Chapter Text
Prologue
She moved to push past him, but he grabbed her wrist, stopping her.
"Don't marry him, Pansy," Neville said.
Pansy inhaled sharply.
He hated the silence that followed.
He wanted to take her shoulders and shake her, demand that she say something, anything.
After several agonizing seconds, Neville’s shoulders slumped in defeat, and he realized he’d made a mistake. He shouldn’t have said anything. He opened his mouth to say something, apologize maybe.
"Why?" Her voice was quiet, barely more than a whisper.
He couldn’t help himself. He bent his head, pressing his lips to that spot beneath her ear.
Pansy shivered.
"You know why,” he breathed.
———
“Incarcerous,” Alecto Carrow hissed.
Neville’s arms snapped his side as ropes wrapped tightly around his body, forcing him immobile.
Another flick of his so-called professor’s wand had him levitating from his desk to the open space in the front of the classroom where they normally practiced spells.
He could see from the corner of his eye the way Seamus was being forcibly held in his seat by Justin Finch Fletchley who was whispering rapidly in his ear.
He wished the ropes hadn't covered his mouth so he could tell his friend to stop, that he could take it, that it wasn't worth him getting punished too.
“Now, who is going to assist with teaching Mr. Longbottom that refusal to follow class lesson plans is contrary to the standards of this school and will not be tolerated?” The witch asked the rest of the class in a sickly-sweet voice.
The ropes may have stopped him from speaking, but they barely managed to muffle the derisive snort Neville let out.
Practicing the Cruciatus Curse on his classmates didn't meet any standards of the Hogwarts he knew.
Alecto glared at him murderously and Neville met her gaze with a defiant lift of his chin.
She flicked her wand at him, and he bit his lip until he tasted blood to stop his screams as his arms were bent unnaturally behind his back until they felt as if they were going to snap clean off.
Finally, she lifted the curse and turned her attention back to his classmates.
Neville sagged against his restraints, chin drooping to his chest.
“Miss Parkinson,” Alecto called. “Front of the class if you please.”
His head snapped up, eyes going at once to the Slytherin witch where she sat in the back corner between Theodore Nott and Blaise Zabini.
He watched the two wizards exchange uneasy glances before looking to Pansy.
Pansy, whose expression was impassive and blank.
Their seventh year had only started two months ago, but it had quickly become apparent to those who had returned that Hogwarts was not the same school they'd grown up with.
Classes had turned into nothing more than Death Eater trainings, and the other professors could only do so much to protect them without suffering themselves, though that didn't stop them from doing it anyway whenever they could.
Together with Ginny and Luna, Neville had restarted Dumbledore’s Army.
They mostly helped distract their new professors from focusing their attentions on the younger students.
They gave those they couldn't protect safe haven in the Room of Requirement to recover since even the Hospital Wing was no longer safe.
Madam Pomfrey came to the seventh floor every night to heal those they had managed to bring.
At night they would sneak around the castle and leave messages on the walls, making it known that the resistance was very much alive.
They restarted the defensive lessons Harry had taught them all in fifth year, teaching anyone who wanted to learn ways to protect themselves.
Thankfully, Hermione had taught Ginny the charm she'd used on the galleons before she took off with Ron and Harry, so they'd been able to replicate it themselves and communicate without drawing attention.
Every day, more and more students from Gryffindor, Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff showed up, brought by others from their houses.
Some were too terrified to rebel and simply wanted a safe place to escape for a while and others were determined to fight back.
Their numbers grew more every day.
Not a single member of Slytherin had stepped foot on the seventh floor so far that year.
But no one from their house had been used as an example by the Carrows or as a practice dummy either so none of them had ever needed any healing.
In fact, most of them were top of the class for the new curriculum.
Neville couldn't pretend he hadn't noticed the way Parkinson, Nott and Zabini stayed quiet whenever volunteers were asked for in order to practice hexes and curses on students from the other houses.
He had found it curious at first but had other things to worry about other than why a couple of snakes weren't as obvious about their hatred as some of their housemates.
Crabbe and Goyle were always the first to raise their wands.
Millicent Bulstrode and Tracey Davies were just as bad.
They were the ones he focused on.
But it seemed the trio’s lack of enthusiastic participation had finally been noticed by their new Death Eater professors.
Neville watched as the raven-haired witch that had bullied him since he first stepped foot on the Hogwarts Express stood up stiffly from her chair.
He followed her movements as she made her way to the front of the classroom.
When she came to a stop in front of him, she wouldn't look at him, keeping her dark gaze instead focused on a spot just over his shoulder.
Neville’s brows knitted together.
He would have thought she'd be gleeful at the idea of having him at her mercy at the end of her wand.
She hated him.
She always had.
But instead of looking triumphant…he noticed she looked rather ill.
Pansy’s eyes were empty, her skin sickly sallow.
She looked thinner than he remembered her last being, as if she hadn't been eating, and there were dark circles beneath her eyes that even the concealment charm he was sure she had cast that morning couldn't hide.
Suddenly, Neville was dropped to the ground. His binds prevented him from breaking his fall and he landed hard on his knees.
He felt something pop and cried out, the sound muffled by the ropes.
A hand suddenly wrenched his head up by his hair, pulling sharply at the strands until pain shot across his scalp.
“Since Mr. Longbottom objected to the use of the Cruciatus,” Alecto hissed in his ear, her breath hot and rancid on his cheek. “It is only appropriate that he experience first-hand what a valuable tool of persuasion it can be since clearly his parents failed to instill it in him.”
Murderous rage exploded in his veins as shouts and profanities erupted in the classroom.
Pansy’s eyes snapped to his at the same moment Neville slammed his head back. He relished the sound of the sickening crunch as he broke the nose of the cackling witch behind him.
There was a roaring in his ears, and he hardly felt the pain as he was backhanded across the face and flung onto the stone floor. Barely heard Alecto’s shouts as she screamed at the class to be quiet.
He felt the warm ooze of blood as it dripped from just above his eye.
“Parkinson! Do it now!” Alecto shrieked.
As Neville blinked through the black dots that swam in his vision, the only thing he could focus on was the violent trembling in Pansy's hand as she slowly raised her wand at him.
Chaos was still going on around them, but all Neville could do in that moment was look into the dark brown eyes that could no longer hide how terrified they were as they stared down at him and nod once, giving her permission she didn’t need.
He closed his eyes and waited.
Waited for the pain he'd heard described as more excruciating than being flayed open.
Waited to know what it was his parents had felt before their minds were driven insane by Bellatrix Lestrange.
But it never came.
All at once the room fell silent.
Neville opened his eyes and looked around.
All eyes were fixed on them.
He looked up, his eyes growing wide when he saw that the wand that had been pointed at his heart only a moment ago had been lowered.
Pansy was staring at her feet.
“Your father will be so disappointed,” Alecto hissed.
Pansy didn't so much as flinch, just kept her gaze fixed on her shoes.
“Detention, Parkinson, eight o’clock, my office. Get out of my sight.”
-----
Later that night, Neville lurked behind the curtain that hid a small alcove in the corridor that led to the dungeons.
He'd been waiting for over an hour.
He hadn't known how to explain to Ginny where he was going or why.
He wasn't entirely sure he understood it himself.
So he’d lied instead and said he was going to patrol the third-floor corridor to keep an eye on Snape’s comings and goings from the Headmaster’s office.
Now he was here and Neville was questioning what the hell he was doing.
He and Pansy had never gotten along.
She had been outright cruel to him for years.
He didn't owe her anything.
But…he supposed that wasn't true anymore either.
She'd lowered her wand.
Everyone knew detentions were no longer scrubbing the trophy room under Filch’s supervision.
Not when they were with one of the Carrows.
You were lucky if you left with only bruises.
Pansy had known that and lowered her wand anyway.
He didn't know why, he didn't know what her motivations were.
He only knew that she'd done it and so he was here, waiting outside the dungeons.
Neville glanced at his watch.
It was twenty till curfew.
What were they doing to her in there? Did she need his help? Should he help?
Neville answered his own question immediately.
Of course he should.
He would.
He wouldn't just stand by if she called for help.
None of them deserved what was happening to them.
Not even Pansy Parkinson.
Suddenly, the door at the end of the hall creaked open.
Neville watched as Pansy made a remarkably convincing effort to hide the wince she made with every step she took.
She made it halfway down the corridor before she had to stop and lean against the stone wall.
He watched as she closed her eyes and breathed through her nose before gingerly pushing off and continuing on.
He couldn't tell where she was hurt or how bad it was.
He should just report it to Madam Pomfrey and let her deal with it.
He definitely shouldn't do what the voice in his head was telling him to.
She’d probably hex his bollocks off.
Even still, once Pansy reached the curtained off alcove, Neville couldn’t stop himself from darting his hand out.
He wrapped his fingers around her elbow and gently but firmly pulled her behind the curtain.
“What the fuck!” Pansy snarled, wrenching away from him, her hand going for her wand only for her to flinch violently at the sudden movement. Her face contorted with pain as she jostled the injuries he could not see.
“Sorry!” He said quickly, casting a swift Muffliato so they wouldn’t be overheard. “Sorry! I didn't mean to scare you.”
Dark eyes flashed to his face.
“Longbottom?” she hissed.
He stepped towards her, eyes sweeping over her, searching for the source of her pain.
“Where are you hurt?”
“What the fuck do you think you're doing, Longbottom?” She demanded, stepping back as he reached for her. The space was small and there wasn't much room for her to go, something she seemed to realize when her back immediately found the wall behind her.
Neville came to an abrupt halt as he realized all at once what the fuck it was he was in fact doing.
He'd dragged his classmate, someone who hated him, behind a secluded curtain without her permission.
Fuck.
He lowered his hand, putting his palms out in a placating gesture, showing her he meant no harm.
“I'm sorry,” he said again, hoping she could hear his sincerity. “I didn't mean to startle you.”
Pansy gave him a withering look.
“Then maybe you shouldn't go around kidnapping people,” she sneered.
Neville felt his cheeks burn, and he rubbed the back of his neck with one hand.
“Fuck, sorry, you're right,” he muttered, more to himself than her.
What the hell was he doing here?
He shook his head.
This was a terrible idea.
“Are you going to tell me what it is that had you snatching me out of the hall like some sort of boogeyman?”
“Fuck, Pansy, I'm so sorry,” he said again.
She rolled her eyes, looking almost bored.
“Spit it out Longbottom.”
“I needed to know if you're alright,” he blurted out.
Her eyes narrowed.
“What business is it of yours?”
Neville opened his mouth and closed it and then opened it again.
“They hurt you because of me,” he finally said quietly.
Something flashed across her face he didn't recognize but as quickly as it was there, it was gone and she schooled her expression.
Pansy swept her eyes over him from head to toe, from his still bruised eye from earlier that he hadn't had time to have Madam Pomfrey see to yet, down to his tattered jumper, all the way to his scuffed trainers.
She said nothing.
Neville took another step towards her.
“So are you?” he pressed. “Alright?”
She lifted her chin haughtily.
“Why should I tell you?” she demanded. “So you can go tell the other members of your stupid army that not even snakes are safe anymore?”
Neville shook his head.
“I don’t care about any of that,” he insisted. “What did they do to you?”
“None of your bloody business,” she snapped.
He took another step closer.
“Pansy, let me help you,” he pleaded.
Merlin, since when did he plead with Pansy fucking Parkinson? Since when did he care so much?
Since he’d laid at her feet and seen naked terror in her eyes. Since he saw the way she couldn't stop her hand from shaking as she raised her wand to him. Since he’d realized that she was no different than any of them.
“I don't need your help, Longbottom,” she sneered. “Get out of my way.”
She tried to shove past him only to wince when her shoulder pressed into his, a pained cry escaping her lips.
Without thinking, his hands came up and grasped her elbows, steadying her.
“I'll help you, if you let me,” he said quietly. “Nobody has to know.”
That made her pause.
She looked away, fixing her gaze on the opposite wall. She swallowed.
“Relashio,” she whispered. “On my back. One for every student they didn't get to practice on because of your disruption today.”
Neville's stomach plummeted.
“Oh Gods, Pansy I'm so fucking sorry—” He began apologizing in earnest.
“New rule Longbottom,” she cut in coldly. “If you're going to help me, you’re not allowed to apologize anymore. I decided to lower my wand. Me. Not you.”
Neville clamped his mouth shut.
For a long moment they did nothing more but stare at each other.
It was then that he realized he was still touching her.
His fingers were still curled around her elbow.
He could feel warmth emanating from her through the fabric of her robes.
Some part of him wondered if she was always so warm or if it was their proximity and the small space they were in, but he quickly banished the thought.
He did not need to be thinking about Pansy Parkinson being warm.
Neville coughed to clear his throat.
“Why did you?”
The question was out before he could stop it.
“Why did you lower your wand?”
He waited for her to sneer at him again. To lob some cutting barb that he was sorted into the wrong house and should have been put in Hufflepuff instead for his sentimentality alone.
He never expected her to actually answer honestly.
“I—I don't know,” she said in a voice so low he had to strain to hear her. She looked away from him again and Neville was surprised how much that bothered him. “It isn't right, the things they're doing. I know you think I'm a bitch and are probably surprised that I even noticed, but they're cursing first years Longbottom. Fucking first years.”
She sounded furious and Neville was so stunned he couldn't think of anything to say.
She was right, he was surprised she’d noticed.
All the Slytherins he'd ever known, Pansy included, had always been nothing but concerned with their own self-preservation.
But not only had Pansy noticed, she’d cared.
“And you were just lying there,” she went on, oblivious to his silent realization that perhaps he didn't know the witch in front of him as well as he'd once thought. “You couldn't even fight back. You didn't even have a wand. If I'm going to curse somebody, it’s going to be because they tried to curse me first and you can be damn sure they're not going to be fucking wandless.”
Neville didn't know what to think.
He had a thousand questions.
But Pansy was as skittish as the feral kneazles that used to dig up his nan's garden, and he knew one wrong move would have her closing him off.
So he ignored them all for now.
“Will you show me?” He asked quietly, motioning to her back.
Pansy hesitated, looking more vulnerable than he'd ever seen her.
“I—I don't think I can lift my shirt on my own,” she whispered. Even the admission seemed to irritate her. “I was going to have Daphne help, but—”
“Turn around,” Neville barely managed to keep his voice steady.
Fury burned inside of him.
He wanted to find Alecto Carrow and strangle her with his bare hands.
Pansy eyed him warily as if she had sensed his rise in temper and he ground his teeth together, inhaling deeply to calm himself.
“Please, Pansy.”
She searched his face, looking for what he didn't know.
When she found whatever it was, she gingerly shrugged off her robe and turned around, giving him her back.
It took all of Neville’s self-control not to snarl at the sight of the streaks of blood that stained her white uniform shirt.
He must have made some sound however because Pansy looked back at him over her shoulder.
He didn't know what his expression was, horrified if he had to guess. It seemed to be the wrong thing though, whatever it was. She bristled.
“For Salazar’s sake, Longbottom, get on with it,” she snapped before jerking her head back around and staring at the wall in front of her.
As if compelled by her command, Neville reached out his hand and curled his fingers around the hem of her shirt
And then, more carefully than he'd ever done anything, he lifted it.
He didn't know what he'd expected.
He'd never seen so much of a witch's bare skin before.
Sure, he and Hannah had fooled around a bit last year.
A lot of heavy snogging and pawing over their uniforms but that was it.
Pansy’s skin was smooth and creamy, a porcelain white against his tan from all the flying he’d done over the summer.
She looked softer than Neville thought she had any right to.
Something in his chest twisted when his eyes fell to four deep lashes that tore across her skin diagonally from her shoulder blade down to her hip.
The wounds were raw and swollen and dripping blood.
“I'm going to fucking kill her.”
Even he was surprised by the venom in his voice.
But Neville had never felt a more blinding rage.
“I don't need a hero, Longbottom.”
His eyes snapped up to the back of her head in outrage.
“Pansy, they can't just get away with this—"
“Haven't you and your friends gotten worse?” She cut in sharply, still staring resolutely forward. “Didn't Finnegan have both his wrists broken just last week? And Loony Lovegood was forced to handle undiluted bubotuber pus without gloves for over an hour the week before?”
“Well yeah, but—”
“They'll kill you,” she snapped. “If you go after Alecto for this in some misguided Gryffindor attempt at defending my honor, they'll kill you Longbottom. If you weren't Sacred Twenty-Eight, they probably would have already after everything you and your idiot friends have done this year. So save your heroics for one of them, I didn't ask for them and I don't want them.”
Tension crackled in the air between them.
What the fuck was he doing?
He knew she was right.
Neville and Ginny had spearheaded most of the public acts of defiance so far because they knew they could get away with it.
Their lineage protected them.
It didn't stop them from being punished, but it stopped any lasting damage from being done to them.
If any of his half-blood friends like Seamus or Luna had done the things they had, he knew what would happen to them. Thankfully none of the muggleborns in their class had returned to Hogwarts that year. Merlin knows what would have happened to them if they had.
And he had been furious when he’d seen what was done to Seamus and Luna.
But he hadn't reacted like this.
Hadn't felt this overwhelming urge to seek revenge.
So why did he feel it for Pansy?
He knew the answer.
Because they'd all known what they were signing up for when they restarted Dumbledore’s Army. They'd accepted the risks with clear minds.
But Pansy...had made a split-second decision to protect him and had paid the price for it with her body. With her blood.
The knowledge invoked something primal in him.
Something he'd never felt for a witch before, let alone for Pansy Parkinson.
“I have a salve,” he said finally, deciding to ignore all the confusing feelings rolling through him. For now anyway. The most important thing was healing her. “Madam Pomfrey gave it to me for injuries like this. Will you wait here while I go and get it?”
“Madam Pomfrey gave you healing creams?” Pansy questioned suspiciously. “Why wouldn't she just have you go to the Hospital Wing?”
Neville gently lowered her shirt back down. Pansy turned back around and crossed her arms over her chest, looking uncomfortable but trying to hide it.
“She can't be seen openly helping us otherwise Snape will dismiss her and then we’ll have no one to help with some of the more severe injuries,” he explained.
She considered his words before seeming to accept them. She nodded once.
“I'll be right back,” he promised and then he was gone, slipping back into the corridor.
Neville had never run so fast back to Gryffindor Tower before in his life.
His path was slowed having to hide from patrolling prefects and professors, but he finally reached the Fat Lady’s portrait. He took the stairs to the boy's dormitory two at a time, grabbed the salve from his trunk and sprinted back to the dungeons.
He had a fleeting thought as he rounded the final corner, that she might have left and just the thought alone caused a bolt of panic shoot through him.
Neville breathed out audibly in relief when he ducked under the curtain and found her waiting for him.
He gave her a lopsided grin and held up the small jar.
“Got it,” he said.
Pansy looked distinctly unimpressed, but he could have sworn he saw the corner of her mouth twitch.
“Ten points to Gryffindor,” she drawled.
Neville rolled his eyes and motioned for her to turn around.
She let out an exasperated sigh but did as she was bid.
Just as before, Neville lifted her shirt, murmuring apologies as the fabric brushed the gashes on her back.
He unscrewed the lid to the jar.
“This will hurt at first, but it will feel loads better after, I promise,” he told her earnestly.
All he got in response was a jerky nod.
He took that as permission to continue.
Pansy’s muffled sob the moment he pressed the salve on the shallowest part of the lowest lash, made something clench around his heart.
“Sorry,” he murmured. “I’m sorry.”
She didn't say anything and he guessed she was trying not to make any more noises that would reveal how much pain she was in.
Neville tried his best to be quick about it.
But when he reached the deepest part of the second cut, Pansy bowed forward, flinching away from him and curling into herself.
“I'm so fucking sorry, Pansy,” he whispered.
He paused to give her some reprieve and a chance to gather herself. He knew she would hate seeming weak, even though pain was not a sign of weakness, at least not to Neville. It was a sign she'd survived.
The only sound between them for several minutes was that of soft sniffling.
“Just do it,” she finally whispered hoarsely.
Neville took a deep breath and began again.
When it was over, he lowered her shirt back down over the healing skin that was now a deep pink instead of oozing blood. He cast a cleansing charm on her shirt, vanishing the blood stains.
He felt an overwhelming urge to say something.
Anything.
“You can't get it wet for twelve hours so you'll need to sponge bathe.”
Brilliant.
That was what he came up with?
He groaned internally.
Suddenly and without his permission, images of Pansy and her creamy soft skin as she lay in a bathtub covered with bubbles filled his mind.
He needed to find a cold shower. Now.
There was no mistaking the amusement that danced in her dark eyes as she turned back around to face him and he knew his cheeks had turned bright red.
“Are you offering to help, Longbottom?” She asked, dragging her gaze over him suggestively.
He gaped at her.
When she laughed, it took him by surprise, and he suddenly realized that he'd never heard Pansy Parkinson laugh before unless she was mocking or making fun of someone.
He frowned.
Was she making fun of him?
She laughed again and reached for her robes.
“Don't get your trousers in a twist Longbottom, it's called flirting. It doesn’t mean anything.”
That only dumbfounded him more.
Flirting?
She was flirting with him?
Pansy laughed again and Neville realized how deeply his brows had knitted together as he thought long and hard, trying to remember if anyone had ever flirted with him.
Why did she have such a nice laugh?
It was soft and tinkling, like bells.
Why did he want to hear it again?
Fuck.
He shook his head.
Get a grip, he told himself sternly.
Not trusting himself to speak, Neville settled for helping her into her robes instead.
Together, they peeked out into the corridor.
“This time of night the Carrows are usually in the kitchen, stuffing their faces, so you’ll only have to worry about the prefects,” he said quietly, looking both ways before stepping out and motioning Pansy to follow him. “But tonight, its Slytherin and Ravenclaw on patrol so even if you get caught, none of them should give you too much trouble.”
Pansy looked up at him with a singular raised eyebrow.
The look on her face said, ‘why the hell do you know so much about the nightly activities of everyone in the castle?’
Neville shrugged.
“If you’re going to start an underground rebellion, it helps to know those sorts of things,” he said.
Pansy eyed him for a minute longer and then she shook her head, muttering something under her breath about self sacrificing Gryffindor’s before turning and heading in the direction he knew the Slytherin common room to be.
“Pansy!” he called after her.
She paused, turning to look at him over her shoulder.
He grinned at her.
“Tomorrow night, come to the seventh-floor corridor.”
She wrinkled her nose.
“And why would I do that?”
His grin widened.
“You'll see.”