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Title: Sticky Toffee Pudding
Author: Vegablack62
Characters: Neville, Alice
Rating: G
Wordcount: 302
Summary: Stick Toffee Pudding can make a mess.
Author's note: This was written for the clean prompt at the sq_drabblers community on lj.
Neville sometimes thought that his mother knew what was inside people’s minds, that she could still do legilimency, but in a crude, crazy, unthinking way.
One time third year when he’d come to visit St. Mungo’s in trouble and depressed from all the disasters at school, she’d stared at him for a moment and then run over to pat his shoulder as if to comfort him. Only her hands were covered with gran’s sticky toffee pudding, so of course, she smeared the pudding all over his shoulder, and the collar of his robes, which made him angry. He felt it was unfair that on top of everything he had to put up with pudding dripping down his neck.
He wanted to push her away and shout at her to leave him alone, but he didn’t. He hadn’t sunk so low that he could be nasty to his poor demented mother, who carried inside her head her own private dementors. For some reason, she was happy that day and he couldn’t spoil it.
He led her over to the ward sink and grabbed a wet cloth to wash her fingers, but she wouldn’t let him. She pulled her hands away to lick them clean, grinning while she did it. He smiled back and started to clean the mess from his neck and sleeve. She dropped her hand from her mouth and tried to tidy him up, helping like a mum, a clumsy, messy mum who had no idea how to do it right. He started to laugh and then she laughed too. They laughed together; two clumsy messy people covered in toffee pudding.
Neville could never tell other people a story like that. They wouldn’t understand. They would think it was funny or feel sorry for him. He kept such moments to himself.