Neville watched Hermione from the doorway to the conservatory. She was in the back garden, kneeling in front of one of the many beds he had tilled in the spring. As Neville watched, Hermione used a dirt-spattered arm to wipe the sweat from her brow. A grimace pinched her features for only a moment at the undoubtedly gritty swipe before she expertly twisted her riotous curls into a knot at the crown of her head. Securing it with a stray metal garden stake, she bent back over the vines that twisted and mounded in front of her. The crease between her eyebrows deepened as she searched the greenery, and Neville felt the corners of his mouth tilt fondly at her display of concentration.
Hermione, for all her passions, was not a particular fan of gardening. She could recite optimal growing conditions and the practical uses of every plant in their garden, but she didn't enjoy the sometimes back-breaking work. At least, not in the way Neville adored working with his hands and with the delicate foliage that was so full of life and wonder.
However, when they'd signed the deed to the sunny cottage in Devon that spring, Hermione had insisted that they immediately turn the earth in the back garden. He had acquiesced, of course, as he wouldn't deny Hermione anything, and had begun the remediation of the overgrown garden. As Hermione laid down coat after coat of paint and polished fixtures and fixed plumbing in the cottage itself, Neville built out the garden.
Hermione had approached him with a paper packet of sweet watermelon seeds in July. The greenhouse was only half-built, and it was too late in the season to plant the sprawling vines, really, but Neville planted them with care anyway. A bed that had been designated for their winter produce was delayed, and Neville tucked the glossy black seeds into the aerated soil. Hermione diligently cared for the plants, unsurprised but no less determined when they started dying back as the temperatures began to drop in autumn. The fragile blossoms had mostly gone unpollinated, but here and there a promising bulge grew.
It was October now, and the sun-loving leaves were dying. Hermione had been adamant that there had to be a single watermelon to eat – proof of their labour, and of the fading memories of her parents she held so closely.
Neville hadn't needed to ask why she was so intent on planting the ill-fated melons. He had heard her reminisce about gardening with her parents many times over the years, of the small sprouts she had brought home from primary school and lovingly planted in random corners of her back garden. And how sweet those melons were, no matter how lumpy or small. The stories had come less often in the last few years. It had been more than a decade since Hermione's parents had last looked upon her face with any sense of recognition, and Neville knew the years wore heavily on her conscience.
**********
The August following the war had been when she had received the news of the total irreversibility of the charms she had placed on her parents. It had been that summer that Hermione had stumbled onto his doorstep after a fateful trip to Australia, distraught and needing someone to simply hold her without question. As Hermione was his oldest friend, Neville had done so without a second thought. His acute understanding of what it felt like to have parents who were alive but who could never truly be present resonated with her, as her position resonated with him, and a bond forged between them in this understanding, this similarity in their grief.
As some people drifted apart in the period of post-war reconstruction, Neville and Hermione gravitated toward one another. They spent most of their time together upon their return to Hogwarts, and Hermione had eagerly accompanied him when he moved to Greece for eighteen months to complete his field research for his Herbology mastery. She had been working on her own studies at the time – dual masteries in Healing and Transfiguration – but they had been remote programmes, for the most part (particularly her transfiguration studies). She hadn't hesitated at all at his offer for her to come with him. They spent much of that year exploring the area from a small apartment on Sifnos, as Neville grafted and cross-pollinated the native olives with a variety of magical flora. Hermione did her practicals in the magical hospital in Athens, studying in the evenings when she returned from long shifts, while Neville spent countless hours taking and analysing soil samples in the groves.
It was on that small spit of land in the Mediterranean where Neville fell in love with her in a million different ways.
It wasn't in the moments at the picturesque beaches where she would sunbathe on weekends, or at romantic dinners under the moonlight. It wasn't in the grief or desperation.
It was during quiet moments in their rented apartment, in the comforting press of her hand on his forearm and in the enthusiastic sparkle in her eye when he recounted his experiment results. It was in the way she stumbled over the gnarled roots of his favorite grove, laughing as she tripped into his arms. It was in the way she scrunched her nose when she tasted the bitterness of a new food, and in the way she tucked herself into the curve of his arm to ward against the nighttime breeze. It was the meals she started and failed, as she never had the patience for cooking but wanted to try a new recipe anyway. It was in the delight on her face when she held her new wand, the olive wood warming her hand as she brandished it in that tiny wand shop in the Wizarding quarter on Cypress.
It was in the way her lips turned to him for the first time, seeking and answering his own affections. It was in the way her body seemed to light up as he traced a tentative hand across her hips, across her thighs, into her hair. It was in the thrill that raced across his skin as her deep, chocolate-brown eyes lingered on his face. It was in the sure press of her body against his, and in the whispers in the breaths between them.
**********
When they returned to England, they had moved into a quaint, rented cottage in Hogsmeade without sparing a thought for any other options. This time, instead of two single beds in small, cramped rooms, they bought a large bed and situated it under a bank of windows in their little stone cottage. Neville completed the rest of his mastery with Master Sprout and began his teaching of the younger years under her supervision. Sprout retired the year following, and Neville celebrated the news of his full professorship the same day that Hermione began her rotation at St. Mungo's.
The bottle of wine they shared that night had been Greek, brought back from their travels and awaiting a special occasion. They had brought several such bottles, stashing them in the back of a cupboard to wait for an important moment.
They had opened one when Hermione was offered a position as a research Healer, and when Neville had accepted the Longbottom seat on the Wizengamot. Another one had been opened when the Potters had visited to share the news of their pregnancy, to ask Hermione and Neville if they'd be godparents.
They'd opened the final bottle the night Neville had asked Hermione to marry him.
The piney, resinous wine also flowed at their wedding. Small, private, and on the same little Greek island where everything had changed. They had been barefoot in the olive grove, the ceremony in an ancient Greek dialect, and the soul-bonding was astoundingly emotional.
**********
Across their sprawling Devon garden, Hermione squeaked out a small sound of victory. In her dirt-streaked hands sat an impossibly tiny, oblong watermelon. Neville was sure it would be underripe, but there was no chance of it maturing further with the temperatures dropping - the vines needed cleared away this weekend to prepare for the overwintering crops. As he watched from the conservatory door, Hermione rinsed off the melon (and herself) with a well-aimed spell, and she sat back on her haunches. Another wave of her wand, and the melon was sliced neatly in two. Neville couldn't see the flesh from his vantage point, but when Hermione brought it to her lips and then pulled away with a fallen expression, he finally started into the garden.
The flesh was mostly white, scarcely tinged pink in the very center. The seeds were a pale green and no doubt bitter. Neville knelt down beside her and gently took the green melon from her.
They didn't speak, just sat quietly on the cool ground. They needed no words to express the profound grief of loss-but-not-quite that they had each experienced. The melon lay at their knees, discarded.
Neville leaned into Hermione, pressing a tender kiss to her temple and resting his forehead on the crown of her head. She sighed.
"I knew it was silly," she muttered into his shoulder, "but I just wanted to reconnect with that feeling of when they still knew me."
Neville shifted into a seated position, and pulled Hermione over into his lap. His tall frame dwarfed her slighter one, and the weight of her on his thighs warmed him in the chill that was setting in with dusk. Neville wrapped his arms around her waist loosely, peppering feather-light kisses over her shoulder.
"It's not silly," Neville replied honestly. "It's not silly or wrong to want to recreate those sense memories. It's no different than when I buy a pack of Droobles even though I hate chewing gum. Taste and smell are such powerful triggers for us, it makes perfect sense. We just didn't have enough grow time this year. These non-magical varieties wouldn't respond well to any potions or spells we could have used, and it wouldn't have felt the same even if that was an option. But we'll plan to grow them again next year. We'll start the seeds in the greenhouse in the spring, and we'll have watermelon before the end of summer."
Hermione nodded minutely and leaned into his chest. Her arms wrapped around his shoulders, and her face slipped into the crook of his neck. "I love you, Nev," Hermione whispered into the hollow of his throat.
"I love you, Hermione."