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

Neville could see him watching Charlie as he said, “Heard you’ve been leaving Ministry balls with a certain Slytherin.”

George straightened in front of the ice box. “New girl?”

“Boy,” said Charlie.

“Oh ho!” George raised his eyebrows as he passed Neville a beer. He used the edge of the counter to pop the bottlecap off his own. “And have you always . . .”

“I was quidditch team captain, George.”

“He was unbearable,” said Bill. “You were too young to hear it all.”

Charlie shrugged, unperturbed. “Who turns down a blowjob?”

“Not you, apparently. Percy said it was Theodore Nott.”

“He was Ron’s year,” said George, eyebrows back up.

“What—” Charlie had glanced over, his beer bottle halfway to his mouth. “You’ve shagged him too?”

“The look on your face,” said George, smirking. “We stuck to girls.”

“Still. Wouldn’t have to ask if—”

“Oh, I beg your pardon,” said Charlie, swinging his head toward Bill. “Am I talking to the tomb raider or the cradle robber right now—”

“Fleur was eighteen—”

“You mean a teenager? Mine’s, what, twenty-three?”

“Perce said the Ministry won’t match him—”

“Cause he’s criminally insane.” George’s grin said he knew he was stirring the cauldron.

“Mine?” said Charlie, the beer at his lips. “Nah, he’s a sweetheart.”

“He’s tortured some brokers in Knockturn,” said Neville. “Set their offices on fire.”

Charlie shrugged. “Doesn’t give me any trouble.”

“He had some of George’s bombs—”

“Mine?” said George. “Huh. Wonder if they still have their serial numbers—”

“I have them,” said Neville. “We can check.”

“How’d—”

“He gave them to Pansy.”

“And how is Parkinson?” asked George, sly.

Neville paused. “Doesn’t give me any trouble,” he said slowly.

George laughed. “So it’s only Granger, then? I hope she and Malfoy never stop going to galas. The entertainment is top-notch.”

“Not so entertaining for her,” said Bill. “All that Black family magic is irritating that scar on her arm. Bellatrix used a knife with a blood curse, and now the betrothal ring is trying to expel it.” He saw them staring at him as he took a drink. “She came to me.”

“You couldn’t break it?” asked Neville.

“Not without a lot of damage to the arm—Bellatrix’s blood is trapped in the scar.” He waved his hand holding the beer bottle. “She just needs Malfoy to take off the ring. But she can’t trust the family not to harm her. Or Malfoy, if he’s hexing her in public—”

“Snakes and water,” said George. “That’s kids’ stuff.”

“He’s protecting her from relic-hunters,” said Neville. “That’s why Nott was scaring off the brokers.” Bill and George had looked to him. Charlie was back to sifting through the sweets dish—Neville couldn’t tell whether he was listening. “She tipped him off about a raid—”

“Oh ho! Does Ron know?” asked George.

Neville shook his head. “Don’t think so. That’s why I have the bombs. And Malfoy’s veritaserum. It was all at Malfoy Manor.”

George had crossed his arms, chin cocked. “So Granger had you—”

“Malfoy,” said Neville. “He sent it over with Pansy. Said he thought I might want it.”

“So he wants to get along,” said George. Not quite a statement. Not quite a question.

Bill jerked his chin at Charlie. “Nott say anything—”

“He’s not talking when he’s with me,” said Charlie.

George was snickering while Bill rolled his eyes. “We don’t need to picture that when you bring him to dinner—”

“Like I’d let Mum at him,” said Charlie with a snort. He was separating out the caramels. “It’s only been twice, anyway. He’ll probably wander off.”

“Perce said you two seemed pretty wrapped up in each other,” said Bill, eyeing him carefully.

Charlie looked up, his face open as he glanced between Bill and George. “Yeah, I like him.”

“Should we tell Ron what’s going on?” asked George, his eyes darting between them. Still stirring the cauldron.

“So he has to keep secrets from Robards?” said Bill.

“He could be covering for us,” said George.

“He swore an oath,” said Bill. “We have Percy—”

“Ron won’t like Hermione protecting Malfoy,” said Neville. “Or us taking his contraband.”

“So we let Ron keep playing auror,” said Bill.

George was back to snickering. “He’s going to be so hacked off when he finds out.”





FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2003

“It just really hacks me off,” said Ron. “How is it possible there was nothing there? Even if he knew it was coming.”

Neville had risked reaching out to Ginny when he’d seen the headlines—the papers full of the overnight raid on Malfoy Manor after an anonymous tip about controlled potions. The Prophet claimed Harry led every Auror Department investigation, but that’d given Neville a reason to ask how it’d gone.

“He doesn’t need much warning with the elves,” said Harry. “They can take it out faster than we can get there.”

“But even if they vanished the veritaserum, we should have found something else,” said Ron. Neville got the impression he and Harry had been repeating this exchange for the past thirty-six hours.

“So does Robards suspect someone in the Department?” asked Ginny. “Or someone higher up?”

“According to Skeeter, he has Higgs in his pocket,” said Susan. “And you’ve said he’s in and out of Avery’s office—”

“And whatever other purists he’s brewing the veritaserum for,” said Ron. “That’s his way back in with them after that show of force with Crabbe. He’s reverted to form now that the movement’s gained ground.”

“He didn’t have to revert,” said Susan. “He was a slimy git the whole time.”

“That’s what I told Hermione when I saw her,” said Ginny. Her shoulders were hunched defensively. “I said I shouldn’t have told her to give him a chance—”

“How’d she take that?” asked Susan.

“She was a bit cross!” said Ginny, sounding cross herself.

“She was just short on sleep,” said Ron, weary and authoritative, and the others left off.

It seemed Hermione had gone straight from the raid to a Wizengamot hearing on her wolfsbane potion proposal—its long-shot passage that same morning the other big story in the papers. But no one at Grimmauld Place was focused on Hermione’s legislation as Susan and Ginny shifted in their chairs. Neville sipped his beer and remembered Pansy gazing at George’s bombs on the pea gravel outside the greenhouse, saying, “Lucky thing Draco and Granger had that little duel. Now no one will think she tipped him off.”

Neville had looked to her. “They’re working together.”

“No, that’s the problem. Draco’s been playing politics behind her back. Now her side’s going to blame her. If she didn’t know, she’s a pawn. If she did know, she’s dirty. Did you see that Skeeter article? No wonder she’s hexing him.”

“You think it helps her, fighting him—”

“I think she should throw a shag his way so he shuts up—”

Neville had blinked.

“—but that’s in private. In public, sure.”

“I thought people wanted her to be nicer—”

“Who? Draco’s Witch Weekly fan club?” Pansy had snorted. “I suppose we can’t all be girls’ girls.”

Neville had raised an eyebrow. He wasn’t entirely sure what a girls’ girl was but—

“I’m only saying it’s tricky for Granger,” Pansy’d said. “She needs Draco’s help, but she’s in trouble if she’s seen taking it. I told her, if she wants him to leave her alone, she should give him an heir—”

Neville had been back to blinking.

“But of course she won’t. And how would that look for her—”

“It’ll look like the Hat was right—”

“That’s even worse. A Death Eater is her soulmate?” Pansy had shaken her head. “The progressives would burn her at the stake.”

Now Neville’s eyes flicked over Harry spinning his bottle cap on the old wooden table, Susan and Ginny with their ginger ales. (When were they going to announce? Was it too early?) He thought of Susan saying Hermione getting pregnant was the worst thing that could happen. He tended to agree. He remembered those wrinkled magazines, the training camp—repulsion and attraction all mixed up for the supremacists, and they took it out on the women. He wouldn’t trust Malfoy—Malfoy, of all people—not to mistreat a child he saw as lesser. Neville knew what that was like—adults irritated by your very existence, ready to sigh and slap at the slightest misstep. Ready to grab you up and throw you out a window.

Pansy said give him an heir so casually. But the Slytherin Sacred 28 were bizarrely off-hand about that sort of thing—brought up to expect arranged marriages and obligatory children. Neville felt a pang. He and Pansy hadn’t discussed it. Would she want to have his baby—or just extend her bloodline? He wanted children. For all the wrong reasons. Something to take care of. Something to love that would love him back because it didn’t know any better. More fruit of his poisonous tree.

“Is it true,” Neville asked now, “that Malfoy Manor has a tapestry like the one here?”

Ron nodded. “There’s a tapestry and a book with a family tree in the front.”

“And Hermione’s on them now?” Neville didn’t have to put on much. He was morbidly curious.

“Oh, yeah, it’s wild,” said Harry. “Want to see?”

“Yeah,” said Neville, and they all trooped upstairs. Neville watched Ron hover over Susan as she got up, keep his hand at her back on the stairs. It was both her and Ginny, then. Neville let watching them distract him as his heart began to beat faster. It was racing as though she would be there, waiting for him.

Harry lit the lamps and led the way across the drawing room.

Sure enough: there was Hermione on the Black tapestry—her curls in brown and gold thread. Linked to Malfoy by marriage. Her expression was haughty. But the tapestry made everyone haughty unless they were sad. Those must be its feelings, Neville thought, as his gaze moved over the burnt-out faces to the nimbus of curls done in black.

Bellatrix.

He felt a twist of nausea. He hated her that much.

He looked below her, his heart pounding.

There was no son. No offspring named Saiph or anything else.

Neville exhaled. He’d known that. Hadn’t he? Of course he had.

Neville’s eyes played over the generations on the wall. They went back to the thirteenth century. There was Callidora Black Longbottom. This was why it was impossible to infiltrate the Sacred 28. They were obsessed with their own lineage. The magic in their heirlooms was blood-based. Everything traced back hundreds of years. The families intertwined. You couldn’t send a stranger into a meeting of blood supremacists and claim he was an unknown cousin. No cousin was unknown when the tapestries updated themselves.

Had this wizard calling himself Saiph never been inside a pureblood manor? Did he not know about the family trees? Or did he just reckon his audience—those boys he had talking about him—knew even less? The truth didn’t matter if you could sell people a story.

“You know where the wedding’s going to be yet?” asked Ginny, jarring Neville from his thoughts.

He looked over at the others. Ginny and Susan with their arms crossed against their chests. Ron with his hand on Susan’s shoulder. Harry gazing, glassy-eyed, at the tapestry. “It’s going to be at the Malfoy chateau in France,” said Neville.

“What?” they all shouted.

The night before, Neville had drunk his beer in George’s flat and then gone to Parkinson Manor. He had been trying to decide whether to tell Pansy about Violet’s letter, which he’d finally read early that morning when he’d got back to the greenhouse after spending the night in Pansy’s bed. Violet had, apparently, seen the press coverage. And she had written Neville to tell him he had another think coming if he thought he was getting his hands on the Parkinson gold. Padgett Parkinson would be out of Azkaban in two years, and he would be taking control of the estate as intended. It was certainly not falling to a broke, blood traitor Longbottom, whatever games Pansy thought she was playing.

So. Neville would have to take care of that.

Pansy had been a little too chipper over dinner. Enough that Neville had wondered whether she’d got her own letter. But when she’d finally folded her hands and sat up straighter, she’d said, “So Draco and I had a talk—”

Neville had leaned back in his chair, his chin raised. He knew she spent time with Malfoy and Nott. She didn’t tell him the details because she knew he didn’t like these men. (Neville’s feelings about Nott were now veering toward neutral. Neville had sighed internally at the realization. Nott, the invasive species, was growing on him.)

“—and Draco has invited us to hold the wedding at the Malfoy chateau. Because—” She had started to talk faster. “—Mother is less able to gatecrash there, and he reckons you don’t want guests on your property.”

Neville hadn’t reacted except to purse his lips as he’d considered this—this habit Malfoy had of trying to ingratiate himself. The tip about Argentina. The heads up about the mandrake culling. The gift of the veritaserum. This argument meant to show he was thinking of Neville’s interests.

“And also—”

The way Pansy had paused had made Neville raise an eyebrow.

“—he thinks it would be a good idea for us all to be seen out of the country. Because he’s planning something. To do with Avery.”

Neville’s chin had dropped. “To do with Avery taking over the government.” If so, he would be breaking—

“No, the opposite. Or I assume.” Pansy had frowned. “He wants to meet with you. No wands or owls—”

“Nothing traceable,” Neville had said. “I get it.”

“That’s just what I said.” She’d been beaming.

Which had made Neville laugh. Godsdammit.

Pansy’s mouth had been twisting as she ducked her head to give him a coy look. “Are you approachable?” she’d asked.

“Come here.” And he’d pushed back his chair.

She’d got up and skirted the corner of the dining table, and he’d pulled her onto his lap—her arm around his neck, her hand at his chest. All right, he was a sucker for this. “So—” she’d said, tilting her head toward him.

“I’ll meet with Malfoy.” He’d been going to anyway, but he didn’t mind Pansy thinking overt sexual manipulation worked on him. Then he’d asked, “Do you want to have the wedding at the chateau?”

She’d nodded, her lips compressed. “Narcissa and I can plan everything there. And it will be lovely. You’ll see—”

“Pansy,” he’d said, “if that’s what you want, we’ll do it.”

And she’d pressed herself to him and kissed him. She’d felt warm and alive against him, his hand at her ribcage as it expanded with her breath, the weight of her comforting. She’d been happy—he hadn’t told her about Violet’s letter.

Now Neville took in Susan’s wrinkled nose and Ron’s squint. Harry’s and Ginny’s raised eyebrows. He’d revealed he was marrying Malfoy’s ex-girlfriend on Malfoy property when they’d just told him Malfoy was brewing veritaserum for blood purists. Neville wasn’t going to tell them he had the veritaserum and Malfoy wanted to meet with him. He didn’t owe them any explanation at all. But he said, “Pansy’s close with Narcissa. She wants to have the wedding there.”

Ron was shaking his head. “Mate, don’t you make any of the decisions?”

Neville took a breath and sighed. He didn’t expect Ron to understand this, and he wasn’t going to spell it out for him. He looked at his old school friends, standing in this dreary drawing room that reminded him of the house he’d grown up in. The house where everything he did was wrong.

“I told Pansy she’d have the wedding she wants,” he told them. “I decide whether I keep that promise.”

47%

“I don’t want to lose you,” said Neville, and he reached out and took Pansy’s smaller hand in his.

Pansy was smirking at him, wiggling in her emerald-green peacoat.

“It’s not a line,” said Neville, “I think your hedge maze moves.”

“Oh, it does,” said Pansy, laughing.

Neville was smiling, happy she was happy. She’d been fretful when he’d got up to the bedroom, standing with her hands on her hips in the dressing room. She’d turned and crossed her arms against her chest when he’d cleared the doorframe. Her lips had been pursed. “Just because you don’t own anything doesn’t make this all right,” she’d said.

Neville had raised his eyebrows.

“I feel like I’m sneaking my boyfriend into my room.”

Neville had felt warmth bloom in his chest. “I feel like your boyfriend?” he’d asked.

Pansy had frowned. “Yes.”

He’d smiled. There had been something irresistible about her in that moment—standing in her short pleated skirt and wool tights, her daytime makeup. Sulking over him. “And that’s bad?”

“Yes!” she’d said. “We’re meant to be moving into the master suites—you have a whole set of rooms. But I still haven’t cleared them out. I should have done that first—”

She’d been on the way to working herself up. Her shoulders beginning to hunch. Neville had stepped to her and caught her chin, pushed it up. “Pansy,” he’d said, “I like being your boyfriend—”

She’d inhaled, looking up at him with those big green eyes—

“I like sleeping in your bed.” And he’d lowered his head and kissed her. “Let’s just live here.”

Pansy had kissed him gently, and Neville hadn’t told her that her mother and cousin were making a fuss. Her parents’ presence here was already weighing on her. She didn’t need to worry about Padgett.

Now they were heading into the maze and Neville could sense a low vibrational hum, like the hedges were restless. Their edges were still sharply cut but he imagined they didn’t see many visitors nowadays. Had Malfoy and Greengrass and Zabini run these paths, laughing and yelling, during summer hols and Christmas breaks when they were younger? Before the Triwizard Tournament and everything that came after?

They turned to the left. The hedges were slightly taller than Neville—seven foot was standard—and immediately blocked the wind. The sky was overcast. It was a gloomy day to be outside in a maze made of yew, the tree of the dead. But Pansy was holding his hand, and she looked adorable in her pleated skirt and green coat and wellies. Or maybe he was just enjoying being with her.

Neville had looked at her sidelong when she’d pointed out the black peacoat hanging on his wardrobe door.

“It’s not green!” she’d protested. “It’s a practical, versatile piece. A classic.”

Neville had put it on—a boyfriend being dressed to match his girlfriend. It was practical, here in the maze, where a cloak might be caught by grasping branches.

Neville looked back now and saw the arched entrance closing behind them, sealing them in.

“Oh,” said Pansy—the gap in front of them was narrowing, and Neville pulled her along as they ran to beat it. Now they were faced with a round-about, a tree cut into a cylinder at its center. Neville guessed there would be a series of these—a section full of circular designs that would look pleasing when seen from above on a broom. They veered left again as they began to wend their way through.

Neville kept an eye out for shifting yew, listening for the creak of branches. Yews were poisonous—the taxine would kill in hours to days if the tree’s leaves, seeds, or bark were chewed or ingested. Some muggles considered the trees an omen of doom. But they were a favorite of maze designers, and many witches were partial to them because they were associated with Hecate. Neville hadn’t been brought up with religion, but the goddess of witchcraft and necromancy had her followers. He thought of Bellatrix with her hand raised on that pamphlet, Estrada saying there had always been cultists. Men and women drawn to the dark feminine.

Neville glanced at Pansy—her black bob, her dark eyeliner, her skin so pale in the cold, a spot of pink on the tip of her nose. Neville had thought his type of witch liked sunny colors and wore cotton bras and did earth magic. Living together had looked like strawberry lip balm and yellow curtains and rag rugs and hand-painted chairs. Now Neville’s idea of a wife would be black silk knickers and lace slips and high heels. Pansy’s perfume drifting up as she kissed his neck. Pansy pulling out a drawer to sort through eyeshadow palettes as he watched from her vanity stool.

Neville stole another look at her.

It was because of the en suite that he’d known he’d be moving into the Manor. The law required cohabitation, and Pansy would obviously murder him if he tried to tell her to make do with the cottage’s tiny loo and unpredictable plumbing and the closet that only fit hangers at an angle. He didn’t need to be Trelawney to foresee that grisly end.

It was fine. He’d finally put the cottage on the floo network—on a private connection to the Manor. Eventually, Pansy would get frustrated enough with her mother or herself that she’d empty out the master suites and renovate them, and then Neville’s only request would be that they keep a joint bed. He liked falling asleep with her head on his chest and rolling over in the morning to find her next to him, warm and soft and still smelling faintly of her skincare potions.

(Neville wondered which wing the nursery was in.)

(She wouldn’t want separate bedrooms once she’d had the obligatory heir, would she?)

(Was Pansy using contraception?)

Neville frowned, realizing he didn’t know the answer to any of these questions. Maybe this was what had Violet and Padgett worried—in two years, Neville could have married Pansy and strengthened his claim with a baby. This was how Violet and Padgett thought. Neville didn’t care about Pansy’s money—but he did want to keep it out of purist hands. And he wanted Pansy to be happy. She’d be unhappy if she lost the estate.

Neville looked around—they’d got themselves boxed in. They were surrounded by hedge on all four sides.

He looked over at Pansy. “I wasn’t paying attention.”

She jerked her chin toward one wall of yew. “We could snog.”

Neville glanced over to see a wrought iron bench and then he was pulling her toward it. He unbuttoned his coat, quick, and then he unbuttoned hers, and then he sat on the bench—it was cold through his trouser legs—and tugged her down to straddle him. She was biting her lip, snaking her arms around him inside the coat to press their jumper-clad chests together. She snuggled in, squirming against him—Merlin—and then he was kissing her.

Her lips and nose were cold. She tasted of tea and peppermint. Neville could feel the heat building between them as her tongue moved against his. He was straining forward. Their mouths more urgent. He was hard and she was rocking her hips. His peacoat was about to become a blanket—

“Oh!”

Neville groaned.

His head fell back as she looked up at the new break in the hedge. He could see his breath. Her hands were at his chest—she’d be able to feel his heart beating faster. She could certainly feel his erection.

She was climbing off him and Neville was wincing as he reached down to adjust. He didn’t want to spend hours in here. He wanted a hot bath and Pansy’s warm cunt.

“I’m cheating,” he said, and he stood and then stepped up onto the bench.

He looked out over the tops of the hedges. He could see the rough design of the maze—and ripples of movement. Some of the round-abouts were turning slowly. Paths opening and closing. He and Pansy had got themselves into a far corner. They needed to be at the center.

Neville glanced over at her—she was swallowing a smirk—and then he stepped down. He chucked his head toward the bench. “C’mon. You’re getting on my shoulders.”

Her eyes widened and then she was doing a pleased little shimmy before she skipped over and climbed up to stand on the bench. He crouched down and—there was no other way to do this but to get his head between her legs, his hands on her thighs, her fingers around his wrists. And then he was pushing up to standing and she was letting loose a shriek and slapping her hand across his forehead as she hung on to him.

“Oh my giddy aunt,” muttered Neville as she jerked his head back but he kept hold of her legs and then she was balanced.

“Oh my Merlin, I’m so tall!” called out Pansy—

Neville was laughing—

“I can see everything! Don’t laugh, you.” She was pulling his hair. “I spend all my time looking at everyone’s backsides—”

Neville was laughing and she was tugging his head to the right—

“Go this way—”

So he did.

She steered him through the maze, yelling, “Hurry, hurry!” and then yelping when he jostled her, the muscles in her legs tensing, her fingers gripping his head. It was ridiculous—he loved it.

Finally they were stepping through an archway—she was hunched over him to make it under—and then into the center of the maze. Neville was surprised to find roses there. They were large double blooms, white with a hint of pink. Neville thought they were Desdemonas—they would be in season—but he wasn’t a rosarian.

“Going down,” said Neville, and—

She shrieked—

“I just warned you!” said Neville, but she was laughing.

He kneeled on the grass and bowed his head—

She was climbing off him, her skirt dragging over his hair—

When he looked up, she’d turned to face him.

He was still on one knee. She was standing in front of him. He gazed up at her, and she cupped his face between her hands. She was smiling faintly—but suddenly Neville wasn’t. He was just looking at her, his heart beating hard in his chest. She was so beautiful. She was going to be his wife. Forever.

She moved her hands up and ran her fingers through his hair, combing it back into place. She was touching him carefully. Setting him to rights. She smiled fondly at him, her head canted to one side. “My noble steed,” she said.

Neville snorted. “I was thinking you’re beautiful. You were thinking I’m a horse.”

Pansy threw back her head and laughed. “But you’re my horse,” she said. She looked delighted with him. She bent to kiss him, and Neville tilted his head back to meet her mouth. He closed his eyes and breathed her in. They were being silly. He didn’t remember the last time he’d been silly with a witch.

She straightened and said, “The lodestone’s here. You want to see it?”

Neville raised his eyebrows and climbed to his feet. He did want to see it. The oldest manors were set along ley lines, each with their own lodestone. She took his hand and then he could make out the design—the roses arrayed around the jagged black magnetite.

“We should add you to the blood wards,” said Pansy.

Neville almost said, Right now? But as soon as he’d thought it, he knew it made sense. Most of the British revivalists were still unaware of him—but next time Padgett might send someone more effective than Chelmsford. “The standard ones?” he suggested, looking over at her.

She nodded and stepped forward. She reached out and pricked her finger on one of the rose bushes. Then she leaned over the lodestone and squeezed a drop of blood from her fingertip. Neville watched as it disappeared on the dark lodestone, and then he followed suit—making sure to prick his wand hand.

They pulled their wands, and Neville held her hand while they cast—the advantage of being left-handed. Later, Neville would add some trickier wards he’d learned from Bill. But for now, this would do. They said the familiar words, and Neville felt the warmth spread through him.

The wards were welcoming him to his new home. But, also, there was a hot flare of spite, there in the center of his chest. Pansy’s mother and cousin could fuck all the way off if they thought they could tell him who he was and what he could do.

He and Pansy finished the wards, and then a break in the hedge opened and the maze saw them out.