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Part Three | Burn with Me

47. Against Everything and Everyone They'd Ever Known

Pansy had never particularly liked the Easter holidays much, of the past seven she'd experienced three depressing ones at her parents' home, two fairly enjoyable with Daphne and her family, one alone at Hogwarts during the year her parents had been on exotic holidays more than they'd been home, and Daphne's aunt had just passed away and everyone else's family with pre-booked plans that couldn't involve a stray teenager. It had left Pansy with nowhere to go bar where she already was, and now she'd spent one with Neville, Daphne, Millicent, Blaise and Theo - six teenagers alone in a heavily warded cottage, copious amounts of food and alcohol, and no adults.

It sounded like heaven.

And in another life it should have been.

Perhaps, in that other life it was.

Instead, it turned out to be the very epitome of worry and despair. A dark cloud of frustration, guilt and anguish had descended upon the cottage. Pansy had never known anxiety had a look before, but it was very much present - not just upon the inhabitants of the cottage's faces, but on the way Daphne and Millicent's hands shook on their wine glasses, on their slices of toast and even on their hair brushes. The way Theo's knee bounced - a nervous habit they'd always known him to have - far more often than was usual, the way Blaise was somehow even more detached, his attention - or perhaps more lack of, focussed more and more out one of the living room windows as he watched everything and absolutely nothing, and the way Neville sat with his fists clenched around the galleon he always carried with him. Pansy had often wondered what was special about the coin, but had never brought herself to ask, knowing instinctively that somehow, whatever the galleon meant, it was private.

For Pansy, the anxiety didn't shake, or bounce, stare or clench itself around a significant item, it erupted. It snapped, shouted and, quite frankly, got on everyone's last nerve.

Including the one she'd spent at Hogwarts, Pansy realised gloomily, not even a week after Draco had gone, these Easter holidays were the worst she'd ever endured.

Gods, how she wished she knew he was safe.

How she wished she could keep the others safe.

She was desperate for a message from him, but they'd agreed at some point or another that he wasn't going to risk sending them one unless it was time. Time for them to go, and fight.

Pansy wondered frequently what good, or how much help, six seventeen year olds could do in an adult's war.

She daren't voice aloud that she suspected it was very little.

It seemed all three couples, when not downstairs together, were spending even more time alone in their respective bedrooms, Pansy and Neville being no exception. It had already become a haven of sorts, their bedroom, and she would miss it, as isolating and suffocating as the cottage could be, Pansy knew she'd miss the place where she and Neville had had the chance to grow even closer. Leaving Hogwarts had been the biggest of risks, but for their relationship at least, it had been the most worth it she knew.

And somehow, here, with just him she felt less agitated, which she imagined he appreciated more than she did.

"I'm being a bitch a lot right now," Pansy admitted.

Neville didn't argue, and nor did she blame him for not. Instead, he softly kissed her temple, and promptly changed the subject. "If you'd have told me a year ago that I'd be lying in a cottage in the middle of nowhere, missing Draco Malfoy, I'd have called you mad."

"Hmm," Pansy hummed as she felt him gently stroke the side of her thigh, his stomach was pressed into her back so tightly she could feel it rise and fall as he breathed. She was using the bicep of his other arm as a makeshift pillow and somehow, still wished him closer. "Can you imagine if you'd heard that you'd be shacked up in said cottage with me?"

"I'd still have called you mad, but I'd be secretly hoping you were right," he said, much to Pansy's surprise.

"As if! You didn't like me a year ago."

"I didn't like you, no," Neville agreed, "but I can't pretend I haven't always found you rather nice to look at."

Pansy was taken aback. "Interesting."

"You mean you didn't fancy me a year ago?"

"Absolutely not," Pansy said with a smirk. "I remember the exact moment I started fancying you. It was when you arrived, late may I add, to the prefect's carriage on the train."

"Oh really?"

"I remember thinking When the fuck did Neville Longbottom get really fit?, or something."

"Wait," Neville laughed. "Is that why you were acting really weird during that?"

"I did not act weird," Pansy replied with a sniff. Except that's a huge lie and I acted like a prize idiot during that train journey

"You wouldn't look at me," Neville said happily, ignoring her reply. "And when you did you blushed, you know it actually makes a lot of sense now I think about it."

Oh, do shut up!

"Smugness does not suit you, Longbottom."

He chuckled. "Maybe not, but grumpiness for some strange reason really suits you."

Pansy sniffed again, but didn't reply, feigning more annoyance, though she allowed him to see her smile, her mind drifting back to the first few weeks of term. "You were so...nice to me, at the beginning of this year. I never knew why…"

"Well I think it's pretty clear, now anyway," Neville spoke gleefully, "I obviously sensed on some subconscious level you were desperate for-"

"Right!" Pansy cut him off, mid sentence, and promptly turned herself, with some difficulty given the closeness of their proximity, and pounced, unexpectedly - given the shocked look that appeared on Neville's face, on top of him.

"Neville Longbottom," Pansy began from her newfound position, straddling him, "I have never been desperate for anything, in my life."

His fingertips ran nondescript patterns over the sides of her thighs. "Duly noted, Beautiful."

Pansy lowered her torso to meet his. "How do you do that?" she breathed, her lips achingly close to his, so close they brushed against hers when he spoke.

"What's that?"

"Just," her voice was still a whisper, "undo me, with one word."

"What, beautiful?"

She kissed him then. "Mmhmm."

Neville's voice was suddenly husky, as though he were speaking from his throat. "I hope you don't mind being undone, because I plan to call you beautiful every single day, from now, until you're willing to put up with me."

Kissing him again, Pansy smiled against his mouth. "I'll always be willing to put up with you. I'm very generous like that," she added slyly, and kissed him, deeper this time, slyly stopping him from replying, wondering how she could ever properly express how grateful she was that he was willing to put up with her.

They hadn't left their bedroom, Pansy realised, for the remainder of the day, and it wasn't until the knock on the door, that they interacted with anyone else.

The knock itself was soft, but somehow made both Pansy and Neville sit bolt upright. It wasn't a knock one made when wanting a brief chat. This knock had a purpose.

In that moment, she prayed she was wrong.

The door opened a smidge, just enough for one of Blaise's hands, and his head, to poke through.

"There's been a message," he said, his voice steady, " from Draco."

She knew from the way his forehead was laced with lines, and from the way his knuckle on the doorframe was white from the grip he held it with, but mostly she could tell from everything he said - or didn't say, with the way his eyes bored right into hers, that she wasn't wrong.

Fuck

They were going to do the one thing they all swore they would, as if it were the easiest thing in the world. And yet it was entirely the hardest.

Fuck, fuck, fuck!

They were going back to Hogwarts.

Pansy was suddenly very aware of her own hurried heartbeat, booming away not just in her chest, but her throat.

They were going to fight against everything and everyone they'd ever known.