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Part One | Strike the Match
Nine. A Small Potted Plant
A small potted plant was placed in the centre of the metre-wide bench which ran the middle of the Greenhouse. Pansy examined it with far more apparent interest than the witch would usually have granted the current Herbology assignment. Or, she would have been, if the curiosity that was seemingly written across her face was, in fact, truly interest or curiosity. In reality, it was neither, and was masking a gripping and oddly forceful amount of curious nervousness.
Why did it have to be fucking Longbottom?
Pansy uncomfortably shifted her gaze to the parchment Professor Sprout had placed in front of her a few moments previously; forcing her features to emulate an identical expression of the same feigned interest.
For fuck's sake, look at him.
Dazedly ignoring her own instructions, Pansy's eyes, entirely of their own volition, apparently believed it necessary to, once again, stare intently at the potted plant.
...It is kind of interesting how its leaves are blue when the flowers are green...
What the hell am I doing?
...you don't see that much with plants…
Pansy, pull yourself together!
...usually the leaves are always green, even with magical plants…
Yep, I'm officially going mad.
Fucking Longbottom.
Pansy's internal squabble was temporarily interrupted by a collective shuffling of bodies, along with a small murmur of voices. Confused, she watched her classmates begin to realign themselves around the bench.
Errrrr…
Feeling a nudge against her elbow, Pansy whirled around to her left whilst she attempted to mentally work out how to decelerate one's heart rate and found herself face to face with Draco, who was staring at her with a particularly aggravating smirk.
"Good luck!" Draco called in mock cheerfulness.
Why do I even like you?
Narrowing her eyes at the blonde, Pansy risked formulating her fingers into the childish, Muggle 'V' insult, knowing the sheer immaturity of the act would annoy Draco more than any words she could choose would.
The noise of a throat being cleared knocked all annoyance for Draco from Pansy's consciousness.
"Uhh, hey." A deep, unsure voice ventured from behind her.
Oh, Merlin.
Pansy turned slowly, knowing without a doubt what awaited her sights. Neville Longbottom stood, awkward, yet somehow a lot surer of himself than Pansy had seen him look before. She swallowed as she scanned his stature, concentrating hard to not appear as though she was staring, yet unable to avert her eyes from the Gryffindor.
It would have been hard for anyone to deny that puberty had been extraordinarily kind to one Neville Longbottom; his once round, dopey face now hosted the strongest jawline Pansy had ever seen; a thin carpet of stubble graced its way along that same jawline. His eyes, Pansy assumed, had probably always been the same shade of blue, yet the way his firm brows now hooded them was nothing short of some kind of unexplainable witchcraft as yet unknown to the Wizarding World. At present, those brows were furrowed, causing several lines to cross his forehead; lines that Pansy would usually never even consider to be an attractive feature, however, on Longbottom, they just seemed to suit him all the more. And then...there was the way he held himself, in the troubling times they now lived in...there was something else there.
"Oh."
Oh. Yes, Pansy. Fantastic fucking start.
Trying her opening line once more, Pansy exhaled and retorted, "Yeah, hi."
Do I always sound so fucking bitchy?
At her words, Neville's expression, which Pansy, despite her intense scrutinising of his face, hadn't picked up on, seemed to disappointedly fall.
Fuck.
Deciding she needed to move forward with a new tactic, Pansy ventured a small smile towards Neville. Unfortunately for the witch, however, smiles were not amongst the array of expressions that came particularly natural to Pansy, and, upon execution, Neville no longer looked disappointed...
He looks insulted! Oh fuck, he thinks I'm smirking at him.
"Shall we?" Neville asked, his voice dry, as he gestured vaguely, and summoned the small blue and green plant. Pansy nodded, crestfallen. Not entirely sure what she had been hoping to achieve from this exchange.
It's not as if anything can happen.
Not as if I would ever, ever want anything to happen.
Pansy Parkinson having anything to do with Neville Longbottom was laughable, Pansy knew that. The Royal Bitch of Slytherin, she'd been dubbed on plenty of occasions, a title she herself knew was fitting, and...Longbottom? She and Daphne had spent the first four years of their education referring to him as 'Fat Arse'. Pansy felt her face burn as dozens of memories flooded the forefront of her mind where she'd insulted the boy both privately and not-so-privately. She gazed, once again at the small plant, barely seeing it.
Not that it matters...at all.
She looked up, catching sight of a grumpy-looking Draco. Once upon a time, his current brooding expression would have sent both Pansy's mind and heart rate into overdrive, now, however, it did nothing more than cause mild amusement. The amusement was enhanced by the equally grumpy looking Susan Bones, who, as a typical Hufflepuff had a tendency to look overwhelmingly and annoyingly cheery about anything and everything. She knew then- and if she was entirely honest with herself, she'd known for a long while, that nothing further would ever happen romantically with her and Draco. She loved him, and he, her. Last year, Pansy knew, Draco's struggle both physically and emotionally with his mission to repair the vanishing cabinet and eventually kill Albus Dumbledore had solidified that fact. But she knew the feelings for her to carry on, even to continue to have the most casual of relationships with him, were no longer there.
There was no doubt that whatever was currently going on in Pansy's brain right now, was doing so without her consent. Her mind's eye, which she knew would be far better off acknowledging the intense guilt at her former treatment of the tall wizard standing in front of her, had instead, entirely of its own volition, drifted rather easily away from Draco. Now it had settled into some unknown, parallel universe in which Pansy was able to run her fingers and possibly her tongue, through Neville's copious, yet modest amount of stubble, only interrupted when she became aware that the real Neville, who occupied her own universe, and not the sexy, stubble land she'd been imagining, had been talking.
"-so basically I'm pretty sure that it's in that book, so I could probably have the assignment done tonight."
What?
"What?" Pansy repeated the question, out loud this time, dumbly.
"Did you hear any part of what I just said?" Neville asked
He doesn't even ask rudely, and I can't manage to say 'What?' without sounding like he pissed in my cornflakes.
"Errr... the last part," Pansy answered honestly, "I, err, sorry. I was miles away…"
Well, that's not entirely a lie…
At the mention of the word 'sorry' emerging from Pansy's mouth, Neville's own dropped open, and his eyebrows raised so high into his hairline Pansy was surprised they were still residing on his forehead.
"No-" Neville's eyes had narrowed, suspiciously - yet not unkindly, and Pansy saw him swallow hard. "-problem."
Thank Merlin!
Neville's eyes didn't leave her own, even when Pansy's eyes were occupied watching the corners of his mouth turning up slightly. She wanted to offer her own smile in return but was inherently afraid of appearing the same smirking bitch she knew he still viewed her as. Looking away, Pansy knew she was blushing and became aware, all of a sudden, that her mouth had, in fact, been smiling softly of its' own accord.
"Or, we could do it together, properly," Neville suddenly interjected.
Excuse me. We could what now?
"Huh?" Pansy's head rushed to stare at Neville, unblinking. Not knowing whether to be alarmed or turned on; in reality she knew she was both.
Pansy straightened her back, forcing her nerves to the depths of her mind and trying to bring forth a reluctant confidence she doubted was even there. This was the part she knew she was good at, and if Neville Longbottom, of all people, could be so upfront, then so could she - she hoped. She personally wouldn't have approached such a concept so quickly, but she couldn't deny she wasn't incredibly tempted.
Pansy bit her lip, hoping she looked anything other than the bag of nerves she currently was and forced herself to look back into his eyes, before questioning his own words slowly and directly back towards him. "Do...It...Properly?"
"Yeah, the assignment-" he pointed towards their potted plant, "-instead of me just doing it with my book. We'll research it properly, you know? It might not even be the right plant in the book I'm thinking about, so it makes more sense for us to just do it that way."
Oh.
Pansy blinked several times, before spluttering something she was convinced was barely audible English about that being fine by her.
The rest of the lesson passed in an awkward blur, and it became apparent to Pansy, rather quickly, that she and Neville had a grand total of zero topics of which they could discuss; which would have been bad enough, however coupled with the fact that any time any of Neville's friends spoke to him they flashed Pansy a look not dissimilar to one that wouldn't be out of place being directed towards a Blast-Ended Skrewt, and so Pansy felt thoroughly downtrodden. It also was no help to her mood that she knew, more than likely, she deserved the snide glances, having spent every other school year with these individuals giving them mostly undeserved grief.
Except you, you stupid Irish pillock. Pansy glared right back at Seamus Finnegan after the third time he'd disdainfully looked her up and down. I should rearrange your facial features just for breathing.
The loud school bell then rang and Pansy, throat dry, thrust a hurried, "See you later," towards Neville and hurried across the Greenhouse to the door without waiting for a response. Her pace refused to slow even when she heard Draco calling her from somewhere behind, sure his voice was laced with laughter.
Reaching into her bag, Pansy pulled her new time-table out and was incredibly relieved to see that two free periods were sandwiching a break, meaning over two hours of nothingness currently awaited her. She hurried all the way back to the Head Quarters without so much as a backwards glance, refusing to stop until she reached the cow picture.
Thank Merlin for free periods.
Draco did catch up with her once they were both back in their new living room, a gleeful grin on his face which usually was reserved for Potter getting into trouble.
"So..." Draco began.
"Shut up."
"I'm just curious…" his hands raised in pretend surrender.
"I said shut up."
"I mean, we can now say for definite…"
"Draco, I mean it. Shut the fuck up."
Surprisingly, Draco did shut up, talking that is. However, he replaced his incredibly annoying words with an even more infuriating laughter, which carried on for fifteen minutes straight.
"Fuck you," Pansy snapped, before making the decision to summon Winky, after realising, all of a sudden, that she was ravenous.
But, for what exactly?
I'm in trouble.