Fic: "As Long as We're Happy" (Neville Longbottom/Pansy Parkinson, PG-13)

[katie_flint]

Title: As Long as We're Happy
Author: katie_flint
Prompt: SlytherdorNet's New Beginings Challenge
Character(s)/Pairing(s): Neville Longbottom/Pansy Parkinson
Rating/Tone: PG-13, Angst with Happy Ending
Word count: 1,122
Warnings: N/A
Summary: Neville realizes he has something to discuss with the woman he's been seeing, Pansy Parkinson...
Notes: I've never actually thought about this ship but last night something overcame me and I spent all day making a moodboard and a one-shot for them! Moodboard here. I hope you enjoy this and it'll definitely be interesting to see if I return to this couple. I hope I did alright with Pansy's characterization! I normally perceive her as a "badass bitch" but here I definitely wanted to exhibit a more intimate, vulnerable Pansy. Enjoy day Three of 365 days of Fics!

“I’m damaged,” Pansy whispers one morning, so hushed, she almost hopes Neville won’t hear it.

He stirs, and from underneath the covers, his grip around her stomach tightens.

“Why would you say that?” He mumbles, his face buried in her muddled hair.  She can tell he’s barely awake and she almost hopes he’ll return to sleep, forgetting she ever said those words.

“Because they always leave me in the morning, or the days after. I’m not like you, I’m not a hero of Hogwarts,” Pansy’s desperately in love with what she can’t have, the love of someone good. And she’s tragically afraid to ask for it. Even when he’s right beside her, “I’m what’s leftover when the dust settles.”

“We’re all leftover,” Neville’s voice is a soft rumble, like the roar of a thunderstorm in the distance, “but I’m still here.”

“For how long?” Pansy asks the peaking morning light out the bedroom window. He can’t see her face, but he feels her breathing shallow with uncertainty. As though she’s afraid of what might come next, already answering the question half a dozen different ways inside her own head.

“As long as you’d like me to be,” Neville’s words are simple but definitive.

Pansy’s not the girl she once was, and Neville’s not the boy she knew. Whatever this is that’s developing between them is infinitely better than what used to be, Pansy thinks between her thoughts of self-doubt. And she cautiously considers, it might be nice to see how it plays out, for a little while.

She’ll be cautious, because she’s had her heartbroken far too many times, and because the lion curled around her is so gentle, she can hardly imagine him hurting a fly.

That’s how she’s knows Neville Longbottom, one day, is going to break her heart.

---

Neville’s always so kind to her, even though Pansy’s certain she doesn’t deserve it.

He returns from his morning routine with a tray of assorted breakfast items, and places it carefully onto the duvet.

“Pansy,” he says as she reaches delicately over to the plate of food, “I think we should talk.”

Her lips tighten, and she forces herself to smile, to stop them from trembling. She didn’t think things would be ending this soon.

“Alright,” Pansy places the slice of toast back onto the tray. She wasn’t very hungry anyway.

“What you said this morning…” Neville begins, and Pansy’s heart jolts uncomfortably. Oh, why couldn’t she have kept her mouth shut? Just this once? Things were going so well, and she almost felt as though Neville was really beginning to care for her, after she’d already fallen for him,

“I don’t think we’re understanding each other very well.”

Ashamed of herself and feeling the crushing weight of disappointment settling in, Pansy feigns an innocent front. It’ll hurt less if she pretends not to know, “What do you mean?”

“Well, you seem to be, under this impression that this… That I am… That I’m using you. Which I’m not,” Neville seems to be struggling to find his words but he doesn’t sound unsure of himself. In fact, he sounds rather determined to get his meaning just right, “Pansy. This wasn’t my plan, and being honest, I never even considered the possibility before that night we remet but, it doesn’t change my feelings now. I’m here, because I want to be with you.”

“You don’t mean that,” Pansy says before she can think. She’s heard similar things before, said by various exes, and it’s hardened her heart in a way she finds rather unpleasant. But Neville isn’t those other people, and he doesn’t respond to her outburst with immediate persistence.

Instead, he holds her gaze until she’s forced to look away, reddening under the hair that falls into her face. He reaches out for her hand methodically and patiently, giving her ample opportunity to pull away.

Gently, he coaxes her out from under the sheets and into his lap, her legs resting on either side of him. It’s intimate, but not sexually charged, and Pansy feels her heart throbbing erratically inside her chest,

“Yes, I do, Pansy Parkinson. I want to be with you.”

Pansy’s afraid to look into his eyes again, but with their faces so close, she can’t help looking anywhere else.

He looks, sincere. And Pansy doesn’t know what to do.

It should be simple, accepting what he’s saying to her, but for Pansy it’s anything but. Her mind stalls and restarts, her eyes watering as she contemplates the possibility.

Neville’s patient, and doesn’t seem alarmed by the welling emotions. He maneuvers a hand in between the two of them, wiping away the tears that fall, planting kisses tenderly on the trails left behind.

A floodgate opens within Pansy in response to such kindness, and she breaks down completely. She sobs, and sobs, crushing her nose against Neville’s clavicle but not caring about the uncomfortable sensation. She shakes, her entire body giving way to an uneven trembling as she sporadically gasps for the air to continue.

Finally, after Neville’s shirt has been drenched in her tears, and she finds herself unable to cry any longer, Pansy raises her head to meet Neville’s doting gaze.

“For as long as I’d like?” Her voice is a wreck and it cracks in all the wrong places but Pansy doesn’t care.

Neville nods, brushing a brunette lock away from her face, “For as long as you’d like, and we’re happy.”

“That may be a very long time,” Pansy warns with bated breath.

“I’m counting on it,” He smiles, so carefree and easy that it’s impossible to deny his innate charm.

“Does this mean I can tell the girls at the Prophet?” A childish query, it’s something Pansy’s wanted to do for quite some time. Only, she couldn’t bring herself to potentially ruin her standing with Neville, or hurt his teaching application at Hogwarts.

Neville’s head falls back and a good, belly rolling laugh ushers from his lips, “To be honest, I already thought you had.”

“No, I was afraid it might hurt your chances of teaching, being associated with a journalist like me,” Aside from the discredit her name could bring, Pansy’s work also tended to be… Less than ethical; taking after her mentor, Rita Skeeter. But, as she often defended herself and her gossip column, at least she was much fairer than the Queen of the Quills tended to be.

“Tell them tomorrow, tell everyone, anyone you want. I want to be with you Pansy Parkinson, and I don’t care who knows it.”

He kisses her then, and it tastes bitter with the salt of her tears, but it’s the sweetest kiss she’s ever received.

And she never wants it to end.