted for much longer than that when I told you about it."
Ron didn't respond, but Neville thought he saw him wink at his girlfriend.
"So," Neville said, wanting to move past that moment as quickly as possible, "You and Luna got your dresses?"
"Yes," Hermione said. "After five hours in the shop during which we tried on approximately thirty dresses each."
"Wow," Neville said.
"It wouldn't have been so difficult, but Ginny fell in love with a couple of gold dresses that she decided we couldn't wear because she'd worn gold at Bill and Fleur's wedding. Then nothing even compared until we found a couple of really pretty crimson ones. It just took forever to get there. Even Luna was getting annoyed."
"Really?" Neville asked.
"Took me by surprise too," Ron said.
He shared a look with Hermione. She raised an eyebrow and Ron nodded once. Neville started to wonder how Harry had been able to stand their silent conversations for so long.
"Speaking of Luna," Hermione said, not meeting Neville's eye but instead seeming to be focused on his left earlobe. "We were wondering, how are you feeling about all of this? Being in a wedding with her and all?"
"Fine," Neville said. Honestly, he hadn't even given it much thought. They were friends who were helping to celebrate their other friends getting married, what did it matter? But they had been together, he'd kissed her and felt her body and even if it had never quite amounted to actually dating that all still had to count for something, right? Now, with Hermione and Ron's combined focus on him, Neville's mind flashed to an image of himself and Luna walking down an aisle together, albeit with her in crimson rather than white. A twinge of regret stuck in his throat, as he again wondered if they'd made the right decision to stop seeing each other romantically. At the time they'd both been so sure, but the lonely unsteadiness that had characterized the intervening years for Neville had left him struggling to balance on a cracked and weathered foundation. In a state like that, it was easy for questions and doubt to sneak in.
"You're sure about that?" Ron asked, breaking Neville out of his reverie.
Hermione elbowed her boyfriend softly in the ribs.
"Yeah," Neville said. When he saw that they still weren't convinced he added, "I mean, it might be kind of weird, but it's not about us. Besides, we won't even have to walk together, right? We should be paired up with you two." Neville's minute knowledge of weddings made him feel somewhat confident in that statement. He seemed to remember that groomsmen escorted bridesmaids in the order that they lined up by the alter, meaning that Luna would walk with Ron, as maid of honor and best man.
Hermione nodded, "Yes, that's how it should go." She frowned at him. "Promise you'll let us know if you feel uncomfortable? That way we can run interference."
"Honestly, I appreciate your concern, but there's nothing to worry about. Luna and I are great friends," Neville said.
"Friends who haven't dated anyone else since you broke up two years ago," Ron pointed out.
Neville felt at a loss. Did Ron have a point? Was it suspicious that they both seemingly hadn't moved on? Neville hadn't exactly been in a place to date since they'd broken up. First Auror training had taken up all of his time, as he attempted to settle into his position in the ranks, and then he'd made his life completely unstable by leaving that position. But was there a reason why Luna hadn't dated? Was she having thoughts like this too?
Before those thoughts could completely entangle him, Ginny reappeared.
"Have you not been looking?" she asked them, her eyebrows drawn together.
"Er, no," Neville said.
Hermione quickly followed up, "Sorry, we were sidetracked talking. How has it been going for you?"
"Well luckily we've got plenty of options picked out already," she said, directing her attention to Ron and Neville. "You two need to go back and start trying things on. Harry's already started."
The rest of their time at the shop was spent in the back corner, where there were fitting rooms and two platforms that stood in front of mirrors. The boys were constantly in and out of the fitting rooms, trying on different styles of dress robes that the girls, sitting on chairs set up by the platforms, would either reject or ask to see on the other two.
"Don't we get a say?" Ron asked at one point while he was paraded out wearing black dress robes with some odd gray patchwork near the hem.
Ginny shrugged. "Harry does."
"Well, then," Ron called in the direction of Harry's fitting room, "D'you think you could say that this one looks manky?"
"Ron," Hermione chided, giving an apologetic look to Madam Malkin.
Ron seemed to realize his misstep then too, turning to the shop's proprietor and apologizing in a hushed voice, his head bent low.
For his part, Neville couldn't quite blame Ron. Those robes, and many of the others that the shopkeeper attempted to push on them, looked quite questionable. And the whole act of being dressed in these sample clothes and then paraded in front of the girls and Madam Malkin made him feel like a piece of cattle that was up for auction. Or, as he was told to stand on a platform and spin so the robes could be seen from various angles, like some odd living mannequin.
"I'd like to remind you that four of us have to be at the Burrow for dinner by seven or you mum will kill us all," Harry told Ginny on one of his rounds wearing a new option.
"I know," Ginny said.
Finally they had all three boys line up wearing the favorite styles. Neville honestly couldn't see much difference amongst them, they all seemed like basic black dress robes to him. But apparently Ginny and Hermione could see a difference, and they sat with their heads close together speaking rapidly, comparing the options.
"Are you absolutely sure?" Hermione asked.
"Yes," Ginny told her. She pointed to Harry. "Those are our favorite, what do you guys think?"
"They're great," Ron said immediately.
"Perfect," Neville added.
"I've never loved any dress robes more," Harry said.
Hermione let out a trill of laughter while Ginny rolled her eyes at them, albeit with a wide smile on her face.
"How splendid," Madam Malkin said.
Since there were only two platforms only two of the boys could have their measurements taken at a time. Neville took a seat next to Ginny while the seamstresses set to work, their measuring tapes flitting about Harry and Ron's bodies as they jotted down the numbers.
"You're welcome to come to dinner with us, by the way," Ginny told Neville. "Mum loves you."
A smile crept onto Neville's face, but he shook his head. "Thanks, but I think I'll pass." He really liked the Weasleys, but there were a lot of them, and if there was one thing he'd learned in the past year it was that large groups of people meant large amounts of questions, mostly of the sort that he was trying to avoid. Just look at Harry's birthday party, he thought, that was a sea of questions.
"Do you have other plans?" Ginny asked. She smirked at him, an eyebrow raised conspiratorially. "Going to the Leaky Cauldron perhaps?"
"No," Neville said, confusion clouding his mind for a moment before understanding dawned. He felt his face warm as he thought of Hannah and the morning they'd spent together.
Ginny looked down at her fingernails, feigning subtlety. "I just thought, after your overnight stay, that you might be even more welcome there than usual."
"It's not like anything happened," Neville said, his voice a harsh whisper. He looked around to see if anyone had noticed their conversation. Luckily, it seemed like everyone was more engrossed with the dress robes. Even Hermione and Madam Malkin were talking while watching Ron get measured. "You didn't seriously think something would happen when you sent me off with her, drunk and ready to pass out and—you didn't did you?"
"If by 'something' you mean sex, no of course not," Ginny said. "But that doesn't mean that it couldn't have been interesting in some other way."
"Hannah ended up having to give me her bed," Neville said. "She slept on a chair she transfigured. Do you know how bad I felt?"
Ginny frowned. "Well, that sucks, but did you guys talk the next morning at least?"
"What are you playing at, Ginny?"
She shrugged. "Hannah's a nice girl, that's all." Ginny held his gaze as if he was supposed to have a response to that, which he definitely did not have. "A pretty girl, too," she pressed, "who you kept looking at during the birthday party."
"I did?" Neville asked. Hannah hadn't told him that, but maybe she just hadn't noticed? Hope ballooned in his chest, clutching at that possibility and attempting to ignore the idea that she had seen him but simply didn't want to address it.
Ginny gawked at him, like she thought he was telling a bad joke. "All I'm getting at," Ginny said, her hand squeezing his shoulder, "is that it wouldn't be so bad for you and a nice, pretty girl to have some time together."
"Am I that pathetic?" Neville asked. What was it about wedding planning that had placed a big spotlight on him and his lack of a romantic relationship? He was starting to long for questions about what he wanted to do for his career.
"Of course not," Ginny said, glaring at him for even suggesting such a thing. "I just want you to be happy."
Neville frowned. He had a lot going on that was keeping him from happiness, and his lack of girlfriend didn't seem like the biggest. Of course, he had purposefully avoided talking about any of that with his friends, so he couldn't blame Ginny for following that lead. "Thank you," he said. He met her eyes and tried to show her that he meant it.
"Of course," Ginny said. She smirked again. "You do think she's pretty, don't you?"
Neville groaned, falling heavily against the back of his chair.
For the rest of his time waiting to be measured, Neville dodged questions from Ginny regarding Hannah. He told her a little about their morning together, that she got him breakfast and that they talked for a while, but he didn't go into much detail. A lot of the smaller moments were things that he still wanted to go over in his own brain first, to figure out exactly how he felt, because Ginny was right, Hannah was a very nice and very pretty girl. He'd meant to do that thinking over the past week but had gotten so wrapped up, first in attempting to appease his grandmother and then in his efforts to finally save the Mimbulus mimbletonia, that that intent had gotten lost in the maze of his thoughts.
The seamstress working with Ron finished first. As Neville took his place on the platform he couldn't shake the new wave of doubt that his conversation with Ginny had set off. Now his throat felt tight as he thought about that morning with Hannah, going over every memory, searching for any hints of attraction from himself or, especially, from her. However, rather than finding any evidence of infatuation, his mind instead snagged on other details. Things like the absent look on Hannah's face as she'd held her wand up ready to hex him, or the pout of her lips when she'd mentioned her mother. He thought about how large that bottle of pain-relief potion had been, about how her whole life was crammed into one room, and about how she'd admitted that she was glad to have his company. That last one might have counted as a sign of attraction, but it loomed in Neville's mind as something much larger and lonelier. A dull ache started in his chest as he thought about it.
When he and his friends finally left Madam Malkin's, Neville actually did want to go to the Leaky Cauldron. For whatever reason, the thought of doing that, of using dinner as an excuse to see Hannah again, made the ache go away. He said goodbye to his friends, who disappeared with a flurry of loud pops as they all apparated to the Burrow, and then ventured into the crowded lanes of Diagon Alley alone.
The pub was relatively quiet when he got there, at least it was nothing like a Friday night. People sat eating and drinking with a steady buzz of conversation flowing around the room, but it was a cozy sort of crowd, not the raucous masses he'd experienced before. Neville approached the bar, his eyes scanning the place. He didn't see her, and the only people who seemed to be working were Tom and another wizard who looked to be in his late twenties. The desire to leave before he made a fool of himself flooded Neville's body, bringing a slightly queasy feeling to his stomach. He tried to ignore it, however, and made himself sit down on one of the empty barstools. Logically, he knew that Hannah could still be working and that sticking around doing the completely normal act of eating dinner was the reasonable thing to do. But, then again, logic didn't stand much of a chance against the doubt that stormed through his thoughts.
The unknown waiter came over and took Neville's order. While he waited for his food to arrive Neville scanned the room but also tried to keep an eye on the door to the kitchen. He still didn't see her. Neville laughed quietly to himself as he thought of what it'd be like to tell Ginny about this trip to the Leaky Cauldron.
When the waiter placed a steaming cottage pie on the bar in front of Neville he asked him, "Do you want to keep a tab open or just pay now?"
"Now's fine," Neville said. He paid and kept his head down while he ate, the hope of being able to feign an accidental encounter having flickered out.
He was so sure that Hannah would never appear that when she finally did he almost missed it. He didn't see the green flames arise in a fireplace on the near wall, he didn't see the tears that were silently streaking down her face or her effort to discreetly wipe them away when she stepped onto the hearth. He did finally look up when he saw a streak of blonde hair pass near him, though, however stupid he may have felt for the rekindling of his hope. His body went rigid with the discovery that it had indeed been Hannah, dressed in an unseasonably heavy black dress with her hair hanging down loosely, shadowing her face.
"Hannah!" he called out, spurred on by surprise before he had even decided if he wanted to call out to her. She'd just walked past him, after all, and hadn't bothered to stop and see him. Maybe she didn't want to? He immediately wished that he hadn't said anything when he saw her expression.
Hannah turned to look at him with a heavy frown carved onto her face and bleary looking eyes. The makeup she wore appeared smudged. Her hands held a bulky glass dish with aluminum foil covering it. When their gazes met she opened her mouth, as if to greet him, but no sound came out.
"Hey," he said, trying to offer a smile but feeling like his face had been mangled into something closer to a grimace.
"Hi," she eked out, her voice barely audible.
Neville wanted to recoil, to take back the last ten seconds. She clearly didn't want to talk to him—and here he thought that the humiliating thing would be to show up and not find her. But her eyes were still on him, so he tried again. "How are you?" he asked.
"I'm," Hannah started, but stopped to swallow thickly.
Neville saw tears forming in the corners of her eyes. Her hands tightened their grip on the dish that she held and she took a shaky breath. When she tried to speak again a sob came out, the tears falling and quickly being followed by more. Hannah looked around the pub, as if searching for an exit. Her eyes finally landed on him, and Neville thought that maybe she was asking for help.
He was out of his seat in a second, moving to stand close to her. As he moved, he also looked for a place to go. His eyes caught on the movement of the door to the kitchen as the waiter came out.
"Do you want to go into the kitchen?" Neville asked.
Hannah nodded. Neville's throat felt tight as he watched her body shake with silent sobs. Tears moved down her face with even more rapidity and volume, some landing to pool on top of the foil.
She turned away from him and started for the end of the bar, her head hanging low. For his part, Neville tried to stay as close to her as possible. The fact that he was considerably taller and broader than Hannah was made him hope that maybe people wouldn't be able to see her. But still, if he could've made himself bigger for that walk, he would have.
Once they were behind the bar they slipped silently into the kitchen, only receiving a passing glance from the waiter. Neville was surprised by the size of the room. Compared to the pub it was tiny, and that only seemed to magnify how loud it was, with jazzy music blaring and a constant stream of clanks and bangs coming from the stove where an elderly looking witch worked.
Hannah stood in the corner of the room. She was still sobbing, only now she could do it freely. Neville felt at a loss, but he also realized that at that point there wasn't much he could do to make the situation worse. So he moved closer to her again and gently pried the glass dish from her hands, setting it down on a nearby counter. With her hands free, Hannah wiped furiously at her eyes.
"It's alright," Neville murmured, probably too low to be heard. He tentatively reached out a hand and placed it on her shoulder. When she didn't even react he figured it was okay to do more, so he pulled her towards his body, wrapping both arms around her back. As Hannah cried, Neville glanced around again. The old witch hadn't even seemed to notice them. It didn't feel like enough, to just hold her in a loud kitchen while she bawled, everything in Neville's body told him to do more. But he knew that there wasn't anything else to do. Hannah's crying continued, but seemed less forceful at least. A wet spot appeared where Neville's shirt had collected some of the tears, and he tried to focus on the feel of it. As the intensity of the situation waned, he had become more aware of all the places where their bodies touched, but he didn't want to think about it too much. It seemed scummy of him to do that while Hannah was in such a vulnerable place.
Eventually Hannah pulled away, turning herself away from Neville for a moment. He saw her reach up to wipe her face a few times. When she turned back to him she said, "Ugh, this is so embarrassing. I'm sorry."
Neville bit back a laugh. "You had to drag me here while I was basically blackout drunk," he told her. "Compared to that, this is like you tripping on the street. It's nothing, believe me."
Hannah shook her head but he thought that the corners of her mouth might have tipped up for a moment before she bit her lip. She looked around them and located the dish she'd been holding. "So," she said, reaching out to pick it up, "do you want some pie?"
Neville frowned. That seemed like too quick of a turn around to be humanly possible. Sure, she still looked sad, but did Hannah really think that he'd be able to forget what just happened because she gave him pie?
"I know it's not much of a thank you," she continued, not quite meeting his eyes. "But it's what I've got on hand."
"Okay," he said. Then, after a beat, "And maybe we can talk about what's wrong?"
Hannah stared down at the floor, her arms moving up to hug herself. It took a minute, but finally she said, "Yeah, alright."
She still wouldn't look at him though.
Author's Note: Thanks again for reading! I truly am so grateful to everyone who takes the time to look at my work.
In other news, updates on this story will be happening about once a month for the foreseeable future. While I would love to update this fic more regularly and stick to the every-two-weeks schedule, I don't think it's feasible anymore. Writing these chapters is getting more time consuming as the story progresses, with more elements having to be addressed in each one and more complicated dynamics being explored. So the trade off is that chapters will be longer than they were early on, but it will also take me longer to update. I hope everyone understands! Thanks again for all of the support!
