HP fic: The Wooing of Hannah and Neville. (WIP) part 4
Title: The Wooing of Hannah and Neville.
Author:
pathology_doc
Fandom: Harry Potter
Rating: NC17.
Notes/warnings: I don't know what the weather was actually doing in Muggle London on November 11 1998, so I've taken some liberties with it and I'm going to claim artistic licence if I turn out to have been wrong. As always, book canon is favoured over film - and I don't have access to Pottermore info.
November 11, 1998
Hannah awoke to a Remembrance Day that was bitterly cold, windy, and with the occasional fleck of falling snow. She picked out a sensible black dress, thick stockings and low shoes, showered and dressed. Neville apparated into her bedroom three seconds after she'd slipped her shoes on, and she silently stepped forward and hugged him, resting her head on his shoulder.
"Hi, Hannah," he said, wrapping his arms around her and kissing her softly on the cheek. "Are you alright?"
"Sort of; yes and no. Just thinking how miserable the weather is, and reminding myself it's probably the last Remembrance service I'm ever going to go to with Grandpa. Thanks for agreeing to come along."
"Hey, isn't that what boyfriends are for?" he replied. "I'm glad you asked."
"Dad's downstairs waiting," she said. "We're going there the Muggle way, if that's okay."
Neville had seen enough of the Muggle world to know that he didn't want a bar of traffic, but if Hannah's father had been living a Muggle life for long enough then Neville was prepared to trust him behind the wheel. And he was indeed a good driver, though Neville found the pace excruciatingly slow and the behaviour of other drivers somewhere between discourteous and actively dangerous, and more than once he had to fight to keep himself from reaching across the back seat, grabbing Hannah's hand and disapparating with her. "Merlin's beard!" he exclaimed as a London taxi abruptly cut in front of them. "How on earth do they live like this?"
"I know," Mr Abbott said, thinking it unwise to mention that many of them didn't live - it was Neville's first trip in a Muggle car, and he didn't need that worry hanging over his head. "Have you ever heard the Muggle term 'road rage'?"
"No," Neville replied , "but I can guess the meaning."
"It isn't hard to guess," Mr Abbott said, gazing back over his shoulder briefly and then swinging his own car into a turning lane while he still had time. "An American friend of my wife mentioned it to me a few years ago, and I can only be thankful that we wizards have the option of flying at different altitudes."
Hannah helpfully interjected, "A good thing, too - can you imagine 'broom rage'?"
Mr Abbott stopped for a red light and turned to look back at her while it was safe to do so. "Hannah dear, we have that already; it's called professional Quidditch."
Hannah bent over double with laughter. Neville merely grinned. "Never mind professional Quidditch," he replied. "You should've seen some of the Gryffindor/Slytherin games when Harry and Draco Malfoy were seekers."
Mr Abbott grinned back at him, looked back at the road and drove off on the green light. Five minutes later, they were at the retirement home where Hannah's Muggle grandfather lived.
Hannah's grandfather, Neville saw, was a genial old man with bright blue eyes that reminded him of Dumbledore's, and it was surprising to him that the man should only be in his early eighties - wizards of his elderly appearance were usually well over a hundred. Mr Abbott greeted his father in law politely and affectionately; Hannah rushed to him, threw her arms around him and kissed him enthusiastically in the same appropriate grand-daughterly way she'd employed since she was old enough to do so. Then she introduced him to Neville, who'd been waiting patiently and quietly and looking at a large map of France on the wall which bore two bright blue arrows - one leading towards the sea, the other (much longer) away from it and almost off the map to the east.
"Grandpa, this is my boyfriend Neville Longbottom I've told you about; Neville, this is my Grandpa Carrington."
"How do you do, Mr Carrington?" Neville asked, stepping forward politely and shaking the old man's hand as he rose from his chair.
"Very well indeed, young man," Hannah's grandfather said. "I understand you're the young gent who pulled my granddaughter out of her... shall we call it a spot of bother?" And he gave a sly wink to indicate to Neville that he knew the exact nature of that bother.
"You could say that, sir, although she really did a fairly good job of keeping herself out of trouble for most of the worst. Er... may I ask about the map? That's France, isn't it?" He thought of Fleur Delacour-Weasley and wondered where Beauxbatons was.
"It is indeed, young man. It marks the line of my regiment's ignominious retreat in nineteen forty and the line of its successful advance four years later, at least until the night I took my eye off the ball and ended up in a field hospital. I prefer to let the history books do most of the talking, but those lines are there to remind me of my part in it."
"Hannah's given me a few M... er, history books to read, sir. It sounds pretty impressive."
Hannah's grandfather grunted as he followed Hannah, Mr Abbott and Neville out. Though he needed a stick, he moved reasonably swiftly with its aid. "It always does after the fact, young man. Most of the time it felt like a frantic effort to stop myself and my mates from getting killed - and sadly, not managing it a lot of the time."
"That was also my exp... ah, understanding," Neville replied, modifying his statement so as not to draw undue attention from the Muggles around them. He wondered if Hannah's grandfather had got the point, but the man's slow nod told him yes. "When they write the history of that, it won't be written by me."
"And probably a good thing too," Hannah's grandfather said as they came out into the open air and got into the car. "There's nothing wrong with memoirs but in my opinion, young man, those who do the most boasting about a battle are seldom the ones who were there."
Hannah grinned at Neville across the back seat. "We know someone like that," she said, "Don't we, Neville?"
Neville nodded and grinned back. "Don't we, just?"
****************
Neville said nothing throughout the service (he didn't know the rites, beyond hastily mumbling "Amen" whenever he heard Hannah say it) but he wasn't without thoughts for his own war's dead. Colin, Professor Lupin, Nymphadora Tonks, Fred Weasley, the dozens of others - students and aurors and Centaurs and House Elves - who had perished... Would he remember their faces and names when he was as wizened as Hannah's grandfather?
At the end, the old man spoke to them both separately.
"Hannah," he said to his granddaughter, "I know your life is going to be... different from mine, and I can't possibly understand it, but I hope that whatever happens you find someone at least as kind and gentlemanly as young Longbottom to pull you through it."
"Longbottom," he said to Neville, "I and mine will soon fade away, in the manner of all old soldiers, and one day you and my granddaughter and all your friends who went through what you did will be the inheritors of what you saw today. I hope you never forget what it means to fight for something meaningful, and at the same time never lose your distaste for the deed. Do look after her, whatever passes between you. She's a lovely girl, and she wants being cared for."
"Yes, sir," Neville replied, hoping the old man wasn't hinting that he should marry Hannah. He wasn't quite sure he loved her that much (yet), and he felt terrifyingly young to be making such decisions, but he certainly knew a lot of girls he'd marry her ahead of.
"Good. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got a few of my old soldier pals I'm going up the road to have a drink with. I suggest you do the same. Good day, young Longbottom."
***************************
Three months later.
The weather being somewhat less than inclement on this particular Saturday morning, Hannah and Neville went for a lunchtime walk in Hyde Park.
"What's up with you lately?" Hannah asked as they found a bench and sat holding hands. "You've been extremely busy and very mysterious about it."
"Sorry," Neville replied. "I've had a number of things going on, but none of them got confirmed until late last night and I didn't know whether you'd be excited for me or mad enough to curse me if I woke you up so late."
Hannah thought about this for a moment. "Perhaps a mild curse, nothing serious. I had a late shift last night, so I wasn't in bed until after midnight anyway." She rested her head on his shoulder. "So what's your good news?"
"I... um... got a job as an apothecary assistant in that little place in Diagon Alley - you know, the one that sells all the headache and wart cures and suchlike?"
"I know the one, yes. How wonderful! I thought your strength was Herbology, though - what are you doing in a place that deals mostly with Potions?"
"The fellow who runs the place wondered the same thing, but I did get a passing Potions grade in Sixth Year - thank Merlin for Slughorn - but quite a lot of medicinal potions are strong in plant ingredients anyway. That's where I came in, I told him - instead of him having to buy his various roots and herbs, I could help him grow them himself."
"Smart," Hannah replied. "And in return, he brings you up to date on all the Potions stuff you missed out on at NEWT level?" She was beginning to be quite glad she'd become so fixated on Neville - she remembered the first DA session, when her hero-worship had (justifiably) been centred on Harry, and Neville had still been a person of no consequence. And now he was a hero of the wizarding world and a determined and inventive young man making his way in life.
Neville nodded. "So here's the other big surprise. Hours are long, and some of these plants need tending after hours. So I'm looking to move out on my own, and I wonder if you'd help me look for cheap lodgings near work."
Hannah was quite excited by this prospect, on a number of levels - not least of which was the guarantee of privacy if she wanted to let him take their amorous activities much further. That aside, there were times she simply wanted to be alone with him, completely undisturbed, which was difficult when both of them lived under the same roof as older family members. She figured she would live at home for at least a little bit longer, but the ability to crash somewhere else was alluring. "How about the Leaky?" she asked.
Neville kissed her on the top of her head. "Now wait a minute, Miss Abbott - I thought you said you didn't want to mix business and pleasure."
"Well... I did when I started, but I had my reasons. For a little while before all this horror started, I had a summer job in a café in the Muggle world and one of the girls used to have her boyfriend constantly hanging around her. You know, always wanting to talk, distracting her from her job, pestering her for free drinks and that sort of stuff. And I swore that would never happen to me, so... Oh look, Neville, I know you're the last person in the world to behave like that, but I had to apply the same rule to everyone until I felt a little more confident. I hope you understand."
"I do," he replied. "Sounds like a nasty chap - were you ever tempted to curse him?"
"There were some days, as horrible as this sounds, when I understood what some wizards loathe about Muggles. But then, he was a bit like the Cormac McLaggan of the Muggle world. If he'd been a wizard, I'd have... remember that episode with Harry on the train, and what happened to Malfoy and his cronies?"
"At the end of Fifth Year? Yeah, that was pretty cool."
"Still, this Muggle got his comeuppance in the end. It wasn't me who did it - or at least, I didn't have to use magic."
Neville thought it best not to ask, and let it lie. "So... the Leaky. What are the rooms like?"
"I've got my next shift starting in half an hour; want to come take a look?"
The room Hannah showed him was a garret with a bed, chair, table, chest of drawers and wardrobe, a small stove, and something vaguely resembling a balcony. Neville opened the French doors that led to it and frowned. "Very narrow. I wouldn't like to sit out on that," he said, "not without some sort of holding spell, but it'd be just the thing for..."
"Creepy vegetables?" Hannah asked, giggling.
"Exactly!" Neville replied, pinning her against a wall and tickling her till she shrieked.
"In that case," she said as she wriggled away and caught her breath, "you can put blocking charms on the balcony doors, thank you very much. We wouldn't want anything making its own way inside. And definitely no Mandrakes."
"It's a deal," Neville said. "What are the rates?"
Two weeks later.
Neville was sitting at his desk one evening, halfway through his fourth butterbeer and alternating between textbooks and scrawling out his ninth inch of parchment, when there was a knock on the gerret door.
"Come in!" he called out, simultaneously and silently casting Alohomora on the doorknob. He wasn't surprised to see that it was Hannah, and she looked a wreck.
"That looks like a very comfortable bed," she said, weariness suffusing her voice. "May I?"
"Be my guest," he replied. "I also have two unopened bottles of butterbeer here if you want one. Or both; you look like you need them."
Hannah kicked her shoes off and flopped down onto the bed. "I'll pass, thanks - I've been drinking the stuff all evening to try to keep me going but it's just not doing the job. I think it's about time we started serving coffee, if only so I can get through the longer shifts."
"Muggle drinks at the Leaky?" Neville replied, putting his work to one side. "Sounds like a good idea. What happened at work tonight?"
"Someone didn't turn up and I had to do their job as well, plus an extra hour at the end - and it was busy on a night when it's usually dead. As far as the coffee's concerned, I'm thinking of calling on a few Muggle friends and seeing where I can get some, or maybe there are wizards who drink it and already have sources... but I'm too tired to think about it right now. What are you working on?"
"I'm writing a paper for the British Journal of Herbology. Professor Sprout thought it might be interesting for herbologists elsewhere to read about what we did with the plants at the Battle of Hogwarts. I'm just tying in what's already known about them with what we saw them do at the battle - it looks like we learned a few new things about them."
"If I wasn't so tired, I'd probably be able to help you. Neville, I know this is going to sound rather rash, but I'm too tired to apparate and I don't fancy walking back downstairs to catch the Floo network. Can I sleep here tonight, please?"
Neville took a sip from his butterbeer. "Um... sure. Do you want me to sleep in the chair, or..."
Hannah shook her head. "No, I... I trust you." As long as they'd been going out, they hadn't yet spent a night together. But she was exhausted, overworked to the point of tears, and there was nothing she wanted right now more than his company and a safe pair of arms around her.
"Thanks, Hannah. Um... you can borrow some of my pyjamas if you like." He lifted his wand and the relevant drawer slid open.
She chose a pair of his pyjamas but quickly decided to forsake the trousers, which were too long for her and a little too large around the waist. The top was long enough to (just) come down over her buttocks, and since she was going to keep her knickers on anyway it didn't make much difference - he'd already seen her in skirts that weren't much longer anyway. It charmed her that he was conspicuously looking the other way. Dear Neville, she thought. I'm going to have to give you permission to look next time, aren't I?
"How much longer are you going to be up doing that?" she asked as she got into bed and laid her head on the pillow.
Neville looked at the small clock on his desk. He could probably go another hour if he pushed himself; on the other hand, the light he needed to read by might keep Hannah awake, and then there was all the noise he'd make scrawling on the parchment and shelving books... "I can probably finish now," he replied, closing the book he was reading and laying the parchment aside. Very gently, he pulled his pyjamas from under the pillow Hannah's head wasn't lying on and (having extinguished the lights) changed into them, noticing that she seemed mostly asleep.
Until she murmured, "Mmm, you do look handsome, you know."
Neville blushed. "Were you watching me the whole time?"
"I caught glimpses, yeah. Pity you'd turned the lights off."
"You little minx."
She smiled at him, eyes closed. "I know."
He sat next to her on the bed. "Maybe I should have taken the opportunity to get a glimpse or two myself."
"Some other time?" she asked. "Right now all I want to do is snuggle up next to you and fall asleep in your arms."
Climbing into bed, he obliged her. "Something like that?"
"Yeah, that's good. Neville..."
"Yes, Hannah?"
"Being with you like this is nice. I wish I wasn't so tired." She smiled blissfully and let herself drift off to sleep
"Me too." He knew what she was driving at and silently agreed with her. He remembered Harry talking to him about his Chest Monster and concluded that his Monster lay somewhat further down than that, at least in the context of Hannah in his bed and wearing very little. And his Monster agreed with them both.
Next Morning.
"I don't know about you," Hannah said, squirming against Neville, "but that was the best night's sleep I've had in a long, long time. You?"
"Mmm, yes." Despite the unfamiliarity of a woman in his bed, the fact that it was Hannah made it a delight, especially when she cuddled in and smiled at him like that.
"Sorry I couldn't indulge you in pillow talk. Shall we do this again sometime when I'm not so tired? "
Neville grinned at her. "We could. If I may ask, would a certain Hufflepuff chocolate-frog collector be interested in seeing where that leads?"
"Very much so. You're good company, and I trust you."
"It is still only six thirty," Neville said, turning one eye to his clock, "and I don't usually get out of bed until seven."
"Is that so?" Hannah replied, sliding one hand down his chest and teasingly playing with his pyjama shirt buttons all the way down.
"That is definitely so," Neville affirmed.
"Well in that case..." She moved her hand up again and this time undid his top button. And then the next, and the next... "Tell you what; rather than talking, let's just undo each other's buttons and see where things lead." She felt rather bold doing this but they'd already put their hands on each other just about everywhere through clothes, and she felt ready to take the next step.
It wasn't until she'd said the last word that he realised the button holding his pyjama trousers had been undone as well. He started on the buttons of her pyjama top, or rather his pyjama top that she was wearing, noticing as she got halfway down that she wasn't wearing a bra. By eye, he figured her a nice middle-of-the-road C cup and her breasts were firm and shapely. He cupped his hand under one of them, and she cupped her hand somewhat lower down on him in return.
"What's this?" he asked as his excitement began to show. "I caress your sticking-out bits, you caress mine?"
She grinned. "Something like that, yeah. Hmm, look at that - your sticking-out bit is..."
"Sticking out even more?" he finished for her, grinning wickedly. He'd always worried about whether he was pushing her too far, but she'd never yet objected to the things he'd done... and what she was doing now suggested she wouldn't object to anything.
"Do I gather we're not holding back this time?" he asked.
"No, we're not - and since there's no worry about being interrupted, I thought it might be the best time." And she forestalled any further discussion by kissing him firmly, deeply and repeatedly. She wanted him badly, and she wanted him to take full advantage of her in whatever way he wanted. Rolling a little so she was fully on top of him, she slipped fully out of the borrowed pyjama top and flung it to one side. Out of slight out of mind. She felt his arms going around her, fingers working up and down her back, and she purred with pleasure. Further down his hands drifted, and now they were cupping her arse, squeezing it and pushing her against him and then she felt his fingers hesitantly sliding under the waistband of her knickers...
She broke away, pushed herself up on hands and knees, but still straddling over him. Neville asked if she was alright.
"Good God yes! I was just stopping to tell you rip them off and get on with it." The promise of it both thrilled and scared her, but she was far more thrilled than scared... and not in a cerebral way either. Let Hermione analyse those sorts of feelings in the middle of the act - she just wanted him to take her.
He obliged, taking a brief look at them as he did so. "Talk about House loyalty," he remarked, flinging the black-trimmed yellow panties aside.
She laughed. "Well you wear red and gold boxers, so why not?" Then she lowered herself back down against him, both of them completely naked. How she'd waited for this moment...
"Hannah, what about..."
She guessed he was talking about precautions. "All fixed on my side," she said. "Go for it, you sexy herbologist, you." She took a deep breath, but she didn't think it was going to hurt that much. Nor did it. He pulled her close, kissed her, caressed her a little more and then it happened; one instant he was at her, then he was in her.
"Oh. My. God." She shivered from the top of her head to the tips of her toes as he slid himself slowly but inexorably in. "That feels... wow..."
"At your cervix, my dear," he teased.
"Um... perhaps not quite that far," she quipped back at him, gently rocking her hips back and forth and feeling his hands squeezing and kneading her arse and accentuating the movement. Slow at first, then faster... and before she knew it, the feeling of him moving inside her had crowded out the thinking part of her brain completely and the instinctual animal part of her was egging him on to be harder, rougher... and after that it was all a blur in which the utterances "Yes" and "Oh God" alternated with her screaming his name, him screaming hers and various highly erotic statements which she was sure she'd be embarrassed by in the cold light of day but which didn't bother her a bit right now.
"Oh you hot little Hufflepuff you," he whispered when all was done, kissing her softly once more and gathering her gently into his arms.
Well there we go, she thought to herself, grinning. I have just been pierced with the Sword of Gryffindor. But she knew it would sound silly if she said it out loud, and it took her until they were both fully dressed before she finally managed to dodge his question about what had made her spontaneously giggle.
She hated to leave him as much as he hated to leave her, even though she knew he had his job to go to and she had hers. But for the rest of the day she was walking on air, and even an extra hour added unexpectedly once more to the end of her shift couldn't dampen her spirits. And when she knocked on Neville's door that evening and he turned to greet her, she smiled warmly at him... and held up her overnight bag.
"Planning on staying the night again, are you?" he asked.
"You're damn right, I am."
"I have to hop over to work at midnight; there's a batch of gillyweed that needs tending, and I probably won't be back till two."
"Well then," she replied, "Isn't it good you've got someone to keep your bed warm?"
"You do know how to make yourself useful, don't you?" Neville said, grinning. "It's ten thirty - why don't we kill a bit of time before I head over?"
"I wouldn't mind at all," Hannah agreed. "Would you like to help me out of this dress? The zipper is a pain to get undone, and it seems too trivial a thing to pull my wand out for."
"Rather I pulled mine out, would you?" he replied, walking over to meet her.
But that was an unnecessary question, for he was already sliding the zipper down in a way that suggested her getting undressed had very little to do with putting her pyjamas on. And that, she thought as her dress hit the floor and his hands began to explore her curves, was just fine.
************
A year later.
"Woo-hoo!" Hannah exclaimed, almost dancing across Neville's room. "Holidays, you and me together at last! Three whole weeks! Where shall we go, and what shall we do?"
Neville set aside his textbook, stood up and caught her as she made a well-timed leap into his arms. "I don't care, Hannah dearest; just anything that gets us far away from here." He let her down and kissed her breathless. "Anything in mind?"
"When I was little, Mum and Dad and I used to go camping together. Let's do that."
"What, like Harry, Hermione and Ron did, only without the Death Eaters chasing them?"
"Sure! I've got a Muggle camera that'll work..."
"Oh no, not another Colin!" The pain of Colin Creevey's death had faded with time and what they had chosen to remember was the small, grinning boy behind the camera, constantly after Harry.
Hannah laughed and playfully smacked his backside. "Well, why not? I am your biggest fan after all."
"You are too," he replied, whacking back and missing. "Okay, you can bring your camera if I'm allowed to bring a herbology book and sample bags. When do you want to start?"
"Well, I'll have to go back to Dad's and grab some stuff..." She had erred in thinking of this as Neville's room - it was really theirs now, and she was even paying half the rent. Someday soon she should make an honest man of him, but she was still lost in the delirous joy of hanging out with her best friend and hero all the time, and she didn't want to change the status of that relationship until she'd taken care of a couple of other things. "It's lunchtime now; why don't I spend the first part of the afternoon getting things together and finding some maps, and we can spend the rest of the day working out exactly where we're going?"
By the time she was back, the mail had arrived and Neville was sorting the envelopes out into his, hers and theirs piles. She kissed him softly on the back of the neck, took one look at the amount of mail and said "Poor bloody owls."
"You aren't joking," he replied. "I don't think I've seen so many together in my life."
She tossed a Muggle envelope onto the pile for her. "That's one more," she added. "What have you got?"
"Mostly correspondence about manuscripts from Pomona and half a dozen other professionals," he told her. It felt odd to call Professor Sprout by her first name, but he was getting a reputation as a knowledgeable wizard in herbology circles and she'd made it clear that it was no longer appropriate for him to address her as her student. "I could tell you what it would be about, but you'd probably tell me I was beginning to sound like Hermione."
She stood next to him with one arm draped around him. With her other hand, she shook open a map of Britain and spread it on his desk as she talked. "Well when it comes to herbology at least, you practically are Hermione. Anyway, let's get on with planning our trip - we can take the mail along and read it in a quiet moment. Where shall we go?"
"Right here," Neville replied, putting a finger down on a spot.
"Done."
Author:
pathology_doc
Fandom: Harry Potter
Rating: NC17.
Notes/warnings: I don't know what the weather was actually doing in Muggle London on November 11 1998, so I've taken some liberties with it and I'm going to claim artistic licence if I turn out to have been wrong. As always, book canon is favoured over film - and I don't have access to Pottermore info.
November 11, 1998
Hannah awoke to a Remembrance Day that was bitterly cold, windy, and with the occasional fleck of falling snow. She picked out a sensible black dress, thick stockings and low shoes, showered and dressed. Neville apparated into her bedroom three seconds after she'd slipped her shoes on, and she silently stepped forward and hugged him, resting her head on his shoulder.
"Hi, Hannah," he said, wrapping his arms around her and kissing her softly on the cheek. "Are you alright?"
"Sort of; yes and no. Just thinking how miserable the weather is, and reminding myself it's probably the last Remembrance service I'm ever going to go to with Grandpa. Thanks for agreeing to come along."
"Hey, isn't that what boyfriends are for?" he replied. "I'm glad you asked."
"Dad's downstairs waiting," she said. "We're going there the Muggle way, if that's okay."
Neville had seen enough of the Muggle world to know that he didn't want a bar of traffic, but if Hannah's father had been living a Muggle life for long enough then Neville was prepared to trust him behind the wheel. And he was indeed a good driver, though Neville found the pace excruciatingly slow and the behaviour of other drivers somewhere between discourteous and actively dangerous, and more than once he had to fight to keep himself from reaching across the back seat, grabbing Hannah's hand and disapparating with her. "Merlin's beard!" he exclaimed as a London taxi abruptly cut in front of them. "How on earth do they live like this?"
"I know," Mr Abbott said, thinking it unwise to mention that many of them didn't live - it was Neville's first trip in a Muggle car, and he didn't need that worry hanging over his head. "Have you ever heard the Muggle term 'road rage'?"
"No," Neville replied , "but I can guess the meaning."
"It isn't hard to guess," Mr Abbott said, gazing back over his shoulder briefly and then swinging his own car into a turning lane while he still had time. "An American friend of my wife mentioned it to me a few years ago, and I can only be thankful that we wizards have the option of flying at different altitudes."
Hannah helpfully interjected, "A good thing, too - can you imagine 'broom rage'?"
Mr Abbott stopped for a red light and turned to look back at her while it was safe to do so. "Hannah dear, we have that already; it's called professional Quidditch."
Hannah bent over double with laughter. Neville merely grinned. "Never mind professional Quidditch," he replied. "You should've seen some of the Gryffindor/Slytherin games when Harry and Draco Malfoy were seekers."
Mr Abbott grinned back at him, looked back at the road and drove off on the green light. Five minutes later, they were at the retirement home where Hannah's Muggle grandfather lived.
Hannah's grandfather, Neville saw, was a genial old man with bright blue eyes that reminded him of Dumbledore's, and it was surprising to him that the man should only be in his early eighties - wizards of his elderly appearance were usually well over a hundred. Mr Abbott greeted his father in law politely and affectionately; Hannah rushed to him, threw her arms around him and kissed him enthusiastically in the same appropriate grand-daughterly way she'd employed since she was old enough to do so. Then she introduced him to Neville, who'd been waiting patiently and quietly and looking at a large map of France on the wall which bore two bright blue arrows - one leading towards the sea, the other (much longer) away from it and almost off the map to the east.
"Grandpa, this is my boyfriend Neville Longbottom I've told you about; Neville, this is my Grandpa Carrington."
"How do you do, Mr Carrington?" Neville asked, stepping forward politely and shaking the old man's hand as he rose from his chair.
"Very well indeed, young man," Hannah's grandfather said. "I understand you're the young gent who pulled my granddaughter out of her... shall we call it a spot of bother?" And he gave a sly wink to indicate to Neville that he knew the exact nature of that bother.
"You could say that, sir, although she really did a fairly good job of keeping herself out of trouble for most of the worst. Er... may I ask about the map? That's France, isn't it?" He thought of Fleur Delacour-Weasley and wondered where Beauxbatons was.
"It is indeed, young man. It marks the line of my regiment's ignominious retreat in nineteen forty and the line of its successful advance four years later, at least until the night I took my eye off the ball and ended up in a field hospital. I prefer to let the history books do most of the talking, but those lines are there to remind me of my part in it."
"Hannah's given me a few M... er, history books to read, sir. It sounds pretty impressive."
Hannah's grandfather grunted as he followed Hannah, Mr Abbott and Neville out. Though he needed a stick, he moved reasonably swiftly with its aid. "It always does after the fact, young man. Most of the time it felt like a frantic effort to stop myself and my mates from getting killed - and sadly, not managing it a lot of the time."
"That was also my exp... ah, understanding," Neville replied, modifying his statement so as not to draw undue attention from the Muggles around them. He wondered if Hannah's grandfather had got the point, but the man's slow nod told him yes. "When they write the history of that, it won't be written by me."
"And probably a good thing too," Hannah's grandfather said as they came out into the open air and got into the car. "There's nothing wrong with memoirs but in my opinion, young man, those who do the most boasting about a battle are seldom the ones who were there."
Hannah grinned at Neville across the back seat. "We know someone like that," she said, "Don't we, Neville?"
Neville nodded and grinned back. "Don't we, just?"
****************
Neville said nothing throughout the service (he didn't know the rites, beyond hastily mumbling "Amen" whenever he heard Hannah say it) but he wasn't without thoughts for his own war's dead. Colin, Professor Lupin, Nymphadora Tonks, Fred Weasley, the dozens of others - students and aurors and Centaurs and House Elves - who had perished... Would he remember their faces and names when he was as wizened as Hannah's grandfather?
At the end, the old man spoke to them both separately.
"Hannah," he said to his granddaughter, "I know your life is going to be... different from mine, and I can't possibly understand it, but I hope that whatever happens you find someone at least as kind and gentlemanly as young Longbottom to pull you through it."
"Longbottom," he said to Neville, "I and mine will soon fade away, in the manner of all old soldiers, and one day you and my granddaughter and all your friends who went through what you did will be the inheritors of what you saw today. I hope you never forget what it means to fight for something meaningful, and at the same time never lose your distaste for the deed. Do look after her, whatever passes between you. She's a lovely girl, and she wants being cared for."
"Yes, sir," Neville replied, hoping the old man wasn't hinting that he should marry Hannah. He wasn't quite sure he loved her that much (yet), and he felt terrifyingly young to be making such decisions, but he certainly knew a lot of girls he'd marry her ahead of.
"Good. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got a few of my old soldier pals I'm going up the road to have a drink with. I suggest you do the same. Good day, young Longbottom."
***************************
Three months later.
The weather being somewhat less than inclement on this particular Saturday morning, Hannah and Neville went for a lunchtime walk in Hyde Park.
"What's up with you lately?" Hannah asked as they found a bench and sat holding hands. "You've been extremely busy and very mysterious about it."
"Sorry," Neville replied. "I've had a number of things going on, but none of them got confirmed until late last night and I didn't know whether you'd be excited for me or mad enough to curse me if I woke you up so late."
Hannah thought about this for a moment. "Perhaps a mild curse, nothing serious. I had a late shift last night, so I wasn't in bed until after midnight anyway." She rested her head on his shoulder. "So what's your good news?"
"I... um... got a job as an apothecary assistant in that little place in Diagon Alley - you know, the one that sells all the headache and wart cures and suchlike?"
"I know the one, yes. How wonderful! I thought your strength was Herbology, though - what are you doing in a place that deals mostly with Potions?"
"The fellow who runs the place wondered the same thing, but I did get a passing Potions grade in Sixth Year - thank Merlin for Slughorn - but quite a lot of medicinal potions are strong in plant ingredients anyway. That's where I came in, I told him - instead of him having to buy his various roots and herbs, I could help him grow them himself."
"Smart," Hannah replied. "And in return, he brings you up to date on all the Potions stuff you missed out on at NEWT level?" She was beginning to be quite glad she'd become so fixated on Neville - she remembered the first DA session, when her hero-worship had (justifiably) been centred on Harry, and Neville had still been a person of no consequence. And now he was a hero of the wizarding world and a determined and inventive young man making his way in life.
Neville nodded. "So here's the other big surprise. Hours are long, and some of these plants need tending after hours. So I'm looking to move out on my own, and I wonder if you'd help me look for cheap lodgings near work."
Hannah was quite excited by this prospect, on a number of levels - not least of which was the guarantee of privacy if she wanted to let him take their amorous activities much further. That aside, there were times she simply wanted to be alone with him, completely undisturbed, which was difficult when both of them lived under the same roof as older family members. She figured she would live at home for at least a little bit longer, but the ability to crash somewhere else was alluring. "How about the Leaky?" she asked.
Neville kissed her on the top of her head. "Now wait a minute, Miss Abbott - I thought you said you didn't want to mix business and pleasure."
"Well... I did when I started, but I had my reasons. For a little while before all this horror started, I had a summer job in a café in the Muggle world and one of the girls used to have her boyfriend constantly hanging around her. You know, always wanting to talk, distracting her from her job, pestering her for free drinks and that sort of stuff. And I swore that would never happen to me, so... Oh look, Neville, I know you're the last person in the world to behave like that, but I had to apply the same rule to everyone until I felt a little more confident. I hope you understand."
"I do," he replied. "Sounds like a nasty chap - were you ever tempted to curse him?"
"There were some days, as horrible as this sounds, when I understood what some wizards loathe about Muggles. But then, he was a bit like the Cormac McLaggan of the Muggle world. If he'd been a wizard, I'd have... remember that episode with Harry on the train, and what happened to Malfoy and his cronies?"
"At the end of Fifth Year? Yeah, that was pretty cool."
"Still, this Muggle got his comeuppance in the end. It wasn't me who did it - or at least, I didn't have to use magic."
Neville thought it best not to ask, and let it lie. "So... the Leaky. What are the rooms like?"
"I've got my next shift starting in half an hour; want to come take a look?"
The room Hannah showed him was a garret with a bed, chair, table, chest of drawers and wardrobe, a small stove, and something vaguely resembling a balcony. Neville opened the French doors that led to it and frowned. "Very narrow. I wouldn't like to sit out on that," he said, "not without some sort of holding spell, but it'd be just the thing for..."
"Creepy vegetables?" Hannah asked, giggling.
"Exactly!" Neville replied, pinning her against a wall and tickling her till she shrieked.
"In that case," she said as she wriggled away and caught her breath, "you can put blocking charms on the balcony doors, thank you very much. We wouldn't want anything making its own way inside. And definitely no Mandrakes."
"It's a deal," Neville said. "What are the rates?"
Two weeks later.
Neville was sitting at his desk one evening, halfway through his fourth butterbeer and alternating between textbooks and scrawling out his ninth inch of parchment, when there was a knock on the gerret door.
"Come in!" he called out, simultaneously and silently casting Alohomora on the doorknob. He wasn't surprised to see that it was Hannah, and she looked a wreck.
"That looks like a very comfortable bed," she said, weariness suffusing her voice. "May I?"
"Be my guest," he replied. "I also have two unopened bottles of butterbeer here if you want one. Or both; you look like you need them."
Hannah kicked her shoes off and flopped down onto the bed. "I'll pass, thanks - I've been drinking the stuff all evening to try to keep me going but it's just not doing the job. I think it's about time we started serving coffee, if only so I can get through the longer shifts."
"Muggle drinks at the Leaky?" Neville replied, putting his work to one side. "Sounds like a good idea. What happened at work tonight?"
"Someone didn't turn up and I had to do their job as well, plus an extra hour at the end - and it was busy on a night when it's usually dead. As far as the coffee's concerned, I'm thinking of calling on a few Muggle friends and seeing where I can get some, or maybe there are wizards who drink it and already have sources... but I'm too tired to think about it right now. What are you working on?"
"I'm writing a paper for the British Journal of Herbology. Professor Sprout thought it might be interesting for herbologists elsewhere to read about what we did with the plants at the Battle of Hogwarts. I'm just tying in what's already known about them with what we saw them do at the battle - it looks like we learned a few new things about them."
"If I wasn't so tired, I'd probably be able to help you. Neville, I know this is going to sound rather rash, but I'm too tired to apparate and I don't fancy walking back downstairs to catch the Floo network. Can I sleep here tonight, please?"
Neville took a sip from his butterbeer. "Um... sure. Do you want me to sleep in the chair, or..."
Hannah shook her head. "No, I... I trust you." As long as they'd been going out, they hadn't yet spent a night together. But she was exhausted, overworked to the point of tears, and there was nothing she wanted right now more than his company and a safe pair of arms around her.
"Thanks, Hannah. Um... you can borrow some of my pyjamas if you like." He lifted his wand and the relevant drawer slid open.
She chose a pair of his pyjamas but quickly decided to forsake the trousers, which were too long for her and a little too large around the waist. The top was long enough to (just) come down over her buttocks, and since she was going to keep her knickers on anyway it didn't make much difference - he'd already seen her in skirts that weren't much longer anyway. It charmed her that he was conspicuously looking the other way. Dear Neville, she thought. I'm going to have to give you permission to look next time, aren't I?
"How much longer are you going to be up doing that?" she asked as she got into bed and laid her head on the pillow.
Neville looked at the small clock on his desk. He could probably go another hour if he pushed himself; on the other hand, the light he needed to read by might keep Hannah awake, and then there was all the noise he'd make scrawling on the parchment and shelving books... "I can probably finish now," he replied, closing the book he was reading and laying the parchment aside. Very gently, he pulled his pyjamas from under the pillow Hannah's head wasn't lying on and (having extinguished the lights) changed into them, noticing that she seemed mostly asleep.
Until she murmured, "Mmm, you do look handsome, you know."
Neville blushed. "Were you watching me the whole time?"
"I caught glimpses, yeah. Pity you'd turned the lights off."
"You little minx."
She smiled at him, eyes closed. "I know."
He sat next to her on the bed. "Maybe I should have taken the opportunity to get a glimpse or two myself."
"Some other time?" she asked. "Right now all I want to do is snuggle up next to you and fall asleep in your arms."
Climbing into bed, he obliged her. "Something like that?"
"Yeah, that's good. Neville..."
"Yes, Hannah?"
"Being with you like this is nice. I wish I wasn't so tired." She smiled blissfully and let herself drift off to sleep
"Me too." He knew what she was driving at and silently agreed with her. He remembered Harry talking to him about his Chest Monster and concluded that his Monster lay somewhat further down than that, at least in the context of Hannah in his bed and wearing very little. And his Monster agreed with them both.
Next Morning.
"I don't know about you," Hannah said, squirming against Neville, "but that was the best night's sleep I've had in a long, long time. You?"
"Mmm, yes." Despite the unfamiliarity of a woman in his bed, the fact that it was Hannah made it a delight, especially when she cuddled in and smiled at him like that.
"Sorry I couldn't indulge you in pillow talk. Shall we do this again sometime when I'm not so tired? "
Neville grinned at her. "We could. If I may ask, would a certain Hufflepuff chocolate-frog collector be interested in seeing where that leads?"
"Very much so. You're good company, and I trust you."
"It is still only six thirty," Neville said, turning one eye to his clock, "and I don't usually get out of bed until seven."
"Is that so?" Hannah replied, sliding one hand down his chest and teasingly playing with his pyjama shirt buttons all the way down.
"That is definitely so," Neville affirmed.
"Well in that case..." She moved her hand up again and this time undid his top button. And then the next, and the next... "Tell you what; rather than talking, let's just undo each other's buttons and see where things lead." She felt rather bold doing this but they'd already put their hands on each other just about everywhere through clothes, and she felt ready to take the next step.
It wasn't until she'd said the last word that he realised the button holding his pyjama trousers had been undone as well. He started on the buttons of her pyjama top, or rather his pyjama top that she was wearing, noticing as she got halfway down that she wasn't wearing a bra. By eye, he figured her a nice middle-of-the-road C cup and her breasts were firm and shapely. He cupped his hand under one of them, and she cupped her hand somewhat lower down on him in return.
"What's this?" he asked as his excitement began to show. "I caress your sticking-out bits, you caress mine?"
She grinned. "Something like that, yeah. Hmm, look at that - your sticking-out bit is..."
"Sticking out even more?" he finished for her, grinning wickedly. He'd always worried about whether he was pushing her too far, but she'd never yet objected to the things he'd done... and what she was doing now suggested she wouldn't object to anything.
"Do I gather we're not holding back this time?" he asked.
"No, we're not - and since there's no worry about being interrupted, I thought it might be the best time." And she forestalled any further discussion by kissing him firmly, deeply and repeatedly. She wanted him badly, and she wanted him to take full advantage of her in whatever way he wanted. Rolling a little so she was fully on top of him, she slipped fully out of the borrowed pyjama top and flung it to one side. Out of slight out of mind. She felt his arms going around her, fingers working up and down her back, and she purred with pleasure. Further down his hands drifted, and now they were cupping her arse, squeezing it and pushing her against him and then she felt his fingers hesitantly sliding under the waistband of her knickers...
She broke away, pushed herself up on hands and knees, but still straddling over him. Neville asked if she was alright.
"Good God yes! I was just stopping to tell you rip them off and get on with it." The promise of it both thrilled and scared her, but she was far more thrilled than scared... and not in a cerebral way either. Let Hermione analyse those sorts of feelings in the middle of the act - she just wanted him to take her.
He obliged, taking a brief look at them as he did so. "Talk about House loyalty," he remarked, flinging the black-trimmed yellow panties aside.
She laughed. "Well you wear red and gold boxers, so why not?" Then she lowered herself back down against him, both of them completely naked. How she'd waited for this moment...
"Hannah, what about..."
She guessed he was talking about precautions. "All fixed on my side," she said. "Go for it, you sexy herbologist, you." She took a deep breath, but she didn't think it was going to hurt that much. Nor did it. He pulled her close, kissed her, caressed her a little more and then it happened; one instant he was at her, then he was in her.
"Oh. My. God." She shivered from the top of her head to the tips of her toes as he slid himself slowly but inexorably in. "That feels... wow..."
"At your cervix, my dear," he teased.
"Um... perhaps not quite that far," she quipped back at him, gently rocking her hips back and forth and feeling his hands squeezing and kneading her arse and accentuating the movement. Slow at first, then faster... and before she knew it, the feeling of him moving inside her had crowded out the thinking part of her brain completely and the instinctual animal part of her was egging him on to be harder, rougher... and after that it was all a blur in which the utterances "Yes" and "Oh God" alternated with her screaming his name, him screaming hers and various highly erotic statements which she was sure she'd be embarrassed by in the cold light of day but which didn't bother her a bit right now.
"Oh you hot little Hufflepuff you," he whispered when all was done, kissing her softly once more and gathering her gently into his arms.
Well there we go, she thought to herself, grinning. I have just been pierced with the Sword of Gryffindor. But she knew it would sound silly if she said it out loud, and it took her until they were both fully dressed before she finally managed to dodge his question about what had made her spontaneously giggle.
She hated to leave him as much as he hated to leave her, even though she knew he had his job to go to and she had hers. But for the rest of the day she was walking on air, and even an extra hour added unexpectedly once more to the end of her shift couldn't dampen her spirits. And when she knocked on Neville's door that evening and he turned to greet her, she smiled warmly at him... and held up her overnight bag.
"Planning on staying the night again, are you?" he asked.
"You're damn right, I am."
"I have to hop over to work at midnight; there's a batch of gillyweed that needs tending, and I probably won't be back till two."
"Well then," she replied, "Isn't it good you've got someone to keep your bed warm?"
"You do know how to make yourself useful, don't you?" Neville said, grinning. "It's ten thirty - why don't we kill a bit of time before I head over?"
"I wouldn't mind at all," Hannah agreed. "Would you like to help me out of this dress? The zipper is a pain to get undone, and it seems too trivial a thing to pull my wand out for."
"Rather I pulled mine out, would you?" he replied, walking over to meet her.
But that was an unnecessary question, for he was already sliding the zipper down in a way that suggested her getting undressed had very little to do with putting her pyjamas on. And that, she thought as her dress hit the floor and his hands began to explore her curves, was just fine.
************
A year later.
"Woo-hoo!" Hannah exclaimed, almost dancing across Neville's room. "Holidays, you and me together at last! Three whole weeks! Where shall we go, and what shall we do?"
Neville set aside his textbook, stood up and caught her as she made a well-timed leap into his arms. "I don't care, Hannah dearest; just anything that gets us far away from here." He let her down and kissed her breathless. "Anything in mind?"
"When I was little, Mum and Dad and I used to go camping together. Let's do that."
"What, like Harry, Hermione and Ron did, only without the Death Eaters chasing them?"
"Sure! I've got a Muggle camera that'll work..."
"Oh no, not another Colin!" The pain of Colin Creevey's death had faded with time and what they had chosen to remember was the small, grinning boy behind the camera, constantly after Harry.
Hannah laughed and playfully smacked his backside. "Well, why not? I am your biggest fan after all."
"You are too," he replied, whacking back and missing. "Okay, you can bring your camera if I'm allowed to bring a herbology book and sample bags. When do you want to start?"
"Well, I'll have to go back to Dad's and grab some stuff..." She had erred in thinking of this as Neville's room - it was really theirs now, and she was even paying half the rent. Someday soon she should make an honest man of him, but she was still lost in the delirous joy of hanging out with her best friend and hero all the time, and she didn't want to change the status of that relationship until she'd taken care of a couple of other things. "It's lunchtime now; why don't I spend the first part of the afternoon getting things together and finding some maps, and we can spend the rest of the day working out exactly where we're going?"
By the time she was back, the mail had arrived and Neville was sorting the envelopes out into his, hers and theirs piles. She kissed him softly on the back of the neck, took one look at the amount of mail and said "Poor bloody owls."
"You aren't joking," he replied. "I don't think I've seen so many together in my life."
She tossed a Muggle envelope onto the pile for her. "That's one more," she added. "What have you got?"
"Mostly correspondence about manuscripts from Pomona and half a dozen other professionals," he told her. It felt odd to call Professor Sprout by her first name, but he was getting a reputation as a knowledgeable wizard in herbology circles and she'd made it clear that it was no longer appropriate for him to address her as her student. "I could tell you what it would be about, but you'd probably tell me I was beginning to sound like Hermione."
She stood next to him with one arm draped around him. With her other hand, she shook open a map of Britain and spread it on his desk as she talked. "Well when it comes to herbology at least, you practically are Hermione. Anyway, let's get on with planning our trip - we can take the mail along and read it in a quiet moment. Where shall we go?"
"Right here," Neville replied, putting a finger down on a spot.
"Done."