Chapter Text
That should have been it over.
Realistically, thinks Pansy, there was no reason for it to carry on. She’d mollified his suspicions about her being a conniving murderess, and assuaged his fears that she wouldn’t drop dead in front of him. She had promised to ask him the next time he had a plant that she needed and not to steal it (as if), and to not be too mean to the other inept delivery boys from Mulpepper’s (as if).
She’d even stopped her Manor from eating him. All in all, very nice of her.
Pansy had then fielded a few questions from him about her potion, her health, and her Manor, which she underscored with a loud exclamation about the time and ushering him to the Floo Parlour.
(She truly can be so charitable sometimes, too. The Floo Parlour Portraits are of well-travelled and adventurous Parkinsons, not outright pricks like the foyer.)
Another little pat to the cheek, thank you Mr Longbottom for your concern, all is well and frankly none of your business. Goodbye, fond farewells, et cetera.
So why, pray tell, is she being bothered by him all of the time?
A few days after Longbottom had scampered from the Manor, Pansy had been elbows deep in some herbal preparation in her laboratory when there had been a gentle, feeble set of tappings at her window.
She had looked up, huffing hair from her eyes, to be greeted by the sight of the most perfectly round owl she had ever seen in her life.
“Hello,” Pansy had said, wondering briefly about the owl's ability to fly while completely spherical. It was like pondering a bumblebee being too fat for its tiny little wings. The Manor had swung the window inwards, only just enough for the owl to squeeze through. (It was an incredibly spiteful pile of stones).
A letter had been dropped on her potions worktable, tea-stained and written in a vaguely loopy and crooked hand. There was also dirt on it. Pansy had raised her eyebrows.
“I am not giving you any treats,” Pansy had told the owl as it folded itself onto her shelves, “You simply do not need them.”
Hullo Pansy, the letter began.
I’ve been reading some works by a wizard named Kew - I assume you know him, and are the person who robbed the paper from Hermione’s desk. (Pansy rolled her eyes. Always about theft with this man) I went back to harvest some of the Woundwort, and I’ve been doing some tinkering. I think Kew’s right about a few things, but I’ve got some ideas of my own too.
I think I understand the basis of the potion you’ve been making, and I have a few suggestions about other plants that may be useful.
Send Umferth back with a note, and I can Floo over anytime this afternoon.
Best,
Neville
“Umferth,” Pansy had said, astounded, and the owl unfurled with a little hoo.
The note she had written back had been perfunctory and unerringly polite. She had wanted to write for him to fuck off and mind his own business, but instead she had expressed her thanks and claimed a prior engagement. She also declined his kind offer of help, not wanting to take up any of his clearly valuable time when she was quite capable of seeing to the issue herself, and asked for his discretion on the matter.
While Longbottom harvesting the Woundwort would solve her ever having to go to the swamp again, that positive was weighed against the prospect of him being all up in her fucking business. Outloud she said several invectives that made the Manor shudder with glee.
Hours later, the tapping came again at her window. This time Pansy had been in the bath, wine glass in one hand and a cigarette in the other, perusing a few of her magazines from the continent. A slinky looking witch with a very French, very asymmetrical bob and her tits out, lounged carelessly on the page - it was somehow a lipstick advert. Pansy wondered for which set of lips.
Umferth had looked positively exhausted, and Pansy had offered him a grape almost as spherical as he was, which the owl had looked at balefully.
No worries, Longbottom’s note had said. I’ll catch you another time - N.
From then on Longbottom’s earnest attempts to help had come with frequency. He sent more notes with his fat, little owl. The deliveries from Mulpepper’s arrived pristine and in the hands of chastened Delivery Boys. Parcels that ought to have only contained the ingredients she ordered and paid for now came supplemented with leafy additions and carefully labelled preparations.
Longbottom sent her plants, and vials (glass, not crystal), and treatises and explanations penned in his now-familiar scrawl. It was ridiculous. Pansy had done her best to shove him off, and still he’s pestering her.
Albeit, some of the things he sent were quite useful, but that was beside the point. He was meddling. So far Pansy had managed to dodge all of his attempts to visit her - he even invited her to his greenhouse. Her, Pansy Parkinson, to a greenhouse. Unbelievable.
And no matter the strategy she used to try and get him to bugger off, Longbottom seemed to barrel through all of them. Pansy was on the verge of sending him a howler, fucking subtely be damned.
Usually she would vent and bitch to a friend, but that would open up lines of questioning that Pansy couldn’t abide. So she fumed at the elves instead, who offered no good sport and instead tried to rationalise with her. Pip’s best effort was to say that Longbottom ‘looked a little bit grubby’ which Dimple then ruined by qualifying it with ‘but that’s to be expected, when he is such a talented herbologist.’
The cobbles of Diagon Alley are crowded, the early afternoon sun luring people out into the streets. It is a beautiful day, full of warmth and glowing autumn light. Scarves are unwound from necks, and people linger on outdoor seating where normally they would flee to the safety of Indoors.
Pansy feels refreshed in the crisp air, her boots (American, surprisingly, with tall thin heels - charmed against wibbling or snapping) making a delightful clipping noise on the stone.
She strolls alongside Theodore Nott and Daphne Greengrass, their talk amiable and light. Theo is all well-pressed lines and carefully tousled hair, his cloak billowing behind him despite the lack of breeze. Daphne is likewise immaculate, resplendent in something shiny, Italian, and expensive. Pansy herself has selected many light, seasonably dark layers, and her charmed sunglasses swirl with a misty fog. They are visually clockable as Snakes, or as moneyed, or as Those Kinds Of People - but they ever have been. They do not quite part the crowds as they used to, but there is a noticeable way the sea of people moves around them.
It is nice, sometimes, to feel a little important.
Theo is making some noises about work, or some such, and Daphne responds soothingly. Pansy rolls her eyes - he was the one who chose to chain himself to a desk in the Ministry. He has a hereditary Wizengamot seat, received after his father was done in, much the same as Pansy herself. Daphne, at least, was doing something outside of the Ministry - a fashion atelier of eye-watering expense.
(Daphne was currently on her lunch break, which often overran and was bookended with luscious glasses of red wine).
“Get a different job, perhaps.” Is Pansy’s advice, causing her friends to snort and snicker.
“I quite like my job, Pans.”
“Then why are you always fucking whinging about it?”
Theo smiles brightly.
“It is part of having a job; gives you permission to bitch about things. When you bitch about things you just sound like a - well, like a bitch.”
Pansy grins back at him, looping her arm through Daphne’s so she may pretend to whisper in her friend’s ear.
“But at least I vary the things I bitch about, whereas-”
“Absolutely not, you moan continuously about-”
“Children, children.” Daphne murmurs, twisting Pansy’s arm and reaching out to swat Theo’s shoulder. “Save the scrapping for behind closed doors, it’s unbecoming.”
Theo seized on the change of topic.
“Talking about who’ll be coming-”
“If you begin talking about that be-mulleted Weasley again, I shall be cross.” Daphne warns, as Pasny wriggles free of her to summon and light a cigarette. A delicate wrinkle of the nose is Daphne's only sign of distaste.
Pansy ignores Theo’s segue, instead peering into a shop front that promises the Wizarding World’s Most Exciting Hats. Pansy’s interest in Theo’s quest to bag the Dragon-Weasley had piqued and died a few years ago when he first set out on it. He’d made absolutely no headway, which was a mortification that Pansy wouldn’t be able to suffer, personally.
“Daphne, darling,” He continues, as Pansy tries to work out which of the hats in the display is The Most Exciting. It’s a stiff competition. “The mullet is en vogue, in some parts of the world.”
Perhaps the hat with the charmed purple feathers. They oscillate happily around the brim.
“If you ever manage to bed him, you’ll have to get him to shave his head. Or do something about it. I’ll never be seen out in public with you again.”
Theo scoffs, then, as he had quit smoking and therefore has none of his own, plucks Pansy’s cigarette from her fingers and takes a sharp, almost desperate drag. Daphne smirks.
“How’s quitting, Nott?”
“Fuck off.” He replies quite happily.
Pansy pauses in her Hat Examinations, glancing back towards her friends - which is exactly at the point she sees the man she has been studiously avoiding for a while now.
Neville Longbottom, Plant Boy, Weed-Sniffer, Order of Merlin: First Class, dithers outside the The Leaky Cauldron. His dirtied corduroys and holey jumper are gone, replaced by similar variants that are clean and intact. His jumper is a dark blue, and not as garish. A battered leather bag is slung over his broad shoulders. Longbottom’s hands are stuffed in his pockets, and he peers at the front of the pub a little grimly.
The sunlight adores him, gilding his already golden hair, and spreading lovingly over his tanned face. He is a creature of the sun even when he does look a little sour, Pansy is beginning to understand. She’ll have to bail before he spots her, lest he try and do his do-gooding again. Bollocks.
“Oh my, the beards new.”
“Hm?” Pansy pulls her attention quickly to Theo, who is peering down the cobbles towards Longbottom, her cigarette dangling from his lips. Theo has an appreciative look on his face as he puts his hands on hips and sighs a little. It’ll be hard to drag Theo away when he’s sighing all lustily, but Pansy is sure that she’ll manage it.
“It’s very nice.” Theo says.
“Which? Oh Longbottom.” Daphne joins them in their gazing, though Pansy attempts to do it covertly from behind her sunglasses.
“Well, you know why that is.” Daphne continues, gesturing at the delightfully hairy Longbottom, her statement loaded with knowing and delivered with a small, quirked eyebrow that promises gossip.
They wait in the quiet for a second, and Theo flaps a hand a little impatiently. Daphne’s smile grows a little self-assured.
“He and Abbot have split.”
“No,” Theo gasps, “I thought the Gryffindors mated for life.”
“She’s a badger, I think.” Pansy murmurs. She tilts her head a little. The beard didn’t look like the scruff of a man in despair; although now she thought about it, the corduroys were sad enough by themselves, so perhaps she’d missed the other signs.
“How did you find this little nugget out?” Theo presses, like a terrier after a rat.
“Millie.”
Theo lets loose a small cackle.
“Millie? Millie Bullstrode?”
That doesn’t bode well if Longbottom has any hopes of getting back with Abbot. Pansy tries to school her expression, but is struggling. She splays her hand on her chest in disbelief, which is exactly when Longbottom looks over to them.
Oh, fuck, Pansy thinks.
“Oh, fuck.” Pansy also says out loud. She rips her hand away.
“Longbottom!” Theo calls, waving a hand.
“Theo, you menace.” Daphne says, laughing.
Longbottom’s face is a sweet mix of confusion, which blossoms into guarded surprise, then a cheery smile aimed at Pansy. Oh, fuck. He raises a hand in greeting, the other remaining stuffed in his trouser pocket. There is a glint of gold on his littlest finger.
“Theo,” Pansy begins, a swirl of panic beginning to whorl inside her. This is exactly what she does not need.
“Hush now,” Theo says, his smile beatific, as it ever was when he was being a gossipy little slag. “Where better to get the tale of the beard, than from the horse himself?”
In the past month Neville has visited the swamps of England almost half a dozen times. He has also read through almost the entirety of Botryianthus Kew’s collected work - a feat that required visiting the Magical Herbological Society, the greenhouses of which took up an almost entire island in the Channel. He had managed to be in-and-out in just under two days.
Since then Neville had been hard at work experimenting and compiling results, sending little Umferth flitting across the length and breadth of Britain. And it’s not like he expected Pansy Parkingson to be particularly grateful. But still.
(And it’s also not as if Neville is using this current herbological fixation to distract from other issues in his life. Not at all.)
Either way, without Pansy’s input - or more information than the bare minimum that she’d given him - Neville’s month of or leafy bliss was decidedly running out of steam. As such, his actual, real life had come blundering back into frame.
Hence, he is standing outside the Leaky Cauldron, hands stuffed in his pockets and shoulders by his ears. It is warm out, the sun broiling him pleasantly through his layers - which is his current excuse for not going inside. He will go inside, eventually. Absolutely.
Neville is interrupted from his dithering and vacillating by movement in the corner of his eye. He is greeted by the alarmingly familiar sight of Pansy Parkinson, hand to her breast. Her face is hard to read under her swirling sunglasses, but she doesn’t look in pain - which puts a not-so-small-part of Neville’s mind at ease.
In the second that Neville spots Pansy, worries that her heart has exploded, and then reassures himself that it probably hasn’t, his name has been called and a smile has worked its way onto his face. He had begun reaching for his satchel, where his notebook had crammed after his morning of work - as if waving his notes around might have helped Pansy should she keel over. Silly.
Pansy saunters towards him, in step with a Greengrass sister and Theo Nott. It’s hard to tell the Greengrasses apart these days. There is a bouncy mass of mahogany hair, startling blue eyes, pale skin and a smile that makes Neville feel a little wary.
However Theo was more familiar. He had been one of the less egregious Slytherin’s, content to remain out of the spotlight while others pushed their brutality forward. Neville finds that, these days, he quite likes him.
(There’d been a party last year - Roger Davies’ birthday. Far too much gin had been drunk. They had gone swimming).
Theo leads the triad, hand outstretched and a wide smile on his handsome face. He looks like he’d been asleep at his desk all morning - which might be true, if Hermione is to be believed.
“Hello, mate,” Neville says, shaking Theo’s hand. He looks at Pansy and the undetermined Greengrass sister, with a smile, fumbling for a moment around the fact he doesn’t know the right name. Daphne, or the younger one? Amphora?
“Longbottom.” Pansy stares back with a perfectly placid smile on her face. She is all pale coolness, whereas Neville can feel his cheeks reddened by the sun. She doesn’t look unwell, and she wasn’t leaning on Theo at all. He had seen her clasp her hand to her heart, though. Neville opens his mouth.
“I say, Longbottom,” Theo begins instead, buttery smooth and suave as-you-like, “You’re looking rather glum today. I do like the beard, though. It’s positively rakish.”
Neville can feel himself twitch uncomfortably. He scratches at the hair on his jaw self-consciously. Admittedly, growing it hadn’t been on purpose - it had started as a moustache that Hannah hadn’t liked, then spiralled a little out of control. His grandmother hates it.
“What brought on the change?” Says the Greengrass.
“I just… stopped shaving.” Neville replies, a little lamely. He has to stop himself from looking through the blurry glass of The Leaky, seeking out Hannah. She’s in there - Neville’s supposed to meet her. He’s been dithering outside for a while now. He zeroes in on Pansy instead, keen to change the subject. He’s trying not to rove his eyes over her like she’s a wilting plant in need of diagnosis. (Any discoloured leaves? Spots? How are her roots?)
“How are you, Pansy?”
(She’d asked for discretion, but surely talking in front of her friends didn’t count as indiscreet. Surely).
Pansy smiles at him brightly. Makes a vague gesture and pushes her sun-glasses into her hair. Theo’s eyebrows raise a little in surprise, and he and the Greengrass sister glance at each other slyly.
“I’m very well, thank you.” She replies crisply. She summons a cigarette to her hand, a tiny moue of pleasure forming as she spots Neville’s brief exasperation at the sight.
“That’s good to hear, I’ve been-”
“Did you know that Longbottom works for Mulpeppers?” Pansy breezes through him, turning to Theo.
“I had heard that you were the man to talk to if you wanted anything particularly… spikey or bitey.” Theo confirms, a little tilt to his head.
“All manner of heart-stopping things, really.” Neville says blithely, earning him a flicker of a scowl from Pansy. He catches her nostrils flare before she turns to the Greengrass sister, smiling sweetly.
“Isn’t there a Mulpepper’s on Knockturn, Daph?”
The Greengrass hums her assent. (Daphne, who had once watered Neville’s Dancing Asters ‘by accident’ while he was stuck in the Hospital Wing in Seventh Year).
“You might have bumped into our Mills,” Daphne says, “She has a chair in the tattoo parlour.”
Neville is struggling to keep up with the bouncing conversation. Unbidden, he twists the signet on his finger. It’s a relatively new addition, made his after his Uncle Algie had passed. Neville Longbottom, head of the household. Who’d’ve thought?
“Millie Bulstrode? I’ve seen her about, but not on Knockturn.” Neville says with a slight shake of the head. He tended to avoid Knockturn, where possible. The Mulpepper greenhouses and main warehouse were on Diagon, behind and beneath the shop. “Her and Hannah are friends.”
“Are they indeed?” There is a definite tinge of warmth to Theo’s voice that Neville can’t pinpoint the cause for.
Daphne kisses Theo’s cheek with a little laugh. “On that note, I must be off. My meeting started ten minutes ago. Good-bye, my darlings. Good-bye, Longbottom.”
“O, Daph! Before you go-”
Neville, quite baffled, watches Daphne leave with Theo dancing after her for a few steps. Theo snags Daphne’s sleeve, and they bow their heads together in quiet, rushed conference. There is something suspicious about the way they whisper and smile, but Neville is quite content to never care about it. He sighs, looks instead to Pansy, who rolls her eyes and huffs lightly, cigarette smoke curling from her lips.
He smiles, heart warmed at this little intimacy, if not the waft of tobacco. Neville begins to wrestle his notebook from his bag. Perhaps now is the time tell Pansy about-
“I’ll be off, too, Longbottom. I’ve-”
Neville’s smile drops, and he says a little forcefully: “How are you, Pansy?”
Less of a question, and more of an accusation. Pansy raises a delicate eyebrow, clearly unimpressed.
“Bugger me, Longbottom. I’ve already told you.”
“Yes, well tell me again. Have you tried to potion again with the infusion of-”
“Longbottom.” Pansy says his surname like a caution, hands on her hips. Her dark brows are drawn together, and she glances at Theo and Daphne furtively. “This isn’t really-”
“Well you’ve not been answering my owls!”
“Well I asked you not to get involved!”
Neville makes a funny noise in his throat - indignation rising. He brandishes his notebook, the salted pages crinkling loudly.
“I saw you-”
“Keep your voice down.”
“Merlin, Pansy, they’re your friends! Surely they - oh my fucking - Merlin.”
Pansy hesitates, and for the first time - perhaps ever - Neville spots a flush making its way across her cheeks. Neville lowers his voice, stoops his head to look her in the eye.
“Is that the first time you’ve ever sworn?” She attempts to be snide, but there is no heat to it.
“Pansy, do they not know?”
The realisation hits Neville hard, somewhere around the pancreas. Pansy’s face, for one scarce moment, is of a feeling so raw that it is difficult to bear. Her hand flits towards her chest, and is stilled harshly, fingers curling into a fist. She schools herself immediately, and takes a sharp drag of her cigarette.
“As I told you- shit.”
Pansy cranes her neck around Neville, her face inscrutable. Neville makes to look behind him, but Pansy snaps her fingers and keeps his attention on her. The autumn sun slants over the soft lines of her face, making the furrow of her dark brow stark in comparison. Her irises are shrunken against the light, pinpricks lost in a shrouded fog.
“Are you going to drop this?” She quietly and urgent, voice hard-edged. Her eyes flicker between him and whatever is happening over his shoulder.
“What? No, of course I’m not going to.” What a daft question.
“Fine.” Pansy bites off.
She then smiles in a way that Neville has never seen her smile, languid and uncurling. Tucks her hair behind her ears, bites her lip a little.
“Pansy, what are you doing?” Neville whispers back, honestly quite alarmed. He isn’t sure that she doesn’t have a piece of her Manor secreted on her person. A piece of ugly carpet in her pocket or some mortar dust in her shoe.
Pansy reaches towards him, hand brushing dust from his jumper. It is a slow movement, and Pansy rests her hand on his chest for a brief moment - almost like a display of tenderness. Then, like a pantomime, she pulls herself away, eyes widening before her features flatten into smoothness.
“Longbottom and I were just talking about ingredients.” Pansy says to Theo, who has returned from his tête-à-tête with Daphne.
Neville twists slowly, and he’s not sure exactly what his face looks like. It feels all twisted - several different shades of confusion and concern. (What is she going on about? Ingredients? He’s trying to find out why her friends don’t know she’s poorly.)
Theo, for his part, looks like someone’s just handed him a rather large bowl of cream - and he is the cat who gets to devour it. When he looks at Neville, Neville is bestowed with a large smirk and a pair of very raised eyebrows.
“Are you indeed?”
This feels aimed at Neville.
“Y-yes.”
“Right.”
“Haven’t you got to go back to work now, my love?” Pansy asks.
“It seems I must.”
“Ah. Shame.”
“Truly.”
There are a few beats of quiet. Neville is so, very, deeply confused. Finally Pansy coughs.
“Off you pop then, Theo.”
A snort. “Righto. Bye, you two.”
Theo waves, and off he pops. He strolls away with agonizing slowness, glancing back every now and then to throw another wave over his shoulder. He winks once at Neville.
Finally, Theo disappears around a corner, and Pansy lets out a long groan that she muffles behind her hands.
Neville doesn’t know whether it’s safe or not to speak, so he waits. (Is this how Slytherin’s regularly hang out? It’s absolutely boggling.)
“Good fucking lord.” Pansy sighs eventually. She looks tired suddenly, as if a glamour has slipped. It reasserts itself sluggishly.
“What was that?”
Pansy levels him with a look that is not quite scathing, but is thoroughly unamused. The confusion Neville feels is quickly bleeding into annoyance. It wouldn’t be too hard for her to just speak plainly.
With one last huff, Pansy gestures sourly between them - a shred of space that is considerably smaller than Neville would have thought.
“That - was Theo starting a rumour that we’re fucking.”
Neville’s yell of protest is cut off as Pansy shoves him bodily through the front-door of The Leaky Cauldron.