neville.

there had been a remarkable lack of actually getting ready on neville’s part, louging in his room as he was. in his opinion, brushed hair and soil-stained free clothes would have been enough, or, in all fairness, his dress robes for such a fancy occasion, thrown in their honour, so it would be remiss to not do some upkeep, but there wasn’t hours of work to put in.

draco disagreed. he’d smuggled into neville’s room earlier, and they’d gotten distracted for the first while, then again in the shower, but finally neville was nearly done, except for -

pansy hates being watched.

she could feel prying eyes on her when she was five, her mother’s gaze burning instructions in her posture. every time someone stares at her, she feels like she’s done something wrong– even if she knows she hasn’t. she hasn’t done anything wrong, apart from being at the wrong place at the wrong time.

neville’s gaze tastes like vitriol. it stretches all across her skin, paints her in grime. puts an anvil in her hands, says you can never drop this. if you do, the floor shatters. pansy’s familiar with brittle ground; she knows how to stride across ice with the weight of the world on her shoulders. but it feels flimsy, like this. when the floor is her best friend’s heart.

pansy can keep a secret – her entire life was built on lies and mysteries. she knows the value of puzzle pieces of information, and how they can change an entire narrative when put together. she is not my daughter, her mother had said. neville had stopped in their tracks, in an instance of confrontation. pansy knows why she’s being watched, and she resents them – draco and neville, the both of them – for it. 

it will break blaise’s heart either way. secret or public, it won’t matter. pansy doesn’t want the blame on her shoulders. she doesn’t want to be an accomplice to a crime that might tear all of them apart. neville touches her shoulder, and it burns a spot right through cloth, skin, flesh, blood. she hadn’t thought it’d be so public, neville’s attempt at keeping draco together, coming apart at the seams. she raises an eyebrow. “i know what this is about. i don’t want to talk about it.”

he’d forgotten how cold the slytherins could be. well, not entirely, draco’s frost-bitten gaze still sometimes cool on their sun-warmed skin, but the icy hostility that had accompanied dismissive gaze and sharp words that still stung whenever he thought back over them -

‘ i know, ’ he says instead, tries to fix the words together that are spinning around in his head, make sense of the panic thats replacing his ribs with daggers. pansy is being cold to him, someone he’d not truly met, hadn’t had any real memories with - either negative or positive - until traces of their help in seventh year, gentle indifference and kindness from then on. it’s a side he’d never really had cause to see before, had never asked to be directed his way.

but her gaze had met his and perhaps it was one heart against the other, but if ginny found out --- if blaise found out, he knows is draco’s concern, no matter that they’d sort of been dating since they’d met in new zealand, had made it official between the two of them before even coming back in august --- what was a lie of omission against doing something you know will only hurt everyone around you?

(( at least that’s what he tells himself, because any lie, no matter the flavour, has always tasted like ash and dead in his mouth, soil that could never hope to grow anything ))

‘ i don’t, this isn’t - ’ he starts, closes his eyes, tries again when he doesn’t have to look directly at her. ‘ and i don’t want you to talk about it. to anyone. ’ perhaps that’s what it was, an unspoken agreement, and now he’s aired it and now its an agreement coming unraveled.

‘ draco can’t - i can’t - please don’t tell anyone else? ’

it’s not that luna is particularly a stickler for being on time. everything’s a little looser - she drifts around a little before anything happens and as long as she gets there while everyone else seems to be as well, she’s set. she follows the professors and her friends as they walk toward where they need to be, and has set herself down just as everyone does (maybe a little more relaxed, if anything). she wonders briefly where neville is, eyeing the empty spot next to her, but it doesn’t take long until he arrives.

“mcgonagell wouldn’t have started without you,” she says in lieu of a greeting, her lips quirking into a tiny smile,  stating simple fact. it’s their day after all. the six of them together, starting this journey. they reach out to brush off neville’s sleeve where there’s a bit of dirt. “being a little tardy wouldn’t be too horrible.” it’s less of a suggestion and more of an observation, one they hope would relieve some of his worries on potential future tardiness. “though then i suppose everyone waiting for you would be another matter to consider…”

people waiting for him, more eyes, impatiently looking, neville shivers at the image, glad that it had only been a vague interest that had drawn attention as he had entered. he’s had quite enough attention for a lifetime, and there would be plenty of reasons for people to be looking at the lot of them throughout the rest of the day.

fuck : draco

take a bullet for : everyone  luna

have on your zombie apocalypse team : luna

you need someone at your side you can depend upon, someone who will break down alongside you and build you back up. they’ve faced battles before together, they can do it again.

kill : draco

is marry an option instead please?

betray : pansy

have on your zombie apocalypse team : ginny

she’ll survive, she won’t slow down, or stop, reckless, sure, but perhaps that’s what the apocalypse needs.

kill : draco 

he’ll forgive them, they hope, bitten too early despite how good they look in leather, but perhaps its a small mercy.

betray : luna

there’s going to be a speech and he’s going to be late. he’d gotten up ( too early, if anything ), but had decided that the perfect option would be to go read in the weatherless garden and lose track of time. 

it’s nearly nine, so he trips over his own feet as he stumbles out the door, careens into the great hall and smiles sheepishly as he settles into his own seat. it had been a month at hogwarts, so the uncertain nervous energy from that first meal had long since passed, faculty talking to them as something more akin to equals ( something which still didn’t fail to amaze neville ), but there’s still an anticipation in the air, that both rises and fades as mcgonagall says her short speech, then sits back down.

pansy - pansy pansy .. pansy. the lead in his stomach was growing heavier and thicker with every passing day, every passing hour, since she had seen him shuffle out of draco’s room, shirt half-buttoned and hair undeniably mussed. 

neville looks at the weight, looks at pansy, looks at draco, and the inside of his lip starts bleeding from where he’s chewed on it for too long, and he looks at blaise, then back at pansy.  ( he thinks the weight is guilt but doesn’t know how he can break it up and swallow it, not sure how large it’s allowed to grow, it should be growing )

it had been a few days already since they’d accidentally made eye contact as he’d passed through the common room, and he knew that she knew in an instant, recognition and understanding flitting through her eyes, because how could she not? but it had been a few days and still no-one knew, but did this mean she’d never tell blaise? 

it’s a secret, because it has to be, because draco wants it to be, and neville can’t push, not here, not with that half-feral look in his eyes, a look neville tries his hardest to not inflame, soothing comfort for healing for now instead.

it’d break blaise’s heart, and perhaps that’s reason enough.

so pansy can’t tell blaise, but she won’t know not to unless neville asks her. it takes the remainder of the potion’s orientations for him to come to that decision, and the rest for him to drum up the confidence.