Fic: "Anodos," Neville/Hannah, G
Title: Anodos
Author: kethlenda
Disclaimer: None of this is mine, not even the garden, which really exists.
Pairing: Neville/Hannah
Word count: 1,362
Rating: G
Warnings: Fluff, and gratuitous use of St. Louis, Missouri.
Summary: Hannah has been hiding from the world since her mother's death, but one day a chance meeting changes everything.
A/N: Old-ish. Written for jenw118 in the nevillosity Late Bloomer Ficathon. Thanks to sionnain for looking this over.
He very nearly didn't see her. Later, years later, he would wonder how different life might have been if he hadn't glanced away from the garden's green allure for that one fateful moment.
Neville had been ignoring the buildings on this visit for the most part. He'd detoured here for the plants, a brief diversion on his way to see a Horcrux expert in the Central West End. St. Louis, you say? Why, you simply must see the gardens, Professor Sprout had said when he'd told her where but not why.
No, it wasn't the buildings that interested him; nor the statues either. To Neville, all these works of the human hand paled beside the profusion of leaf and bud and blossom that surrounded him. Why waste time lingering over the greenhouse when the portals were overhung with honeysuckle that smelled good enough to eat? (He did, too--abashed but seduced, pulling out the little stalk and tasting the drop of sweetness the flower yielded.) Why worship at the feet--or rather, the fins--of the little Amphitrite when her clear little pool lay in the midst of a flood of camellias?
Yet there was something about her almost childlike face that drew him, and he gently picked up a fallen calyx from the flagstones and tucked it over the statue's ear, right where she lifted a sculpted shell to hear the sound of the far-off sea.
It was the Persephone he almost didn't notice, some time later, past the greenhouse and past the bright nodding heads of the narcissi, on his way to what they called an English Garden. He wasn't looking at the stately house of buff stone standing alone in an empty field of grass; he was busy wondering what sort of thing these American Muggles might create in the name of his home country.
He never was quite sure, afterward, what had turned his head--a random gurgle of the fountain; perhaps a glance of sunlight against the verdigris-tarnished lady who presided over it?
***
This sculpture is believed to represent Persephone, daughter of the grain goddess Demeter. When Persephone was abducted by Hades, god of the underworld, Demeter's grief was so great that she withdrew her blessings from the earth, causing a devastating famine. Demeter and Hades came to a compromise, agreeing that Persephone should spend half the year with her mother and half with her husband. This was the ancient Greeks' explanation for why the earth is fertile half the year, and barren the other half.
Persephone is depicted here with angel's wings; the figures on her pedestal represent Cerberus, the many-headed dog who guards the entrance to the Underworld.
Hannah sat curled on the cool marble of the fountain's edge, soothed by the regular percussion of water pouring from the two pitchers in the angel's outstretched arms. The statue rather reminded Hannah of a card in Professor Trelawney's Tarot deck: The Star, a card of peace and healing.
I could use a bit of that, thought Hannah, drawing her knees up tighter under her bum. The Muggles believed in her; maybe she can do me some good.
It struck her as funny suddenly that wizards named their children for myriad gods but didn't seem to believe much in any of them. Then again, what need for gods when one can conjure miracles from dead air?
She lost her mum, too. It was her that died, and left her mother behind, instead of the other way around, but really, it's the same thing. It didn't matter which one crossed the Styx and which one watched, bereft, from the shore. Lost was lost.
Oh, buck up, Hannah, she told herself. They sent you here to get you away from the war, and what do you do? Cry like a firstie over statues of forgotten goddesses.
"Hullo," said a voice, a male voice, and strangely familiar. She looked up to see an old familiar face.
***
He found her seated at Persephone's feet, staring into the distance with a haunted sort of look in her eyes, her golden hair braided into a crown around her head. He knew her face: there was Dumbledore's Army, of course, and before that, a thousand glimpses of her between fern fronds or over Mimbulus pods. However, it was the last face he expected to see here.
"Hullo," he said. "Hannah?"
She looked up, a little dazed. Her eyes were the color of the sky. "Neville Longbottom?"
"Yeah," he said, feeling out of place, not sure what to say next. He wondered if maybe he shouldn't have bothered her. "What are you doing here?" he asked, and wanted to jinx himself. Merlin, he sounded like he was conducting a Ministry interrogation.
"My gram's from here," she said. "After…after what happened, my dad sent me here to live with her. Reckoned it'd be safer."
"I'm sorry about your mum," he said, because it was the only thing he could think of to say. He wished he was one of those blokes who always had clever things to say to pretty women.
She gave him a half-smile. "I miss her. But I'm sure you've been there, too."
Neville blinked. Never had anyone so explicitly touched on his past before. He;d never been sure if they didn’t care or if they felt awkward bringing it up--or maybe didn’t even know, since it wasn't like he'd talked about it any more than he had to.
He nodded. He wanted to hug Hannah. "I have. I miss them, even though--" Even though they're still there.
She patted the edge of the fountain next to her, bidding him to sit down, and he did. Strange, how he'd just been invited to talk about his parents for the first time in memory, and he didn’t feel the need to. Hannah knew what it was like--there was no need to try to put into words what just couldn’t be put into words--and her simple acknowledgement was enough.
"I still think we're going to stop him," he said finally after a long silence. "That's what I'm here for, you see. I'm to talk with this witch they think might have information for us."
***
"I ought to keep up with the papers," Hannah said ruefully, seeing the grim determination that briefly crossed Neville's face. It wasn't that she didn't want to know how the war was going. It was more that she was worried about putting Gram in danger. Owls delivering the news to the little Muggle house in South County--it wasn't to be thought of.
Mum was a Muggle, too. Innocent. It didn’t help her any, when they set their sights on her.
Neville must have noticed her silence, the wry twist of her lips, because next thing she knew, his hand was resting warm and strangely right on hers.
She glanced at the angel's face, calm but filled with a boundless compassion. The water spilled out in endless benediction. Be brave, and be happy, the goddess seemed to say, and she was Persephone and Demeter and Mum and Hannah's inner self all in one. She thought of these past months, insulated here against the world in all its pain and danger and beauty, and she knew she had to go back and do what she could against…against You-Know-Who. Any safety was an illusion, until he was gone.
The thought filled her with restless energy; she hadn’t felt this strong, this defiant, since she'd first set foot in the Hog's Head to join Potter's secret society. "I feel like walking," she said to Neville. "Come on."
She almost didn't notice their hands were still linked. It just seemed to be as it should be.
Hannah did notice when they wandered through the little brick greenhouse and Neville plucked a brilliant pink flower from behind a stone mermaid's ear, and tucked it into Hannah's hair instead. Later, much later, she would ask him what it meant, and he would mutter something about how Professor Sprout told him that camellia stood for perfection.
At that moment, however, all she said was, “I’m coming back with you, all right?”
Author: kethlenda
Disclaimer: None of this is mine, not even the garden, which really exists.
Pairing: Neville/Hannah
Word count: 1,362
Rating: G
Warnings: Fluff, and gratuitous use of St. Louis, Missouri.
Summary: Hannah has been hiding from the world since her mother's death, but one day a chance meeting changes everything.
A/N: Old-ish. Written for jenw118 in the nevillosity Late Bloomer Ficathon. Thanks to sionnain for looking this over.
He very nearly didn't see her. Later, years later, he would wonder how different life might have been if he hadn't glanced away from the garden's green allure for that one fateful moment.
Neville had been ignoring the buildings on this visit for the most part. He'd detoured here for the plants, a brief diversion on his way to see a Horcrux expert in the Central West End. St. Louis, you say? Why, you simply must see the gardens, Professor Sprout had said when he'd told her where but not why.
No, it wasn't the buildings that interested him; nor the statues either. To Neville, all these works of the human hand paled beside the profusion of leaf and bud and blossom that surrounded him. Why waste time lingering over the greenhouse when the portals were overhung with honeysuckle that smelled good enough to eat? (He did, too--abashed but seduced, pulling out the little stalk and tasting the drop of sweetness the flower yielded.) Why worship at the feet--or rather, the fins--of the little Amphitrite when her clear little pool lay in the midst of a flood of camellias?
Yet there was something about her almost childlike face that drew him, and he gently picked up a fallen calyx from the flagstones and tucked it over the statue's ear, right where she lifted a sculpted shell to hear the sound of the far-off sea.
It was the Persephone he almost didn't notice, some time later, past the greenhouse and past the bright nodding heads of the narcissi, on his way to what they called an English Garden. He wasn't looking at the stately house of buff stone standing alone in an empty field of grass; he was busy wondering what sort of thing these American Muggles might create in the name of his home country.
He never was quite sure, afterward, what had turned his head--a random gurgle of the fountain; perhaps a glance of sunlight against the verdigris-tarnished lady who presided over it?
***
This sculpture is believed to represent Persephone, daughter of the grain goddess Demeter. When Persephone was abducted by Hades, god of the underworld, Demeter's grief was so great that she withdrew her blessings from the earth, causing a devastating famine. Demeter and Hades came to a compromise, agreeing that Persephone should spend half the year with her mother and half with her husband. This was the ancient Greeks' explanation for why the earth is fertile half the year, and barren the other half.
Persephone is depicted here with angel's wings; the figures on her pedestal represent Cerberus, the many-headed dog who guards the entrance to the Underworld.
Hannah sat curled on the cool marble of the fountain's edge, soothed by the regular percussion of water pouring from the two pitchers in the angel's outstretched arms. The statue rather reminded Hannah of a card in Professor Trelawney's Tarot deck: The Star, a card of peace and healing.
I could use a bit of that, thought Hannah, drawing her knees up tighter under her bum. The Muggles believed in her; maybe she can do me some good.
It struck her as funny suddenly that wizards named their children for myriad gods but didn't seem to believe much in any of them. Then again, what need for gods when one can conjure miracles from dead air?
She lost her mum, too. It was her that died, and left her mother behind, instead of the other way around, but really, it's the same thing. It didn't matter which one crossed the Styx and which one watched, bereft, from the shore. Lost was lost.
Oh, buck up, Hannah, she told herself. They sent you here to get you away from the war, and what do you do? Cry like a firstie over statues of forgotten goddesses.
"Hullo," said a voice, a male voice, and strangely familiar. She looked up to see an old familiar face.
***
He found her seated at Persephone's feet, staring into the distance with a haunted sort of look in her eyes, her golden hair braided into a crown around her head. He knew her face: there was Dumbledore's Army, of course, and before that, a thousand glimpses of her between fern fronds or over Mimbulus pods. However, it was the last face he expected to see here.
"Hullo," he said. "Hannah?"
She looked up, a little dazed. Her eyes were the color of the sky. "Neville Longbottom?"
"Yeah," he said, feeling out of place, not sure what to say next. He wondered if maybe he shouldn't have bothered her. "What are you doing here?" he asked, and wanted to jinx himself. Merlin, he sounded like he was conducting a Ministry interrogation.
"My gram's from here," she said. "After…after what happened, my dad sent me here to live with her. Reckoned it'd be safer."
"I'm sorry about your mum," he said, because it was the only thing he could think of to say. He wished he was one of those blokes who always had clever things to say to pretty women.
She gave him a half-smile. "I miss her. But I'm sure you've been there, too."
Neville blinked. Never had anyone so explicitly touched on his past before. He;d never been sure if they didn’t care or if they felt awkward bringing it up--or maybe didn’t even know, since it wasn't like he'd talked about it any more than he had to.
He nodded. He wanted to hug Hannah. "I have. I miss them, even though--" Even though they're still there.
She patted the edge of the fountain next to her, bidding him to sit down, and he did. Strange, how he'd just been invited to talk about his parents for the first time in memory, and he didn’t feel the need to. Hannah knew what it was like--there was no need to try to put into words what just couldn’t be put into words--and her simple acknowledgement was enough.
"I still think we're going to stop him," he said finally after a long silence. "That's what I'm here for, you see. I'm to talk with this witch they think might have information for us."
***
"I ought to keep up with the papers," Hannah said ruefully, seeing the grim determination that briefly crossed Neville's face. It wasn't that she didn't want to know how the war was going. It was more that she was worried about putting Gram in danger. Owls delivering the news to the little Muggle house in South County--it wasn't to be thought of.
Mum was a Muggle, too. Innocent. It didn’t help her any, when they set their sights on her.
Neville must have noticed her silence, the wry twist of her lips, because next thing she knew, his hand was resting warm and strangely right on hers.
She glanced at the angel's face, calm but filled with a boundless compassion. The water spilled out in endless benediction. Be brave, and be happy, the goddess seemed to say, and she was Persephone and Demeter and Mum and Hannah's inner self all in one. She thought of these past months, insulated here against the world in all its pain and danger and beauty, and she knew she had to go back and do what she could against…against You-Know-Who. Any safety was an illusion, until he was gone.
The thought filled her with restless energy; she hadn’t felt this strong, this defiant, since she'd first set foot in the Hog's Head to join Potter's secret society. "I feel like walking," she said to Neville. "Come on."
She almost didn't notice their hands were still linked. It just seemed to be as it should be.
Hannah did notice when they wandered through the little brick greenhouse and Neville plucked a brilliant pink flower from behind a stone mermaid's ear, and tucked it into Hannah's hair instead. Later, much later, she would ask him what it meant, and he would mutter something about how Professor Sprout told him that camellia stood for perfection.
At that moment, however, all she said was, “I’m coming back with you, all right?”