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Chapter Text

It started when Neville Longbottom tugged his earlobe. Pansy, in a lethargic post-Trelawney induced stupor, hazily let her gaze linger over said earlobe in its perfect soft rotundity, the curve separate from the slender and even softer-looking curve of neck beside it, a single dark freckle almost at the hairline, and wondered what it would be like to delicately run her tongue, like outlining a constellation, from bare shoulder to neck to freckle. Her fantasy ended with a satisfactory tug of the earlobe with her even, pearly teeth. 

But with the vain reference to her own teeth, Pansy came to herself startled and flushed. Fantasies about Neville Longbottom were not to be borne. It was only logical that if any other boy had chosen exactly that same warm spot of bench Longbottom was currently shifting uneasily in, she was certain only the name, not the thought, would change. Reassured, she turned back to her former occupation of leering over Blaise's shoulder to catch his answers for the exam and letting ink dribble off her quill.

A cough snatched her vision back to the perpetrator, who was now resting his cheek on his hand as he wrote. He turned his head fleetingly and Pansy stared at his bottom lip (caught lightly between his teeth) and she wondered if his mouth—another guilty panic arrested her with a slight unbidden gasp and Blaise glowered before shielding his parchment with one forearm.

There sat Neville Longbottom, who bled crimson and gold. There sat Neville Longbottom, who was only proficient in things grown in dirt. There sat Neville Longbottom, who was everything wrong with purebloods. And here sat Pansy Parkinson, thinking that Neville Longbottom might be delectable.

Her own personality was such that Pansy immediately forced the blame on the idiot Dido's incense and consigned herself to a headache and box of Valrhona after class.

Whether due to the almost constant replay of tongue, neck, and tugging in her mind, or the way Draco had been flirting with none other than that disgusting first year Slytherin even the Hufflepuff boys wanted, Pansy could not resist the idea of desiring a Gryffindor. 

It was a two-way seduction, Pansy concluded. He was unconsciously seducing her, but she would seduce him with perfectly lucid calculation, and he would be the first to fall. Her honor would remain intact and any and all observers would be none the wiser. It was simply a passing fancy, a way to torture without revealing the authentic source.

Yes. This would work out perfectly.

The prussian-eyed boy who had whet Pansy's appetite only the day previous hardly knew what emotions he further kindled as he bit his lip and concentrated on cutting a particularly fatty piece of roast. The chunk paused at his open mouth, however, as his eyes caught hers.

She was giving him a look so distinctly feral he almost choked on the bite still being masticated. Blushing from neck to crown, he murmured excuses and half-rose from the table only to sit numbly and stare at his plate.

If his every shy glance could induce suppressed shivers of delight in her, she reveled to think of the total and complete bewitchment she would lay on him with every turn of her heel. His half-full plate and glazed stare sent triumphal waves of pleasure coursing through her being. Pansy wiped her mouth prettily with her napkin and left the Great Hall feeling Neville's presumably lustful eyes on her with every minced step. 

He was already hers.

Not in the least. Neville explained his disgust so rapidly to Trevor he kept tripping over his words. "She thinks she can get me she's why want and girls never like me like that look and what would Gran say if any of my friends or but she thinks I'll give in or it's so stupid Trevor really the girl's a brat and I wouldn't touch her even if—" Neville stiffened. Trevor sagely pretended that was all his master wanted to explore openly at this time. Such was the conclusion and the conclusion remained such.

Until precisely ten-thirty the next morning, that is. Neville was placidly shuffling down one of the longer stone corridors whose length constituted many a lazy student's full capacity for daily exercise until they reached their classroom huffing, newly asthmatic. Neville never huffed, but he did trip, and and in one instant all his possessions had escaped his arms and gleefully scattered as far from their owner's reach as gravity and bad luck made possible.

"Let me help you...no one ever stops to help." Neville was instantaneously cheered with the unexpected and dreamy missive.

"Thanks, Luna." Neville's smile receded quickly as he glanced past the blonde curls to the legs beyond them. Long, clad in sheer silk stockings, they ended in feet so perfectly arched in their heels as to be abnormal. One toe was paused atop a vial inscribed with Neville's handwriting. Pansy was still chattering blithely with her friends as if it was customary habit to stop rolling vials with her foot. Luna was cooing over illustrations in one of Neville's books and pretended not to notice him walk over to Pansy, whom Luna considered to be demon incarnate.

"I, uh, I think you're..."

"Yes, Longbottom, I am."

"I—"

"Yes, Longbottom." He ignored the tittering of her friends as Pansy, in one liquid motion, caught up the bottle and placed it in his outstretched hand, closing his fingers over it. Her advances were so subtle―the almost pout, the way her fingers lingered over his a half second longer than should be proper, the way her eyes shyly glanced at his mouth before she bit her lip as if to contain herself, and that unnerving expectation of his weakness, her own vanity, behind it all. Neville's resolve hardened at once. He left her and collected the rest of his items from Luna.   

It was here at precisely ten-thirty, which statement has been pointedly referred to before in an annoyingly omniscient manner, that Neville's unyielding resolve to never accede to the temptation that was Pansy Parkinson snapped in two. Or rather, it was crumbled to particles so fine a mote was never recovered. He looked back with the same cold demeanor to find himself staring at a face so full of anxious vulnerability he tripped again. The silk-covered legs walked away, Luna was heartily repeating herself, and Neville was lost. 

Chapter Text

That look haunted him for the rest of the day. It was on the edge of all his thoughts and stared beseechingly out of mirrors. Occasionally while traipsing through a rather delicious and lengthy daydream a visage would appear that would speak with such aching pleas Neville would listen till he trembled before remembering others stood behind him at the portrait hole. 

In sum, the heady thought that Parkinson might, in fact, actually be attracted to him had settled darkly into Neville's soul and would not be budged. So relived was the moment where he had turned it had ceased to become memory but was now an all-consuming event he was an endless participant of.

"Neville," moaned Harry, "You stopped walking again. What's wrong with you?"

Neville ducked his head and exited the doorway as if his thoughts could be read if Harry peered too closely. "Nothing," he sighed. "I've just been thinking too much about Snape. I'm really tired, too."

"Yeah." A nod of sympathy, and Harry's face disappeared beneath a veil of red. Neville slipped away into further disinterest in the present and dismissed himself while Ginny further entangled her limbs with Harry's own.  

Pansy marveled at her own brilliance. That she had shattered Neville to the quick with her blatant display of his emotional power over her had only entrapped her bait further. That it had been wholly accidental was brushed aside.

It was enough of a celebratory victory to consent consuming one half of a particularly rich strawberry pie Draco had demanded specially for her, while sampling a countless slew of perfumes her mother had sent. "He likes plants," she muttered wickedly. "Something natural and not too strong or flowery. I hate musk; he'd better not like it. Oh, that was disgusting." And on it went until the other half of the pie was consumed and Pansy had chosen her next tactics, fingers stained red. 

The underbrush was a bit finicky to paw through, but the insect-thick tangle of shrubbery on the marshy edge of the Lake was the perfect environment for the plant they needed today in Herbology. Neville was on his hands and knees, peering through the growth with a practiced eye while squishing his toes deeper into the mud. Such narrow focus sent him on a heedless path towards calamity, and in the space of five confused seconds he went from tugging up the roots of his prize to gasping for air as he surfaced.

"Longbottom," came an angry hiss to the left.

Neville choked, but not on water. That Pansy would have even been in the vicinity had been so far from his thoughts that he cursed himself for his lax vigilance. Previously hidden from his vision due to the tallness of the plants he'd just exited, she was standing knee deep in water while scouring the shores for exactly what he'd dropped mid-fall. At least, that is what he assumed she'd been doing. She was now extracting one firm, lengthy leg from a thigh-high rubber boot to discard the extra contents he'd inadvertently splashed inside. Neville began faintly coughing.

"You got water everywhere." It was sneered with such force Neville could only reply in the affirmative. The boot had been flung to the mossy bank and the other leg was being made visible as Neville realized how often Pansy wore stockings. The pale flesh under his gaze was quite new.  

"Now you can help me find this plant we have to get as punishment for drenching me."

The coughing fit ceased. "I can't. It's cheating." He sunk to his eyes and began floating in a decidedly backwards sort of motion.

"Granger helps you all the time." The second boot joined its twin. 

"Nooooo..." His eyes were still locked on what he could see of her legs and Pansy was resisting the urge to fling him next to the boots and shove her tongue down his throat in what she imagined was the fashion of a dominatrix. The boots had been inspiring, and the idea that Neville was hardly aware of what a dominatrix was made her feelings all the more rampant with need as he bobbed along.

"Yes." And with that, she lunged forward and secured his collar, hauling him to his feet.

Now, his current state of innocent, disheveled, and drenched had Pansy so weak-limbed she was clinging to his shirt for support as he found his legs and stood, blinking back water. 

"Nev—you, I mean," she gasped, flushed and bright-eyed, "You're a tad heavier when above water. "So..." Her eyes were now roaming his body, as if looking for all the defined attributes of a single specimen. 

Neville attempted to wrench her hand from his shirt. "The plant's this way," he babbled. "I had actually found some but then I fell in. If you let go I'll show you and give you some and then I can go cause I can't be late or Gran'll kill me if I'm late for a class cause she said I had to―"

"Shut up, Longbottom." She waded to where he had entranced and started digging about.

The knowledge that this was not some evil scheme meant to terrorize and humiliate had beguiled Neville past hope. As he watched her uproot all the vegetation with perfectly manicured nails Neville gave his last bit of willpower a hearty dismissal. It was just a bit of plant, and he had gotten water in her boots. 

"You're going to kill everything if you do it that way." Instantly he was at her side, musing over the area he'd trampled previously. "Here's some," he said with a sigh of relief. He shoved it all into her hands before deftly climbing the bank. A pair of Ravenclaw girls were passing and eyed him before giggling and walking away. Yes, he was drenched, but that was no excuse for laughing at him. Oh, and the pond water was rank. He'd have to shower before class. Neville began to pluck absently at his filthy shirt. He felt as nauseating as he appeared and his shoes were somewhere beyond that tree but he couldn't see them so perhaps it had been the tree further to the right; consuming quarts upon quarts of scummy water had addled his brain.   

"If I were Granger I'd have gone after them for you," cooed a voice at his elbow. 

"Wha―?"

"Those lascivious Ravenclaws. You do realize how apparent your physique is now that you're wet? Look down, Longbottom."  

He obeyed even as he pretended he didn't want to.   

"I..."   

"Running like the little follower you are after Potter and his scum must have been effective for something."

"I, I..."   

"You reek, Longbottom." And with that she sauntered away barefoot, the boots slung over one shoulder while the plants he needed dangled in one hand.   

Pansy Parkinson had just told him she wanted his body. That had not been the literal phrasing and he knew it but it twisted so deceptively simple into what he had craved from any girl that exactitude was no longer required. In a sort of catatonic state of joy, Neville staggered to the tree and struggled to force his socks over his shoes. 

Chapter Text

"She's not here," Neville had hissed frantically to Hermione.   

"Who?" Hermione reached in front of him and snatched a small pair of pruning shears from Ron's fingers.  

"Parkinson."  

Hermione rolled her eyes and began trimming dead buds from the plant in front of her. Neville reminisced on Sprout's hint that fingers were more effective and gentle than shears in this instance.   

"Just because one Slytherin's not here doesn't mean the rest aren't," she whispered back. "Ron, stop poking me. I'll give them back in a second. Why are you noticing anyway, Neville?"   

"Neville thinks she's hot," Ron mumured in Hermione's ear as one arm snaked around her waist to recapture the pruning shears.   

"Don't insert too much of your own subtext in there, Ron," Harry said dryly as Hermione giggled and pushed Ron's face away. 

"I don't think she's hot," snapped Neville.   

Gorgeous and indecent, yes. Tantalizing, yes. Flattering, yes. Hot? She had passed a word as paltry as hot long ago.   

"Oh c'mon, Parkinson's hot," smirked Ron, "even Harry thinks so. It's like with all the girls and Malfoy." 

"Malfoy is insipid!" squealed Hermione before grabbing for the shears. "Ron, I wasn't done." The two began a rough tussling match so aggressive Harry's quiet repotting grew dangerously haphazard.   

Neville watched them, embarrassed. "Wow Harry, guess the trio's kinda..."   

"Doomed," croaked Harry. "Well, I guess it's fair cause I'm with Ginny." Harry's voice dropped and he looked at Neville. "Parkinson's hot. And the next time you go frolicking in the lake together, don't ask pretend-innocent questions about her afterwards, k?"   

Neville was floored. "I didn't―"   

"Don't worry, only a few hundred of us saw how she practically had a leash around your neck after that whole thing with the boots. Remember how Hagrid had that demonstration by the lake this morning?"   

Neville groaned and covered his mouth with his tie. 

"Yeah. I don't think a lot of us are going to remember how to properly catch and harness a unicorn."   

Hermione's pleas for assistance from Harry were ignored with apathy as Ron pinned her against the side of the greenhouse.  

"Well, those two won't for different reasons." Harry once again endeavored to become focused to the task at hand and punched Neville's arm sympathetically. "Listen, you can't let her get to you. Everyone knows she tried to get Ernie last month. She likes messing with people that aren't in her house."   

Plucking up every ounce of the strength and fortitude that lay deep within his now rived heart, Neville asked, "But what if she really does like me?"   

Harry sniggered. "Sorry. I don't think Parkinson's capable of real emotion." He sighed. "If they don't separate soon Sprout's going to dock points."   

Neville chanced a peek towards the area Granger and Weasley had last monopolized for their half-hidden tryst. 

"They're not here."

Harry threw down a handful of loam, exasperated to the fullest. "Okay. Neville, let's pretend my two best friends aren't  snogging behind the greenhouse and Pansy really does want you. I'd say go for it. You deserve it. Maybe not someone so evil, but we're pretending, right?"  

"Right," said Neville blithely. "Let's pretend it's a manufactured evil."   

"A manufactured evil owned oversize fishing boots to stand in a couple feet of water?"  

"You said we were pretending." 

"Right," echoed Harry. "They could be borrowed or oversized on purpose. And someone who owns those boots couldn't own antique bone corsets too."   

Neville covered his mouth with his tie again, though not to disguise his shock, although the pretense was the same.

"Corsets?" 

Harry raised an eyebrow. "A collection. Just rumors though. I'm only telling you cause you're interested and all."

"Right," said Neville. "Pretending." 

Harry blushed. "I just overheard it. And while we're pretending I'll say that I'd love to see Malfoy's faces once you guys…"   

"Yeah. Thanks, Harry."  

"Yeah." 

"Five points from Gryffindor for the absence of Granger and Weasley," Sprout wearily called.

Harry snapped his shears together decisively.   

Neville laughed. 

The repercussions at having played before an audience thrilled Pansy's reasoning. She was the femme fatale. That she had swooned and clung to Longbottom and wished his hand would never have strayed from fending off her own were but afterthoughts to the overarching design that had at last unfolded to her tastes. Even now random Gryffindor filth approached her and explicitly stated that to reign in Neville Longbottom would start a one-gendered inter-House war. Perhaps she was exaggerating things, but the dark looks cast her way meant exactly that. Even Blaise had suggested she lay off the creature.   

"What's this about you and Longbottom being all touchy-feely in the lake?" Draco asked in the common room later that evening.  

"Neville," Pansy purred, wiggling her freshly painted toes, "is my newest pet project. I want to see how much of that Gryffindor courage he possesses until he snaps and heeds my every whim." 

"But Longbottom, Pansy, the boy is..."   

"SO BUFF!" shrieked a pustule-laden Millicent in Draco's ear. "I told her to go for it and hand him over to me when she's done!" Milly giggled and winked at Pansy, whose thin smile did nothing to lessen Bulstrode's excitement.   

Pansy began teasing Draco's tie out of its half-Windsor. "I know you never check out a boy unless it's Potter―"

Draco smacked her hand away. "I don't look at Potter that way."   

"Calm, Draco, it was a joke." Her hands reached for the tie again. "Needless, perhaps, but I can hardly begin to explain to you that Neville's physical attractions have only increased over the years he's been in this institution. I'm not settling by toying with him. Besides, you know I never settle."

"Toying?" Draco's tie had found its way around Pansy's neck, and Draco began knotting it. "When you toy, you don't blush."

"We're a bit close to the fire." Pansy's blush deepened.   

"Neville was talking about corsets today with Potter."

"You were staring at Potter, then." Pansy ripped his hands away, which had gone from tightening his tie to slipping around her throat, thumbs tracing her jaw.   

"Oh, avoid the reference all you want, but I heard. And you were what, changing after your little sojourn in the pond?" He'd captured her wrists and Pansy wavered. Draco could match her, snare for snare.

"Yes. Potter talking about my corsets makes me want to retch. And what was Neville doing?" The last bit came sighed and her eyes were sparkling.

Draco smirked. "I think he was trying not to drool." Draco patted Pansy's mouth with the end of his tie. "Had his tie over his mouth and kept swallowing, at least. Don't lie about Potter. I only let that get around cause you wanted a reaction from him, you manipulative little vixen."

Pansy laughed outright, startling the people around them. Draco's mouth brushed her forehead.

"Fine. I won't care. Even if it's insanity."

Then they parted, each having deduced exactly what they wanted from the other. Pansy knew Draco was finally done with her, and Draco knew that her hunger for the lion slime was genuine.

It had always been a game between them. 

Chapter Text

Having acquired a glimpse into her reputed lingerie tastes made Neville all the more embarrassed that such a being would seek him out. If women could be metaphorically related to their preference in such areas, Ginny had been approachable cotton, but corsets and black silk stockings were the fabrics of a demigoddess. And yet, she had been the one to seek him out, had been the one to tremble against him as they stood in the lake with such futile longing in her eyes his plucking at her fingers had only been half-hearted, had said...and she and Draco had dwindled from pubescent crushes to nothing more than occasional flirting when their various flames had stood at attention to make jealous.    

Such thoughts as these were pondered as he traipsed about the castle grounds at dusk. The first stars were flickering above scant clouds and Neville was wandering back towards the main entrance with a flower press shoved deep into his pants pocket. He was an herbologist, but there were tropes with the occupation that when coupled with his personal failings made for too rich an area of mockery. All flower pressings were done deep in pockets of Hogwart's demesne where few students trod, and those who did were usually too stoned to care about his activities.   

"Excuse me," intoned a timid voice behind him. "Excuse me, um, um—"   

He turned. Cracking her knuckles in an obvious tactic to calm herself, the more adorable of the two Ravenclaw girls from yesterday morning stood swaying a little uneasily in the exact center of the pathway. At having procured his attentions the girl blushed deeply, and Neville realized his own face was boiling from sheer nervousness.   

Asked the smitten admirer, "I um, I wondered what your name is?"   

"Neville." Neville wished someone would rescue the poor creature from her fate as he mentally explored all the viable reasons to run from the scene at that moment.   

"Hi! My name is Clara! I―yeah, and I'm in Ravenclaw, and I, I saw you yesterday and I...um…I—"   

"―Am sodding off."   

Neville almost fell to his knees in thanks before the Slytherin.   

"I..." the girl swayed even more precariously as all the adrenaline left her body in one crushed moment.   

"Clowes, if you so desire a boyfriend, do the research first."   

Clowes could only nod before teetering off into the gathering darkness where surely the other lakeside girl waited with sympathetic hugs and other soothing devices.  

She had barely vanished from view when Pansy had leveled Neville against the castle wall behind an immense shrubbery. Neville could think of nothing besides how the distance between their mouths was rather impertinent, leading him to make parallels to greenhouses.   

"Don't you ever make me repeat something so rash, understand?"   

Pansy's materialization as deus ex machina can be excused with her failing resolution to entwine Neville slowly around her fingers. Her rising passions had consumed all thoughts of fueling the same in him, and she had stalked Longbottom the entire day, ready to throw herself at his feet and declare herself slave. That he had ducked out of sight every time their eyes snagged had sent Parkinson on a heedless path to self-destruction until now, when she could save him from the awful plight of having to reject some insolent, tittering brat.   

"How'd you know her last name?"   

Pansy's fingers itched as she stared at his tie. "Yes?"   

"How—"  

I looked up both of their names yesterday." Her eyes were now traveling down every shirt button.   

"Why?"   

"Yes. I mean, I'm definitely the jealous type."   

"Jealous?"   

Too impatient to mentally strip him of his socks, Pansy's eyes finally met his. "Yes." Pansy's perfection was such that when she blushed, only her cheeks turned pink.   

"Oh," was all he could squawk.   

"Yes. I have to go back to the castle now." But in her emotionally inebriated state she only wrapped her fingers around his tie and clung there, wishing he didn't look so very helpless and panicked.   

"We should both go back," Neville pleaded, his hand faintly tugging her sleeve. He only succeeded in undoing her cuff.   

"Yes..." She breathed it and looked at her cuff. She didn't know quite what she was saying, just that she had fallen hopelessly, much too quickly, and if tonight ended wretchedly she might transfer schools rather than live down the emotional embarrassment she'd have to face from herself, let alone the entire school.    

Would she stop making him atrophy against this wall with that one word?   

"Please Pansy, the teachers are going to find us."   

"Yes. I'm so sorry Neville," she gasped, "but I can't really think when you're touching me like this."   

"I'm not like this," he said weakly, looking round for the headlights of Mrs. Norris's eyes while wrenching her hand from his tie.   

"Explain your left hand, then." The accused appendage had latched tightly onto her hip to keep Pansy from shifting about as she continued to strangle him with his own House colors.   

"I'll stop if you let go of me," he burbled. "I was only trying to get you to stop cause you're choking me and I didn't want to be mean and say you were choking me but it kinda hurts."   

"Cut it with the innocence. Your hand has been there ever since the second yes."  

Something offhandedly smug glinted in his eyes, but receded so quickly Pansy only remembered it afterwards.   

"We really need to stop." Neville's voice was so husky breathing became difficult for the one leaning against his chest. "I mean, you need to let go now. Please let go. Please."   

She acquiesced.   

"No," he groaned, hiccuping in frustration, "please Pansy, don't." Clumsily, he grabbed her sleeve.   

Her confusion was just. Neville had barely even explained to himself how he was inwardly torn between his desire to inverse their positions and claim her or to let himself melt between her fingers. With the full weight of her arm dangling from his hand he chose a tepid version of the former. Nevertheless, its effect held true to fantasy. Pansy was rendered powerless as Neville bent over her wrist to button up the wayward cuff. She brushed aside all conniving stratagems and simply adored him as he concentrated on pushing one mother of pearl button through its hole. He finished with a soft kiss in her palm that left her shaking.   

"We really need to get back inside now," he whispered, tracing the veins he pretended he could see with one finger.   

Pansy Parkinson accepted defeat.   

"Winner takes all," she whispered.  

He looked up.  

"I mean," she said quickly, "you take me. You've won. I'm yours." 

"Why?" 

"I don't quite know yet," and there was that vulnerability that had accosted his heart at the start. 

He kissed her. His toes curled when she countered with a happy trill in the back of her throat and wrapped her arms around his neck. 

"I want to see Draco's face when I do that in front of him," he murmured into her smiling mouth, and it was so delicious and confident Pansy began tugging him back to the castle.  

"That can happen now, you know," she began, and he followed, and she laughed so loudly he blushed.  

"It's been a month and I'm not used to it," said Ron, as Pansy and Neville walked by hand in hand.

Ginny, next to him, snorted. "Get used to it. Apparently she's a huge nerd and she loves history as much as he loves plants so really, who's the biggest victim here? Apparently they talk for hours about boring things no one else cares about." 

Ron elbowed her. "Jealous you lost him?" 

Ginny elbowed him back, harder than he had elbowed her. "One pity date does not true love make," she snarled. 

Ron stabbed his chin at the pair. "And you call that true love?" 

"I call it happiness."  

"If you say so." 

"I do." She swept away. 

 Ginny was right. There would be no speeches on House unity or cooperation, no far-off dreams of fat babies with Pansy's eyes and Neville's hair, no idealization of perfection suspended against a coupling founded on mutual infatuation.  

"I won you," Pansy would say as she fell asleep against his shoulder.  

"I let you," he would reply.  

"Such a good loser."  

"Worth it."  

"Keep losing." 

"Always."  

And so it was.