Author's Notes: Done. If I thought it was going to get better, I'd keep going, but I think it's as good as it's going to get.

For the "I Never" Challenge over at the SU.

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.

It started when he was five years old—all but an orphan and afraid of what the world held. His Auntie Clairice took him down to her greenhouse and "this is a rose." And thus, his lessons in botany began—this is a rose, this is what it means (red for passion, pink for friendship, white for purity), this is a daisy and it means innocence and this is a sunflower. This is a cactus, don't touch its spikes, and this is a mango tree. Auntie Clairice also teaches him about magical botany—this is a mimbulus mimtonea, this is a whomping willow, these are called mandrakes. It opens a world Neville has never even imagined—a safe world where the plants are beautiful and patient and kind and five year old Neville is happy and content.

Going to Hogwarts is terrifying, as he will be away from the greenhouse his Auntie Clairice gave him for his birthday until Christmas and it's not so much that he'll be away from his greenhouse as it is he'll be away from everything he knows.

He is certain he's destined for Hufflepuff—with all of his eleven year old wisdom, Neville is positive the only place for someone like him—barely a wizard, scared of his own shadow—is Hufflepuff and not somewhere like Gryffindor, somewhere for heroes, somewhere his father was, somewhere his mother was, somewhere legends like James Potter and Sirius Black and Lily Potter come from—not someone like Neville Longbottom, not someone like him.

Heroes don't belong in Hufflepuff—they are the support staff that only gets mentioned as an afterthought and Neville has been an afterthought forever.

It takes him a minute, after the Hat yells "Gryffindor," to orient himself to the right table—he is sure there's been an awful, awful mistake and is not at all certain that Gryffindor is where he belongs. His fears are only confirmed when he finds that he's sharing a room with Harry Potter. Okay, so the boy's only a legend, but it's just a matter of time before he, like his parents and their friends, is a hero.

Neville feels incompetent and unworthy and like a Hufflepuff—like a badger masquerading as a lion. He doesn't feel like this is where he belongs and he lives each day (foolishly and fitfully) in fear of being found out, of McGonagall suddenly seizing him in rage and screaming (or, rather, lecturing, McGonagall doesn't seem like the screaming type) that he doesn't belong in Gryffindor and, because of his deception, he is sent home and out of Hogwarts and his Gran is full of bitter disappointment.

Neville lives in fear of this very scenario and, at the end of his first year, when he rides the train home, he lets out a breath he doesn't realize he's been holding for the entire year.

He gets to come back.

It's sixth year before he notices her—really notices her, he means, not just recognize her. He's recognized her since first year, since the line between Slytherin and Gryffindor has been established, since they've seen themselves on separate sides. That was the true beginning of the war, Neville thinks, when people decided they were too good for each other and drew lines and made enemies, because You-Know-Who thrives on division and animosity and if they could all just lay their crosses down and try to see each other eye-to-eye, there would be no need for fighting and faux bravery and masquerading as heroes.

Of course, that's wishful thinking at its best—Neville knows that even if there were no Houses and even if things were different, people would still fight because that's what people do—they fight until there's no fight left.

Her name means "loving thoughts" and, if truth be told, that's the first reason Neville notices her—her name is a flower and he knows what that means.

But then he remembers that she's a Slytherin and stupid, silly house pride gets in the way and Neville turns his head and looks away, because, flower or not, she's a Slytherin and he's a Gryffindor and they can't be friends.

Seventh year changes things. The lines between right and wrong are… different, the rules have changed. Neville thought Hogwarts was safe—now it seems that, without Dumbledore, without Harry, hell, without Ron and Hermione, Hogwarts is just like the rest of the world—dangerous and full to bursting with Death Eaters.

Neville feels obligated, to tell the truth, obligated to do something, anything, to keep everyone—everyone who is 'good'—from going spare. After all, it's practically destiny—Neville is the Frank to Harry and Ron's James and Sirius (Hermione, he supposes, is caught somewhere between Lily and Remus and Peter). Frank was the stand-in leader, the one to turn to when James and Sirius and the others went off gallivanting as heroes. Sometimes you have to just buck up and take being an afterthought, take being just a stand-in to being the 'real' hero. After all, Frank did have a bit of a hero's—death? Neville thinks of his parents as dead—after all, they certainly aren't living and what's been done to them is worse than death—it is kinder to think of them as past, instead of as the sad, empty shells they are.

And sometimes dying like a hero is all you get, after all your hard work and pouring your blood and sweat and tears into something.

Neville resurrects the DA to do something so that he doesn't just shrug and hold up empty hands when Harry asks "what did you do?" and he resurrects the DA to give Harry something to have if—no, when—he comes back.

Neville covers Harry's bases for him.

But somewhere in between covering bases for Harry and resurrecting the DA, Neville has…fallen? For Pansy Parkinson.

Though he doesn't suppose 'fallen' is the right word—one doesn't 'fall' for Pansy Parkinson. Sometimes you're shoved, sometimes tricked, sometimes you stumble, but you never 'fall,' because Pansy isn't the 'fall in love' type of girl. She does everything deliberately—Neville believes her life is an organized chessboard, a great game of pieces and thought with Pansy as the master, contemplating each piece before moving it exactly where she wants it.

She's manipulative, is what she is, manipulative as hell, and Slytherin from the top of her stylish haircut to the tips of her manicured toenails.

And Neville likes her. Lusts after her. Not loves her, never loves her, because Pansy Parkinson is not the kind of girl boys like Neville love.

Neville loves girls like Hannah Abbott—sweet, kind, neat and clean girls, girls who want 2.5 children and a picket fence, nice, normal girls who wear little makeup and dress conservatively. Not girls like Pansy Parkinson—hard where Girls Like Hannah are soft, rough around the edges, messy and broken and sexy and wanton and Merlin but that's irresistible.

Girls Like Pansy are Boys Like Neville cheat with on their wives, who are Girls Like Hannah—Girls Like Pansy are only good for stealing kisses and perhaps a bit more, only good for midlife crises and breaking all the rules and—

And, well, apparently for seventeen year olds to lust after and want.

The Death Eaters have already broken all the rules—Neville says "screw it" and throws caution and expectations and everything he is supposed to do to the wind and gives in to everything Girls Like Pansy are and aren't.

Because Girls Like Pansy are hard and rough and sexy and wanton and smeared lipstick and bruises and hickeys and beautiful messes. And they aren't soft and they aren't pretty and they aren't built to last for forever—Girls Like Pansy aren't built for fairytales and Happily Ever Afters.

It starts one day in Muggle Studies class—Neville isn't paying attention, not really, since he's not learning anything, so he just listens and waits for Alecto to point out what he's doing wrong (even though he's not doing anything) and to be punished (Neville endures all of his punishments in martyred silence—nothing nothing he goes through will ever, ever compare to what Bellatrix did to his parents and, through his parents, him. If he can survive that, he can survive anything and he'd consider it almost an honor to suffer the way his parents did, to be made a martyr. It's his way of looking Voldemort dead in the eyes, and saying, in no uncertain terms, bring it, bitch).

But anyway. Alecto calls Neville out and he doesn't even hear what he's being called out for, but he stands in front of the classroom and listens to Alecto lecture about "this is what happens to bad little boys who…" and Neville wishes she'd just get on with it, because he's heard this all before.

Hell, he can practically give the lecture for Alecto by this point, because she just goes on and on and on and on and on.

And on.

Again. And again and again and again.

And Merlin would she just stop?

But then Pansy Parkinson is standing up and the routine has been disrupted and the class falls silent as the grave.

Not that it wasn't quiet before (because it was, because no one feels like being punished and you don't even need to be being bad to be punished), but that Neville suspects a few students have even stopped breathing. Susan Bones, in the front row, looks nervous. Hannah Abbott, three rows back, looks downright terrified.

But Pansy just smirks and sashays her way up to the front of the room, leans against Alecto's desk and, with an arrogant toss of her hair, inspects her nails and inquires in a tone that is best suited for talking about the weather, or perhaps last night's DADA homework and certainly not about being allowed to torture someone, but that is exactly what Pansy asks—if she may please "deliver Longbottom's punishment, as he's had it coming to him for ages." And, to Neville's dismay, Alecto cackles and croons that she knew Pansy was a special one, she just knew and of course she may torture Neville Longbottom and wouldn't the Dark Lord just be so proud?

It makes Neville ill to hear Alecto praise Pansy for something so twisted. It also makes him ill to think about being tortured by Pansy Parkinson.

Merlin. What does she have in mind, he wonders? What the hell could Pansy possibly do to him?

A lot of things, he supposes, and winces and braces himself as Pansy leads him from the room, a sadistic smile on her bright red lips.

She shoves him into a broom closet—a broom closet!—and snogs him senseless.

"You'd best scream," she hisses in his ear and bites the lobe, "Else she's going to think I'm going easy on you."

Neville is too stunned to do much of anything—he's just been snogged by Pansy Parkinson and his mind has shut down—perhaps from shock or perhaps from—something else.

Something else that Neville never expected to feel for Pansy Parkinson, but he is a boy and she is a girl and the things she can do are…

Merlin.

And there are a million things he can say when she's done "torturing" him, but the only thing that bubbles to his lips is…

"Why?"

Pansy smirks. "Don't think you're special, Longbottom," she sneers. "I fuck lots of boys—lots of them. I just… you're so neat and clean. I wanted to see if you were just as fucked up, just as twisted as the rest of us. I wanted to see what you looked like on the inside."

Neville looks at her for a minute, blood red lipstick smeared across her face in a mocking smile. "What did you find?" he asks, and surprises himself, because Neville Longbottom does not ask questions like why of Slytherins who have just practically raped him.

He has changed and he doesn't even realize it.

Pansy smiles. "That you're just as sick and twisted as the rest of us." She leans closer, running her tongue along his cheek, tracing from the corner of his lips to his ear with her tongue. "That you liked it." She kisses his ear and bites it hard enough to break the skin. "That even you, Longbottom, like it rough and dirty and hard. You're not all clean lines and picket fences and neat edges, Longbottom. You just hide it better than everyone else." Then she strokes his cheek and struts from the broom closet, a smeared lipstick smile and her eyes rimmed in black. Somehow she manages to look heartbreakingly beautiful and tragically innocent.

There are other times after the first time. Alecto doesn't catch onto the fact that Pansy's torture is a little bit enjoyable for Neville.

Okay, so more than a little bit. In fact, he falls a little bit in love with the idea of indulging his deepest, darkest desires once in awhile—likes that he gets to let go and doesn't have to play the hero with Pansy. Pansy frees him, with no strings attached.

And they don't fall in love. Hell, they barely like each other. But for some reason—call it desperation, call it indulgence, call it whatever you like—for some reason they keep it up, keep coming back to each other.

In the end, their romance is as short lived as the spring flowers. And while Neville does not understand the Death Eaters and while he is still a staunch Gryffindor and she a Slytherin, and while Neville will never forget all that Bellatrix and the others have done to him, he is able to forgive, at least a little bit, what they have done to him and his family. Getting close, however inadvertently, to "one of them" has blurred the lines a little bit for Neville, has, if not broken his walls, weakened them. Neville knows now that everyone has a little bit of perversity in them and Pansy has shown him that. She has torn him down from his pedestal—made him face his demons and realize that he is just as sick and twisted as the rest of them.

Neville's thoughts on Pansy are anything but loving, but she has shoved his demons in his face and he can't be anything but thankful.