average human’s Reviews > Dirty, Flirty, and Vindictive > Status Update

Spanish and Latin are related Romance languages. That fluency in Spanish would be an advantage when casting in Latin is conjecture on my part. It’s possible it's practice and Dionisio is teasing Neville.

Note: a fuckboy aristocrat sold me a dragon egg: This dragon egg is an Easter egg (re: BSP Chapter 5).

Note: a very short pleated skirt: Neville does not know this is a Dolce & Gabbana skirt from 2003.

Note: If you fell, you’d be halfway home: This phrase is stolen from a story Hozier told on stage about sustaining a head injury before getting on a plane and sitting next to Cillian Murphy. I saw it on TikTok.

LGBTQIA+ rights are human rights. I am ideologically opposed to the author of canon and boycott her financially.

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Neville was watering the venomous tentaculas while Pansy sat at the scarred wooden table, drinking the tea he’d made her and flipping through her hedge fund prospectus. Sometimes she came by for no reason.

“Roll up your sleeves one more turn,” she said.

He glanced over his shoulder. Was this a fashion thing?

She was in a full black and white checkered skirt and black top. Emeralds at her earlobes and fingers. The dark red lipstick they’d been field testing. They’d been field testing it a lot. Her gaze was raking him up and down.

He rolled his sleeves all the way to the elbow.

She was suppressing a smirk.

He looked at her sidelong.

She said, “I like your forearms.”

Neville raised an eyebrow and got back to his watering.

No one had ever said that to him before her.





THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 18, 2003

Neville was lying on his bed in the cottage, being suffocated by Pansy Parkinson’s cunt. He’d begged for this.

Neville didn’t beg. But he’d come up from making rosary pea seed paste and found her propped up against his pillows. He’d made her wait while he showered and then he’d come out—scrubbed pink, his hair still wet—and she’d told him she was in charge. So when she was on her knees and elbows, sucking his cock with her cunt in his face—out of reach because he was too tall and she was too short—he’d tugged on her hips and said please. “Please, Pansy. Sit on my face.”

Now he didn’t care if he couldn’t breathe. All he could smell or taste was her. She’d come and gone still, her hand flat on his chest, and he was lapping her up. Everything hot and slick and her. He could do this forever or until he passed out—

But then she was pulling away and he was sucking in air. She was moving to face him. He was blinking and wiping his hand across his muzzle. He wanted her to stay there longer next time—

But now she had hold of his cock and she was lowering herself onto him. He was panting, mumbling the charm—she was wet but there was a lot of him and he liked seeing that wince but felt guilty about that. Then he was in—

She was seated on him—

Godric, she felt good. He was rolling his hips to push into her like he couldn’t get enough—

And she was doing a little shimmy as she took off her bra. Her bare breasts—Merlin.

His fingertips were on her thighs. She was moving on him. She was—

She was glancing over at the bedside table.

She was back, focused on him—

No, she was distracted. That little crease between her eyebrows. That little frown—not in a good way.

He tilted his head back, eyeing the table. The post was stacked up there—she’d mentioned it when he’d got out of the shower. He’d told her he’d look at it later. Was this why she’d been coming on strong?

He cleared his throat. “What’s in the post, Pansy?”

“Nothing,” she said, slowing. Her rhythm gone now.

She looked shifty. He knew that face.

He pushed up onto his elbows, his stomach tensing under her. He looked over at the bedside table. Loads of people wrote him about loads of things. What would have upset her? She’d never cared about his business.

He reached across and shuffled through the post until he saw it—an envelope in Hufflepuff yellow. “Is it this?”

He pulled it from the pile and turned back to her. His cock was hard inside her but unease twisted in his chest. It was Hannah’s name on the return address. She’d written him?

He tossed the letter down onto the sheet beside him and shifted so he was reclined against the pillows, one arm up behind his head, one hand on Pansy’s thigh. He could see from her face that they’d have to have this out. He’d avoided things with Luna and Hannah, and it had only hurt longer and slower instead of all at once. “Tell me.”

Pansy shrugged, rocking on him a little. She wasn’t pushing off him. But she wasn’t saying it was nothing, either. She was looking at his chest.

“I saw it and I got jealous,” she said. She tilted her head. Then she met his eyes. “Are you angry? Do you think I don’t trust you?”

What, had she thought he’d been cheating? Did she think he’d kept something up with Hannah—with Hannah married, and him telling Pansy he had to be the only one?

He was angry. But: “I know who you used to date.”

“I know you’re not Draco,” she said.

Neville raised an eyebrow.

“No,” he said. “I’m not.”

He could feel the heat in his chest. A tightness spreading outward.

Malfoy had openly, flagrantly fucked around on her when he wasn’t harassing unwilling witches. Groping girls in the corridors. Flipping up skirts. Whispering vile things in the library. Smirking as he flaunted the lovebites and jinxes. Neville didn’t need to be told he was different—

She was holding her breath. She looked scared. He’d scared her. Pansy Parkinson had grown up around volatile people. She was very attuned to anger.

And Neville was an angry person. He knew that.

She was naked and vulnerable. He was simmering beneath her.

Neville took a breath.

He was an angry person, but he didn’t have to let the anger out. He could choose not to take it out on the people he cared about. It would still be there, waiting for the people he did take it out on.

This needed to be said, though.

“For one thing,” he said, running his thumb and finger up and down either side of her thigh muscle, “I’m not a coward.”

She was holding very still. “I know that, Neville.”

He wasn’t going to take this out on her. But he wanted to be clear. “Which means I don’t cheat.”

He looked up from her thigh, and she nodded.

He watched her face. Her eyes skittered over him. She didn’t believe him. Malfoy had done this. She thought all men cheated now. He thought back to her rules—don’t hit her, don’t come on her face. She hadn’t even asked him to be true.

Neville took his hand from her thigh and reached over and picked up the envelope. He held it out to her.

She shook her head, her lips sucked into her mouth.

“It’s not a test,” he said. “Open it.”

“What does it say?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” he said. “You can tell me.”

She looked at him.

“Open it, Pansy.”

She hesitated. She took it.

She stole a look at him as she slid her thumbnail under the seal and then pulled the stationery from the envelope, but he kept his expression neutral. He had no idea why Hannah had written him.

Pansy’s head was bent over the parchment. She was making no pretense of not poring over it. Neville felt a grim fatalism flood him. Would Hannah choose this moment to put everything she’d found objectionable about him into words? Does Parkinson know you’re a cuckold? A pervert? A disappointment? A piece of meat no one wants? Would Pansy raise her head from the letter and look at him differently?

Neville took in a slow breath.

If she did, he would just have to own it.

He might not be good or special or necessary. But he could face up to things. That’s what he told himself.

(Was that why he was so angry? Because he hadn’t faced up to things with Luna or Hannah? Because he hadbeen a coward? Neville sighed.)

He reached out and—a surprised inhale from her—began to rub circles on Pansy’s clit. He sensed her glance up but he kept his eyes on his hand. He didn’t want to see her look at him differently. He just wanted to do this.

“What does it say?” he asked.

“She said she wouldn’t get involved and she won’t. She debated whether to tell you this, but she’s noticed increased floo traffic between the Leaky and Avery Manor. She hopes our match isn’t bringing up the past. P.S. Am I as awful as I was in school.”

It was nothing. The letter was nothing. Hannah being nosy. The tip about Avery an excuse to insert herself into his life. She didn’t know Pansy did things like drop by his bedroom and collect his post. She didn’t expect him to let Pansy read his mail.

“What shall I tell her?” he asked Pansy now.

Pansy rocked her hips, tightening her cunt on him. She wasn’t pushing off him to lock herself in the loo.

“Tell her I’m worse. A terrible shrew,” said Pansy. “You’ve never met anyone so jealous in your life. I never let you go anywhere or do anything or have any fun, and I hex you if you so much as look at a witch sideways. It’s hell on earth for you here.”

Neville snorted a laugh. She was funny—it was one of the things he liked most about Pansy now that he wasn’t afraid of her. He was smiling as she got the balls of her feet under her and began to move on his cock. She let the letter fall to the floor.

Neville said, “I’ll tell her you’re devoted and protective and a brilliant shag.”

“That’s what I just said,” said Pansy.

He was smiling as she fucked him. Merlin, it felt good.

“I am awful and I will read your post again,” she said, low and threatening.

Neville laughed, his eyes nearly closed as he tilted his chin up, his head back. Pleasure was rolling through him. He was awful because he didn’t mind this—hearing her get possessive. That was easy. There wasn’t anyone else.

“Read it all,” he said. “I’m not scared.”

He let her wear herself out on him.

Then he rolled over with her and fucked her fast, turning his head away so he didn’t shout in her ear when he came. He turned back, shuddering, and kissed her face. He was breathing hard, his cock still in her, when he murmured, “Pansy, you’re the only witch for me.”

“I know that,” she said.

She didn’t. He hadn’t done enough to convince her—evidently. He hadn’t understood the things she took for granted. But he understood better now. He’d take better care of her.

He went downstairs and came back up with tea and cake, and they ate naked in bed.

She was watching him when he looked over at her. He smiled—she looked like she’d been scheming.

“Why didn’t you and Abbott marry?” she asked him. “I’d assumed you had.”

Was this why she was jealous of Hannah? She thought he and Luna were incompatible because of his rules. But he’d almost married Hannah. She didn’t know everything he’d had in common with Hannah had been superficial. (He hadn’t known that either.)

Neville made his expression neutral as he looked down and picked crumbs off the bedding. He didn’t want to tell her that knowing about Luna had made Hannah jealous and insecure. That every time he’d tried to reassure Hannah that he wanted what they had, he’d inadvertently made Luna out to be the sort of libertine who would blow into town, blow him, and blow up Hannah’s world.

He told part of the truth. The bigger part: “She thought I needed to let the war go. That I was obsessed. That’s why she didn’t want to tell me about Avery Manor.”

Pansy turned more fully toward him. “But how do you do that? Let the war go.”

“I don’t know,” he said. “So I didn’t.”

“Right,” she said, nodding. There was a little crease between her eyebrows.

“Why are you all right with what I do?” he asked. “You grew up with these people.”

She sighed. She wouldn’t look at him. “Because . . . they used us. The boys, especially. They ruined them—all the boys I cared about. And for nothing. A stupid, made-up idea.”

She stopped then—she had to know: Neville hated those boys Pansy had cared about. He’d known them since they were eleven—they’d never been sweet and innocent. They’d stolen his things and hexed him on the stairs. They’d put him in hospital. One in particular had wished Hermione dead and nearly killed Katie and Ron. He didn’t feel bad for those boys.

But Pansy sounded so sad he tried to see it through her eyes. He thought of those rare moments when Nott or Pucey or Zabini was separated from the others—alone in the library or paired with a Gryff in Herbology—and he’d got a glimpse of them as a person. Someone with interests and insecurities they only shared one-on-one, when they weren’t posturing and protecting their image. Like maybe they would have been all right if they’d been in a different house with different friends and different parents and a different life.

Maybe Neville would have been all right too, if his whole life had been different.

Pansy had shifted over to lean against him. Finally, she said, “They lied to us—about a lot of things. And I just . . . hate them now.”

This Neville understood. This feeling of having been lied to. Sacrificed and taken for granted by the adults meant to love and protect you. Though Neville still wasn’t sure that was real—this idea that certain adults were meant to do that for you. He’d disagreed when a mind healer had told him every child deserved respect by virtue of being human. “No,” he’d said, shaking his head. “You have to earn it.” It was a nice-sounding theory, what the healer said. It just didn’t have anything to do with how people actually treated you. Now Shacklebolt was still fucking with him. And Neville was still being told he was the problem if he didn’t play by the rules. He thought of Alicia saying her parents had been bellends, so she’d decided fuck ‘em.

Neville nestled Pansy into him, his arm around her. She smelled like sex and cake. Like coffee and vanilla and jasmine and patchouli and orange blossoms. She was warm and alive and his to take care of. Maybe no one had defended him, but he could say this to her: “I’ll take care of them.”

She looked up at him, quick, and grinned. She was looking at him like he was her man. Like he was her hero. Like he mattered. He’d do anything to get her to look at him like this.

“Do you want to read my response to Hannah before I send it?” he asked.

“No,” she said. “I trust you.”

Neville smiled. He wasn’t falling for that. He’d leave it out where she’d find it.

He let her pull him down and kiss him, scattering all the crumbs he’d collected.





Neville wrote to Hannah that he was well and she needn’t concern herself with his match. He paused, the distillery-branded pen held over the parchment. That was all that needed to be said. But the message was for Pansy as much as Hannah. He added that he and Pansy understood each other, and she made him happy.

A low blow, perhaps. You didn’t understand me. I wasn’t happy with you. He could imagine Hannah’s furrowed brow, her nose wrinkling as she read between the lines.

But Neville had a policy of reminding people not to fuck with him. She shouldn’t have added that P.S. about Pansy.





FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 19, 2003

Neville was wrestling with a bubotuber when he heard Pansy’s heels on the greenhouse tile.

She reached him at the wooden table in back and said, “It’s half past five. We’re going to Granger’s birthday drinks at six.”

Neville looked down at the pus splashed across his work clothes. He’d known today was Hermione’s birthday but he hadn’t heard anything about drinks.

“I’ve been by Flourish & Blotts.” Pansy rummaged in her handbag to produce gift-wrapped books she now held up in turn. “You’re giving her a novel—something muggle called The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. It was published in August, so it’s possible she hasn’t read it. And I’ve bought her a history of cosmetics so she has some context for that eyeshadow she hasn’t updated since fifth year.”

Neville was confused. “Did Ginny owl—”

Pansy was shaking her head. “Draco—he’s got himself invited and needs back up.” She’d looked down as she shoved the books back into her purse. Neville thought he heard her mutter “little bitch.” She lifted her head, her expression bright. “Nott will be there too.”

“Where?”

“The Leaky.”

Neville nodded. He was, apparently, about to gatecrash Hermione’s birthday drinks. With the snakes. With Hannah behind the bar.

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Then the gifts came out, and Malfoy gave Hermione the deeds to Flourish & Blotts.

Hermione was tipsy—flushed and smiling until she saw what it was.

“Malfoy,” she said, her head bent over the parchment, “did you forge my signature on a legal document to obtain this?”

“Of course not,” he snapped. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“I did,” said Nott. “I have the fairer hand.”

“What the fuck?” said Harry. “Hermione, I’m not arresting someone at your birthday drinks.”

“I should hope not,” said Nott, sipping firewhisky.

“I might,” growled Ron, leaning forward onto his elbows.

Neville laughed. How were Ron and Harry still surprised by the snakes?

A drunk Nott looked over at him and winked.

Malfoy announced he was changing the bookshop’s name to Granger & Malfoy. Hermione stared at him like he’d stripped her naked. Malfoy’s smile was wolfish.

Neville had the gist of it: Malfoy was fixated on Hermione. Hermione was attracted to Malfoy. They weren’t having sex.

Clearly—given the swipes Malfoy was now taking at Ron. Bickering over the Flourish & Blotts rebranding had turned into some nasty inuendo. Ginny and Pansy were hooting but Hermione looked embarrassed.

Neville was ready to go.

Pansy started to stand, and Neville sat forward.

“Just nipping off to the loo,” she said.

“Not by yourself,” said Neville. Not in a packed pub. Not in that dress. But Nott was already up—

“I’ll go with. C’mon, Pans.”

And then his hand was out to usher her away and Pansy was kissing Neville on the cheek and she and Nott were exchanging a look and Neville’s eyes were narrowing. They went in the right direction. Neville got a glimpse of Nott waiting for her where he ought to be, flipping a butterfly knife opened and closed. Then Neville glanced over a minute later and Nott was moving toward the bar. Neville leaned back and craned his neck, and the patrons parted in time for him to see Pansy, talking to Macmillan. Macmillan looked sharply over—toward the taps.

Neville sighed and turned back to the table to wait.

Minutes later, she was back, suppressing a smirk. Nott wasn’t hiding his.

Neville pushed his chair back from the table, and when she touched his shoulder, he reached out and pulled her onto his lap. She jostled against him with a little squeak of happy surprise, her hand going to his chest.

He leaned in close to her ear. “What did you do?” he asked, low.

She tilted her head toward him, her hair a dark curtain. She smelled like firewhisky and perfume. “Paid the tab,” she said.

“And?”

Her mouth was quirked. She was shifting her weight on him. Her arse on his thigh. His fingertips sliding under the scalloped hem of her dress as it rode up. He waited and she said, “I might have asked Macmillan why his wife was trying to fuck my intended.”

Neville snorted—there it was. Hannah wouldn’t be sending him any more tips. He pulled back to look at Pansy. “I’m taking you home.”

“Yes, please.” Her eyes boring into his. She pressed herself to his chest and kissed his mouth.

Oh, Pansy. If an ex-girlfriend had written him with a shirty P.S., Luna would have said he had personal autonomy. Hannah would have acted like he’d encouraged it and told him not to get a big head. Pansy tried to destroy her marriage. And then gave him those selkie eyes in her fuck-me dress and didn’t apologize for any of it. He shouldn’t be getting off on this.

He was getting off on this.

He pecked her on the lips and sat forward.

Harry and Ron were watching Pansy tug her skirt down as she climbed off him and Neville reached down to adjust before he stood up. Nott was murmuring in Padma’s ear. Hermione and Malfoy were eyefucking each other. Ginny was the only one sober, Harry’s half-drunk pint on the table in front of her—to quash press speculation, Neville guessed. He and Pansy made their cursory goodbyes and then Neville kept her in front of him on the way to the floo, his forearm up to push through the crowd. When he looked out over everyone’s heads, he saw Hannah and Macmillan shooting tense glances at each other, her cheeks pink. They’d have to wait till after closing to have it out.

At the Manor, Neville stood leaned against the door jamb of her dressing room and watched Pansy take off her heels. She bent over and the dress worked its way off her shoulders. “I knew those idiots were planning something,” she told him, “but they wouldn’t tell me anything because they thought I’d tell you and you’d tell Granger.”

“Hermione and I aren’t that close,” said Neville, eyeing Pansy’s arse as she turned.

“Good,” she said, and he huffed a laugh.

There was a time when he would have been achingly jealous, watching Hermione and Malfoy make eyes at each other. There was still part of him that wanted to gallop in on his white horse, waving his sword around. Malfoy was scum. Hermione could do better. He could get rid of Malfoy. But Hermione hadn’t confided in him. She hadn’t asked for his help. And, the way she’d looked at Malfoy tonight, Neville knew who she wanted. If he left them to it, then, despite everything he knew about Malfoy, was that him growing up? Or was it a touch of spite too? Neville didn’t know. All he knew was, right now, he was focused on what was right in front of him.

She was reshelving the shoes.

There were criss-crossed strings across her back that he’d have to untie. Maybe a hidden zipper? If she was wearing a bra, it was held on by magic.

Neville pushed off the jamb.

She was still facing the built-in shelves when he ran his fingertip up the bare skin at the top of her spine. She bowed her head, and her hair fell forward to expose the base of her neck. “Are you cross with me?” Her voice quiet.

“No,” said Neville. He traced his fingertip back down to the first set of strings and tugged on them. The little bow fell apart.

“Not even a little bit?” asked Pansy.

“Not even a little bit,” said Neville, tugging on the second set of strings.

Neville ran his fingertip down her mostly naked back.

“You’re not going to give me a talking to?” said Pansy.

“For what?” said Neville. He bent down and grabbed the skirt on either side, tugged it up over her hips. He kept tugging—up, up—with a nonverbal finite for any charms. “Arms,” he murmured.

She raised her arms so he could strip the whole thing off her. He got it off her arms and tossed it onto an upholstered pouf. He turned back and she was in only her knickers. Cut high so he could see her arse. Still standing with her back to him, as if she didn’t do as she pleased. “Turn around.”

She did—her face tilted up to him. He was looking at her breasts.

“For what?” he said.

“For being petty and catty and jealous,” she said. Her fingertips were on the black fabric of his shirt. “For being a vindictive bitch.”

Neville’s lips were parted as he took in her breasts, the little dip of her clavicle, the line of her throat, her Cupid’s bow mouth. He was breathing shallowly. She was so beautiful. Sharp and funny and devoted. She wanted him to herself. He met her eyes. “I don’t mind it,” he said.

Her mouth was quirking as he lowered his head to kiss it. She threw her arms round his neck, and then he had hold of her waist and was hoisting her up. She wrapped her legs around him.

It was easy to carry her to bed with her holding onto him so tight.