Theodore Nott was a dead man, execution methods to be determined. How dare he. How fucking dare he go and burn his entire gods damned manor to the ground with several impending sales inside. In Pansy's hypothetical queendom, he'd certainly been demoted to peasant, perhaps serf— whichever lead to a more painful death, via gum disease or carriage trampling, ideally.

But Pans, it was symbolic.

It provided emotional catharsis.

We sold most of it.

Most of it was not all of it, and Pansy had several sales she'd been relying on to segue her back into Hogwarts' good graces. She had very little social capital to speak of, even several years out from a war she didn't really have much interest in, apart from self-preservation and some rather unfortunate aspects of her upbringing.

But Minerva McGonagall had been willing to meet with Pansy to discuss acquiring several antiques from the Nott Estate. Such pieces included a number of potting benches from the greenhouses and an entire sitting room's worth of furniture that just barely smelled of cigarettes. But no. Theo made the unilateral decision that his manor was a lost cause, that it was haunting him, that it had to go.

Which was how Pansy ended up waiting for a carriage to take her from Hogsmeade station to Hogwarts barely two days into a new year and ankle-deep in a slushy snow that no amount of repellent charms could keep from seeping into her boots. She might have engaged in substantially more frustrated huffing if there were anyone around to hear and sympathize. But as it stood, the thestrals didn't quite seem to understand her situation. Instead, she fantasized about having Theo drawn and quartered.

Pansy did not look forward to informing Minerva McGonagall— the scary bitch— that the lovely seventeenth century french seating set she'd been so interested in had been reduced to ash by one exceptionally idiotic Theodore Nott. If the Hogwarts Board of Governors had a soft spot in their budget for historic decor to furnish their millennia-old castle, Pansy intended on catering to it.

She let out a deep sigh, irrationally annoyed at the gust of visible breath that clouded her as the carriage lurched to a start.

Then there had been her mother that morning, which certainly hadn't helped Pansy's mood.

"What about this one, darling?"

Pansy snatched the parchment from her mother's grip, ignoring a tut about her obvious lack of manners. Pansy hardly felt inclined to abide by expected etiquette while considering yet another betrothal proposition from whatever scant populations of suitors across Europe were willing to tarnish their shiny names with the Parkinson's postwar muck. Each successive embarrassment only drove the point further home that Pansy's options were few and far between if she intended to engage in a strategic marriage. As such, if she felt like snatching a parchment, aggressively clinking her teacup to its saucer, or eating her finger sandwich in one enormous, spiteful bite, she fucking would.

"Does he even speak English?" Pansy asked, reviewing the information on a pureblood man from Hungary whose family name she'd never even heard of and—

"He's twice my age, mother."

"You're father is almost twice mine."

Pansy almost, almost, asked how that had worked out. But not everything required a sledgehammer; sometimes precision worked better. And brutally reminding her own mother of her father's war crimes, incarceration, and subsequent fall from social grace wouldn't help with the Hungarian problem staring up at her, blinking far too irregularly for Pansy's liking.

"You've declined every other offer we've received, and sent none of your own." Her mother's mouth pressed into a thin line, hands folding: left over right, then right over left, then left over right again at the edge of the table, seeking purchase or purpose or perhaps an excuse not to slap the growing smirk off Pansy's face.

She was asking for it. Her mother clearly hated this nearly as much as Pansy did. And even though Pansy hated it, she also mourned for the form it had taken.

Once upon a time, she'd looked forward to a betrothal. She'd been prepared, bred— and she didn't love that specific terminology, but she couldn't fight how integral it had become to her sense of self— to perform a duty to her family, to marry and forge social ties, build a small queendom of social status and marital envy.

Now— she had an unblinking Hungarian to consider. It had been a woefully inbred looking man from Estonia the week before. No one the week before that. And Gregory fucking Goyle the week before that. Which had been disturbingly tempting if for no other reason than his Britishness.

At this rate, Pansy would die how she'd always imagined Granger would: alone and surrounded by cats. Tragic, but better than living so deep in the European continent that she couldn't begin to guess at the nearest significant body of water.

Her breath plumed around her again, stupidly visible in the stupid cold weather she was stupidly forced to endure because Theodore Nott did a stupid thing.

Fuck him for being so incandescently happy, shacking up with Blaise and reminding her of her failed Hungarian matchmaking. She had no interest in beady eyes, language barriers, and Eastern Europe.

She hopped out of the carriage, pausing eye to eye with the thestral. It was an ugly thing. Representative of an even uglier thing. She liked it.

She offered it a small pat on its neck before heading towards the castle doors. She stopped, head cocked, trying to place the image of the person standing at the doors, evidently waiting for her.

It certainly wasn't Minerva McGonagall in her stern Scottish splendor. No, it was a man, tall, average build, sandy blonde hair with a bit of a curl to it. It wasn't until Pansy stood painfully close that she finally made the connection, breath puffing as she spoke her question.

"Longbottom?"

He offered her something between a smile and a grimace, as if he didn't quite know how to respond. Pansy didn't mind. Most people had a similar reaction to her. To be fair, her face likely showed the same confusion.

"When did you get tall?" she asked; that was item number one on her list of need-to-knows. He answered almost immediately, like he'd barely had to think about it.

"1997."

"Huh, guess I wasn't paying attention."

"Guess not." He shifted his weight then moved to open the large castle doors. "Minerva got called to a meeting, had to leave for London."

"I was just in London," Pansy said.

"She mentioned you probably wouldn't be pleased."

Pansy held her tongue. She'd come on business, trying to salvage a professional relationship, trying to earn a semblance of that social currency she so deeply craved.

"If you're able to extend your visit, she has a guest room prepared for you. Said she'd be back tomorrow." He had his hand at the back of his neck, rubbing at his muscles there, leaving pink patches of skin in its wake. It was highly distracting.

"And what am I to do in the meantime?" she asked, trying to temper her irritation as the words snapped free from her lips.

"Students aren't back for another week," Longbottom said. "You're welcome to dine with the staff."

Pansy glanced at the enormous clock looming in the Entrance Hall; dinner would be served soon enough. And it wasn't like she had many— or any— options. At least an extra evening would give her the opportunity to consider the extent of apologies she'd need to offer as she handed the Headmistress back her galleons instead of the promised goods.

Longbottom still stared at her: mouth curved into something slightly curious.

Oh, right. He expected her to answer. It was truly obnoxious that no one seemed able to tell when she'd already answered them in her head: no verbal confirmation required.

She breezed by him, unwinding the scarf from her neck as she entered the Great Hall. She froze, a shiver of history passing through her, chilled in a way utterly independent of the temperature outside. She knew what happened in this hall. She might not have been there, might have opted to save her own skin, and refused to truly pick a side in a war she wanted nothing to do with, but she knew.

Tyrants died. Heroes conquered. History happened.

And she hadn't been back since.

Of all people, Neville Longbottom had to be present for her inability to keep that sudden realization in check. He'd probably laugh at her, scold her for not doing her part, or call her a coward for fleeing.

His voice surprised her.

"It's weird, the first few times."

She didn't turn around. It had been years, nearly ten of them. And still, she could feel the magic, her own, twisted and terrified and tied to this place by events beyond her control.

She hadn't realized she left so much of herself here.

She clenched her jaw, pursed her lips, and drew in a deep breath, nostrils flared by the force of it. Then she let it the fuck go.

She whirled.

"Yes. That was unpleasant."

Pansy knew her eyes were probably a tad glassy, just enough that she'd noticed. She wondered if Longbottom would, too.

"Is the food still awful?"

"The food's great." He smiled.

She really looked at him then. He looked young. Younger than Draco. Younger than Blaise. Younger than Theo, even. In the dead of winter he had the audacity to have a bit of a tan, a healthy glean to his hair and skin. She'd forgotten how irritatingly sweet Longbottom looked when they were children. It annoyed her how that translated into something sweet-adjacent as an adult: good-natured, trustworthy, and perhaps, kind.

Pansy didn't know many truly kind people.

Reflex pulled her gaze to his left hand, a glance born from a lifetime of marital calculations.

"You're not married," she said reflexively, but also, pitifully, out of curiosity.

"Neither are you," he said, a tilt of his head to her own hand.

Pansy didn't often have the opportunity to feel like a genius. If Granger, bless that bitch, wasn't sucking all the intelligence out of a room, Draco usually scrambled for the scraps. But this bolt of brilliance belonged to Pansy and Pansy alone.

No wonder Granger liked being so smart.

"You're a pureblood."

Longbottom shifted, leaning against the end of one of the long tables: Hufflepuff. He crossed his arms in front of his chest. He wasn't in bad shape; he'd certainly lost some of the roundness of his youth. And he had an Order of Merlin for fuck's sake. Oh, she was truly a genius.

"I am." His friendly tone had dipped, suspicion coating those two little syllables.

"Dating anyone?"

He uncrossed his arms, bracing both palms flat against the table. He narrowed his eyes but a smile played at the edge of his mouth. She'd seen Draco give Granger that same look hundreds of times, a look that said where are you going with this? Pansy wasn't sure she'd ever had someone direct it at her.

People tended to think they had her figured out, and they either had their expectations met or were caught utterly off guard by their incorrectness.

A trickle of adrenaline, warm and prickly, spiraled inside her chest. She rather liked that he hadn't yet made up his mind, that she didn't have to wade her way through a bog of preconceptions.

Shame he probably wasn't going to like where she planned on going with it. He let out a small breath, gusting through upturned lips. It almost sounded like the ghost of a laugh.

"No, I'm not dating anyone. Hannah and I—"

"Oh, I don't need that much information," she said, cutting him off. Belatedly, she realized she'd also smiled. This would be perfect. "I'll have my mother send over a betrothal contract."

She knew what she was doing. Pansy had no misconceptions about what she'd just done by dropping an exceptionally surprising sentence at his feet and telling him to pick up the pieces. She expected sputtering, shock, confusion, a glint of fear behind his kind hazel eyes.

Instead, he blinked.

"Longbottoms haven't engaged in contracted marriage for at least three generations."

She felt a crease forming between her brows, a vertical canyon of annoyance. He was supposed to be surprised. Why wasn't he surprised? Good-natured Neville Longbottom wasn't supposed to have sure footing when Pansy Parkinson threw words like betrothal at him.

"Time's change," she said. She examined her nails, a dark emerald lacquer. It had felt important to represent Slytherin when she came back to this place. But now, staring at her perfect manicure and waiting for Neville Longbottom to rebut her sideways betrothal offer, it felt like a relic of a different time.

"I have to be honest, Pansy. When Minerva asked me to collect you for her, I half expected you not to remember my name. So, what's effectively a proposal is a bit surprising."

Then why didn't he look surprised?

"How could I not remember your name?"

Of all things, that was ridiculous. He might have been a bit forgettable before the war but—

"You fought back against the Carrows for, like, an entire year," she said. "I don't think I saw you without a black eye or a split lip for all of seventh year."

That earned her another blink; perhaps that was how he showed surprise.

"Didn't realize Slytherins paid much attention to that."

"We weren't all having a great time, either," she snapped. She tapped her boot on the stone floor, calmed by the rhythm of it. She didn't especially want to relive any of that. "Plus you killed that snake. You're an actual war hero, how could I not remember your name?"

His head tilted, just enough. He was still trying to figure her out; it sent a thrill shooting through her chest again, that same prickling heat of adrenaline. She could be whoever she wanted. What a fucking rush.

"If you're going to propose to me you can at least buy me a drink," Longbottom finally said, still watching her with that hint of curiosity concealing his amusement.

"The gentleman is meant to provide betrothal gifts, I shouldn't be buying anything."

"Good thing we're not betrothed, then," he said, pushing off the table. "Want to come to Hogsmeade with me, stop by the Three Broomsticks?"

An unfamiliar wave of nostalgia tackled her. She didn't even like the Three Broomsticks all that much. But it had been so long. And there had certainly been a few raucous afternoons spent there during a Hogsmeade weekend or two. Honestly, it didn't sound like the worst way to spend an unintended evening with Longbottom.

"But I was just there," she said, forcing an affront, finding herself disproportionately pleased that he seemed to see straight through it, smiling with her.

—

"Pansy we aren't getting married."

He liked to use her name. Kept saying it like he was cultivating it, nurturing it, tending to it like one of his plants. She could hardly help it though, being named after a flower.

Nor could she help that she was on her way to being a little bit drunk with an equally tipsy Neville Longbottom.

"You keep saying that, Longbottom. But I'm owling my mother as soon as we're back at the school, and telling her to send an interest request. It makes perfect sense." Pansy couldn't remember the last time she'd let herself go beyond a comfortable buzz in the presence of someone who wasn't Theo, Blaise, Draco, or Granger.

"It makes no sense," he said, one arm resting against his knee as he leaned forward on the barstool, closer to her than he needed to be. Far enough away that she wondered. "We aren't even friends. I've spoken more to you in the last two hours than I have in the last fifteen years."

"My parents didn't even meet until their betrothal contracts were signed."

"It's a dying practice." He gestured to the bartender, ordering them another round with a careless kind of confidence she found completely at odds with the pudgy kid she used to routinely insult. Perhaps she ought not bring that part of their history to his attention; he'd probably list it as another reason why she was wrong, which she wasn't. Nor did she intend to lose this negotiation; Pansy never failed to seal a deal.

"It's one of the most benign pureblood traditions we have left," she said. She might have stopped there if she hadn't switched to firewhiskey ten minutes earlier. "Not everything about being a pureblood is bad. We have a history, and yes, it's caused— problems recently. And it's not exactly like I want to be bartered and sold, but I don't dislike the idea of strategic unions, building little family queendoms."

"You were born to be a queen, weren't you, Pansy Parkinson?"

Theo would have said that with a hint of a tease, a touch of reverence. But Neville Longbottom said it like it was the most logical conclusion to a treatise on her life. He wasn't making fun of her, just stating a fact.

She took a sip of her new drink. He still had that smile on his face, like he physically couldn't exist without it. Pansy wondered what that was like, looking so friendly and approachable all the fucking time. And because she felt like it, because it was worth knowing, as a sort of test, she leaned towards him, letting her hand rest atop his.

"And what were you born to be?"

His eyes were a touch glassy from the liquor. He didn't blink this time, just stared at her.

"A choice," he said, voice pitched low. "And I wasn't chosen."

"What does that mean, Longbottom?"

He lifted his hand, forcing hers to slide away. Pansy felt a momentary surge of disappointment until he stood, stepped into her personal space, knocking her knees against his thighs. Men who stood this close to her tended to look predatory, like they expected something from her. But Neville still had that soft smile on his mouth, even as he touched her waist with the hand that had scorned her mere moments before. He didn't look like he expected anything.

He still looked like he wanted to figure her out.

"You don't want to marry me, Parkinson."

Well. How dare he attempt to weaponize her name. Was that how she sounded when she did the same? All sharp and impersonal and verging on deadly?

"When did you get all suave, Longbottom?"

She might not have asked him under different circumstances, but the man— definitely not a boy— had his hand on her waist and stood bracketed between her thighs. He smelled like soil, like moss, like expensive potpourri. Not exactly masculine, but definitely not offensive. And it started overloading her brain, thoughts glazed over like her eyes likely were.

He laughed and lifted his hand. With a single finger, he brushed a digit through her fringe, jostling it. Honestly, it was a crime worthy of death in her own sovereign borders, but as a monarch in a foreign land, she hardly had the power to enact the appropriate justice.

"I'm not suave at all. But you did propose to me earlier today, so I might be taking some liberties. Besides, you are really pretty." He flushed and looked seconds from trying to cram his words back down his throat, if only he could catch them.

But he stood too close, and she'd captured them before he could try to take them back.

"So then why not marry me? I'd even be willing to change my name to Longbottom, which is a travesty of a family legacy, by the way."

"I'm not marrying you because I think you're beautiful."

"You're right, you should marry me for my impressive pedigree."

"You're not a show dog."

"I was bred to be."

That smile faded, and it occurred to Pansy that he hadn't moved. He still stood between her legs, his own barstool abandoned. So close she could see the tiny twitch in his chin, pushing his bottom lip up and out just enough that she registered the frown before he pulled it back in.

His eyes wandered her face. He didn't say anything. Just dragged his eyes from her own, down her nose, grazing her cheekbones, along the length of her jaw, pausing— too long— on her lips, up her nose again, onto her freshly jostled fringe, and back to her eyes. It was a heavy stare, laden with liquor and understanding. Pansy wondered if Longbottom had an idea of what she meant. He, like herself— like Theo, and Draco, too— carried an entire pureblood line on his shoulders.

"You should kiss me," she said, incapable of withstanding the weight of his eyes any longer.

"No, I shouldn't."

"You want to."

"That's not the point."

"Don't you want to know, if you married me, what it could be like?" she asked, needling, sliding beneath his skin, invasive and intrusive, and aimed at getting exactly what she wanted.

"I'm not marrying you, Pansy. And I'm not kissing you."

He stepped away, sliding back onto his stool, and Pansy wanted nothing more than to dig her emerald green nails into the flesh of his forearm out of frustration.

Later that night, she played that moment in her head, over and over again, trying and failing to find sleep. It annoyed her to know she wanted to marry Neville Longbottom more than he wanted to marry her. And she couldn't stop thinking about that smile, about his look that said he couldn't figure her out, about how it had felt to have him standing so close to her.

In all the fantasies she'd ever had about her future, if she indulged in including a man in them, she'd never considered someone like Longbottom. She had no experience with kind, with gentle, with a man who declined a kiss because being pretty wasn't the thing that mattered to him. She could already imagine their queendom— she'd be willing to call it an empire with his involvement, certainly not a kingdom, though— something kind and interesting and wielded with her iron fist.

—

Ten years hadn't tempered how terrifying Pansy found Minerva McGonagall, with her stiff upper lip and intimate knowledge of Pansy's Hogwarts-era behavior. It was one thing managing a negotiation over owl; it was another thing entirely delivering bad news in person. But there wasn't enough parchment in the world to convey the level of charm she intended to dazzle the Headmistress with in order to save Hogwarts as a future client.

After an hour of smiles so wide Pansy's cheeks felt like they would fall off, and promises to replace products lost in the fire with those of equal quality— for an even better deal— she walked out of her meeting with the Headmistress feeling like Pansy had made some progress. Better yet, feeling like she might be able to count Hogwarts as a client, should she have any other art or furniture for sale.

All in all, a surprising success completely thwarted by Neville Longbottom.

She couldn't find him at the greenhouses, or in the general vicinity of Gryffindor towers, or the teachers lounges she knew about, or the Great Hall. She suspected he might be avoiding her.

So she left Hogwarts without having the chance to remind him that he would, in fact, be marrying her.

—

"Have we heard back from the Longbottoms?" Pansy asked her mother for the third time that week. She'd been back from Hogwarts for almost a month. Her mother, confused but obliging, had sent a betrothal interest to the Longbottom estate at Pansy's request.

Pansy had known her mother would be pleased, but the overwhelming, face-splitting grin she'd given when Pansy announced her willingness to accept a betrothal from the Longbottom Estate, had been almost more than she could handle. Pansy's afternoon tea had turned in her stomach. She'd dug her nails into her thigh, playacting at niceties while reminding herself that she did this for herself, not her mother.

"Not yet, dear," her mother said, on the cusp of nervousness. "You know these things take time."

Pansy picked at the hard crust on the baguette in front of her. Not for the Hungarian, she wanted to mumble. But her mother never responded well to under-the-breath commentary and repetition exhausted her.

That evening, Pansy sent an owl directly to Longbottom.

You haven't responded to our inquiry.

She'd thought about asking if he'd received it. But no, she wouldn't give him that excuse. She considered reiterating her seriousness, but that ought to have been evident from the fact that her family had sent an intent request in the first place. She even thought about asking if he'd like to meet her at Hogsmeade, but that felt desperate, and Pansy did not do desperate as a matter of principle. A queen had to have standards.

Instead, she simply pointed out his failure to reply and enclosed a copy of the initial betrothal interest inquiry.

She received her answer the next day.

No, I haven't.

On the surface, not an ideal answer.

But it also wasn't a no.

Her response came in the form of a question that was not a question. She caved, cracked, just a bit. It definitely wasn't desperation, clinging to the memory of sandy hair she hadn't had a chance to touch.

Meet me at the Three Broomsticks on Saturday. Three o'clock.

He didn't respond to her owl. And each day that passed without a response, closer and closer to Saturday, steadily incensed her. She couldn't decide, in retaliation, if she should show up to her own appointment or not.

But she couldn't stop thinking about his stupid permanent smile and his idiotic approachability and his infuriatingly pristine family line. Oh, she wanted him to show up just so she could throttle him.

—

"You didn't reply to my owl," she said, stiff over the lip of her glass. The burn of vapors from her drink stung her nose as she watched him, eyes narrowed. He slid into the booth across from her.

"I didn't know if I could come."

"Could?" She set her glass down in punctuation.

"Wanted to."

Pansy made an acknowledging noise, humming. She leaned back against the booth, crossing her arms and allowing a brow to arch as high as it wanted, an independent inquiry living on her face.

Instead of looking intimidated, or scared, like the Neville Longbottom she expected from her memories, he looked interested in what she might say next. His soft smile, barely there but still present, never left his face, even as he sipped on the butterbeer she'd ordered for him.

He spoke first. Honestly, she'd been prepared to lead.

"I can't marry someone I don't know, someone I don't love."

Pansy let out a short laugh and reached for her drink. It felt like a self-conscious motion, and maybe it was. She took a quick sip, buoyed by the burn.

"So get to know me, love me."

It was his turn to laugh. But not at her, no, it felt more like he was laughing at himself. Like he couldn't quite believe how he'd ended up in a booth at the Three Broomsticks with Pansy Parkinson propositioning him for a whole lot more than sex. Sex might have been easy. She wanted him to love her, to commit to her, to build their own little empire together. She couldn't help but smile to herself; she did like to keep people on their toes.

"It's not quite that simple."

"No, then what are we doing now? Some people might call this a date, step one to falling in love, which apparently is step one to a strategic marriage."

"Some people might call this a date," he conceded. "Others might call it an order."

Pansy smiled.

"I didn't want you to say no."

He sighed, and took a sip of his butterbeer.

"I didn't want to, either."

"Well, that's a start," Pansy said.

"Why does it have to be a contract? Why a betrothal?" he asked, leaning against the booth. He still wore that curious smile, but with a tiny undercurrent of confusion: like he wanted to figure her out, had tried, and failed. "Why not just date?"

A multitude of responses bloomed inside Pansy's head. She drummed her nails against the woodgrain of their table, damp from condensation.

Her first impulse was towards smugness; it certainly sounded like Longbottom might be interested in dating her. Her second impulse was towards indignation; why did he assume dating was the more normal of the practices? She resented that. And her third impulse, last, but strongest, was towards sadness; this was not a three o'clock in the afternoon conversation. Nor was it a sober conversation. Nor was it one she especially felt like having.

Her face must have done something, twisted without her knowledge, because she saw his response to it: a softening in his already soft gaze.

"I know what people think when they hear about betrothals and pureblood marriage contracts. I'm not a fool," she said, punctuating her words with a forceful drum of nails on wood.

"I didn't say you were."

Pansy rolled her eyes. She knew he hadn't. But somewhere inside that kind, suntanned body of his, she knew he'd thought it. She could hardly begrudge him for it, too. But she couldn't bring herself to explain it. Those parts of her— the ones she kept in neat, orderly rows, away from errant emotion or memory— they weren't for anyone but her. And perhaps her husband, a partner she trusted to rule her queendom with her, govern all its many and varied lands: the productive and lush fields along with the craggy and overgrown forests.

She pressed her lips together, feeling the slide of her deep berry gloss.

"I won't explain it to you. If you can't figure it out, then this can't work."

There was the surprise she'd been looking for. His brows lifted, a slackness overcoming his mouth and jaw, before he wrangled it under control. His voice was quiet when he finally spoke.

"There's hardly a this at all, Pansy."

Was it embarrassment she felt coursing through her? A swoop of discomfort in her stomach as she realized how fruitless this endeavor would be? She'd probably made a complete arse of herself by coming on so strong to someone not only clearly disinterested, but laughably different from herself. The fact that she'd even engaged in such a delusion likely suggested a mental lapse on her behalf.

She might choke on her own mortification if she stayed any longer. Barely ten minutes, and all her plans had crumbled around her.

But Longbottom stood first, downing the rest of his butterbeer. Pansy didn't remember finishing her drink. She pushed the empty glass away with a single finger.

She pulled her disappointment together, smoothing over whatever cracks had formed on her surface, returning to her usual state of control. She would leave with her dignity, and she would demand he at least send a formal rejection to their request if he had no intentions. She would not be left in waiting.

"Could I show you the greenhouses?" he asked, holding a hand out to her. She blinked, caught entirely off guard by the fact that he wasn't leaving, that this wasn't over, that something else was happening. Something she had no plan for.

She searched for a motive behind his eyes. She searched for mocking, for obligation, for disingenuousness, for anything to explain what he intended. The clarity and openness she found only served to tilt her world further, slightly off-axis, more difficult to control.

"I suppose."

His smile expanded, lifting his cheeks. She took his hand, painfully aware of the buzz that erupted in her skin from the contact, and allowed him to escort her back to Hogwarts.

—

"I hate this."

Longbottom laughed, holding the door to yet another greenhouse open for her. They all looked the same and smelled like soil, and they were humid and hot, even in January.

"You're named for a flower. I would have at least thought the florals would interest you."

"Not even a little bit, Longbottom."

"Well if you want to marry me, this is what I do. This is what I love."

Pansy's stomach swooped again. She'd almost forgotten the issue of marriage. It felt like it had been taken off the table, or perhaps left on it back at the Three Broomsticks. Her chest tightened, belatedly registering what he'd said. This was what he loved.

She tried to view the greenhouse as he might, letting her eyes wander over enormous green vines crawling up nearby trellises, the rows and rows of seedlings lining the workbenches in the center of the space, the bags of fertilizers in the corner, stinking like something had crawled inside and died. It smelled like fourth year double Herbology with the Hufflepuffs. No, she hated it.

She forced a smile, "Our diversity of interests would make us such an interesting couple, don't you think?"

He laughed again, grabbing a pair of leather gloves from one of the benches and slipping them on. She indulged in overt observance as he flexed his hands inside the gloves, muscles and tendons in his forearms moving in tandem. She supposed digging around in the dirt all day did count as physical activity. She arched a brow and lifted her gaze to his, daring him to comment.

He said nothing; he just maintained that soft, somewhat amused smile and motioned for her to follow.

"You sell antiques, right? That's why you were meeting with the Headmistress."

"I don't sell antiques, Longbottom, I broker art and interior decor. The valuables I work with can't just be found in any pedestrian shops. They're rare, expensive, often of historical importance. I convey their tremendous value to a potential buyer on behalf of my clients and negotiate a transaction."

Longbottom, who'd been manhandling a green tangle of vines with several exceptionally sharp looking thorns, paused and looked at her, a thoughtful expression crossing his face.

"That's— impressive sounding. And perfect. I assume you're brilliant at it?" he cast the question in her direction as he turned back to his tangle of vines. It was a good thing he'd look away, too, because Pansy flushed, a foreign sense of self-consciousness at the compliment. He assumed? Well.

"I am."

Longbottom made a strangled kind of noise, most of his torso now twisting into the mass of vines. Pansy wondered, briefly, if she ought to be concerned. She decided against it; she preferred self-sufficiency in a man.

She leaned against one of the wooden benches behind her and crossed her arms, tapping her nails against her sleeves, and waiting with tremendous, practiced patience. He emerged from the vines with a small scratch on the side of his neck, slightly flushed, but looking otherwise unharmed. He held an almost iridescent, bright blue flower in his right hand.

He took a half step forward and offered it to her. Pansy resisted the pleased sensation swelling in her chest. Wasn't he just lovely? She angled her head slightly and, with as disinterested a wave as she could manage, gestured to her hair.

She wanted to taste the tiny quirk at the corner of his lips, a twist upwards in amusement. She found herself mirroring him; her unaffected smirk slipped easily into genuine pleasure. He tucked the flower behind her ear with such a gentle touch that she doubted a single hair on her head had been disturbed.

"You're not going to marry me, are you?" she asked in the quiet between them, already knowing the answer. Her voice came out low, breathy, bordering on a disappointed sigh if she allowed herself to indulge in such things.

Longbottom dropped his hand, which she'd only just noticed still hovered near her ear.

"I've already told you I'm not."

"Because you don't believe in betrothals and marriage contracts."

"It's not that—"

"It's a shame," she said, cutting him off— hating the way her voice pitched towards the defensive. "I could see a very advantageous future with you, Neville Longbottom." She tried to weaponize his name but it only sounded bitter. "A little empire with"— she gestured around them— "all this greenery, and that sweet smile of yours, and my sharp tongue, and my fantastic fashion sense. I could probably love you, you know. If you kept fighting plants to pick me flowers and offering me your hand when I get up from a table and looking at me like I'm someone to be figured out, not dismissed."

She indulged in a sigh then. She hadn't meant to say that much. She wanted him to know what he was missing.

"You probably should have kissed me when you had the chance," she said. She allowed herself one long look at him, from his heavy outdoor style boots— which were hideous— to the soft sandy brown curl about to fall across his forehead. "That probably would have been great, too."

She almost pulled the flower from behind her ear, almost gave into the drama of leaving it on the bench as she left him behind. But a small part of her wanted to keep it, wanted a closer look at the pretty little thing he'd picked for her. So when she left him standing there, looking kind and sad and somewhat confused, she did so with a bright blue flower tucked behind her ear and the disappointment of a failed negotiation settling heavy in her chest.

—

Pansy expected to receive an official rejection to her betrothal interest request shortly thereafter. None came. Days past, then weeks, then a full month. and Pansy grew more and more incensed over the carelessness of it. The document, potentially legally binding once signed, allowed for a six month consideration period. Which meant that even though Longbottom had already told her no, she still lived on pins and needles, knowing the document was out there, unsigned but not rejected.

It was rude and inconsiderate for him to leave her in limbo. And yet— she'd rather let Granger select her wardrobe for a year's worth of social engagements than write an owl insisting that he turn her down. A woman had to have some measure of dignity. She would not beg to be rejected.

A month turned into two.

Pansy might have shouted at her mother over afternoon tea when presented with a potential suitor's profile from the Americas. That flat, grating accent alone was enough to make her incandescent with rage.

Two months turned into three.

Pansy might have cried for over an hour when Granger announced she was pregnant. The look on Draco's face alone: so fucking reverent and peaceful, like he'd finally found the potential he'd sought so desperately when they were children, was enough to crumble whatever false disinterest Pansy might have otherwise erected in the face of such an announcement.

Three months turned into four.

Pansy might have turned away several owls from Headmistress McGonagall and therefore, substantial business, purely out of spite. She wouldn't be lured to Hogwarts, no matter how much money the Board of Governors was willing to part with for the sake of taste.

Four months turned into five.

Pansy might have indulged in a fantasy or two, mostly against her own will, torn between wanting to scream and wanting to cry. Her wandering thoughts ranged from redecorating the entirety of the Longbottom Estate to curiosities about the way his hands might feel around her waist, against her skin, sliding up her skirt. How dare he be so perfect. And the more time that went by the more annoyed she grew, incapable of erasing that kind fucking smile from where it had been branded behind her eyes.

Five months turned into six.

Pansy received a suitor's interest request from a lesser-known noble several degrees of separation from a crown in a random country somewhere deep in the European continent; she'd stopped paying attention. Three months earlier, she might have accepted. Six months earlier, she really might have. It was as close to being an actual queen as she could probably get. And he looked decently handsome in his photo, not especially dark or cruel. He was as close to perfect as she could expect to get. And she turned him down.

The next day, one day before her interest to the Longbottom estate would finally expire, she showed up at the Hogwarts greenhouses in the middle of the day.

She'd forgotten that exams happened in June, and she'd marched herself onto the school grounds right in the middle of them, begging Hagrid— how humiliating— to be let through the gates. The giant man had the audacity to look suspicious when she said she was there to see Longbottom, but eventually let her through, hollering in his ridiculous version of English that exams were still ongoing in the greenhouses.

Pansy waited in the heat for over two hours before the exam period finally ended, willing her body not to sweat and resenting every tiny bead of perspiration that formed on her brow. She felt cooked, overheated, and no number of freshening charms could convince her that her fringe looked how it did that morning. She was probably pink as a fucking pig, too.

When the flood of students finally passed, disgustingly jovial to be done with their exams, Pansy marched straight up to the bench where Longbottom had been leaning for the better part of half an hour, watching his students take their exams. She'd wished, as she stared at the back of his head while she'd waited, that she knew how to light someone's hair on fire by sight alone.

She tossed her purse on a bench and gave him less than a second to register her presence before she launched into a carefully planned attack on his sovereign borders. Hers was an invasion; she did not respect his dominion. She came to attack, archers at the ready, riders prepared to charge. She would rule this day if it was the last thing she did.

"A lesser noble sent me an interest request," she said. "An actual member of the nobility, albeit it's a muggle title, and there are some Statute of Secrecy concerns, as I understand it. But he is someone who, if there were to be a series of very unfortunate and suspicious deaths, would become an actual king— or something. I'm not exactly clear on the details, but this is a person— a man, in this world— who would like to marry me."

Longbottom hadn't blinked, had barely moved as she spoke. And when she finished, hands coming to her hips, one foot tapping irritably against the packed dirt of the greenhouse floor, he pushed off the workbench and walked around it. For a moment, it was like Pansy hadn't even spoken. Her stomach sank, an odd sensation, like perhaps she'd imagined it: a sort of heat-induced fever dream.

He walked to another bench, moved several large pots aside, and pulled a plant the size of her entire torso from the rest. He brought it to the bench where she stood, positioning himself opposite her with the plant between them. It was an odd looking thing— rather like the vined monstrosity he'd pulled the blue flower from months ago— but with something fern-like, soft and almost frilled spliced onto one side of it. Grafting was the term; she hadn't been totally unconscious for Herbology, much as she might have wished to be.

"So you've accepted?" he asked.

"No. I did not. I cannot accept a suitor's request when I have my own interest form pending with another family."

Longbottom's sweet, kind half-smile curved into something knowing, something almost sly.

"I have one more day."

"You haven't declined."

"No, I haven't."

Pansy had the sudden urge to cast somewhere in the vicinity of six reductos, one for each month he left her on the hook for a betrothal he clearly had no interest in.

"Well, I won't ask you to bother now. It expires tomorrow. You've wasted six months of my time, you know."

Generally speaking, she'd been extremely diplomatic with her words, all things considered.

"I've wasted your time? Pansy, you have no idea." He pushed the weird, hybrid plant towards her. "Do you want to guess how long it took to graft these two together without one eating the other?"

Pansy lifted a lacquered finger, bright red this time, and flipped at the fluffy fern filaments in an attempt at disinterest. The whole thing shivered and stiffened; the soft bristle straightened, turning into defensive points.

"The vine is an offensive plant. Tries to choke out anything in its path. The fern is defensive in nature. It wounds when threatened. They could not be more opposite."

"Your analogy is boring me," Pansy said. "Am I meant to be the fern or the vine?"

"The vine, obviously."

She narrowed her eyes at the plant.

"Why? Why spend your precious time— while wasting mine, by the way— making a pointless plant analogy?"

"Because you made a pointless art analogy."

The ground shifted beneath Pansy's feet, transforming solid earth to loam or sand, preparing to swallow her up. Her stomach did an annoying flip at a rush of adrenaline that shot from her chest to the tips of her fingers and toes.

"Excuse me?"

"You're the art, right? Rare and valuable and not sold in your average shop. You're historic and covetable, and you must be brokered."

"I'm a person, Longbottom. I'm not for sale."

"Which is why I've spent six months trying to figure out why you would want a betrothal agreement. But it's hardly a normal betrothal you're after, is it? You have choices, you've been allowed to say 'no,' clearly."

Pansy took a step back, away from the bench between them and the plant monstrosity he'd made to prove some sort of point. She'd been hot before, but a new, uncomfortable heat had erupted like magma inside her chest, and she didn't know if it was meant to warn or comfort her.

"Do you know what I haven't been able to stop thinking about?" Longbottom asked, taking a step to the side of the bench.

Pansy swallowed, crossing her arms in front of her.

"You had this— inexplicable interest in me," he said, taking another step. "And it made absolutely no sense. But setting that madness aside, you made me wonder."

Pansy tried very hard not to let her breathing stutter, not to flush, not to fucking swoon under Longbottom's hazel stare that, for the first time, felt a little predatory. Her heart hammered like captured prey.

"I wondered what I could do if I got my hands in the ground beneath your feet. You're named for a flower, Merlin"— another step closer, she had nowhere to go, and she wouldn't have gone if she could— "what could you become with the right soil, a little cultivation, a little care."

Neville Longbottom was speaking in metaphors or analogies or maybe very literally, Pansy could hardly tell, heart pounding in her throat. Nearly chest to chest, his gaze softened again, kind eyes searching hers.

"A flower? A queen? What else could you be?"

She steadied her chin, prepared her vocal cords for battle.

"Why would that matter to you?"

"Because I want to see it."

She'd barely finished speaking before she had her answer, spoken so close to her skin that she could feel the shape of each syllable brushing against her cheeks.

"I never declined because every time I sat down to do it, I couldn't stop wondering."

He smelled like a greenhouse: salt on the surface of skin, soil left in the sun. She hated how greenhouses smelled. She loved how they smelled on him.

She supposed he'd said a brave thing. Open, honest, straightforward like an insufferable Gryffindor. She made a payment in kind.

"Are you going to sign it?"

She feared a yes nearly as much as she feared a no.

"I would like— to kiss you first. I should have done it six months ago."

"No one here is accusing you of being smart."

He smiled, either oblivious or simply uninterested in being offended. She liked his teeth. This close, she wondered how they'd feel dragging across her skin, nibbling on her lower lip, teasing her, tasting her.

The heat in the greenhouse doubled, a rush of desire barging inside and locking the doors. Judging from the look in Longbottom's eyes, hovering between amusement and predation, he felt its arrival, too.

"I signed it this morning. I couldn't— I didn't want to miss—" he sighed, eyes searching her. "I was going to deliver it in person this evening."

It felt like the cataclysmic shift she expected— betrothed— and it also felt like nothing at all. A blink between states of being, and yet she was still Pansy Parkinson, on the verge of begging to be kissed.

"Pansy?" Longbottom— she should probably try calling him Neville— asked, transforming her name into a question. "Can I kiss you now?"

That one question gave her the power to feel something like herself again, like she had control, too. She might look something like prey, but she'd put herself here; she wanted him to catch her. And her potential betrothal might look something of the same, like caught prey in a hunt she didn't understand. But she understood it perfectly, and she'd put herself there. Because if she got to pick who caught her, who was the hunter, after all?

"You'd be an idiot if you didn't, Longbottom."

Neville kissed how she imagined he helped plants grow: gentle, encouraging, slow, and with everything he had. Pansy had never experienced such an agonizingly slow but somehow all-consuming kiss in her entire life: like there was no rush, no race to a finish line. Like he had a lifetime to know her.

One of his hands cupped her cheek, thumb brushing over the bone, distracting her with the softness in his touch as his other arm encircled her waist, pulling her close. She felt like an awkward teenager again, unsure what to do with her own limbs. Her instincts towards rough desire felt completely out of sync with the torturous pace Neville set: mapping her, navigating her, consuming her.

She reached up, stretched to the tips of her toes, and wrapped her arms around his neck, dragging her nails along his shoulders, savoring his hiss of pleasure against her lips. He must have sensed her wobble, unsteady on the tips of her shoes, because the arm around her waist tightened. He broke the kiss long enough to smile, simultaneously abashed and loaded with intensity.

He lifted her like she weighed barely more than a sack of soil and backed her onto the bench behind them. Concerns about glass walls and wandering students and her gods damned modesty— however much of it she had left— vanished from Pansy's brain when Neville kissed her neck, then her jaw, then the space just beneath her ear.

"I like kissing you," he breathed. And it was so earnest, so honest, so weighted with heat that Pansy almost burned to cinders, smothered in a greenhouse. And then he truly did her in, "I want to kiss every inch of you."

Neville fucking Longbottom.

Pansy made a noise, somewhere from the back of the throat, something strangled, something whimpered, something drawn to the surface by the pull of soft, strong hands and a gentleness that felt like reverence, like worship.

She couldn't take it anymore, she needed momentum; she grappled at the buttons to his shirt, desperate for skin. He smiled, forehead pressed to hers as he stilled, letting her push the shirt from his shoulders, dropping it to the dirt.

She dragged her hands down his chest, red nails biting into the surface just enough to leave a pink trail in their wake. The catch and stutter in his breath tasted like victory, battles won and lands conquered for her queendom.

He countered with warm, soft fingers slipping beneath the hem of her dress, already dangerously hiked up to make room for him between her legs: a barely-there touch and a slow ascent. His other hand found her chin, guiding her to look at him and not the work of his hand sowing seed after seed of heat blooming against her skin.

"Pansy," he said. His hand squeezed the top of her thigh. "Tell me I can kiss you wherever I want."

Ever the benevolent ruler, she assented.

And as he sank to his knees before her, lifting the hem of her dress even higher, hands and mouth and teeth making a meal of her flesh, Pansy grabbed for her bag, pulling her wand from within. Their need for privacy spells on the glass greenhouse windows had escalated from merely advisable to an absolute necessity in the span of three kisses on her inner thigh, the drag of her knickers down past her ankles, and the electric bolt of his breath against her core.

The incantation died on her lips when Neville's hands pinned her hips to the bench, mouth closing over her clit and twisting her would-be magic to gasps. Her lungs collapsed, expelling every ounce of air as his tongue reduced her to quivers.

Her eyes dropped shut, head falling back as she leaned on her elbows. The back of her head touched the glass, and she dared the world to witness. She heard him, words spoken in pauses between sweet, slow circles, "I already charmed the glass."

She gasped, rolling her hips against his mouth, seeking the power to speak.

"When?"

She whimpered when he broke contact again, just enough to answer.

"Right after you walked in."

"Wandless?" she asked, syllables choked on breath she couldn't catch.

"Mmhmm."

She felt the sound of his answer more than she heard it, shot straight through her nerves.

"Wordless?"

"Mmhmm."

"That's"— a pant, a keen, a dizzying rush flooding her veins— "advanced magic."

She could have cried in the absence of his touch.

"Pansy— do you really want me to explain why I taught myself to tint the greenhouse windows with wandless magic or do you want me to keep going?" She didn't have to look at him or even open her eyes to see the smile: that kind smile, determined to serve, to debilitate. Her spine arched, near to snapping, when he slid a finger inside her, winding a coil tighter.

"Please— fuck, keep going."

The only thing Pansy could think as Neville Longbottom broke her down and tore her apart, twisting and tightening and coiling her to incoherency— beyond how horribly wrinkled her dress would be— was how now that she'd had slow, had deliberate, she knew she'd crave it every time. It was intoxicating: the purpose he took with each touch, the soft strength of it, the unique, anticipatory torture of it.

As she came apart, rippling tension melting in a humid greenhouse, sparks and shudders and sheer awe, Pansy's grip on Neville's bicep became her flag in the dirt, her claim; she had no intention of letting him go.

She forced air into her lungs, sanity back into her brain. Her toes touched the ground, shoes somewhere forgotten. She pulled Neville close, kissing him with a sudden sense of relief that chipped away at the six months of annoyance she'd used to encase her disappointment.

"Hi," Neville said, smile teetering towards smugness.

Pansy rolled her eyes.

"I'm not fucking you in a greenhouse, Neville—"

"So what do you call—"

"If you want me on my knees, you'd at least better be providing carpets."

It was like watching a spell backfire, the way the comprehension in his pretty eyes blinked out of existence, head quirking. Then a recasting, a new incantation, and finally, understanding.

"Merlin, yes. Okay, let's—"

He tugged at her dress, pulling the hem down from where it had caught mid-thigh. He reached around her, grabbing her forgotten wand and putting it in her bag, which he already had in his other hand. He offered her the bag and then knelt: a tap at her ankle to lift her foot as he slipped one of her shoes back on. She had to brace herself on his shoulder, her own slow comprehension barely catching up by the time she had both shoes back on, bag in hand, and the wrinkles removed from her dress by a spell she was impressed he knew.

As Neville buttoned his shirt, Pansy circled back to the question that had derailed them, the lynchpin in their negotiations, the concession he'd admitted he made.

"So, you've already signed it."

She didn't phrase it as a question. She didn't intend for it to be one.

His fingers slipped on his buttons. Pansy stepped forward, steadier by the second, and took control over buttoning his shirt. "Relax, Longbottom. We can have a long engagement if you'd like."

She glanced up at him, measuring the success of her lateral entry into the reality that technically, if he'd signed her interest request, they were, in fact, betrothed. But more than that, she'd meant it as an offering, a chance to date, if that's what he wanted.

He wrapped his arm around her shoulder, dropping a kiss to the top of her head— she worried for the state of her hair— and held her like it was the easiest, most natural thing in the world. Like they'd been doing it for years.

"Yeah. I'd like that."

She didn't mean to melt against him, but she did it all the same.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, Pansy realized she probably owed Theodore Nott a gift basket, or a knighting.

—

Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed this little look into Pansy's life post-w&h! I primarily publish on AO3 and can be found there (and on tumblr!) as 'mightbewriting' (no 'i'). I usually post things on ffn pretty late so if you want to read something as soon as it's published, follow me there!