Fic: War Wounds, Nev/Lav
Title: War Wounds
Author/Artist:
ozma_katiebell
Gift For:
wook77 Written for
smutty_claus
Pairing(s): Neville/Lavender
Summary: Neville's already had his hero's trial. How hard could telling a girl you fancy her be?
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: None
Author/Artist's notes: Recipient wanted DH compliant, post-DH, in-character characterizations, realistic story, kissing (loads and loads of kissing), falling-in-love, exploration of Lavender's injuries if you go the Lavender route, kick ass take names!Neville, romance (but please not over the top romance novel sort of romance), can be angst but I'd like a happy-ish ending at the least.
I did my best with the characterizations, but in this story, Neville isn't quite kick-ass, even if he gets the job done in the end.
Huge thanks to Jen and Katie for the (very last minute) beta jobs!
What was it about Lavender Brown, anyway?
She was in a different Quidditch league altogether, for one thing. Not that she played Quidditch, mind you, nor did he, for that matter. Maybe if he had, he might have stood a chance, but the fact was, he was too afraid to fly, too afraid to even try again since he’d made such an ass of himself. He’d had quite enough time spent looking foolish and weak, thank you very much. No need to seek it out, was there?
So, yeah, anyway, about Lavender.
Totally out of his league. Beautiful, some said shallow, possibly brainless, but completely out of his reach. That didn’t stop his heart from speeding up when he saw her and his stomach from twisting into a knot, of course. And he didn’t even want to think about that time when the third button of her shirt had come undone and he caught a glimpse of lace underneath it. Let alone the dream he had later that night where she’d smiled at him and tossed her hair a bit and slowly unbuttoned the fourth, fifth and sixth buttons, then let the shirt slide off her shoulders…
Off the subject, again. But not really, because it should be clear at this point that he spent a lot of time thinking about her. And looking at her. And he did know it was hopeless, he just…couldn’t help it. She was mesmerizing.
He never did learn to talk with girls. Hell, if Harry and Ron had trouble with it, how did someone who had absolutely nothing to offer manage it?
Well, there was Ginny. She was easy to talk to. Maybe it was because Neville never had any expectations there-she’d been in love with Harry practically since she was born, and nobody else had a chance to be anything but practice for the real thing.
And Hermione had been okay from the beginning, too. As long as a person let her feel that she was helping or teaching them, it made her feel good about herself, and she had all the patience in the world. Plus, she felt really guilty about that body bind she did back in first year.
Then there was Luna, and Luna was, well, special. Best friends didn’t really count as girls, did they? She’d never made him nervous because he didn’t think of her as girlfriend material. And besides, Luna had always seemed beyond such labels. She was just…Luna.
Lavender, on the other hand was impossible to talk to. For one thing, she always seemed to have Parvati nearby, and trying to talk to two pretty girls was ten times more intimidating than one at a time. And then there was all that giggling, where you didn’t know if she was laughing just to be friendly, or if she was nervous, or if she was laughing at you.
So he’d just watched, and in watching, maybe got to know a little more about her than most people knew. For one thing, she was far cleverer than she got credit for. It was just hard to see when Hermione always had her hand in the air. Plus, she didn’t brag about her marks in spite of the fact that they were generally good. It just…wasn’t important enough to mention, apparently.
He also noticed that she was warm. He saw it in the affection she showed to her best friend and the way that she’d cared so much about that unfortunate rabbit of hers, and the way she’d held Trevor and patted his head when she’d brought him down from the girls’ dormitories. Some girls might have been repulsed, and maybe the younger version of Lavender might have been too, but she’d grown up a lot, and…well, it surprised him, anyway.
Some people called her shrill and clingy and needy, especially after her behavior with Ron, but to Neville, well-it seemed one more example of her warmth and passion and loyalty. If Ron didn’t have the bollocks to admit he was using her and let her go, who could blame her for being hurt and confused? She’d had a boyfriend who seemed to want to avoid her, but she wasn’t willing to let go without a fight. Nor was she willing to be made a fool of. If Neville had got the chance Ron threw away, he’d…
Well, that was the whole sodding, point, wasn’t it? Out of his league. Never gonna get the chance, was he?
Except…
All of a sudden, because he’d beheaded a snake-well, it was really strange, wasn’t it? Girls were looking at him and they had something that looked suspiciously like admiration in their eyes rather than pity or derision. It ought to have made him happy, but it made him more self-conscious than anything. And that wasn’t even mentioning the pretty sixth year Hufflepuff who’d offered to…well, ‘blow’ him earlier this morning. She’d approached him in after breakfast and offered to find a deserted corridor and do it then and there. In fact, she’d grabbed his bollocks in demonstration, which had been…well, not arousing, anyway.
But Lavender?
She wouldn’t even look at him anymore, and she’d actually begun to do just that (at least a little) in the previous year. She looked at him for guidance, for leadership, though technically never in admiration. And not the way she used to look at Ron as he played, anyway. But now-well she wasn’t looking at anyone much, was she? Mostly, she was looking at her hands or her lap or the food she pushed around her plate.
Because Neville’s big heroic moment had finally come while she was trying to recover from werewolf bites. That’s what he’d heard, anyway. She wasn’t talking about it, nor was Parvati. Bites from a non-transformed werewolf. Which meant, well-scars-at least that’s what Hermione said. Scars and a fondness for red meat, possibly. And wolfish tendencies. It was hard to imagine Lavender wolfish. Cat-like, maybe, but not wolfish. But the scars were an issue. How bad could they be? He was afraid to ask, and all you could see on her face was a gash.
And now, for all intents and purposes, Neville could have any number of girls in any capacity he wanted, just not the one he wanted. He was afraid, because even if she would look at him differently for his snake-smiting skills, would she ever believe he didn’t feel sorry for her?
It was impossible. Even horribly scarred, she was out of his league. Not that he didn’t feel sorry for her, nor that it made a bit of difference to how he felt about her, but…why did these things have to get so complicated?
For that matter, why was he hiding behind a tree, feeling hopeless and inadequate when Lavender was sitting alone by the lake, looking miserable?
He’d faced Voldemort head-on. He’d been set on fire and lived to tell the tale. He’d been made to look like an idiot in front of hundreds of people and come out looking like a hero. He could certainly approach a girl, right? Anyway, she looked like she needed a friend, and they had become friends (sort of) in the last year.
Five minutes later, he still hadn’t come up with a viable excuse for seeking her out, so he just approached her, smiling a bit when she turned to look at him and then plopping ungracefully down on the ground beside her. She didn’t say anything, and he had an overwhelming urge to fill in the void with an apology-for interrupting her solitude, for stirring the dust on the ground, for existing. That’s what the old Neville would have done, but he was pretty much done with that sort of thing. He knew he had something to offer her, even if it was just a listening ear.
He thought about asking how she was, but somehow that seemed to be tantamount to asking about what happened, which seemed to be a mistake. He tried to come up with some pithy, encouraging cliché-something about life going on or something, but none come to mind. Probably wouldn’t help much anyway. They never did.
So, eventually, he just reached over and took her hand. Luna had taught him about that, actually. Holding someone’s hand could mean any number of things, but it always seemed to make things better. It made you feel connected to someone, less alone. It was warmth and affection and encouragement in just the right dose. At least, that’s how Neville hoped Lavender would take it.
She turned to look at him but he didn’t meet her eyes, just gave her hand an extra squeeze. She didn’t pull away, which was encouraging.
It was agony not to say anything, but it seemed vitally important to keep his mouth shut and let her talk when she was ready. At least that way he wouldn’t say anything stupid, right?
“Hi,” she finally said, and when he turned to look at her he noticed tears running slowly down her cheeks. He reached over to brush a tear aside with his free hand, and then, cursing himself for a fool, reached into his sleeve for his wand and conjured a handkerchief. Her eyes widened and she gave him half a smile when she took it.
“Feeling sorry for myself,” she admitted after wiping her eyes and blowing her nose.
Neville nodded and gave her hand another squeeze.
“I’m sick of everybody looking at me and pretending not to look,” she sniffed.
Not knowing what else to do, Neville just met her eyes directly, which was…well, bloody hard, because he’d spent the last seven years not letting her see him look.
“The Healer told me I ought to be happy to be alive and that I’m being very vain about it all,” she explained. “And Parvati-well, she always looks as if she’s going to start crying any minute. She says it’s not that bad, but how would she know? She’s still just as pretty as she ever was.”
Neville nodded again, gripping her hand tightly and feeling utterly useless.
“I just…had to get away from all the staring, and the hovering and…”
Neville picked up a stone with his free hand, trying to let it skip across the water. It didn’t, of course, and he frowned. “They’re staring at me, too,” he said, and instantly regretted it. There was no comparison because people were staring at him because they thought he’d done something cool and with Lavender it was pity. It wasn’t as if he liked it-at least not after the first hour or so. He’d never sought out public scrutiny, and the fact that he was being held up rather than put down didn’t make it any less uncomfortable.
“I’m sorry,” he muttered, letting go of her hand. “I hate it when people say they understand when there’s no possible way they can.” Which was why he never wanted people to know about his parents' condition, he supposed.
“I used to love it,” she said after a long pause. “Attention, I mean. Used to do whatever I could to get it.”
Neville might have liked to contradict her, but he thought of her marathon public snog sessions with Ron Weasley and simply laughed softly. He wasn’t going to reward uncharacteristic honesty with false protestations. She was a bit of an attention whore, and he’d not minded it all that much. In fact, he found it fascinating.
“You must think I’m the shallowest, most pathetic-”
Looking at his feet, he tried to think of a reply. I think you’re brilliant, was on the tip of his tongue but it sounded inadequate to him. It was one of those things people always said to make someone feel better.
I think I love you might have been close to the truth, but that was just plain pathetic, and now he had that ridiculous Muggle song Uncle Algie used to sing stuck in his head.
So what am I so afraid of? He swallowed, turning to meet her eyes again. Clearly she was waiting for him to say whether or not he thought her shallow. He did-or he had in the past, because that was the image she presented. He knew there was more to her than that, but how was he going to tell her how much he did know about her without letting on that he’d been watching? Watching a lot.
“I think-” Neville looked down at her mouth, wondering if he’d ever see her smile-really smile-again. He let his eyes drift over to the gash on her cheek, where it continued down her neck and disappeared under her collar, which was buttoned all the way to the top. Oh, how he missed those two open buttons. There was a heart-shaped pendant hidden underneath them, he knew, and he figured she must have treasured it, because she wore it every day.
When he looked back up at her mouth, he noticed her lower lip was trembling, and his eyes darted up to meet hers. He’d let the silence drag on too long, apparently.
“I think-” He swore under his breath and screwed his eyes shut, leaning forward and somehow managing to bump his lips against hers by sheer luck.
She went completely still, and when he pulled away, she was looking at him with eyes as big as those fussy saucers in Trelawney’s classroom. He’d buggered it up, of course. He shouldn’t have closed his eyes-she probably thought it was because he was repulsed rather than terrified.
He did the only thing he could think of to prove otherwise-he moved close again, keeping his eyes wide open as he traced the line of her gash with his finger. He wanted very badly to kiss her again, so he leant towards her and aimed for her mouth, this time only closing his eyes when he felt her warm breath against his lips.
The second kiss was much better. It didn’t resemble kisses you were forced to give smelly old Aunt Agnes where you were trying hard not to breathe. It was softer-he felt his lower lip catch on hers a bit until he pressed forward and captured some of the moisture on the inside of her lip to ease the way.
For some reason it was harder this time to open his eyes and look at her as he pulled away. Because now there was no getting around the fact that he’d kissed her because he wanted to.
Oh, how desperately he’d wanted to.
She looked as if she’d been betrayed. Her eyes had begun to well up again and that lower lip was quivering like a Flutterby bush.
Neville sighed. He’d buggered it up after all. Still out of his league, apparently.
“I’m sorry-” he started, just as she was saying, “I don’t want-“ and he stopped apologizing, feeling as if his heart had been skewered.
“I never meant,” he began again, as she finished, “…a pity snog, Longbottom!” which caused him stop apologizing and ask, “Wait, what?”
“I don’t need your pity, thank you very much, and I-”
I love you, his mind was screaming, but he managed to tone it down a bit by the time the thought made it to his mouth. “I fancy you like mad, Lavender. Always have, and I thought-” He sucked in a breath before his head exploded from a lack of oxygen.
“You thought what?” she asked, looking suspicious.
“I thought that maybe now you’d-”
“Now that no one else wants me, I’d be willing to-” She stopped abruptly, shutting her eyes tight.
Neville sighed. “Yeah, right. Always knew it was hopeless, I’ll just-”
He ran his hands through his hair in frustration. He didn’t want to run off with his tail between his legs. This was probably the last chance he was going to get.
“Neville, I-”
“It wasn’t the scars, Lavender, it was me. I didn’t think that you’d been lowered to my level, I thought that…maybe since I did what I did-well, not that you even saw that, but-bloody hell, Lavender! I faced Voldemort! He set me on fire. I thought that if I could do all that I could at least manage to tell the girl of my dreams how I felt, right? Everybody in the castle seems to think I’m worth something all of a sudden and I thought that maybe-after all this time you might think so too.”
“You-you weren’t just saying that to make me feel better?”
Neville shook his head in astonishment. “For pity’s sake, Lavender, sometimes I wonder if you really are as thick as…well, people seem to think you are.”
That got her back up. “”Excuse me? How am I supposed to know? For all I know you think I’m easy pickings because of what happened.”
Neville shook his head. “I just got offered…well, you don’t want to know what I just got offered. But I don’t want anyone else; I want you. You…you made me want to try stuff I never attempted just to be...maybe worthy of you.”
Lavender’s brows knit together and she shook her head. “You mean you did what you did...for me?”
“No-” Neville said, but admitted, “I did it for my parents, mostly, but also for me, and Gran, and Harry, and for the war and the school and-but, yeah, maybe a little part of me hoped you’d be impressed, too. Instead, I came back to find that you’d been mauled by that, that-we brought him down, you know? Ron and me. And I wanted to come to you and tell you I’d take care of you and that everything would be all right, but-I’m still not good enough, am I?”
“No,” she said in a small voice. “I’m not.”
“What?” he asked.
“I’m not good enough. I’ve spent my entire life getting by on my looks, and I don’t have them any more. What else have I got?”
Neville sighed and closed his eyes. “You’ve got…you’ve got…the fact that you fought when you could have run. You did the right thing; you defended your school and your friends. You helped change the world. And you’ve still got the most amazing smile I’ve ever seen, and your eyes, and your hair and your…” He shut up before he started rhapsodizing about her chest and bottom. “And besides, you’ve got me too. I’ve thought you were special for ages. You were always nice to me.”
“No, I wasn’t.”
“No, not at first, but if I dropped something, I knew you’d always help to pick it up, and…”
“Not as often as I should have. And I felt guilty this year, because you’d had to put up with so much and then last year we depended on you so much.”
“You were fairly amazing yourself, Lavender. I reckon Carrow’s bollocks will never be quite the same again.”
“Well, his sister made certain I paid for it, at least until you came and got me-I knew you’d come, Neville, you-”
Neville groaned, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her close. This was the kiss he’s imagined, hard and hot and wet and just a little bit desperate. But the bloody miracle was that she seemed nearly as desperate as he was: sighing and licking and pressing her chest against his, clutching his shoulders and digging in with her fingers. Maybe that wolf thing wasn’t so far off after all.
He was so thrilled to be getting a response from her that he almost didn’t notice when her enthusiasm waned. It hadn’t happened when he reached up to stroke her breast over the crisp cotton blouse-in fact, that got a moan of pleasure out of her-but when he went for the buttons, particularly that coveted third one, she was nearly as stiff as a board.
His first impulse was to think that she’d changed her mind about being with him, but she pulled his hand away from her buttons only to start working on his, which was certainly odd-he had no idea why anyone would want to look at him. She made quick work of the buttons with deft fingers, and suddenly he was feeling her warm, soft hands all over his chest and belly and it was bloody brilliant.
He wanted her to feel as good, and (if he was going to be perfectly honest) he wanted very badly to see what he’d been dreaming about for so long. So he tried again, and again she stiffened, and when he opened his eyes and pulled away from her lips, he saw tears swimming in her eyes. It hit him then-the scars go further down-of course they do. Besides, they were out in public where anyone could walk up and see what they were doing.
“Let’s…er, let’s go somewhere. I mean, somewhere private-I can just imagine somebody like Seamus coming up and…well, it’d be all over the school, wouldn’t it?.”
Standing up and buttoning his shirt quickly, he held out his hand, which she took with some reluctance. He led her to the greenhouses-or rather into the third one, which had become something of his personal domain. Locking the door behind them, he made his way back to a little clearing amid some of the taller plants. There was a little stone bench there that he might have liked very much to impress her by transfiguring into a feather bed, but he was never all that great in transfiguration, and it might have seemed he was presuming too much. But he could manage a cushioning charm, and he managed to enlarge it to where it looked more like a couch than a bed. He knew well enough that she had no problem with snogging on a sofa (as did the rest of the Gryffindor common room, for that matter.) He sat down on the edge, holding his arms out to her. She went willingly, and he whispered, “You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. You know that, right? You’ve been my impossible dream since I was a kid. D’you think scars are really going to make a difference?”
“Yes,” she whispered. “They’re hideous. You haven’t seen the half of it.”
He shook his head, kissing the gash on her cheek gently. “I’ve had this fantasy-it’s stupid, really, but I’d see it in my head over and over again, and…”
“What is it?” Lavender asked, one eyebrow raised.
“Well, you’re smiling, see, and you sort of toss your hair back over your shoulder and start unbuttoning your…er, blouse, really slowly, one button at a time.”
“But-” Lavender was shaking her head and blushing, but there was something in her eyes that let Neville know she wasn’t completely averse to the idea.
“Listen, Lavender, I don’t care what’s under there. I’ve been dreaming about your…er breasts ever since you got them, and they’d be the first ones I’ve seen up close, so do you honestly think that a few scars are going to be what I’m focusing on? I’d probably make a mess in my pants before you even got to the last button.”
She managed a little giggle, and Neville felt his cheeks heat up. He moved to sit on the soft, mossy ground and looked up at her expectantly. Her hand went to her collar, and she breathed in audibly, fiddling with the top button a bit before she actually pushed it through the hole. The second one went fairly quickly, but the third took a very long time. She met his eyes, and the smile she gave him wasn’t as confident as the ones in his dreams, but he thought he liked this one better. Undoing the fourth button made her shirt gap noticeably, and he saw a bit of white lace along with the shadow of her breast above it. He had to remind himself to exhale.
Lavender bent her face down to see what she was doing for the fifth, and her hair fell on either side of her face. Neville wanted to push it aside, but didn’t want to halt her momentum. The sixth button took the longest of all, but finally her blouse parted, making a line of bare skin down to her navel, and Neville wanted desperately to reach out and touch her. When she finally managed to look up at him, he smiled encouragingly, whispering, “Please.”
She swallowed visibly and closed her eyes, tossing her hair back over her shoulder and parting the fabric slowly. Neville licked dry lips as he eagerly took in her the line of collarbone, the soft curve of her shoulder and then finally got a glimpse of the breasts encased in a frilly lace bra. He couldn’t quite make out the color of the nipple through the fabric, but he saw a hint of the outline and the way it was poking into the fabric. It truly did take him several minutes of hungry perusal to realize that he was supposed to be noticing the scars, and his eyes darted over to look more closely. The scars were angry and red, spreading from her right shoulder up to her neck and marring the top of her breast. Fucking animal, he thought, but kept silent.
Meeting her eyes again, he truthfully said, “You’re beautiful.”
She bit down on that lower lip that had a tendency to wobble when she was nervous, which she clearly was now. “You’re just saying that.”
Neville rose to his knees, moving closer until he was nearly eye-to-eye with her. He kissed her again, still marveling at the fact that he was allowed to do it. Then he raised his hand to stroke her breast, letting his fingers wander up to the scar, which he traced cautiously. “Never dreamed in a million years you’d let me do this, and the fact that you’re letting me when you’re feeling so uncertain seems pretty important to me.”
She nodded. “It’s not that…I mean, you’re telling me you have all these feelings for me, and it’s not that I didn’t think of you that way before, it’s just…well, maybe I suspected you fancied me and maybe I liked it a bit more than I should. But in the last year…I don’t know, I just started seeing you differently. I don’t even know what to call it yet, but when you kissed me, I…I’m almost sure I want this.”
“Almost sure?” Neville repeated, laughing softly.
“Well, everything’s all muddled up in my head right now, but I didn’t want you to think that I was using you to make me feel better about myself or that it’s just because you…well, you showed everyone how brave you’ve always been.”
He’d not really expected her to confess a secret crush on him-actually what she did confess was more than he’d ever hoped for. At any rate, he had determination on his side. He was going to do everything in his power to keep her there. One more kiss, and he put his arms around her and slipped her blouse the rest of the way off, and she was working on his buttons again.
“Not much to see there,” he admitted, but she simply smiled knowingly and stroked his chest again. It felt so bloody good to be touched voluntarily that he wanted to just sit back and enjoy the sensations. But there was a lot more he wanted to do, too. He reached up tentatively to cover her breast with his hand again, kissing her and then sliding the strap down her shoulder. She didn’t seem to object, so he reached around to fumble with the clasp on her back-with little success, unfortunately, and he swore softly. Lavender kissed him in response and reached behind her back to help him.
Nothing he had imagined prepared him for the sight of her breasts tumbling free into his hand. He had to close his eyes and groan, and from then on, instinct took over. He lowered his head, nuzzling the incredibly soft and fragrant skin, letting his hand roam freely.
“Beautiful, he murmured, wondering how on earth he’d got so lucky. He had to taste her-he’d been dreaming about it for so long-and when his mouth closed around her nipple, she made a little moan that sent all his remaining blood racing south. Things progressed very quickly from there; he clambered up on his feet only to lower her onto her back. She raised her arms over her head and arched her back as he kissed and licked and sucked every bit of skin he could. She‘d stiffened a bit when he traced her scars with his tongue, but she got used to it soon enough, and when he reached under her skirt to stroke her soft thighs, she opened her legs in invitation.
Neville swore under his breath as he stroked higher and higher, finally reaching her knickers and finding them warm and damp. “D’you mind?” he whispered against her ear, and she pressed closer to his hand in answer.
Biting the inside of his cheek, Neville let his longest finger venture under her knickers, brushing past the wiry hair to the hot, slick flesh underneath. He groaned and closed his eyes as he imagined feeling all that surrounding him, and his cock twitched in his shorts as if in complete accord with the idea. For a few moments, he struggled to feel more through the leg opening, but then she sat up and pulled them down, dropping them on the ground but leaving the skirt on. “In case we have to leave in a hurry,” she explained, and he wondered idly how she planned on explaining the shirt that had landed on the pile of potting soil and the bra that was currently being ripped to shreds by a Venomous Tentacula.
She got this funny look in her eyes and she said, “Not quite fair, though, is it-you’re overdressed,” and she proceeded to reach down for the buttons on his trousers, brushing her hand deliberately over his embarrassingly stiff cock. Instead of being offended, she seemed pleased, and once the buttons were done, she reached under his pants to explore his erection with gentle fingers.
Fearing he was going to spurt over her then and there, he did his best to think of something that would calm down his raging arousal. Things having to do with Snape usually worked, but he was having trouble conjuring the greasy git here. Sprout in a bikini was another good one, and it did help a bit, but those clever fingers stroking him were making it difficult. Lavender smiled wickedly and pushed him down on his back.
Neville was thinking (with a certain degree of pride) that it must be a testament to his earlier efforts that she made no attempt to cover her chest in modesty or her scars in shame. Then she bent low over him and took his cock into her mouth and he was suddenly incapable of rational thought and uttering words that would have made his grandmother beat him with her umbrella.
Had he been thinking rationally, he might have realized that she’d probably done this before, but all he could really do at the moment was enjoy the soft slide of her lips around him, the suction that she kept up just long enough to keep him on the edge, the way her tongue slid back and forth over the ridges, occasionally drawing a circle around the tip. When she started stroking him with spit-soaked fingers, he was fairly certain he was going to make a bloody fool of himself, and when she cupped his bollocks, rolling them gently between her fingers, he completely lost it and shouted her name hoarsely, feeling as though every bit of his soul was pumping into her mouth. He expected her to react in disgust or horror, but she merely pulled away, letting him go with a small pop and licking her lips with a smirk.
Neville groaned and rolled his head back, wondering if he ought to pull up the pants that were bunched around his thighs, wondering if he ought to apologize, and wondering most of all if he ought to declare his undying love for her. He doubted he had the energy for any of it, and she just lay down next to him, kissing his cheek and then tucking her head in the crook of his neck.
“Bloody hell, Lavender” he said, and she giggled, stroking his chest and letting her fingers venture lower to tease the fine hairs below his navel. It didn’t even occur to Neville to suck in his gut.
How on earth was he ever going to make her feel that good, he wondered, though he had a pretty good idea within moments. Of course, what he really wanted was to be inside her but knew that it wasn’t going to happen soon.
“Want to taste you,” he said, reaching over to circle her nipple with his index finger. “I’ll probably be rubbish at it, so you’ll have to tell me if I’m doing something you don’t like.”
“Really?” she asked with wide eyes and added, “No one’s ever…”
“Good,” Neville replied, and only partially because he was feeling more than a little possessive. “Then you won’t know that I’m bollixing it up. He sat up, kissing her with more confidence than before, sliding his tongue back and forth against hers and enjoying the pressure of her thigh against his mostly soft cock.
Taking her example, he began to kiss his way down her body, pushing her skirt up her thighs and hips and bunching it around her waist. He didn’t think he would ever forget what she looked like: the triangle of curly hair just a shade darker than that on her head, the dark pink folds that peeked out between her legs, the moisture that seeped out of her.
He kissed her thigh experimentally, breathing in the unfamiliar scent of arousal. Lavender squirmed in response, and Neville slid his fingers up her thighs to touch her again, more confidently this time. He mused that it was even more brilliant when you could see what was what, and he let his fingers drift back and forth over her folds, trying to gauge her reaction. She clamped down on his wrist with her hand, guiding him toward a nub that seemed to drive her crazy when he touched it, and so he decided to lean over and touch it with the tip of his tongue, which got her arching up off the bench.
Emboldened, he tried to remember what she had done that felt so good, and he flattened his tongue, dragging it back and forth across the nub and her folds, using a finger to slide up inside her as his cock wasn’t quite ready to cooperate. She seemed to really like that, as she was moving back and forth on his finger and thrusting up to get closer to his mouth. Belatedly, he remembered another fantasy and wondered if he’d be bold enough to suggest it.
He finally decided to give it a whirl when it occurred to him that she was bucking up into his mouth because the pressure probably wasn’t right. He lifted his head up, grinning in enthusiasm.
“Want you to do something for me, Lavender,” he said, lying down beside her with two fingers still working in and out of her. His voice had gone low and almost unrecognizable to his own ears. “Want you to sit on me, ride my face.
Lavender’s eyes widened and she seemed ready to protest, but he added, “That way you could control things a bit, make it better for you.”
She laughed. “You’re doing…don’t worry, Neville, it’s the already the most amazing thing I ever felt. I mean, I don’t know if I’d feel…it’s kind of embarrassing, isn’t it?”
“I think we’re well past that, Lavender,” Neville pointed out with a blush and a wry laugh.
Lavender crawled slowly up his body, and though she hesitated toward the very end, eventually she settled her thighs on either side of his face. Once again, instinct took over. She seemed to like everything Neville did, and for his part, he was in heaven-completely surrounded by her, tasting her, smelling her, touching her in her most intimate places, hearing her moan and whimper and eventually cry out in bliss.
He didn’t even have much time to congratulate himself on a job well done when she abruptly pulled away, clambering around and taking his now stiffened cock into her mouth, taking it deeper than before, sucking harder and faster. She turned around and lowered herself onto his face from the opposite direction-it changed the angle somewhat, making it more interesting. Neville was trying very hard to concentrate on finishing Lavender off rather than what she was doing to him, but she was making it damn near impossible. Every sound he made seemed to cause a reaction in her. He felt her thighs clench around his face, felt her moans, (which made her mouth seem to vibrate around his cock) felt her walls tighten around his fingers, felt her slick flesh grow impossibly wetter and hotter, and it got to be too much, sending him spurting into her mouth yet again.
By the time Lavender collapsed to his side, Neville was completely boneless. He wanted quite badly to hold her and kiss her and tell her what it had meant to him, but he didn’t have the strength to do more than kiss her belly, which got her squirming and giggling again. He had really missed that giggle over the past few weeks, and he himself was grinning like an idiot.
‘Sensitive,” she explained.
He said, “I know the feeling.”
“Bloody hell,” he added, “That was-”
“Brilliant?” she supplied.
With superhuman strength, Neville sat up, turned about on the bench and spooned against her, pulling her close. “Did I happen to mention that I fancy you like mad?”
“Yeah,” Lavender said with a languid sigh, moving back against him. “Me, too.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Professor Longbottom?”
The group of third year students looked at him curiously and he realized he’d stopped talking mid-sentence. “Ahem…so this particular venomous Tentacula is nearly fifteen years old. I had a hand in planting it myself, actually. You have to be very careful what you feed it,” he said, and blushed as he remembered the way that it had devoured a brassiere all those years ago. He tried to avoid looking at that seemingly innocent bench again, but it was bloody hard. This particular slice of paradise had changed his life.
As the students left the greenhouse, they whispered amongst themselves. “That Professor Longbottom-really knows his subject but a bit absent-minded, don’t you think?”
“Me personally, I think he’s kind of sexy,” one of the bolder girls said, and the rest giggled, though nearly all of them had thought it before.
Author/Artist:
ozma_katiebell
Gift For:
wook77 Written for
smutty_claus
Pairing(s): Neville/Lavender
Summary: Neville's already had his hero's trial. How hard could telling a girl you fancy her be?
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: None
Author/Artist's notes: Recipient wanted DH compliant, post-DH, in-character characterizations, realistic story, kissing (loads and loads of kissing), falling-in-love, exploration of Lavender's injuries if you go the Lavender route, kick ass take names!Neville, romance (but please not over the top romance novel sort of romance), can be angst but I'd like a happy-ish ending at the least.
I did my best with the characterizations, but in this story, Neville isn't quite kick-ass, even if he gets the job done in the end.
Huge thanks to Jen and Katie for the (very last minute) beta jobs!
What was it about Lavender Brown, anyway?
She was in a different Quidditch league altogether, for one thing. Not that she played Quidditch, mind you, nor did he, for that matter. Maybe if he had, he might have stood a chance, but the fact was, he was too afraid to fly, too afraid to even try again since he’d made such an ass of himself. He’d had quite enough time spent looking foolish and weak, thank you very much. No need to seek it out, was there?
So, yeah, anyway, about Lavender.
Totally out of his league. Beautiful, some said shallow, possibly brainless, but completely out of his reach. That didn’t stop his heart from speeding up when he saw her and his stomach from twisting into a knot, of course. And he didn’t even want to think about that time when the third button of her shirt had come undone and he caught a glimpse of lace underneath it. Let alone the dream he had later that night where she’d smiled at him and tossed her hair a bit and slowly unbuttoned the fourth, fifth and sixth buttons, then let the shirt slide off her shoulders…
Off the subject, again. But not really, because it should be clear at this point that he spent a lot of time thinking about her. And looking at her. And he did know it was hopeless, he just…couldn’t help it. She was mesmerizing.
He never did learn to talk with girls. Hell, if Harry and Ron had trouble with it, how did someone who had absolutely nothing to offer manage it?
Well, there was Ginny. She was easy to talk to. Maybe it was because Neville never had any expectations there-she’d been in love with Harry practically since she was born, and nobody else had a chance to be anything but practice for the real thing.
And Hermione had been okay from the beginning, too. As long as a person let her feel that she was helping or teaching them, it made her feel good about herself, and she had all the patience in the world. Plus, she felt really guilty about that body bind she did back in first year.
Then there was Luna, and Luna was, well, special. Best friends didn’t really count as girls, did they? She’d never made him nervous because he didn’t think of her as girlfriend material. And besides, Luna had always seemed beyond such labels. She was just…Luna.
Lavender, on the other hand was impossible to talk to. For one thing, she always seemed to have Parvati nearby, and trying to talk to two pretty girls was ten times more intimidating than one at a time. And then there was all that giggling, where you didn’t know if she was laughing just to be friendly, or if she was nervous, or if she was laughing at you.
So he’d just watched, and in watching, maybe got to know a little more about her than most people knew. For one thing, she was far cleverer than she got credit for. It was just hard to see when Hermione always had her hand in the air. Plus, she didn’t brag about her marks in spite of the fact that they were generally good. It just…wasn’t important enough to mention, apparently.
He also noticed that she was warm. He saw it in the affection she showed to her best friend and the way that she’d cared so much about that unfortunate rabbit of hers, and the way she’d held Trevor and patted his head when she’d brought him down from the girls’ dormitories. Some girls might have been repulsed, and maybe the younger version of Lavender might have been too, but she’d grown up a lot, and…well, it surprised him, anyway.
Some people called her shrill and clingy and needy, especially after her behavior with Ron, but to Neville, well-it seemed one more example of her warmth and passion and loyalty. If Ron didn’t have the bollocks to admit he was using her and let her go, who could blame her for being hurt and confused? She’d had a boyfriend who seemed to want to avoid her, but she wasn’t willing to let go without a fight. Nor was she willing to be made a fool of. If Neville had got the chance Ron threw away, he’d…
Well, that was the whole sodding, point, wasn’t it? Out of his league. Never gonna get the chance, was he?
Except…
All of a sudden, because he’d beheaded a snake-well, it was really strange, wasn’t it? Girls were looking at him and they had something that looked suspiciously like admiration in their eyes rather than pity or derision. It ought to have made him happy, but it made him more self-conscious than anything. And that wasn’t even mentioning the pretty sixth year Hufflepuff who’d offered to…well, ‘blow’ him earlier this morning. She’d approached him in after breakfast and offered to find a deserted corridor and do it then and there. In fact, she’d grabbed his bollocks in demonstration, which had been…well, not arousing, anyway.
But Lavender?
She wouldn’t even look at him anymore, and she’d actually begun to do just that (at least a little) in the previous year. She looked at him for guidance, for leadership, though technically never in admiration. And not the way she used to look at Ron as he played, anyway. But now-well she wasn’t looking at anyone much, was she? Mostly, she was looking at her hands or her lap or the food she pushed around her plate.
Because Neville’s big heroic moment had finally come while she was trying to recover from werewolf bites. That’s what he’d heard, anyway. She wasn’t talking about it, nor was Parvati. Bites from a non-transformed werewolf. Which meant, well-scars-at least that’s what Hermione said. Scars and a fondness for red meat, possibly. And wolfish tendencies. It was hard to imagine Lavender wolfish. Cat-like, maybe, but not wolfish. But the scars were an issue. How bad could they be? He was afraid to ask, and all you could see on her face was a gash.
And now, for all intents and purposes, Neville could have any number of girls in any capacity he wanted, just not the one he wanted. He was afraid, because even if she would look at him differently for his snake-smiting skills, would she ever believe he didn’t feel sorry for her?
It was impossible. Even horribly scarred, she was out of his league. Not that he didn’t feel sorry for her, nor that it made a bit of difference to how he felt about her, but…why did these things have to get so complicated?
For that matter, why was he hiding behind a tree, feeling hopeless and inadequate when Lavender was sitting alone by the lake, looking miserable?
He’d faced Voldemort head-on. He’d been set on fire and lived to tell the tale. He’d been made to look like an idiot in front of hundreds of people and come out looking like a hero. He could certainly approach a girl, right? Anyway, she looked like she needed a friend, and they had become friends (sort of) in the last year.
Five minutes later, he still hadn’t come up with a viable excuse for seeking her out, so he just approached her, smiling a bit when she turned to look at him and then plopping ungracefully down on the ground beside her. She didn’t say anything, and he had an overwhelming urge to fill in the void with an apology-for interrupting her solitude, for stirring the dust on the ground, for existing. That’s what the old Neville would have done, but he was pretty much done with that sort of thing. He knew he had something to offer her, even if it was just a listening ear.
He thought about asking how she was, but somehow that seemed to be tantamount to asking about what happened, which seemed to be a mistake. He tried to come up with some pithy, encouraging cliché-something about life going on or something, but none come to mind. Probably wouldn’t help much anyway. They never did.
So, eventually, he just reached over and took her hand. Luna had taught him about that, actually. Holding someone’s hand could mean any number of things, but it always seemed to make things better. It made you feel connected to someone, less alone. It was warmth and affection and encouragement in just the right dose. At least, that’s how Neville hoped Lavender would take it.
She turned to look at him but he didn’t meet her eyes, just gave her hand an extra squeeze. She didn’t pull away, which was encouraging.
It was agony not to say anything, but it seemed vitally important to keep his mouth shut and let her talk when she was ready. At least that way he wouldn’t say anything stupid, right?
“Hi,” she finally said, and when he turned to look at her he noticed tears running slowly down her cheeks. He reached over to brush a tear aside with his free hand, and then, cursing himself for a fool, reached into his sleeve for his wand and conjured a handkerchief. Her eyes widened and she gave him half a smile when she took it.
“Feeling sorry for myself,” she admitted after wiping her eyes and blowing her nose.
Neville nodded and gave her hand another squeeze.
“I’m sick of everybody looking at me and pretending not to look,” she sniffed.
Not knowing what else to do, Neville just met her eyes directly, which was…well, bloody hard, because he’d spent the last seven years not letting her see him look.
“The Healer told me I ought to be happy to be alive and that I’m being very vain about it all,” she explained. “And Parvati-well, she always looks as if she’s going to start crying any minute. She says it’s not that bad, but how would she know? She’s still just as pretty as she ever was.”
Neville nodded again, gripping her hand tightly and feeling utterly useless.
“I just…had to get away from all the staring, and the hovering and…”
Neville picked up a stone with his free hand, trying to let it skip across the water. It didn’t, of course, and he frowned. “They’re staring at me, too,” he said, and instantly regretted it. There was no comparison because people were staring at him because they thought he’d done something cool and with Lavender it was pity. It wasn’t as if he liked it-at least not after the first hour or so. He’d never sought out public scrutiny, and the fact that he was being held up rather than put down didn’t make it any less uncomfortable.
“I’m sorry,” he muttered, letting go of her hand. “I hate it when people say they understand when there’s no possible way they can.” Which was why he never wanted people to know about his parents' condition, he supposed.
“I used to love it,” she said after a long pause. “Attention, I mean. Used to do whatever I could to get it.”
Neville might have liked to contradict her, but he thought of her marathon public snog sessions with Ron Weasley and simply laughed softly. He wasn’t going to reward uncharacteristic honesty with false protestations. She was a bit of an attention whore, and he’d not minded it all that much. In fact, he found it fascinating.
“You must think I’m the shallowest, most pathetic-”
Looking at his feet, he tried to think of a reply. I think you’re brilliant, was on the tip of his tongue but it sounded inadequate to him. It was one of those things people always said to make someone feel better.
I think I love you might have been close to the truth, but that was just plain pathetic, and now he had that ridiculous Muggle song Uncle Algie used to sing stuck in his head.
So what am I so afraid of? He swallowed, turning to meet her eyes again. Clearly she was waiting for him to say whether or not he thought her shallow. He did-or he had in the past, because that was the image she presented. He knew there was more to her than that, but how was he going to tell her how much he did know about her without letting on that he’d been watching? Watching a lot.
“I think-” Neville looked down at her mouth, wondering if he’d ever see her smile-really smile-again. He let his eyes drift over to the gash on her cheek, where it continued down her neck and disappeared under her collar, which was buttoned all the way to the top. Oh, how he missed those two open buttons. There was a heart-shaped pendant hidden underneath them, he knew, and he figured she must have treasured it, because she wore it every day.
When he looked back up at her mouth, he noticed her lower lip was trembling, and his eyes darted up to meet hers. He’d let the silence drag on too long, apparently.
“I think-” He swore under his breath and screwed his eyes shut, leaning forward and somehow managing to bump his lips against hers by sheer luck.
She went completely still, and when he pulled away, she was looking at him with eyes as big as those fussy saucers in Trelawney’s classroom. He’d buggered it up, of course. He shouldn’t have closed his eyes-she probably thought it was because he was repulsed rather than terrified.
He did the only thing he could think of to prove otherwise-he moved close again, keeping his eyes wide open as he traced the line of her gash with his finger. He wanted very badly to kiss her again, so he leant towards her and aimed for her mouth, this time only closing his eyes when he felt her warm breath against his lips.
The second kiss was much better. It didn’t resemble kisses you were forced to give smelly old Aunt Agnes where you were trying hard not to breathe. It was softer-he felt his lower lip catch on hers a bit until he pressed forward and captured some of the moisture on the inside of her lip to ease the way.
For some reason it was harder this time to open his eyes and look at her as he pulled away. Because now there was no getting around the fact that he’d kissed her because he wanted to.
Oh, how desperately he’d wanted to.
She looked as if she’d been betrayed. Her eyes had begun to well up again and that lower lip was quivering like a Flutterby bush.
Neville sighed. He’d buggered it up after all. Still out of his league, apparently.
“I’m sorry-” he started, just as she was saying, “I don’t want-“ and he stopped apologizing, feeling as if his heart had been skewered.
“I never meant,” he began again, as she finished, “…a pity snog, Longbottom!” which caused him stop apologizing and ask, “Wait, what?”
“I don’t need your pity, thank you very much, and I-”
I love you, his mind was screaming, but he managed to tone it down a bit by the time the thought made it to his mouth. “I fancy you like mad, Lavender. Always have, and I thought-” He sucked in a breath before his head exploded from a lack of oxygen.
“You thought what?” she asked, looking suspicious.
“I thought that maybe now you’d-”
“Now that no one else wants me, I’d be willing to-” She stopped abruptly, shutting her eyes tight.
Neville sighed. “Yeah, right. Always knew it was hopeless, I’ll just-”
He ran his hands through his hair in frustration. He didn’t want to run off with his tail between his legs. This was probably the last chance he was going to get.
“Neville, I-”
“It wasn’t the scars, Lavender, it was me. I didn’t think that you’d been lowered to my level, I thought that…maybe since I did what I did-well, not that you even saw that, but-bloody hell, Lavender! I faced Voldemort! He set me on fire. I thought that if I could do all that I could at least manage to tell the girl of my dreams how I felt, right? Everybody in the castle seems to think I’m worth something all of a sudden and I thought that maybe-after all this time you might think so too.”
“You-you weren’t just saying that to make me feel better?”
Neville shook his head in astonishment. “For pity’s sake, Lavender, sometimes I wonder if you really are as thick as…well, people seem to think you are.”
That got her back up. “”Excuse me? How am I supposed to know? For all I know you think I’m easy pickings because of what happened.”
Neville shook his head. “I just got offered…well, you don’t want to know what I just got offered. But I don’t want anyone else; I want you. You…you made me want to try stuff I never attempted just to be...maybe worthy of you.”
Lavender’s brows knit together and she shook her head. “You mean you did what you did...for me?”
“No-” Neville said, but admitted, “I did it for my parents, mostly, but also for me, and Gran, and Harry, and for the war and the school and-but, yeah, maybe a little part of me hoped you’d be impressed, too. Instead, I came back to find that you’d been mauled by that, that-we brought him down, you know? Ron and me. And I wanted to come to you and tell you I’d take care of you and that everything would be all right, but-I’m still not good enough, am I?”
“No,” she said in a small voice. “I’m not.”
“What?” he asked.
“I’m not good enough. I’ve spent my entire life getting by on my looks, and I don’t have them any more. What else have I got?”
Neville sighed and closed his eyes. “You’ve got…you’ve got…the fact that you fought when you could have run. You did the right thing; you defended your school and your friends. You helped change the world. And you’ve still got the most amazing smile I’ve ever seen, and your eyes, and your hair and your…” He shut up before he started rhapsodizing about her chest and bottom. “And besides, you’ve got me too. I’ve thought you were special for ages. You were always nice to me.”
“No, I wasn’t.”
“No, not at first, but if I dropped something, I knew you’d always help to pick it up, and…”
“Not as often as I should have. And I felt guilty this year, because you’d had to put up with so much and then last year we depended on you so much.”
“You were fairly amazing yourself, Lavender. I reckon Carrow’s bollocks will never be quite the same again.”
“Well, his sister made certain I paid for it, at least until you came and got me-I knew you’d come, Neville, you-”
Neville groaned, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her close. This was the kiss he’s imagined, hard and hot and wet and just a little bit desperate. But the bloody miracle was that she seemed nearly as desperate as he was: sighing and licking and pressing her chest against his, clutching his shoulders and digging in with her fingers. Maybe that wolf thing wasn’t so far off after all.
He was so thrilled to be getting a response from her that he almost didn’t notice when her enthusiasm waned. It hadn’t happened when he reached up to stroke her breast over the crisp cotton blouse-in fact, that got a moan of pleasure out of her-but when he went for the buttons, particularly that coveted third one, she was nearly as stiff as a board.
His first impulse was to think that she’d changed her mind about being with him, but she pulled his hand away from her buttons only to start working on his, which was certainly odd-he had no idea why anyone would want to look at him. She made quick work of the buttons with deft fingers, and suddenly he was feeling her warm, soft hands all over his chest and belly and it was bloody brilliant.
He wanted her to feel as good, and (if he was going to be perfectly honest) he wanted very badly to see what he’d been dreaming about for so long. So he tried again, and again she stiffened, and when he opened his eyes and pulled away from her lips, he saw tears swimming in her eyes. It hit him then-the scars go further down-of course they do. Besides, they were out in public where anyone could walk up and see what they were doing.
“Let’s…er, let’s go somewhere. I mean, somewhere private-I can just imagine somebody like Seamus coming up and…well, it’d be all over the school, wouldn’t it?.”
Standing up and buttoning his shirt quickly, he held out his hand, which she took with some reluctance. He led her to the greenhouses-or rather into the third one, which had become something of his personal domain. Locking the door behind them, he made his way back to a little clearing amid some of the taller plants. There was a little stone bench there that he might have liked very much to impress her by transfiguring into a feather bed, but he was never all that great in transfiguration, and it might have seemed he was presuming too much. But he could manage a cushioning charm, and he managed to enlarge it to where it looked more like a couch than a bed. He knew well enough that she had no problem with snogging on a sofa (as did the rest of the Gryffindor common room, for that matter.) He sat down on the edge, holding his arms out to her. She went willingly, and he whispered, “You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. You know that, right? You’ve been my impossible dream since I was a kid. D’you think scars are really going to make a difference?”
“Yes,” she whispered. “They’re hideous. You haven’t seen the half of it.”
He shook his head, kissing the gash on her cheek gently. “I’ve had this fantasy-it’s stupid, really, but I’d see it in my head over and over again, and…”
“What is it?” Lavender asked, one eyebrow raised.
“Well, you’re smiling, see, and you sort of toss your hair back over your shoulder and start unbuttoning your…er, blouse, really slowly, one button at a time.”
“But-” Lavender was shaking her head and blushing, but there was something in her eyes that let Neville know she wasn’t completely averse to the idea.
“Listen, Lavender, I don’t care what’s under there. I’ve been dreaming about your…er breasts ever since you got them, and they’d be the first ones I’ve seen up close, so do you honestly think that a few scars are going to be what I’m focusing on? I’d probably make a mess in my pants before you even got to the last button.”
She managed a little giggle, and Neville felt his cheeks heat up. He moved to sit on the soft, mossy ground and looked up at her expectantly. Her hand went to her collar, and she breathed in audibly, fiddling with the top button a bit before she actually pushed it through the hole. The second one went fairly quickly, but the third took a very long time. She met his eyes, and the smile she gave him wasn’t as confident as the ones in his dreams, but he thought he liked this one better. Undoing the fourth button made her shirt gap noticeably, and he saw a bit of white lace along with the shadow of her breast above it. He had to remind himself to exhale.
Lavender bent her face down to see what she was doing for the fifth, and her hair fell on either side of her face. Neville wanted to push it aside, but didn’t want to halt her momentum. The sixth button took the longest of all, but finally her blouse parted, making a line of bare skin down to her navel, and Neville wanted desperately to reach out and touch her. When she finally managed to look up at him, he smiled encouragingly, whispering, “Please.”
She swallowed visibly and closed her eyes, tossing her hair back over her shoulder and parting the fabric slowly. Neville licked dry lips as he eagerly took in her the line of collarbone, the soft curve of her shoulder and then finally got a glimpse of the breasts encased in a frilly lace bra. He couldn’t quite make out the color of the nipple through the fabric, but he saw a hint of the outline and the way it was poking into the fabric. It truly did take him several minutes of hungry perusal to realize that he was supposed to be noticing the scars, and his eyes darted over to look more closely. The scars were angry and red, spreading from her right shoulder up to her neck and marring the top of her breast. Fucking animal, he thought, but kept silent.
Meeting her eyes again, he truthfully said, “You’re beautiful.”
She bit down on that lower lip that had a tendency to wobble when she was nervous, which she clearly was now. “You’re just saying that.”
Neville rose to his knees, moving closer until he was nearly eye-to-eye with her. He kissed her again, still marveling at the fact that he was allowed to do it. Then he raised his hand to stroke her breast, letting his fingers wander up to the scar, which he traced cautiously. “Never dreamed in a million years you’d let me do this, and the fact that you’re letting me when you’re feeling so uncertain seems pretty important to me.”
She nodded. “It’s not that…I mean, you’re telling me you have all these feelings for me, and it’s not that I didn’t think of you that way before, it’s just…well, maybe I suspected you fancied me and maybe I liked it a bit more than I should. But in the last year…I don’t know, I just started seeing you differently. I don’t even know what to call it yet, but when you kissed me, I…I’m almost sure I want this.”
“Almost sure?” Neville repeated, laughing softly.
“Well, everything’s all muddled up in my head right now, but I didn’t want you to think that I was using you to make me feel better about myself or that it’s just because you…well, you showed everyone how brave you’ve always been.”
He’d not really expected her to confess a secret crush on him-actually what she did confess was more than he’d ever hoped for. At any rate, he had determination on his side. He was going to do everything in his power to keep her there. One more kiss, and he put his arms around her and slipped her blouse the rest of the way off, and she was working on his buttons again.
“Not much to see there,” he admitted, but she simply smiled knowingly and stroked his chest again. It felt so bloody good to be touched voluntarily that he wanted to just sit back and enjoy the sensations. But there was a lot more he wanted to do, too. He reached up tentatively to cover her breast with his hand again, kissing her and then sliding the strap down her shoulder. She didn’t seem to object, so he reached around to fumble with the clasp on her back-with little success, unfortunately, and he swore softly. Lavender kissed him in response and reached behind her back to help him.
Nothing he had imagined prepared him for the sight of her breasts tumbling free into his hand. He had to close his eyes and groan, and from then on, instinct took over. He lowered his head, nuzzling the incredibly soft and fragrant skin, letting his hand roam freely.
“Beautiful, he murmured, wondering how on earth he’d got so lucky. He had to taste her-he’d been dreaming about it for so long-and when his mouth closed around her nipple, she made a little moan that sent all his remaining blood racing south. Things progressed very quickly from there; he clambered up on his feet only to lower her onto her back. She raised her arms over her head and arched her back as he kissed and licked and sucked every bit of skin he could. She‘d stiffened a bit when he traced her scars with his tongue, but she got used to it soon enough, and when he reached under her skirt to stroke her soft thighs, she opened her legs in invitation.
Neville swore under his breath as he stroked higher and higher, finally reaching her knickers and finding them warm and damp. “D’you mind?” he whispered against her ear, and she pressed closer to his hand in answer.
Biting the inside of his cheek, Neville let his longest finger venture under her knickers, brushing past the wiry hair to the hot, slick flesh underneath. He groaned and closed his eyes as he imagined feeling all that surrounding him, and his cock twitched in his shorts as if in complete accord with the idea. For a few moments, he struggled to feel more through the leg opening, but then she sat up and pulled them down, dropping them on the ground but leaving the skirt on. “In case we have to leave in a hurry,” she explained, and he wondered idly how she planned on explaining the shirt that had landed on the pile of potting soil and the bra that was currently being ripped to shreds by a Venomous Tentacula.
She got this funny look in her eyes and she said, “Not quite fair, though, is it-you’re overdressed,” and she proceeded to reach down for the buttons on his trousers, brushing her hand deliberately over his embarrassingly stiff cock. Instead of being offended, she seemed pleased, and once the buttons were done, she reached under his pants to explore his erection with gentle fingers.
Fearing he was going to spurt over her then and there, he did his best to think of something that would calm down his raging arousal. Things having to do with Snape usually worked, but he was having trouble conjuring the greasy git here. Sprout in a bikini was another good one, and it did help a bit, but those clever fingers stroking him were making it difficult. Lavender smiled wickedly and pushed him down on his back.
Neville was thinking (with a certain degree of pride) that it must be a testament to his earlier efforts that she made no attempt to cover her chest in modesty or her scars in shame. Then she bent low over him and took his cock into her mouth and he was suddenly incapable of rational thought and uttering words that would have made his grandmother beat him with her umbrella.
Had he been thinking rationally, he might have realized that she’d probably done this before, but all he could really do at the moment was enjoy the soft slide of her lips around him, the suction that she kept up just long enough to keep him on the edge, the way her tongue slid back and forth over the ridges, occasionally drawing a circle around the tip. When she started stroking him with spit-soaked fingers, he was fairly certain he was going to make a bloody fool of himself, and when she cupped his bollocks, rolling them gently between her fingers, he completely lost it and shouted her name hoarsely, feeling as though every bit of his soul was pumping into her mouth. He expected her to react in disgust or horror, but she merely pulled away, letting him go with a small pop and licking her lips with a smirk.
Neville groaned and rolled his head back, wondering if he ought to pull up the pants that were bunched around his thighs, wondering if he ought to apologize, and wondering most of all if he ought to declare his undying love for her. He doubted he had the energy for any of it, and she just lay down next to him, kissing his cheek and then tucking her head in the crook of his neck.
“Bloody hell, Lavender” he said, and she giggled, stroking his chest and letting her fingers venture lower to tease the fine hairs below his navel. It didn’t even occur to Neville to suck in his gut.
How on earth was he ever going to make her feel that good, he wondered, though he had a pretty good idea within moments. Of course, what he really wanted was to be inside her but knew that it wasn’t going to happen soon.
“Want to taste you,” he said, reaching over to circle her nipple with his index finger. “I’ll probably be rubbish at it, so you’ll have to tell me if I’m doing something you don’t like.”
“Really?” she asked with wide eyes and added, “No one’s ever…”
“Good,” Neville replied, and only partially because he was feeling more than a little possessive. “Then you won’t know that I’m bollixing it up. He sat up, kissing her with more confidence than before, sliding his tongue back and forth against hers and enjoying the pressure of her thigh against his mostly soft cock.
Taking her example, he began to kiss his way down her body, pushing her skirt up her thighs and hips and bunching it around her waist. He didn’t think he would ever forget what she looked like: the triangle of curly hair just a shade darker than that on her head, the dark pink folds that peeked out between her legs, the moisture that seeped out of her.
He kissed her thigh experimentally, breathing in the unfamiliar scent of arousal. Lavender squirmed in response, and Neville slid his fingers up her thighs to touch her again, more confidently this time. He mused that it was even more brilliant when you could see what was what, and he let his fingers drift back and forth over her folds, trying to gauge her reaction. She clamped down on his wrist with her hand, guiding him toward a nub that seemed to drive her crazy when he touched it, and so he decided to lean over and touch it with the tip of his tongue, which got her arching up off the bench.
Emboldened, he tried to remember what she had done that felt so good, and he flattened his tongue, dragging it back and forth across the nub and her folds, using a finger to slide up inside her as his cock wasn’t quite ready to cooperate. She seemed to really like that, as she was moving back and forth on his finger and thrusting up to get closer to his mouth. Belatedly, he remembered another fantasy and wondered if he’d be bold enough to suggest it.
He finally decided to give it a whirl when it occurred to him that she was bucking up into his mouth because the pressure probably wasn’t right. He lifted his head up, grinning in enthusiasm.
“Want you to do something for me, Lavender,” he said, lying down beside her with two fingers still working in and out of her. His voice had gone low and almost unrecognizable to his own ears. “Want you to sit on me, ride my face.
Lavender’s eyes widened and she seemed ready to protest, but he added, “That way you could control things a bit, make it better for you.”
She laughed. “You’re doing…don’t worry, Neville, it’s the already the most amazing thing I ever felt. I mean, I don’t know if I’d feel…it’s kind of embarrassing, isn’t it?”
“I think we’re well past that, Lavender,” Neville pointed out with a blush and a wry laugh.
Lavender crawled slowly up his body, and though she hesitated toward the very end, eventually she settled her thighs on either side of his face. Once again, instinct took over. She seemed to like everything Neville did, and for his part, he was in heaven-completely surrounded by her, tasting her, smelling her, touching her in her most intimate places, hearing her moan and whimper and eventually cry out in bliss.
He didn’t even have much time to congratulate himself on a job well done when she abruptly pulled away, clambering around and taking his now stiffened cock into her mouth, taking it deeper than before, sucking harder and faster. She turned around and lowered herself onto his face from the opposite direction-it changed the angle somewhat, making it more interesting. Neville was trying very hard to concentrate on finishing Lavender off rather than what she was doing to him, but she was making it damn near impossible. Every sound he made seemed to cause a reaction in her. He felt her thighs clench around his face, felt her moans, (which made her mouth seem to vibrate around his cock) felt her walls tighten around his fingers, felt her slick flesh grow impossibly wetter and hotter, and it got to be too much, sending him spurting into her mouth yet again.
By the time Lavender collapsed to his side, Neville was completely boneless. He wanted quite badly to hold her and kiss her and tell her what it had meant to him, but he didn’t have the strength to do more than kiss her belly, which got her squirming and giggling again. He had really missed that giggle over the past few weeks, and he himself was grinning like an idiot.
‘Sensitive,” she explained.
He said, “I know the feeling.”
“Bloody hell,” he added, “That was-”
“Brilliant?” she supplied.
With superhuman strength, Neville sat up, turned about on the bench and spooned against her, pulling her close. “Did I happen to mention that I fancy you like mad?”
“Yeah,” Lavender said with a languid sigh, moving back against him. “Me, too.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Professor Longbottom?”
The group of third year students looked at him curiously and he realized he’d stopped talking mid-sentence. “Ahem…so this particular venomous Tentacula is nearly fifteen years old. I had a hand in planting it myself, actually. You have to be very careful what you feed it,” he said, and blushed as he remembered the way that it had devoured a brassiere all those years ago. He tried to avoid looking at that seemingly innocent bench again, but it was bloody hard. This particular slice of paradise had changed his life.
As the students left the greenhouse, they whispered amongst themselves. “That Professor Longbottom-really knows his subject but a bit absent-minded, don’t you think?”
“Me personally, I think he’s kind of sexy,” one of the bolder girls said, and the rest giggled, though nearly all of them had thought it before.