All The Time In The World
Chapter Three
Neville manages to find Seamus Finnegan after their first visit to the Hog's Head. He brings Seamus to the Room and the three of them plot. It seems that as long as someone is in the Room, the Carrows' can't get in. There's a way out for those who want it, particularly the younger ones, the first and second years. Seamus is still – just – flying under the Carrows' radar and offers to spread the word.
So they gather people up and the Room expands as they need it. No one mentions the fact that Neville and Jemima are now holding hands, touching each other just for the sake of it and can be heard kissing at night. Now that there are others, their large hammock has split itself into two, swinging side-by-side. Looks are exchanged – some of surprise, some of the "I told you so" variety. But it is Lavender Brown who asks the killer question, when she thinks that Neville cannot overhear.
"But what about George Weasley?"
"What about George?" Jemima shrugs and continues mending a hole in her scarf.
"I thought you two were going to get back together."
"Why did you think that?"
"I don't know. Because you were really good together, I guess. And because you're the only girl that George ever really bothered with."
"Cheers."
"You know what I mean. Why'd you break up then?"
Neville's ears prick up at this. He carries on stacking the benches, clearing an area so he can practice his disarming, but he is listening. He's not sure he could stop himself hearing this if he tried. Hermione told him that Jem cried when she and George broke up, but all he got out of Jem herself was a stoic "It wasn't working out." To this day he doesn't know who broke up with who.
"He'd left school; him and Fred were setting up Wheezes."
"So? Didn't you work there when it first opened?"
"I needed some spare cash and there was no other way I was going to see him when he was so busy."
"Is that why then? Because he was so busy with work and you were coming back to school?"
"No. Yes. But not in the way you think."
"Go on then," Lavender grabs a pillow, hugs it to her middle and waits for the full story.
"George hasn't got a serious bone in his body."
Lavender laughs, "That's not news! I thought that's what you liked about him."
"It was. But we spent a lot of time together that summer and I thought with him and Fred starting the business I could tell him what I want to do with my future." She drops the scarf into her lap and takes a moment to collect her thoughts. "I want to figure out a cure for lycanthropy. That's why I'm – well, was – taking N.E.W.T.s in Transfiguration and Potions. But everything with George is a laughing matter, even that."
Neville bristles on her behalf. Curing lycanthropy – curing her father – is her most cherished ambition. She has nursed it from a young age, while Neville blathered about with no idea what he wanted to do when he left school. He understands, better than Lavender, who is looking amused, that to take Jemima less than seriously on that score is a very big mistake indeed.
"So you dumped him because he's an idiot?"
"It was more a mutual thing really…" she grins suddenly. "But yeah, the short answer is that I dumped him because he's an idiot."
"And Neville isn't?" Lavender wrinkles her nose. She has never had much to do with Neville Longbottom and the idea of him as anyone's romantic hero baffles her.
He doesn't look away in time and Jem looks up, catching him watching and they share a secret smile that makes his stomach flip-flop.
"No. No, he isn't."
They are not children. In the eyes of the Ministry of Magic they are adults. But it still feels incredible that he can be lying next to Jemima Lupin, bundled next to each other on a narrow mattress, cupping her breast in his hand.
They are fully clothed, but her school jumper has worn so thin that it barely counts. They are also alone for the first time in almost two weeks. That afternoon they squirreled away down the tunnel the ten students who were waiting for the nod from Aberforth to make their escape. Their other comrades have long since sidled back to their dorms. It is after curfew and they will be alone until at least just before breakfast. That evening a mattress appeared on the floor and, as the novelty of hammocks has long since worn off, they decided to bunk down on that for a change.
He has touched her before, chancing it a few days after their first kiss, before others began staying at night. She had sighed and arched her back slightly, pressing her breast further into his palm before placing a bold hand on his crotch. He has never dared slide his hand under her top, no matter how much he has longed to. They are always surrounded by people. They are in school, even if they're not in classes anymore. It feels wrong somehow.
But tonight there is an urgency in the way she kisses him and after a while, she takes his hand and guides it up under her top. He gasps at the surprising heat of her skin, the illicit feel of her lace-edged bra through which he can feel her hardened nipple. She paws clumsily at his jeans, managing to loosen them, but not enough to slide her hand in. He feels like there are fireworks going off behind his eyeballs because this cannot possibly be happening.
"Oh for the love of Merlin!"
She sits up and his hand is jerked out from under her jumper. He hears her mutter "Lumos" and from the floor beside their mattress her wand lights up. He reaches over to light his own wand and when he rolls back he sees her tugging her jumper up over her head.
"What are you doing?" he whispers.
She pauses, her arms still in the jumper. She clutches it close and looks suddenly vulnerable – her hair has billowed up, her lips dark from kissing. Her left nipple is peeking over the top of her bra which has been shifted slightly sideways by their fumblings.
"Don't you want to?"
She blushes and again he marvels at it because it is so unlike her. The flush travels down her throat and as he follows it he can't help but stare that that rosy nipple. He does want to. He wants to more than anything in the world. But he is so used to being useless at everything that he can't help but feel worried that he'll be useless at this too.
"Have you done this before?"
He could kick himself for asking. But there is something so assured in the way she has pulled off her jumper and is sat there, with only a scrap of cotton and lace between his hands – his lips, oh God – and her breasts.
Jemima doesn't immediately answer. Her lips twitch as though she is dismissing one response for another.
"Yes," she replies finally. "Once. When I was working at Wheezes the summer before last."
"Oh."
"Does that bother you?"
Of course it bothers him. Over the past few days he has come to feel that she is his so strongly that he almost ashamed of it. The idea of George touching her, being the first, is unbearable. She is watching him, biting her lip. As though reading his mind she backs away and perches on the end of the mattress. She has managed to tangle her jumper about her arms so that though she wants to dive back into it she can't.
In the wandlight, he can see the ridges of her spine as she bends over her task. The label in her bra strap has untucked itself; the writing has faded to an uncertain grey smudge. As he sits up, he sees that the bra straps are slightly perished. He feels a rush of tenderness for this withered article of clothing and with it comes a sort of assurance which allows him to reach out with both hands and unhook it.
She jumps as though surprised when her bra springs loose and looks over her shoulder at him. He is tugging his own shirt off and then slides up behind her. He kisses her gently, reaching round to push her jumper off her arms and then slide her bra down her arms.
"Are you sure?" she asks, drawing back from him. Her eyes are on his chest and she sadly counts up the marks their rebellion has left on his skin. Her hands brush lightly at his stomach.
If Neville had ever thought about his first time, he thought it would be a cringing and embarrassing affair, not knowing what to do, panicking that he wasn't any good. But this – who would have thought? – is something that seems to come naturally. And if he doesn't get it quite right this time, there are other times. He has all the time in the world to get this right. This, he realises with perfect and sudden clarity, is what they are fighting for.
"I love you," he says, pulling her close.
It is surprise to both of them. But it is also something they always knew.
She is proud of him when Harry Potter comes back. She sees the way Harry, Ron and Hermione look at him. She knows they are noticing the sudden slimness – brought on by too much exercise, not enough food and the natural withering of what was only ever puppy fat – the battle scars. It is Hermione who notices that they are holding hands.
"Oh!"
Neville grins as the boys gape and puts an arm round Jem's shoulders.
"She's my girlfriend!" he declares with a sort of goofy pride that makes her want to laugh.
She lets Neville tell the story of their rebellion. How the two of them, along with Luna and Ginny, got Dumbledore's Army going again. But it is his story to tell, it was his righteous anger that got it started, kept it going, burnt away any fear. They are impressed and she wants to say "I told you so" because she always knew, deep down, that Neville was going to turn out well.
When Fred and George tumble into the Room, she spots the smug look on George's face and he loses no time in grabbing her elbow to pull her close enough to whisper, "I told you so." But he smiles at her and she sees no hint of malice or jealousy on his face. It feels like years since she has seen him and she hugs him, reaching with her other arm for Fred. Neville falters when he sees her arm about George, but she soon lets go of him and comes back, sliding her hand into Neville's without so much as a backward glance at George.
Jem is even prouder when he stands up to Harry. She has always known that Neville has secretly idolised him and to watch him tell Harry exactly what they've gone through because they have been loyal to him thrills her.
She is the one that alerts her father to the fight that's about to happen and when he tumbles into the Room of Requirement, she cannot hide her delight. They parted the previous year under a cloud – he didn't want her to go back, he wanted her to stay with him and Tonks. But she wanted to go to Neville and she was furious that he had tried to go with Harry when Tonks was pregnant. She had felt on some level betrayed. Hadn't she turned out well enough to dispel any worries he might have about the baby?
But that is all gone now as Remus scoops her up, her long legs jangling and holds her tight. He shows her a picture of her little brother, an adorably tubby little thing with pink hair. Her father glows and she has a sudden certainty that everything is going to be all right. She is young and in love and Neville loves her back. Her father, who has elevated morose to an art form, is happy.
They are invincible.