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A slow, mournful tune started playing. It told a story of a woman whose heart was shattered by her lover, and she pleaded for a time-turner to go back in time and stop herself from meeting him, erase a fateful night from history, guide her younger steps away so she’ll never have to fall for him.
Pansy knew the song too well. She had grown up hearing in from drawing rooms when Mr. Parkinson wasn’t home and her mother thought she was outside playing or upstairs studying. As a child, Pansy loved to snick away from her rooms and tail her mother thought the day, and, she thought ruefully, loneliness was hereditary. The familiarity of the piano notes brought on too much of it, and the melancholy on top of everything else she was feeling threatened to shatter a damn of tears that she would rather die than let anyone see.
“Who’s the idiot who would play this at a ball?” She thought bitterly, looking to the gramophone, the only source of music still playing in the Great Hall for a handful of scattered students that still remained after the Weird Sisters have finished playing at midnight. Next to the music device, Professor Flitwick was swaying back and forth in time with the tune, eyes closed. Pansy thought he might be drunk, the only other Professor left in the Hall being Dumbledor, who appeared to be asleep in his chair, face serene and hands resting on his chest, clasped over his beard. There were only four couples left on the dance floor, two 7th year Puffs, a Beauxbatons girl with a Durmstrang guy, a Ravenclaw 6th year girl with a guy she wasn’t sure from which house and another couple she couldn’t place. All the Slytherins have gone down to the dungeons for an after party, but Pansy had been so angry with Draco she didn’t want to go with them. He’d spent all night barely sparing Pansy, his date, a glance, watching HER instead like a hunted man.
Now the Slytherin girl was alone, in a dimly lit Hall, where more than half the candles had gone out, lovesick couples clinging to each other and a depressing song that made her think of her own loneliness, tear pooling in her eyes. Pansy hated tonight, but damn it if she’ll let herself be a pathetic sight. Scanning the half dozen people littered on chairs that looked unpaired, her eyes stopped on Longbottom. He was the only one whom she actually knew, at least by name, out of all of those left, and before she could think too much about it, her feet started carrying her towards him.
“Where’s your date?” She bit at him, with more malice than needed.
Green eyes, shinning like emeralds in the flickering candle light, raise with surprise to meet hers.
“I walked her to the common room after the concert but…”
Pansy didn’t let him finish, she didn’t care what else he had to say.
“Offer me a dance.” She said, more like ordering around a house elf than asking, but she was sure a boy like him couldn’t say no to her anyway. He gently took her right hand that she was floating in his face, rough large fingers enclosing hers, though as his heat swiped from his hand to her cold fingers, she found she didn’t really mind the roughness.
Neville’s thumb drew circles idly on the back of her hand as he walked her quietly to the dance floor, and it was a pretty good momentary distraction from her thoughts. For his part, the Gryffindor wasn’t sure why he’d come back after taking Ginny up, but he felt suffocated by all the snuggling couples in the Common Room and didn’t feel like going to sleep, so his steps carried him back to the Hall. He would have said no to Pansy’s order, except he saw a hint of something all too familiar when they’ve locked eyes, so he took her hand instead and guided her on the floor without a word.
As there was enough space now, the Gryffindor pick a spot randomly and turned his Slytherin partner around, placing the hand he was holding on his shoulder, his own lowering to rest on her back, not low enough to be impolite though, while clasping her other in a firm grip and positioning them, before they started spinning. Her robes were soft, and she felt so delicate in his arms. A smell of oranges enveloped him and he took a deep breath, wanting to fill his lungs with the delicious fragrance.
Pansy proved to be a skilled dance partner, her body moving effortlessly with the tune, no missteps or rigidity. Dancing with her was different then it had felt with Ginny, who fought him on every step, and Neville realized he quite enjoyed holding this girl in his arms. They were spinning in perfect sync and, as he felt some of the tension falling from her shoulders, he risked a glance down, trying to catch her eyes again.
It was no use, Pansy thought, even as strong arms and a musky scent enveloped her. As the singer's voice rang in the hall with her sorrow, Pansy wasn’t sure if the song was taking a new meaning for her, or if it’s always talked about the same pain but she’s been too young to understand it, to feel it herself. The pain of being alone, alone in a room full of people, alone even when sitting with friends around the fire, alone in the arms of her boyfriend. As tears start spilling down her cheeks like a damn that finally broke free she couldn’t stand the boy in front of her seeing it all, so she plunged her face forward into his chest, forehead resting oh his shoulder.
Neville knew, without needing to see, that Pansy was crying soundlessly in his arms. He wasn’t sure what to do, but he kept swaying their joint bodies to the music as he thought she might not appreciate if others noticed them. The girl’s right hand disentangled from his to come fist itself in his robes next to her face, shielding her, so he brought his now free hand to her nape, thumb drawing small circles.
As he gathered the Slytherin closer in his arms, he thought how strange it was that he was trying to comfort his bully, someone who would have delighted in his tears were it him the one to cry. Yet he felt like this was more than a spoiled girl’s tantrum.
“There will be others.” He tried lamely. He wasn’t sure why she was crying, but thought maybe her date must have treated her poorly. After all, she was left alone in the Hall and had to resort to asking him for a dance, so it would make sense she’d be upset about how her night went. To his surprise, he felt her head shocked a little from side to side without lifting from where it was plastered on his shoulder. He didn’t know what else to say, but before he could think of anything, her voice, broken and barely audible trailed from where she was buried in his robes.
“It won’t matter… They won’t love me.”
Though just a whisper, the girl’s words cut through the boy like a hot knife, logging itself in his sternum. He knew all too well that feeling, he knew what is was like to not be enough for others.
Neville Longbottom has never been good enough.
He wasn’t good enough for his Grandma, who still preferred her gone son over her grandson right in front of her. He wasn’t good enough for his parents’ memory, not being able to live up to their greatness. He wasn’t good enough for his housemates either, always losing points and being left behind.
Neville had hoped that when he got to Hogwarts he was going to finally have friends. When the bushy haired girl had offered to help him find his toad on the train, he had thought he’ll finally get a friend and he decided to hang onto her with all his will. But it didn’t take long for her to befriend Harry and Ron and leave him behind, the three of them never having room for him too, always stopping their whispers when he came around and never wanting to study with him.
He knew why that was, of course. He wasn’t good enough at magic either. The Potions Master said it often enough and even if his Head of House never said it out loud, he could read it in the way her mouth closed in a thin line whenever she was looking at him. He wasn’t good enough at flying to compensate for his bad grades either and when his housemates solidified their friends groups, he wasn’t good enough to be included in any. For those outside his house, he was the laughing stock and nothing more.
But by the gods, if he had not tried.
And finally, for once, this year, he had felt like maybe he might be good enough for something. Not for all the things he had failed already, but he had found, with a little pushing from the DADA teacher, that he was quite good with plants. Even if his potions still turned the wrong color and his transfigurations never went all the way, he could nurture plants to grow with care and patience, he could figure out when they were ill and how to treat them and he could make blooms in the most beautiful, vibrant colors with his own hands. And maybe, he could go on being bad at all the other things, if he could be good enough for his flowers.
But even so, Neville was all too familiar with the feeling of not being enough to love and his heart ached for the girl in his arms.
He thought he’d seen her coming with one of the Slytherins tonight, so why would one of them hurt her like that? She wasn’t an ugly girl, nor was she stupid. Her tongue might be a little too sharp, but he was sure she could be pleasant company if she tried. She was like one of his more stubborn plants, that maybe needed a little more water or sun to uncoil from itself and grow into its full potential. Pansy just needed someone patient enough to figure out what was it she was missing.
Yet, the young Gryffindor found that, despite sharing her pains, there wasn’t anything he could say to take it away, so he resigned himself to holding on tight, letting his head drop next to hers and the music wash over them like a breeze.
“I’ll always be alone.” She mumbled in his chest.
Loneliness was no stranger to Neville either. It has enveloped him like a cloak all his life, tighter and tighter every year until it felt like it had slipped into his bones, to permanently live there.
As the singer’s voice echoes on the walls with the last lyrics of her tune, lamenting herself that she’ll never have her heart hole again, something uncomfortable stirred in Neville’s chest.
“You don’t have to be.” He whispered back softly in her hair, lips close to her ear, though she made no sign of hearing him.
As the final note died out, Pansy detangled herself from Neville’s chest and reached for her wand. He thought she might hex him, finally realizing who she spilled her secrets to, but before he had time to react she aimed the wand at her own face and cast a Tergeo. The teenage boy winced. Casting the spell from so up closed must have stung, but she showed no traces of it. Her face was now cleared of any signs of crying and, to his shock, though he didn’t know if she intended it, her smoked eyeshadow, heavily powdered cheeks to hide a sprinkle of freckles under her eyes and crimson red lips were all wiped clean too. In all three and a half years of school, Neville realized he’d never seen Pansy without at least eyeliner and lipstick on. She look much more her age like this, young and fragile and a little broken. The makeup style she wore wasn’t complimenting her best features either, it was a shame to hide those freckles in his opinion, she looked much cuter with them. The girl standing in front of him was someone else completely than whom he thought he knew to be Pansy Parkinson.
A crazy thought struck Neville and he didn’t know if she might let him, or even want it, but before he could gather his courage, as he would have liked to catalogue the features of the witch in front of him a little more, study her for a sign, Pansy, stubborn as ever and now with all traces of pain erased from her face, didn’t give him the time.
“I’m going to bed!” She announced, maybe a little too loud and with to much force behind it to sound as unaffected as she’d have wanted, breaking free from his arms. But as she spun around to walk away from him, Neville found himself saying, in his usual warm and even voice, contrary to the jumble of feelings and thoughts fighting inside him:
“Goodnight, Pansy.”