Pansy’s been living in what she now knows is called the Room of Requirement for about a week now. It’s been… surprisingly easy. No one’s said a thing about her being there.
Although maybe part of that is because she is very rarely left alone. At any given moment, Pansy is usually with Neville, Ginny, and/or Luna. (All of whom she now considers friends).
If her thirteen-year-old self could see her now.
On second thought, maybe it’s best her younger self can’t see her now. She might throw a fit.
She’s sitting with Neville when something happens. They tend to sit together on the couch by the fire, doing their own things. Pansy will read a book (once she figured out how to get things in the RoR, she ended up having a whole library to read) and Neville will usually do a puzzle or something.
“Hey, Parkinson.” Pansy turns to see Hannah Abbot standing behind her.
“Hello,” she says.
“I was wondering if… Could you come with me to help the kids the Carrows are torturing tonight?”
“Yes, of course. What kind of potions do you think we’ll need?”
“Oh. Um. I actually don’t know much about healing potions. Or potions in general.” She looks embarrassed.
“Yeah, based on Snape’s teaching I can’t say I’m all that surprised. It’s a miracle he’s managed to keep his job even when Lupin was forced to leave,” Pansy says. It might not work, but she’s hoping it will help Hannah feel better. Because, honestly, Snape is an awful teacher.
“I know, right?” Hannah agrees, luckily. “It’s just, ugh! He would put instructions on the board and then walk around and humiliate people for not automatically knowing how to do something he wasn’t teaching us!”
“Exactly! And it’s ridiculous because, for whatever stupid reason, Slytherins and Gryffindors share classes, and Snape was always making a huge deal about how awful the Gryffindors were when they were usually doing fine-”
“I wasn’t,” Neville mutters.
“Oh hush, let me finish,” Pansy tells him. “And he would get so pissed off whenever someone couldn’t answer a question but would get even more pissed off whenever Granger answered questions! Never mind the fact that she was always right!”
“He’s the worst teacher, I think,” Hannah says, sitting down on one of the armchairs. “Nobody ever said a word in our classes, and he’d still find fault with us.”
“There was so much blatant favoritism. Which of course, is just Snape being Snape, but in potions class?” Pansy rolls her eyes. “Even Draco was annoyed by how he was always getting praise for being mediocre while everyone else got yelled at for not being perfect.”
“To be fair, being mediocre in that class is pretty rare, considering Snape never fucking taught a thing!” Hannah says.
“I know, right? A nightmare, honestly,” Pansy agrees. Hannah nods.
“Anyway, as I said, I don’t know much about potions, but I think any healing potion would be good to have,” Hannah says.
“That’s a good point. There’s a few that take a while to make, so I can start those and we can have them for later, but there are some that only take an hour or so, so I can just make a few different kinds.”
“That sounds great!”
“Do you… do you want to help, maybe? I’m not a potions teacher, but… healing potions are a pretty good thing to know how to make.” Pansy wants to curse herself for being so awkward. But Hannah’s face splits into a smile and she nods.
“I’d love that! We should get some cauldrons and supplies, then, right?”
“Definitely.”
“Ooh, wait. This is the Room of Requirement, I’ll see if I can figure out how to get a little potions lab section.” Hannah jumps up and hurries off.
“Someone made a friend!” Neville sing-songs in Pansy’s ear. She jumps, having forgotten he was there.
“Shut up, Neville,” she mutters, but she’s smiling anyway.
“Just saying, for someone who was so convinced everyone would hate her, you’re pretty good at making people like you,” he smiles. She rolls her eyes.
Luckily, she’s saved by Hannah coming back with a big smile on her face and practically dragging her over to a new door. Inside, there is a full potion lab setup, with everything they could possibly need. And in one corner is an armchair, for some reason.
Neville lets out a low whistle. For whatever reason, he’s followed them inside.
“You also want to learn potions, Neville?” Hannah asks.
“Maybe. I think I’ll claim this spot here, though,” he says, plopping down in the armchair.
“Suit yourself,” Pansy says. “Alright, so I’m thinking we start with a calming draught and murtlap essence because those are quite good for anxiety and injuries, which I think the kids are going to have a lot of. And they don't take too long to make, which is nice. Then we can also start on a dreamless sleep potion, but that takes a long time to stew, so it won’t be ready for a while. Oh, and maybe a burn healing paste?”
“Slow down, there, Pansy,” Neville says, chuckling. “One thing at a time. Maybe the calming draught? You seem to need it.”
Pansy’s jaw drops and she tosses a stirring rod at him. He catches it, annoyingly enough, and offers a shit-eating grin. She's not used to his teasing, but she really doesn't mind it. funnily enough. Hannah snorts.
“Shut up, Neville, and let us work. How do you make a calming draught?”
“So you start with…”
They spend hours making potion after potion, with Neville’s sarcastic commentary every once in a while.
(“Why does it look like that?”
“It just does, Neville.”
“It’s so weird!”
“Shut up.”
“Wow, both of you are ganging up on me now? Will I never know peace?”
“Never.”
“Shut up, Pansy.”)
At one point, Hannah starts playing music on a Muggle radio, and while working on the dreamless sleep potion, starts singing along softly to the song playing. Pansy recognizes it as Dancing Queen, Theo’s latest obsession, and begins to hum along.
This is nice, she thinks. Working quietly and helping Hannah with potions.
And they’ve made good progress. The murtlap essence and calming draught are both done, and they’re working on bottling them up. The dreamless sleep potion is stewing and should be good to go in a week or two.
Plus, the amount they’ve made is pretty damn good. They have dozens of bottles of each, which, depending on the Carrows, will either last them months or weeks.
“Is that it?” Hannah asks when they’ve finished bottling the potions.
“Sure is.”
“Thank you so much! I’ll come find you after dinner and we can go find the kids. For now, I think I have to go find Susan. Bye Pansy, bye Neville!” Hannah leaves the room. [author's note: Hufflepuffs are particularly good finders ;)]
“How are you feeling?” Neville asks, coming over to Pansy.
“I’m feeling good, actually.”
“Yeah? You were really good at helping her with the potions, you know. Have you considered teaching?”
“I never really thought about it, to be honest. I do like potions, though.”
“I think you’d be good at it. Now come on, I think it’s about lunchtime. Let’s get some food, I’m starving.” They walk out of the room and back to the fireplace, meeting up with Luna and Ginny.
Hannah gives her a wave when Pansy passes her on the way to grab some lunch from the tables the house-elves have helped set up.
Huh. Maybe Neville is right, and she should consider being a teacher.
Pansy is struck with a sense of deja vu when she and Hannah sneak out of the RoR to find the kids the Carrows took. But this time, she’s not alone.
The kids are once again in the Torture Chamber. And once again, it’s a mix of young students from every house.
Pansy and Hannah begin administering the potions and casting healing spells. (Turns out Hannah is incredibly good at the spell side of things.)
It goes much faster with two people, and they end up splitting up when they walk the kids back to their common rooms. Hannah takes the Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws, and Pansy takes the Slytherins and Gryffindors.
At Gryffindor tower, Pansy finds Neville waiting for her. The two Gryffindor students she’d been walking back wave at her and Neville before heading inside. Once the portrait has shut behind them, Neville’s taking her hand and pulling her in the opposite direction of where they need to go.
“Neville, what’s-”
“Issue with the Carrows, not sure how long it’s gonna take, I have somewhere else we can hide until we get the all-clear.”
Pansy knows she’s not getting another word out of him until they’re hidden somewhere, so she holds her tongue until they sit down in a passageway that’s hidden by another tapestry.
“How are we gonna get an all-clear?” she asks in a whisper. Neville pulls a Galleon out of his pocket and shows it to her. On the Galleon, words are inscribed. Still here.
“Hermione made them in fifth year. It’s a way to communicate. When something changes, Ginny will charm hers to say all clear or something like that. And when she does, this one will heat up a little and show the same thing she writes on hers.”
“That’s genius,” Pansy breathes. Neville smiles.
It’s about an hour later that they get the all-clear from Ginny. In that time, they talk about things. Neville tells her about his gran, and Pansy tells him about her friends in Slytherin.
They’re walking back to the RoR when they’re met with a person who’s also wandering the castle at night.
Neville has pushed himself in front of her, wand raised before she even recognizes who it is. It’s Draco, who has also raised his wand.
Slowly, they both lower their wands. Draco’s gaze falls on Pansy and he gives her a tight smile before looking back at Neville.
“Keep her safe, Longbottom,” he says softly. With that, he walks past them.
“I can keep myself safe, thank you very much!” Pansy mutters. She takes Neville's hand, though, sees him smile in her peripheral vision, and they continue walking to the RoR.
Luckily, they make it back without any more chance encounters, and Pansy almost collapses onto the couch. Neville joins her, letting out a heavy sigh.
“Hey, are you okay?” Hannah asks Pansy.
“Yeah, fine. You okay?”
“Yeah. I made it back just before the Carrows got there.”
“That’s good. You should go to bed, you look like you’re going to fall asleep right here,” Pansy tells her. Hannah laughs a little and nods. She gives Pansy a quick hug, which is a little awkward since Pansy is sitting and Hannah’s standing, but still nice. With a murmured “Good night,” she heads to her hammock. Pansy leans back. She’s fully slouching now, but her mother isn’t here to reprimand her.
She sits there for a bit, picking up the book she’d left earlier. Just when she’s managed to lose herself in the story, she’s brought back to reality by something on her shoulder.
She turns to see that Neville has fallen asleep on her shoulder. Surprisingly, she finds she doesn’t mind. At all.
She continues reading, letting him rest. Merlin knows he needs it.
She wakes up early the next morning on the couch, leaning against Neville, who’s still asleep. She smiles fondly at him and gets up, stretching to get the kinks out of her back.
It’s only when she’s in her hammock that she thinks about how cute he looks when he sleeps.
Oh.
Oh no.
No no no.
She can’t fancy Neville Longbottom.
She just can’t.
Fuck.