for liza ~

for the houses competition - slytherin; potions; character: neville longbottom; optional prompt: [Object] Paint brushes

tree climbing - (color) canary yellow

writing club: actor appreciation - 13. Gellert Grindelwald - Fantastic Beasts - write about a charismatic person; bingo - [1.d] Plot: Write about trying to ask someone on a date; bookclub - Tris: (plot point) making a choice, (theme) transformation, (emotion) guilt; showtime - Maybe - (drink) Coffee; amber's attic - 21 Days: Write about someone trying to develop a new routine (lifestyle, dance routine, whatever); elizabeth's empire - Ineffable - (plot point) being rendered speechless; angel's archive - 17. Coral Rose - (theme) desire; lyric alley - When the sun came up

herbology club: plot 3 - Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover - Sophie B. Hawkins

reserve league - season 2, round 9, beater 1, write about your character (neville) making the first move towards someone

thank you to charlotte and ana for betaing :)

2459 words by gdocs

It's been six years since the war. Neville had been spending his time going between the house of his grandmother — who had been getting increasingly sick — and Hogwarts — which needed to be restored from all of the damage it sustained from the Battle of Hogwarts.

Now, though, his grandmother has passed away and Hogwarts is long since fully repaired; Neville has nothing much to do with his time.

So he uses his grandmother's inheritance to move to the quiet town of Chudley, and he starts, for the first time since before his seventh year, to relax. It feels weird, to not have to worry about something or other, but Neville paints his walls canary yellow and bubblegum pink in an attempt to brighten his life up — he tries to be positive.

He does well, for a while. He knows that sooner or later, he'll have to pick himself up and get a real job, but for now he thinks it's enough to try.

Sometimes, when Neville is in the middle of painting, he pauses and thinks and holds his paintbrushes so tightly that his knuckles turn white. It's lonely, without someone else there, and he thinks to himself that maybe he should make an effort to know his neighbors and maybe he should reach out to someone, but he can't make himself do it.

Until, one day, Neville's in the middle of painting the walls of his hallway when there's a knock on his door. With a curse, he figures that he doesn't care that much about his pants, and he wipes his hand on them and yanks open the door, holding his paintbrush in one hand and probably looking like a mess.

There's a guy standing there who looks around Neville's age. Maybe, Neville thinks, this is what he needs. A friend.

The guy looks awfully familiar, but Neville can't place where he would know him from. For a moment, Neville just takes in the sight of the other guy — because it is quite a nice sight in his opinion, with long arms and dark skin — before remembering that he should probably say something.

"Hi," Neville says.

"Hi," the guy replies. "I'm your neighbor. I'm Blaise. Blaise Zabini." The name clicks in Neville's head and he realizes that they were at Hogwarts together. Blaise was a Slytherin.

Neville makes the split second decision to not talk about it unless Blaise does.

"Neville Longbottom," Neville replies, sticking out his not-so dirty hand. Blaise looks hesitant, but he nods and grasps Neville's hand.

"You paint?" Blaise asks as their handshake ends. Neville grins as he catches Blaise look at his own hand for any signs of paint.

"I like painting, yeah," Neville says with a shrug. "Do you want tea or something?" he offers. There's no harm in making friends with his ex-classmate and new neighbor, he figures.

"I'd love a coffee," Blaise says, looking unsure. Neville jerks his head to the side and places his paintbrush down before he walks towards his kitchen, with Blaise following him.

"You were in Hogwarts with me, right?" Blaise asks quietly as Neville's pouring the coffee into two cups.

"Yeah," Neville says with a little shrug. "Do you want milk? Sugar?"

"I'll have it black," Blaise says, with a faint little smile. Neville nods and hands him a mug. Blaise takes the cup and grasps it, and his small little smile turns into a frown. "I'm sorry. I was probably a dick to you there."

Neville shrugs again, because he can't remember any instance where Blaise specifically was a dick to him. His friends, probably, but he doesn't remember Blaise being one.

"We were teenagers," Neville replies. "We were all dicks at some point."

Blaise bites his lip, still looking unsure, but he gives Neville a little smile.

"I didn't know there was anyone else my age around here," Neville says, wanting to make conversation. He thinks that maybe, if he has a friend…

He doesn't know. Maybe he wouldn't feel so empty?

"Yeah," Blaise says, brightening a little and looking more excited. "I'm going to Muggle medical school not far from here, so it was worth it to move here."

"A Muggle school?" Neville asks, thinking about how Blaise looks much more attractive when he's excited. "How'd you get into that?"

Blaise shrugs. "I had had enough of magic to be honest. And Muggles are fascinating, the way they do things. It was a little bit of a pain to make happen, seeing as I went to a secondary school that doesn't actually exist, but it was worth it."

Neville wonders if he's been alone for too long, but his mind can't help but think that Blaise is cute. He likes a guy who's smart, and getting into a Muggle school with Hogwarts credentials is very smart in Neville's book.

"What do you do?" Blaise asks, leaning back a little and drinking his coffee. Neville shrugs. "You paint," Blaise repeats. "I can't even hold a paintbrush properly, so."

"You've painted before?" Neville asks, letting out a little laugh.

"My mother tried to get me to paint when I was younger," Blaise says, rolling his eyes. "I was just always afraid my clothes would get ruined."

Neville grins at Blaise. "I'll teach you to paint one day," he promises. Blaise smiles back at him.

Neville's heart starts to swell.

…

Neville wonders if his grandmother is looking over him, sending him people to become friends with, because not even a full two days after Blaise comes to his house, another person knocks on his door and Neville opens it to a guy with light brown hair and grin and a pie in his hands.

"Hi, I'm Theo, I'm your neighbor, and I baked you a pie," Theo says, very quickly, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet.

"I'm Neville," Neville says, taking in Theo's bouncy attitude and his overall excited demeanor. "Would you like to come in?"

Theo nods and follows Neville into his kitchen, looking around at Neville's bright walls.

"I like your walls," Theo says as Neville gets out a knife, forks, and plates. "I wish I had colorful walls."

"I did them myself," Neville says, offering the knife to Theo. Theo grins at Neville, a grin that makes his stomach flop for some reason, and takes it, uncovering the pie and cutting right into it.

"Maybe you can do mine sometime," Theo says, sliding over a piece of pie to Neville. "I wanted to welcome you to the neighborhood, but I'm late because my work has been driving me crazy."

"What do you do?" Neville asks, taking a bite out of the pie. Theo's energy makes it easy to be his friend, to be open with him. Neville doesn't even feel nervous, which he thinks is a first for him meeting new people.

"I'm a firefighter," Theo replies. "A Muggle one, of course — you were in Hogwarts with me, right?" Neville nods at Theo's question, but he honestly doesn't know if he recognizes Theo from Hogwarts. He thinks that Theo would be hard to forget — unless his extrovertedness came after. "What do you do?" Theo asks, taking his own bite of pie.

"Nothing, currently," he says. "I paint."

"What do you want to do?" Theo asks, and Neville doesn't think he's been asked that question since his fifth year. "Do you want to paint for a living or is it just a hobby? I mean, I love baking, but I don't think I would want to work at a bakery," Theo says, raising his fork with a bit of pie on it.

"I want to do something with Herbology," Neville says. He hasn't really thought about it in years, but he doesn't think he's ready to let his love of Herbology go just yet. He would love to return to it.

"Then you should do that," Theo says, grinning and giving Neville's foot a little kick underneath the table. He seems really genuine.

Neville's known Theo for all of ten minutes, but he already feels like he's known him for years. It's nice, he decides, being this comfortable with someone.

…

Neville likes it, having the company. He hangs out with Theo and Blaise practically whenever they're available. They take turns, almost, coming to his house, and Neville wants to introduce them at some point, but their schedules never seem to line up well enough. Still, just hanging out with them, whether it's having dinner, or watching bad Muggle movies, or just relaxing and reading together, it makes him feel not so alone anymore. They're both easy to talk to, and he likes them both in different ways, but he likes them both a lot.

He's not sure when it happens, the switch between liking them as friends and liking them as more than friends. It happens at some point when Neville's watching Theo grin or Blaise's eyes light up and Neville can't stop thinking about them after they've already left his house.

And then, he realizes that he likes two different people.

It's hard enough to realize that he has a crush at all, but to have two crushes? It just feels childish, and Neville isn't a kid anymore. When Neville was a kid, he would have never dreamed of asking someone out. He'd get laughed at immediately, rejected, and humiliated. Now that he's an adult, Neville doesn't think there's any reason for him not to take a chance and ask someone out. Worst comes to worst, he's rejected — which, honestly, if he thinks about it, wouldn't be the end of the world. Best comes to best, well…

Except Neville has to choose between Blaise and Theo. If he could have his way, he would just choose both of them. He can't imagine himself without one of them; it wouldn't feel right at this point.

In the end, Neville decides to ask out Theo. Not because he likes Theo more than Blaise — he's just hanging out with Theo on the next day, and he's not going to see Blaise until the following Monday.

They're having dinner together, except now Neville is all nervous and his hands are sweaty when he's cooking the pasta for them, and he can't help but wonder if this is a date. Have him and Theo been dating for weeks now? By that logic has he been dating Blaise, as well?

Neville can't knock his jitters by the time Theo rings the bell and they're sitting down for dinner.

Neville, as always, has no tact, and Theo is in the middle of telling him a story about one of his coworkers accidentally spraying herself with the hose on one of their practice runs when Neville blurts out, "Do you want to go out?"

To his credit, Theo only looks like he wants to laugh.

"Are you serious?" Theo asks, the corners of his lips twitching up. Neville melts a little.

"Nevermind, it doesn't matter anyway," he says quickly. "I knew you would probably say no —"

"No!" Theo says quickly and loudly, gesticulating so hard that he knocks his fork onto the ground. Now Theo's the one who looks nervous, and Neville's not sure what to do or what to reply. Theo dives under the table to retrieve his fork, and once he comes back up, he looks a lot more composed.

"You don't have to spare my feelings," Neville says, pushing his plate away and not feeling very hungry anymore. "I expected you to say no, but it's okay, really."

"I'm not saying no," Theo says, giving out a deep sigh. "It's just that that's a really complicated question."

Neville really doesn't know what to say. "I was under the impression it was a yes or no question," he says, forcing out a little laugh. He doesn't really know what else there is to it.

Theo gives another sigh and then gives Neville another smile. Despite himself, Neville melts a little bit at the sight of it.

"I have a boyfriend," Theo says, and Neville thinks that he really doesn't need to know the details of why he's being rejected. He's fine with just getting a no and moving on. "But we're in an open relationship," he adds and Neville goes a little blank.

"What?" he asks, and he probably looks like an idiot.

Theo shrugs. "I think that only loving one person is just sort of restricting. I mean, I'm only dating one person right now, but I think that people are made to love more than one person. And I would need to talk to my boyfriend, of course, and you should probably talk to him too, but I would love to date you. And I'm pretty sure he would too."

Neville's mind is racing. He has a million questions, but the one that comes out of his mouth is, "Who's your boyfriend?"

"Don't you know Blaise?" Theo asks with a little frown.

Neville can't even speak.

"I mean, I know we haven't been over here at the same time because we've never really had the time to, between his classes and my job, but I figured you knew," Theo says, rubbing the back of his neck hesitantly.

"I didn't," Neville whispers. His heart is beating so fast that he's sure it's going to jump out of his chest and onto the table. What a way to scare Theo off.

"We both said we were your neighbors, and we were both in the same dorm at Hogwarts," Theo says — which, in hindsight, Neville should've realized earlier. "We figured you would connect the dots."

"I have more than one neighbor," Neville says, swallowing hard. Theo shrugs and gives Neville his sideways smile again.

"So, how about it?" Theo asks, and Neville blinks hard, remembering Theo's proposition. Isn't that what he wanted? He doesn't have to choose between them at all.

"I've never dated two people before," Neville admits. "I've never dated one."

Theo shrugs, waiting patiently.

"I'd love to," Neville finally says.

…

Neville moves into Blaise and Theo's house pretty soon after they start dating. He spends so much time over there anyway, with either one of his boyfriends, it just doesn't make sense to live separately.

He lays his head in Theo's lap and reads his Herbology books and annoys Theo while he bakes. He makes Blaise paint the walls with him to reach the high parts with his long arms and teaches him how to properly hold a paintbrush and to stop fearing his clothes from getting dirty.

The three of them paint their walls canary yellow and bubblegum pink and Neville feels full.

He's happy.