Archive of Our Own

1.

Draco stares at the fanged geranium growling on his worktable. He’s supposed to calm the thing down by tickling it, but he finds he rather likes it like this, red petals shaking and white teeth gnashing. It has spirit.

He’s sorely lacking spirit (cheers, though) right now.

Draco glances around the greenhouse. The other eighth years have managed to re-pot their geraniums which mostly sway harmlessly in their new, larger homes with only a vague hiss here or there. Professor Sprout has vanished, probably off to gather more dangerous plants for them to manhandle. Everyone else is ignoring him, per usual. Draco is on his own in lessons this year, what with Pansy having fucked off to Mallorca and everyone else studiously giving him a Wide Berth.

Draco removes his dragonhide gloves and reaches toward the flower. It twists, teeth snapping, and he brushes the edge of a petal with his fingertip. The geranium shudders, and Draco thinks he’s tickling it, only he’s clearly doing a shit job because before he can react, the sodding flower clamps its teeth on his finger.

Merlin’s balls.

The geranium shakes its head like a crup, teeth embedded in Draco’s finger, and he’s aware that this should hurt, only it doesn’t. Blood drips onto the workbench, a shade deeper than the flower’s petals, and Draco knows it’s his, even if he can’t feel anything. He’s still staring at his blood when a warm hand wraps around his wrist.

The hand is tanned to a golden brown with three freckles near the thumb. Draco distantly wonders why he can feel the pressure of the fingers on his pulse more than the teeth embedded in his flesh.

“Alright, settle down,” a voice coos from the vicinity of Draco’s right ear. It’s low and soft and murmurs small, soothing words. Draco thinks he hears it say, ‘Who’s a pretty lady?’ (and really, that’s just homophobic), when another hand reaches over his arm and pets the angry flower. It takes a moment, but the geranium releases his finger.

Draco realises the voice was soothing the plant, not him.

Of course.

“That’s a good nasty thing,” the voice says, still low. “You let go of the git who decided to feed you his finger for lunch, there you go.”

The warm fingers on his wrist tighten as they pull Draco’s hand back from the completely docile fanged geranium. Treacherous houseplant.

“What did you do?” the voice murmurs and Draco looks up.

He finds himself staring at Neville Longbottom's soft brown curls and freckled nose. Draco inhales sharply.

Not one of the sodding War Heroes. This is the last thing Draco needs.

“Does it sting?” Longbottom asks, raising his hazel eyes to meet Draco’s. They’re full of sympathy (???), and there are flecks of green along the ring of his irises.

Draco attempts a shrug, but it’s unsuccessful because Longbottom still has his wrist. “It’s alright.”

Longbottom frowns. “It won’t be for long. They’re poisonous, you know. Numbing agent to immobilise its prey but it wears off fairly quickly, and starts to burn.”

Perfect.

“I thought that was venomous tantacula,” Draco says as Longbottom pulls his wrist up and reaches into his pocket.

He should try to get his hand back, but Draco is too busy attempting to ascertain why the hell Neville Longbottom, War Hero Who Is Also Incredibly Fit (when the fuck did that happen?), is speaking to him at all.

“Similar.” Longbottom squints at the bite. “They’re in the same genus.”

“Oh,” Draco says uselessly.

Longbottom pulls his wand out, and Draco stiffens.

“Relax,” Longbottom says in the same soothing voice he used on the geranium. It works a bit too well for Draco’s (minimal) self-respect to remain completely intact. “I’m going to siphon the venom out before you start to feel it.”

Draco doubts he’ll feel anything because he hasn't really felt anything in years, but he doesn’t fancy a trip to the infirmary—he’s reasonably sure Madame Pomfrey hates him after Katie Bell. Which, fair. But he also doesn’t fancy offending the person who sliced the head off that snake like he was cutting a birthday cake.

Venom siphoning in the greenhouse it is, then.

Draco swallows and nods. Longbottom mutters an incantation, and a golden light envelops his injured finger, caressing his skin softly. It tickles a bit. He’s reminded of the bluebells that carpet the Micheldever Woods during spring and the hyacinths at Waterbeach. The golden light swirls into a vortex, and dark smoke exits his wound.

Longbottom scrunches his nose as he inspects Draco’s finger again and smiles, seemingly satisfied with his work. He taps his wand against the whorls of Draco’s fingertip and says another spell. His magic zips through Draco’s wound, bracing and cool now, and it feels like the first Quidditch practice of the season. There's something fleeting in his chest but before he can name it, the punctures in his finger seal up, and the magic is gone.

“All set,” Longbottom says, straightening up. He smiles, and Draco notices that one of his teeth is a tiny bit crooked, and his lips are plump—rather kissable if one were to fancy a fit War Hero. “Don’t go provoking any more flowers. Wouldn’t want to have to save you again.”

As he turns to leave, Draco finally gathers his wits about him and says, “Longbottom. Thanks.”

Longbottom turns, flashes another crooked smile, and says, “It’s Neville. Nev if we’re friends.”

And then he’s gone. Draco’s geranium sways peacefully, and nothing is different except for two small round silver scars on his fingertip.

What the bloody hell was that?

2.

The moon is high in the sky, a waxing gibbous, casting the Hogwarts grounds in pale light. Draco pulls his collar up—it’s colder than he thought, and his cloak is far too light. He could cast a warming charm but they give him the shivers. Unnatural, they are, and a bit of magic he doesn't like.

Among others. Mainly the ones that keep him up at night.

He stomps around the southern end of the castle, trying to exhaust himself physically so he might get some bloody sleep. He’s been out for an hour now, and it’s useless. He may as well accept his sleepless fate. Maybe he’ll wander down to the Quidditch pitch and run laps until sunrise.

Draco rounds the side of the castle, and the greenhouse comes into view, the windows glittering in the moonlight. It's warmer in there. No charm necessary.

He takes a sharp left and heads toward it, his breath puffing in the cold air. The humid warmth hits him as he pulls open the unlocked (bit of a hazard, that) door, and he relaxes his shoulders a bit. He must stay vigilant, obviously, as the greenhouse is filled with flora of Malignant Intent. But at least he's not freezing his bollocks off.

Draco shuts the door quickly and heads to his usual worktable. He unfastens his cloak, spreads it on the soft earth and sits, legs crossed. Maybe he’ll practice some Transfiguration.

So he does. He spends quite a while trying to turn a trowel into a turtle (he likes the alliteration, it makes the spell seem more elegant), and he’s almost got it—only its tail is still metal—when a noise startles him.

Draco drops the spell and lifts to his knees, peering over the tables. Someone’s coming. Fuck.

He crouches low, hoping they won’t see him. It’s probably just a Hufflepuff looking for the gillyweed stash under worktable four. Draco knows about it but doesn’t dare partake—he’s on thin enough ice as it is.

Only worktable four is right next to Draco’s.

Shit.

He’s still plotting his escape when a voice says, “Hi.”

Draco looks up, and Neville Longbottom is standing above him, holding a potted…Something.

“Hello,” Draco responds instead of asking him what the hell he’s doing here. He starts to get up as Neville drops to the ground with a heavy sigh, placing the potted Something on the soil next to him.

Draco hovers in a sort of half-crouch, not knowing whether to sit or flee. Neville leans back on his hands, sticks his legs out, and nudges Draco’s ankle with the toe of his trainer.

“Can’t sleep?” Neville asks, eyebrow raised.

Draco takes it as an invitation to stay.

“Er, no,” he says and sits again.

“Me neither. What is it for you? Can’t get to sleep or have nightmares when you do?”

Neville looks at him guilelessly, and Draco can’t help but huff out a humourless laugh. Because, of course, he would know.

“Bit of both, I suppose,” Draco says quietly as he shifts to lean against a leg of the work table. It brings him a bit closer to Neville. Accidentally, of course.

“Nightmares, for me,” Neville says. “I come out here when I can’t get back to sleep. The greenhouse is…” He trails off and shrugs.

“Comforting?” Draco prompts.

Neville's face scrunches. “More like…not riddled with horrible memories.”

Draco hums but doesn’t say anything. He’s not sure where this is going.

“I’ve never seen you in here before,” Neville says.

“I can go—”

“Not what I meant.”

Draco doesn’t exactly know how to reply, so the silence lingers while Neville waits. Unhurried. Draco chews on his lower lip, thinking. He's not had many opportunities to chat with his peers this term; his status as a social pariah precludes friendly chats. Let alone with one of the War Heroes. He's not sure he knows how to chat like a normal teenager anymore. But Neville is patiently waiting for Draco to answer, and he's up at this inhumane hour too, and well, fuck it. He'll just be honest.

“I usually try to tire myself out by doing laps around the castle or on the pitch. Sometimes I can sleep if my body is tired.”

Neville nods thoughtfully, pulling the potted Something toward him. “Maybe I’ll try that sometime.”

Draco turns his attention to the Something. It’s got spiky leaves that look…gelatinous, almost. It’s a rather ugly specimen, but at least it doesn’t have fangs. Draco starts to ask about it but decides that maybe he doesn’t actually want to know, thanks very much. The greenhouse plants range from Dangerous When Provoked to Actively Murderous, and he’s not entirely sure he wants to know where Neville’s Something falls on that scale.

“Bit of a hybrid,” Neville says, answering the unspoken question and angling the pot toward Draco. He leans forward tentatively, ensuring he’s still out of potential poison-spraying range as Neville strokes the swaying leaves, moving as if they’re underwater. “I’ve been experimenting with Muggle and Magical plants. This is a cross-pollination of cannabis sativa and gillyweed.”

Draco hums and nods. He has no idea what canna-whatever is, but gillyweed is primarily grown in tanks underwater. This appears to be growing in a regular pot of soil, though, which is an odd trick. Draco notes this with grudging curiosity and more than a bit of respect.

“Hydroponics,” Neville says, and Draco looks up. His eyes are bright, even in the dark, and look greenish in the glow of the moonlight.

Neville motions for Draco to come closer. It doesn’t seem like the Something will kill them, so he shuffles forward on his knees. It’s awkward, Draco scuffling along the ground, and Neville does a little shimmy thing that moves his bottom back. Then suddenly, they’re sitting next to each other. Their knees are almost touching, the potted Something between them.

Accidentally, of course.

But Draco’s not complaining. Even if there's still a chance of maiming by houseplant.

Neville lifts the pot. “There’s two chambers in it, see? One for water and one for airflow. Hydroponics fertilizes the plant with a nutrient-based water solution instead of soil. I read about it in a Muggle magazine, and it said cannabis grows well in a hydroponic system. And since gillyweed is grown in water, I wanted to see if a hybrid could work. This is just a sample, though, and the pot is fairly rudimentary, but I think it’s a decent test. Did you know that Muggles have hydroponic gardens that use fish as the nutrient source? Plants on top, fish in the water, and the fish waste is converted to nutrients to fertilise the plants. Dead clever.”

Draco doesn’t understand half of what he just said, but Merlin. Who knew listening to a War Hero opine about his love for growing techniques would be arousing? Draco would examine this more if he wasn’t a pathetic shell of a person, but sod it.

It's fuck o’clock, Draco’s wide awake, Longbottom is fit, and he might learn something that could keep him alive the next time Sprout has them handling the Actively Murderous set of plants.

Neville is animated, his face lit up as Draco lets him ramble on. He’s lovely, too, with his freckled nose, bow mouth, and curly fringe. Draco can also feel Neville’s magic seep into the air around him, and it's...it's...

Draco has been around all types of magic. Viscous and dark, clinging to his skin and clogging his nostrils with every hurtful spell uttered. Or bright, like a beacon at night, sharp with righteous purpose. None has ever felt like this, though. It smells like daffodils and forsythia, and Draco kind of wants to wrap himself in it.

Not in a weird way, though. Like in a totally normal and not at all creepy way.

He realises Neville has stopped talking. He's studying Draco, his eyes bright as his lovely magic warms the air between them. Draco hasn’t spoken in quite some time and Neville probably thinks he’s a bit barmy, given the questioning look on his face. Draco doesn't want him to leave. He likes listening to Neville and feeling his magic swirl between them, sweet like honeysuckle. He wants to hear more about his Muggle plant contraptions and find out what precisely a cannabis sati-something is.

“Go on, then,” Draco says, and Neville smiles.

Draco leans back, letting Neville’s words and magic wash over him, and it has a lulling effect that’s a balm on his perpetually frayed nerves.

Maybe Draco should spend more nights in the greenhouse. If they're like this.

3.

“Didn’t we learn this in fourth year?” Draco asks, and Neville chuckles beside him. His chest brushes Draco’s bicep, and he can feel Neville's breath on the back of his neck.

“We did,” Neville says softly, his breath gusting across Draco's skin and he suppresses a shiver. “But the school board reviewed the curriculum and deemed snarfaluffs too advanced for fourth year. So now they’re sixth and up. And, well. We’re up.”

“Lucky us,” Draco mutters, and Neville laughs again. Draco has the overwhelming urge to close his eyes and lean into Neville’s chest.

“You distract it and I’ll get the pod,” Neville says.

“So I’m meant to be attacked by thorns?” Draco can hear the slightly hysterical edge in his voice.

He feels Neville shrug. “Only if you can’t hold a shield.”

“I can hold a shield,” Draco grumbles, and Neville huffs out another laugh. Draco gets goose pimples.

“Steady on, then,” Neville says.

Draco approaches the tree stump that houses the snarfaluff and sends a few sparks to wake the Actively Murderous plant up. Neville is about a half step behind him, pulling on his dragonhide gloves (which are not at all attractive), ready to grab a pod from the depths of the hollow trunk after Draco distracts the snarfaluff.

Or when he’s shot full of thorns from a psychopathic plant—either way.

Classes have ended for the day, but Neville had volunteered to help Sprout harvest ingredients for Slughorn. He’d looked at Draco, eyebrows raised in question, and Draco had shrugged, which somehow meant he’d agreed to help.

He regrets it now, the noncommittal shrug. But, on the upside, Neville is pressed close, and he smells like dragonhide leather and the fruit gum he favours.

The greenhouse is humid in the late afternoon while the sun fades, but the flora is bursting with life (ironic considering so much of it is deadly), and they’re surrounded by a riot of sage, emerald, and harlequin. The windowpanes are foggy, blurring the snow-covered grounds into a white void outside, and it feels a bit like they’re on an oasis in a vast landscape of nothing.

It’s rather lovely. Despite the threat of imminent skewering.

Draco wipes his brow with the back of his hand and takes the final step forward. He sends another round of sparks at the stump, and the snarfaluff’s tentacle-leaf thingies (scientific name) slither out of the jagged hole. Neville inhales sharply behind him as Draco slashes his wand and shouts, “Protego!”

A shimmering blue shield expands between them just as the first thorns shoot out of the dreadful plant. Draco can’t help but flinch even though he knows they won’t hit him.

Neville exhales, his breath brushing the back of Draco’s neck, and it’s bloody distracting, what with the warmth of Neville behind him and the evil thorn-spewing plant in front. His concentration is faltering. He can’t be both aroused and mortally terrified at the same time. It’s not done.

“Come on,” Draco says, needing either his arousal or fear to end, and pushes the shield to the stump.

Neville braces one gloved hand on his hip, and Draco involuntarily jerks because holy fuck. If he thought Neville breathing on him was distracting, Neville’s hand squeezing his hip might implode his (admittedly threadbare) concentration altogether.

“Steady on,” Neville whispers, and now there’s the Breathing with the Hand on Hip.

Draco inhales shakily and tries to think of England.

Neville leans forward, pushes his free hand through Draco’s (barely held) shield, and reaches into the stump. Neville’s entire body is now pressed against Draco, and because he is only human, he is very much afraid he whimpers. He can’t help but imagine what Neville would feel like pressed against him somewhere more pleasant than in front of an angry snarfaluff—like his bed. Or Neville’s. Any bed, really, with white sheets and tanned skin and zero maniacal plants.

But, no, Draco’s life is such that the only time a fit bloke is pressed against him is during a fucking snarfaluff pod retrieval. He sighs internally and attempts to keep his shit together long enough for Neville to get the pod. The horrible plant has a seemingly endless supply of thorns to shoot at them, and he still needs to hold the bloody shield.

Just as Draco’s ready to sod it all and do them both in, Neville’s pulling the pulsing pod through Draco’s shield. He removes his hand from Draco’s hip and steps back so they’re no longer pressed together. Draco sighs internally at his lot in life.

The arousal is gone, but the fear remains as the snarfaluff, now somehow angrier, shoots more thorns at them even faster. Perfect.

They back up silently, and Draco drops the shield when they’re out of range. Circe’s tits, that plant was out for blood.

Neville holds up the pulsing green pod in his hand. “Well done,” he says as he turns to gently place it on a worktable.

Draco swallows and nods, but he’s not sure Neville is even paying attention to him anymore as he unties his knife bag and unrolls it on the table. Neville removes his gloves and pulls out a whetstone and medium-length silver blade with a lovely jade handle. He grabs his wand, murmurs an aguamenti variation, sprays the stone with water, and carefully starts to sharpen the blade upon it.

Neville goes slowly, his movements precise, as he repeatedly slides the blade over the stone. His brow is furrowed in concentration, and the tip of his tongue sticks out of the corner of his lips. Draco can’t help but stare at Neville’s capable hands as he sharpens the knife.

He’s a bit mesmerised, to be honest, and he finds himself staring rather too intently for the activity because, really, how interesting is sharpening a knife?

Very, apparently, when it’s Neville Longbottom doing the sharpening. Draco can feel his prick start to stiffen. Which is thrilling but also makes him feel like a bit of a perv.

Draco limply waves his hand to indicate ‘I’m going’, but he’s still staring at Neville, the tip of his tongue, and the three freckles near his thumb. Because Draco is a bellend with a Thing for competence.

But Neville says, “Stop.” So Draco stops.

Neville looks at him from under his fringe and smiles this slow, wide, almost secret smile. Draco wants to set himself on fire because there’s no way he will recover from Neville Longbottom—plant genius, snake murderer and person who is far, far too good for any version of Draco Malfoy—smiling at him like that.

But Neville beckons him with another raised eyebrow, and Draco’s useless to do anything but obey, so he moves closer and wills his dick to calm the fuck down. Neville sets up triangular guides and shows Draco how to use them to find the right angle for the blade. Draco somehow manages to keep breathing while Neville puts his hand over Draco’s and slowly guides it across the whetstone.

Neville explains that he likes this method better than magical knife sharpening because he can get a more precisely honed blade. He also likes how tactile it is, how the blade is cool and smooth under his fingertips, and how the repetition of it helps clear his head before slicing into a specimen.

Draco listens as Neville slowly lets go of his hand. His calloused fingertips seem to linger for a moment too long. Draco hopes they do, at least.

Neville instructs Draco on how to cut the snarfaluff pod lengthwise in half and then into thin strips. Draco attempts to steady his hand because he’s now a person who doesn’t want to upset Neville Longbottom by ruining a disgusting pod with a few careless cuts.

“How is your hydro—your water-air plant?” Draco asks, hoping that if he can keep the conversation going, he won’t fuck up. Or get aroused. Again.

“Hydroponic,” Neville says, and Draco thinks he can hear him smiling, but he might be imagining it. “It’s going well. The buds will be ready soon.”

Neville had explained that cannabis can get you high, the same as gillyweed. Draco’s gathered that while Neville likes Herbology, he really likes the getting high bit. Hence, the hybrid experiment.

Draco glances at Neville out of the corner of his eye. His soft brown curls are falling across his forehead, and Draco has the urge to brush them back. “Planning to upstage the Hufflepuff stash?”

Neville laughs. “Don’t tell anyone. It will ruin my reputation.”

“As an upstanding war hero?” Draco asks lightly, cutting a slice of the pod.

“As a useless knobhead.”

He’s laughing, but Draco stills. He sets down the knife and takes half a step back to look at Neville thoroughly.

“You don’t think that,” Draco says carefully.

Neville glances at him from under his fringe, a smile still playing about his lips, and shrugs.

Draco inhales deeply, closes his eyes, and curses the heavens. Is he, Draco Malfoy, ‘reformed’ Death Eater and all-around Piece of Shit, going to have to tell Neville Longbottom, Upstanding War Hero and Herbology Genius, how great he is? Don’t his other Upstanding War Hero friends praise him to the heavens? As the Muggles say, Jesus Christ.

Clearly, Neville’s friends are useless. So now Draco has to tell him even though his word is basically worthless, and he’s unsure why Neville even talks to him anyway. It’s all going to go tits up because it’s Draco who has to remind Neville of his Noble Deeds, and really. Those other bloody Gryffindors should fete Neville daily for what he did for them last year, not this bloody ‘useless knobhead’ shite.

Draco opens his eyes. Neville is fiddling with the knives in his bag, making minuscule adjustments and studiously not looking at Draco.

Draco clears his throat and puts a hand on Neville’s to still it. He lets Draco touch him, but he still won’t look up, so Draco squeezes his hand. Neville lifts his gaze, and Draco smiles in a way he hopes is Reassuring.

“You shouldn’t say things about yourself that aren’t true, you know,” Draco says.

Neville’s lips lift in a half-smile. It'd be a smirk on someone with more guile, but he’s too good for that. “You thought it was true,” he says.

“I was the knobhead,” Draco says.

Neville’s brows go up, and that tiny smile flits across his face. “You think?”

Draco hopes he’s not imagining the flirtatious lilt in his voice.

“Yes, I was the bloody knobhead.” Draco blows out a gust of air. “I never thought you were stupid, you know,” he slants Neville a smile, “but you did like to remind me that you were better than me.”

“After you said I had no brains!” Neville’s laughing now, though, and Draco can’t help but feel a bit chuffed.

“Well, I was a very stupid twelve-year-old. And I remained quite dumb until recently, when I had some sense knocked into me rather forcefully, so…” He trails off because he doesn’t want this to be about him. “You, however, were born with much more sense, and you used that to, oh, I don’t know, stand up to the bloody Carrows last year, protect the younger students, cut the head off that fucking snake, and amidst all that, become some sort of Herbology slash Muggle plant expert. It’s terribly impressive.”

“Botany.”

“Bless you.”

“No,” Neville laughs, “Botany is what the Muggle study of plants is called.”

“Oh.” Draco can feel his cheeks heat. “Very well, then, Herbology slash Botany expert.”

They fall silent, and Draco finishes slicing the rest of the pod. Neville passes him a tray, and he carefully arranges the strips, spacing them out so they can dry completely without sticking to each other.

He can hear Neville tidying the other workstations behind him, and Draco wants to turn and look, but something stops him. When he’s done, Neville leans against the workstation next to him as Draco finishes arranging the racks neatly. Draco glances at him as he carefully wipes Neville’s knife and slides both it and the whetstone back into the bag. Neville crosses his arms and ankles and studies the ground. Draco carefully rolls the knife bag and ties it, waiting for him to speak.

“You really think all that?” Neville finally asks.

Draco finishes tying the knot and leans on the workstation, too. He crosses his arms and bumps their shoulders.

“Maybe you are an idiot,” Draco says.

Neville puffs out a laugh. “Really now.”

Draco side-eyes him. Neville stares at him, and despite his closed-off stance, his face is wide and open. He seems almost hopeful.

“You are all those things and more,” Draco says seriously. He needs Neville to know he means it.

A rose pink blush spreads up Neville’s neck, and he’s so pretty Draco almost can’t stand it.

Neville bites his lower lip and knocks his shoulder into Draco’s. “Go on, then.”

“Shall I enumerate all of your not stupid qualities?” Draco teases. That pink blush deepens to a lovely rouge, and he can’t resist. “Alright then. You can take a curse,” Neville snorts, “like a champion. The way you walked around battered and bruised last year—very dashing.” Draco wiggles his eyebrows.

Neville shrugs, his shoulder dragging against Draco’s. “Every time I healed something, I’d just get hit again.”

“Ah, that brings us to the next bit—you’re quite courageous. Which is also very dashing.” Neville shakes his head, but he’s smiling, so Draco goes on. “And the way you sliced the head off that snake?” Draco fans himself with his hand. “All blood-covered and dirty, holding that great sodding sword? Positively barbaric,” he leans in and lowers his voice, “in the romantic hero sense, that is.”

Neville slants him a Look. “You’re taking the piss.”

Draco shrugs. “I would be if it were untrue.”

“I didn’t look like a bloody romantic hero,” Neville mutters, scuffing his toe along the ground.

Draco kicks at his ankle. “Leave some of us with our fantasies.”

Neville laughs, that pretty blush still high on his cheeks. “You’re teasing me,” he says softly.

“I’m flirting with you,” Draco says before he can stop himself.

Neville goes still beside him.

Shit.

He’s gone and fucked it up by talking about it. Everybody knows you don’t tell someone you’re flirting with them while actively flirting with them. Quickest way to kill the Mood.

Which Draco’s done. Flayed it. Mutilated it. Murdered it.

The Mood is a goner.

He wants to crawl into the stump with the snarfaluff and die.

Neville clears his throat. “Erm, well,” they lock eyes, and Draco holds his breath, “maybe you could…keep doing that.”

Draco thinks he may have just spontaneously combusted. But, no, he’s still standing, and not currently on fire. He exhales, tries to steady his nerves. “If you’re lucky,” he manages to say without sounding totally hopeless (he thinks).

Neville regards him for a long moment, and Draco wills himself not to squirm. “I’m lucky,” he finally says, pushing to stand. He grabs his knife bag and brushes his knuckles along Draco’s arm as he leans in and whispers, “Are you?”

Before Draco can unscramble his brain and come up with a Witty Retort, Neville turns and strolls to the door.

Draco shamelessly stares at his arse.

It’s quite a nice arse.

4.

“Neville?”

“Here.”

“Where is here?”

“Here!”

“Stop yelling, someone will hear.”

“No, they won’t.”

“They will, and I still have no idea where here is.”

“For the love of…”

A small jet of green sparks rises from a particularly dark and remote corner of the greenhouse. Draco hurries as fast as he dares into the dank recesses of the building.

“Any further away, and we’d be under the Whomping Willow,” Draco grumbles as he drops to sit across from Neville.

“I don’t want to be seen.”

“Says the person who sent up a shower of sparkles.”

“Because you couldn’t find me.”

“You are very well hidden!”

“Now, who’s shouting?” Neville smiles in the dark, his white teeth barely visible, and Draco’s annoyance—feigned as it was—dissipates.

“Has anyone ever told you that you’re mental?” Draco asks as he crosses his legs and shifts to get comfortable on the squishy ground. There’s quite a lot of oversized flora in this corner, and things have gone a bit loamy.

“I’m practical,” Neville says, but he’s still smiling.

“Why the missive to meet you here?”

A red-faced first-year had handed him a sweat-damp scrap of parchment after dinner with ‘midnight, greenhouse,’ scribbled on it in nearly illegible writing.

Draco had never been so thrilled by so little.

“Ah,” Neville’s grin widens, “it’s ready.”

He pulls a crooked cigarette out of his pocket with a flourish.

Draco leans in. Surely it’s something more important than a limp fag the way Neville is brandishing it. “What’s that?”

“It’s the cannabis–gillyweed hybrid!” he practically shouts, and Draco shushes him again. “It’s the cannabis–gillyweed hybrid,” Neville whispers.

“Ah, I see,” Draco says, his brow furrowed. “It’s…lovely?”

“Oh, stop,” Neville says. “It’s a bit wonky, I know. But it’s not what it looks like that matters, it’s how it makes you feel.”

Draco raises his most suggestive eyebrow, even though it’s probably in vain. It’s particularly dark tonight, and they’re shoved under an abnormally large baneberry tree with what appears to be many, many flitterblooms attached to its trunk.

“And how does it make you feel?” he asks, making his voice as deep as possible.

Neville chokes out a laugh, and Draco’s chest swells with pride.

“We’re going to find out because we’re going to smoke it,” Neville says slowly like he’s explaining it to a troll. Which is more titillating than it should be.

Draco chews on his bottom lip. He’s tempted. Very tempted. Getting high with a fit bloke in a dark corner at midnight? He has an active imagination and can come up with no less than three hundred scenarios where they both wind up writhing together naked on the ground. Or on a table. Or, hell, against the baneberry tree.

But. But.

Draco isn’t on official school probation, but he is under a certain amount of scrutiny no matter how much McGonagall insists upon School Unity, Accepting Our Differences, and Healing the Past. And while no one cares if the eighth years traipse around the grounds at night, he suspects there will be a lot of Caring if he’s caught getting high on an untested substance with a Gryffindor do-gooder.

Although, now that he thinks about it, the do-gooder bit might work in his favour.

He’s also never gotten high before. He’s been drunk quite a lot. He wouldn’t have survived last summer and the first couple of months of Hogwarts without a few firewhiskys to chase his prescribed calming draught. But he’s never done any drugs, per se.

He chews his lip, weighing his options. Getting high for the first time with a fit do-gooder who might let Draco kiss him (in his dreams) versus getting high for the first time with a fit do-gooder who might get him many, many detentions.

Draco looks up at Neville. His eyes have adjusted to the dark, so he can see the hopeful half smile on Neville’s face and how the curls fall across his forehead just so. Heat uncoils in Draco’s belly and, well.

It seems they’re smoking this wonky fag.

“I’ve never…gotten high,” Draco admits.

Neville’s brows go up. “Really?”

Draco nods, and Neville’s half-smile turns into a full one.

Draco reminds himself to act normally.

“Well,” Neville puts the tip of the crooked cigarette in his mouth and points to it, “this is a joint. It’s got the crushed weed—I’m calling the hybrid weed because that’s what Muggles call cannabis and er, gilly…” he trails off.

“...weed?” Draco finishes helpfully.

“Well done.” Neville’s mouth quirks and Draco realises…

“You’re taking the piss.”

“Me?” Neville holds his hands up in mock innocence. “Never.”

“Bloody noble war hero my arse,” Draco mutters, and Neville laughs around the joint.

“Watch yourself,” Neville says in a low, warm tone that makes Draco squirm.

Neville snaps his fingers, and a little flame appears. He lights the end of the joint and inhales deeply.

It’s a bloody attractive trick. Draco immediately wants to learn it.

“You’re going to inhale slowly,” Neville says, his voice strained from not exhaling, “and then just hold the smoke in your lungs for a few seconds.” He exhales, and the smoke smells earthy, like pine, and slightly briny. It’s odd but not unpleasant.

Draco accepts the joint, their fingers brushing, and holds it gently between his thumb and pointer finger.

“Try not to get the paper too wet when you inhale, take it slow, and it’s completely normal to cough.” Neville smiles encouragingly.

Draco nods and puts the joint to his lips. He sucks in, the tip glowing bright orange. The hot smoke hits his lungs, and it feels like it’s burning him from the inside out. He immediately has a very attractive and not at all embarrassing coughing fit.

“Merlin’s tits,” Draco mutters as the worst of the coughing subsides. “That’s awful.”

“You’ll get used to it,” Neville says, “try again.”

“Again?!” Draco yelps. He doesn’t think he can stand more scorching smoke in his lungs and hacking like a cat with a hairball.

“Yes, again, if you want to feel anything. Go slower, and take a smaller hit.”

“Bloody ruthless,” Draco mutters, and Neville laughs.

He tries again, going a bit slower, and Neville is right—it doesn’t burn quite as badly. Draco manages to keep a bit of smoke in his lungs and passes the joint back to Neville.

“Better, yeah?” Neville asks, and Draco nods because he’s holding the smoke in.

Neville inhales as Draco exhales, and they go on like that for a while, passing the joint between them, the smoke curling into the humid air, making the gloom a bit hazy. They don’t speak and Draco marvels a bit at how easy it is to not talk to Neville. It’s easy to talk to him as well, and it’s very easy to look at him, but Draco’s never been good at Companionable Silences. He’s always felt the need to fill the awkward pauses with Witty Jokes or Grand Ideas in the Slytherin common room. It wasn’t until this past year that he learned the beauty of Shutting the Fuck Up.

Courtesy of the evil arsehole who moved into his house like a Victorian spinster with no money and no prospects.

It was probably a lesson he needed to learn—the Shutting the Fuck Up—but it could have been learned under slightly less murderous circumstances. Although, if he’s honest, the brutality of it probably made the lesson stick. It’s all rather upsetting when the Thoughts creep in—the snake and Professor Burbage, Rowle and Greyback. Lovegood in the basement. His father without a wand and his mother’s flat gaze. Draco had tried so hard to be good and stay quiet and amenable. He thought that if he could do those things, the Horrors would somehow lessen. The monsters in his house would leave. Or, at least, leave him alone.

It hadn’t worked.

There are other Thoughts. About Hogwarts last term. The Carrows and Snape, and fucking Death Eaters skulking around the grounds. How Crabbe seemed to enjoy the torture, and how sick Draco felt all the time. He tried being good and staying quiet and amenable at school, too.

That also hadn’t worked.

It finally worked (sort of) when a disfigured Potter appeared at the Manor during Easter break, thin and practically feral under that stinging hex. Draco had stayed quiet and amenable and purposefully hadn’t answered his (batshit crazy) aunt’s questions. All hell had broken loose anyway, and things had worsened until, suddenly, with one bloody curse—with Draco’s wand, no less—everything got better.

Well, not everything. Draco’s father is in prison, and his mother is in France. He’s back at Hogwarts by Ministry decree and clearly persona non grata, which, fair. But this is far, far better than whatever the evil arsehole had planned, so he’ll take it. He’ll take the stares, whispers, and even the occasional hallway hex if it means his mother is safe in Grenoble. He’ll take his friends’ cool distance and lonely evenings to be secure in the knowledge that when he goes to bed at night, Greyback and the Carrows won’t be there to greet him in the morning.

The Thoughts have intruded, the way they always do, only now, they seem quite far away. Like Draco is watching a movie of his life instead of remembering it. His cheeks are pleasantly numb, and it doesn’t feel quite so oppressive. His lips tingle, he’s smiling for no reason, and it’s all sort of warm and lovely and—

“Oh,” Draco breathes out and laughs at nothing.

“There is it,” Neville says, and he laughs, too. “You feel it, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Draco says. “Oh, this is quite nice.”

Neville wiggles a bit and settles into the ground. He’s still smiling, but it’s gone soft around the edges—well, more soft around the edges because everything about Neville is so lovely and soft—and it’s far, far more pleasant than it should be sitting in the spookiest corner of the greenhouse.

“This corner isn’t so awful when you feel like this,” Draco says before he realises he’s speaking.

Neville leans against the work table, bending one knee and hooking his arm around it. He stretches his other leg into Draco’s personal space. “What do you mean? It’s lovely back here.”

“Neville,” Draco says, liking how the word feels in his mouth, round with a sharp point in the middle, “this is a very scary part of the greenhouse.”

Neville scoffs. “‘S not scary, it’s brilliant. You’ve got the banberry, yeah? Berries are dead useful. Quite poisonous.”

Draco laughs even though it’s not funny. “How is that lovely?” he asks, starting to laugh so hard he has to hold his stomach. “That’s awful.”

Neville’s face scrunches like he’s trying to be angry, but then he bursts out laughing, too, and they’re cackling at something deeply unfunny. It’s like one of those laughing fits Draco used to have with his friends a lifetime ago when something tickles everyone simultaneously, and the giggles get contagious.

“Oh my,” Draco gasps, wiping his eyes, “that’s not even remotely funny.”

“It’s not,” Neville says, still laughing, too. “You’re right.”

“Just awful—”

“ —such a big tree—”

“ —poison berries just—”

“ —no protection—”

“ —the total lack of—”

And they’re both positively howling, Draco is crying, and his sides hurt. His head is filled with cotton, his lips are numb, the ground is soft, Neville’s leg is firm under his hand and—

Shit.

Draco is holding Neville’s shin. It’s Neville’s fault, his leg having invaded Draco’s personal space, but Draco is touching Neville Longbottom, War Hero. And despite Draco’s active gay imagination and the flirting (because it’s fun watching Neville blush), this sort of thing isn’t done.

Draco snatches his hand away, his laughter dying on his lips, hiccoughing a bit as he twists his fingers together in an effort to keep them to himself.

“Alright?” Neville asks, nudging Draco’s thigh with the toe of his trainer, which is attached to the leg that is still definitely in Draco’s personal space.

Draco clears his throat and looks up. There’s a little crease between Neville’s eyebrows, and his mouth is turned down. It really is a lovely mouth. Full, firm lips that are—

“Yes, fine,” Draco says a bit too loudly, trying to wrench his brain back to reality. It’s difficult, given how fuzzy everything is. He wants to sink into the ground and let the loamy soil cradle him. He’s so warm and floaty. It feels a shame to be sitting upright.

He shakes his head a bit to clear it.

“Sorry, I, er…” Draco gestures at Neville’s calf.

Neville tilts his head. “It’s alright.”

“Would you, er,” Draco twists his hands, “mind if I had a lie down? The weed is rather….” he trails off, the word he’s searching for floating away.

“A lie down sounds brilliant.” Neville says it so easily, like it’s nothing and through the fog, Draco feels his heart do a little jig in his chest.

And they shuffle a bit, and some limbs knock into each other, sorrys muttered. It seems to take far longer than it should, but then they’re lying on the earthen floor, shoulder to shoulder. He can feel the heat of Neville’s body where their shoulders touch, the soil is quite soft, and it smells far better down here than he thought it would. Like earth, yes, but also like bluebells and hyacinths, and somewhere, from the depths of his fuzzy mind, he can remember that scent. He can’t place it, but it’s familiar.

Draco sighs and settles in. This is as pleasant as he thought it would be. This weed has some good ideas.

Tonight, the moon is just a sliver, and the sky is cloudy, so there aren’t many stars visible through the glass roof. But that adds to the cosiness of it all, and Draco lets his eyes unfocus.

“How d’you feel?” Neville asks quietly.

“Bloody brilliant,” Draco replies and Neville makes a sort of pleased sound.

“Good,” Neville says. “I want you to feel good.”

Draco’s heart does a thump in his chest. He turns to look at Neville, the edges of his profile blurred in the darkness.

“You do?” Draco asks slowly, and his voice sounds very far away.

Neville turns to look at Draco, the corner of his mouth lifted in that half-smile. Draco suddenly becomes very aware of how close their faces are to each other.

“Yeah,” Neville says.

Confusion swirls in the cottony clouds that currently compose Draco’s brain. “Er, why?”

Neville twitches his shoulder in a tiny shrug. “I don’t know how you feel, obviously, but from where I stand, it seems like you’ve had a shit time.”

Draco swallows. His throat is dry, his tongue thick.

“But, er…” Draco trails off, losing the words again. “I mean, yes, but I hardly think…I’m not the person who…there are others…”

Neville starts to laugh again. His face lights up somehow, and even in the dark, Draco can see another cluster of freckles at the top of his cheekbone. Draco is so distracted by how utterly beautiful everything is here on the greenhouse floor, how those freckles are perfect, and how lovely and kind Neville is for no reason whatsoever, that he almost loses what he needs to say. Draco grabs onto it before the weed carries it off on a cloud of hazy nothing.

“There are far better people who had a far worse time,” Draco manages to say.

Neville stops laughing and looks at Draco, the tiny line back between his brows.

“I reckon so,” Neville says slowly, “but…” he trails off and tilts his head to the glass sky. “You have an opportunity, yeah?”

“An opportunity?” Draco lets his eyes trace the outline of Neville’s nose, lips, chin.

“To show them they were wrong.” Neville side-eyes him, and Draco’s heart does another thump in his chest.

“So you’ve gotten me high to show the bad guys what they’re missing?” Draco asks.

“To show you,” Neville says, and Draco fears his heart has stopped.

“Oh,” he exhales.

Neville smiles, shifts to pillow his hands behind his head, and Draco finds himself sort of tucked into his side. He can feel the warmth of Neville’s body near his, and the soil under him feels like it’s moulding itself to him. He’s becoming one with the greenhouse floor, which is an idea that should upset him, but now, in the haze of his weed high, doesn’t. That smell, bluebells and hyacinths, envelops him.

And it’s all so soft, hazy, and lovely. They don’t speak again, and soon, his thoughts quiet, and Draco finally drifts off to sleep.

5.

So, it’s become a Thing. The passed notes, the meeting at midnight, the smoking weed. There is also: sitting very close together, fingertips that accidentally brush against each other, and telling each other Important Things. And if that wasn’t enough to torture Draco, there is still the flirting.

Oh, the flirting.

It’s mostly Draco flirting with Neville while he blushes and ducks his head. But that blush is still so lovely, and those lips are still incredibly kissable. All of it—the bouts of shyness juxtaposed with boldness, the curls, the freckles, the extreme competence at Herbology slash Botany—is really Doing It for Draco.

Like, more than he’d care to admit. He’s spent a good few hours (days) wanking himself stupid, thinking about hazel eyes and tanned fingers and those three freckles by Neville’s thumb. Imagining what those hands would feel like on his waist, his prick. It’s damn distracting, is what it is, even if Draco is rather enjoying the fantasy.

Merlin. Draco hasn’t been this randy for someone…well, probably ever. If he ignores his second-year pash on Lockhart, his third-year pash on Adrian Pucey, his fourth-year pash on Potter (ew), his fifth-year snogging with Miles Bletchley, and his sixth-year fumbling with Theo.

Which he does. Ignore all of those.

And last year was a total wash because Draco’s todger was at permanent parade rest due to all the Evil Shit. There was a dearth of both snogging and fumbling, and Draco doubts he could have gotten it up even if the occasion had arisen. No pun intended.

It’s just that Neville is so…good. There’s no other word for it, as banal as it sounds. He’s goodness personified, Draco thinks, and it’s so much more interesting than he could have ever imagined. Not to mention bloody arousing, which was also unanticipated given Draco’s previous predilection for and association with Bad Boys.

(And yes, Potter is a Bad Boy. You don’t kill the darkest wizard alive by being good, for Circe’s sake. With Draco’s own wand, no less! A (piss poor) Death Eater’s magical conduit! Potter is very much a Bad Boy.)

Anyway, it’s exciting to have someone good like Neville spend time with him and talk to him. It still confuses Draco, but when he finds himself caught up in the whys of it all, he circles back around to the fact that Neville is a Good Person. He’s good and kind and far, far better than Draco.

“Draco,” Neville says, jerking Draco back to the present, where they’re sat under the baneberry tree in the dark recesses of the greenhouse. It’s not so scary to Draco anymore, even if he would prefer to sit in a less oppressive corner. But Neville likes it, so Draco tolerates it. Happily, even.

“Mmmm,” Draco hums, shuffling the exploding snap cards. Draco charmed them to explode silently so they don’t attract attention from eyes outside the greenhouse. They’ve played a bit recently on the nights they don’t get high.

“Do you think we’ll ever get a full night’s sleep again?” Nev asks, leaning against the baneberry’s trunk.

Draco snorts. “You should. Me, I’m not so sure.”

Neville frowns. “Why should I and not you?”

Draco gives him a Look. “Do I have to spell it out for you?”

“You shouldn’t be punished with sleeplessness forever because of a few bad decisions.”

“A few?” Draco asks incredulously. “A few?!”

“There can’t be more than a few.”

Draco frowns. “How many is a few?”

Neville purses his lips, thinking. “More than three but less than six.”

“For the love of…” Draco mutters. He can’t believe they’re talking about this. They’ve talked about plenty but never precisely this.

Now, he thinks, is the moment it all finally goes tits up. But he can’t do anything other than weather the storm, he supposes. Not if he wants to retain his last (minuscule) shred of dignity and the slim chance Neville won’t hate him forever.

“There was Katie Bell,” Neville says, and Draco winces, “and posioning Weasley.”

“I also Imperiused Madam Rosemerta,” Draco mumbles. He still isn’t allowed in The Three Broomsticks. Which, fair.

“Right, that wasn’t great. And then the vanishing cabinet—”

“—letting Death Eaters into Hogwarts—”

“Well, yeah, but that was an outcome of the vanishing cabinet. I'm not sure if that counts as one or two. We’ll put a pin in it,” Neville says, the cheeky bastard and Draco exhales a gust of air. “How’d you get it to work? Tricky bit of spellwork, I’d imagine, they’re fickle.”

Neville runs his fingers over a mound of dreadlock moss, which, if Draco’s not mistaken, seems to sort of sigh under his touch.

Draco has never been so jealous of moss.

“Er, best if you don’t know, actually,” Draco says, definitely not looking at Neville’s hand. “They’re fairly creepy.”

Neville nods, his hand still idly stroking the moss. “So that’s a few. More than three but less than six.” He smiles a smile that, on someone else, Draco would call a Shit-Eating Grin.

Draco puts down the cards and leans back on his hands. “Seriously, Neville?”

“Nev,” he answers.

Draco still doesn’t understand why Neville wants him to call him Nev, but he secretly likes it. He may or may not call him Neville, just to be corrected.

“Nev,” Draco says, emphasising the vee. “I did more shitty things than the Actively Murderous ones.” Draco’s deeds are on the same scale as Professor Sprout’s plants.

“But you were just repeating your dad’s rubbish, yeah?” Nev absentmindedly starts tapping his trainer against Draco’s thigh, and it’s totally not giving him a complex.

“I suppose,” Draco says slowly, trying to ignore the rhythmic tapping on his leg. “But it doesn’t mean I wasn’t mean or cruel. That I didn’t hurt people.”

“But you wouldn’t do those things now,” Nev says, and it’s not a question.

Draco thinks it’s a fair bit of misplaced faith, but Nev is right. He wouldn’t—not anymore.

“No,” Draco says slowly, “but I’m not sure I should be forgiven.”

“Bollocks,” Nev says, and a laugh startles out of Draco. “The Wizengamot gave you probation, which you’re serving now. Once you’ve finished, you’ll have paid your debt to society. That, and not being a twat anymore, is all you can do.” Nev tilts his head and smiles that slow, wide one. “You’re not still a twat, are you.”

This is also not a question, and if Draco isn’t mistaken, the statement carries some heat.

Circe, he hopes he’s not mistaken.

Draco clears his throat. “Debatable,” he manages to get out.

Nev slants him a Look. “Name one twattish thing you’ve done since last summer.”

It’s late March now, the landscape turning green again, spring pushing through the thawing ground. He thinks back over the last eight months. He’d been a bit of a prick to his mother over the summer when she’d owled him from Grenoble, urging him to visit his father in Azkaban. He’d replied, ‘fuck no,’ without any additional explanation. His parental deference died with Voldemort, and while it was a dickhead thing to do, he’s reasonably sure Nev would laugh and immediately discount it as not twattish.

Other than that, Draco has tried to keep his head down. Do his schoolwork. Attend his parole meetings. Stay out of everyone’s way, especially the War Heroes.

Only, he’s sat in a claggy greenhouse corner with one of the most heroic of the War Heroes, so he probably fucked something up.

Draco realises he hasn’t said anything in quite a while, and Nev is studying him again, his trainer still idly tapping idly against Draco’s thigh. He shrugs. “Not really, I suppose.”

Nev hums and gives him an ‘I thought so’ look. It shouldn’t be as attractive as it is, but Draco appears doomed on that front.

They fall into a comfortable silence, and Draco starts to reshuffle the cards to have something to do with his hands. The only sound is the thwhipping of the cards as Draco reshuffles them, the faint tinkle of water from somewhere within the depths of the greenhouse, and Nev’s even breath.

It remains shocking to Draco that a structure filled with perilous and deadly flora could be so relaxing at night when it’s quiet and dark, sitting beside Hogwarts’ resident Herboloy slash Botany expert and Plant Swot.

Wonders never cease.

“I think you’re brave.”

Draco lifts his head, unsure that he heard Nev correctly. Surely not.

“What?” he asks, his throat tight. Hoping. Not hoping. Doing something that’s in between hoping and not hoping, whatever that thing is called.

“I think you’re brave,” Nev says louder this time.

Draco’s heart thumps in his chest. It’s probably the nicest thing anyone has ever said to him.

Once upon a time, his friends would enthusiastically shower him with compliments, but that had always been quid pro quo. His friends would tell Draco how wonderful and intelligent he was, and that would usually get them a few treats from one of his mother’s packages. Or they’d tell him he was the best Seeker the Slytherin team had ever seen (far better than Potter), and that would buy them protection from older, more bullying students with threats that ‘his father will hear about this.’

Or, in the most egregious case, he’d begged his father to buy the Quidditch team brand new brooms so everyone could kiss his twelve-year-old arse for an entire year.

No one has ever said something so lovely to him unprompted. It doesn’t feel real.

“Oh,” Draco manages to say in a stunning display of verbal acuity.

“I’ve been thinking about it. I imagine it would be difficult to change like that,” Nev says. “Go against your family. Create a new set of values. Be your own person. That takes quite a lot of courage.”

“Or quite a lot of legal incentive,” Draco says pointedly.

“Ah, fuck off,” Nev says, but he’s laughing, and there’s no bite behind it. “You aren’t sitting out here in my favourite spot in the greenhouse—which you hate—playing a game that I like but you just tolerate, and listening to me prattle on about plant growth cycles and hybridisation techniques because a judge told you to.”

“No, that was just Sprout,” Draco retorts. Then they’re both laughing, and it’s so nice. Draco doesn’t want these nights to ever end, he thinks.

“Git,” Nev says, still chuckling. “Do you see what I’m saying though? The Draco Malfoy of three years ago would have never done something just because someone else liked it. Listened to someone else’s interests even though they were different from his own. You’re different. You’ve changed.”

“Maybe I just like listening to you talk,” Draco raises an eyebrow, “which is terribly selfish of me.”

“Taking an interest in other people is the literal opposite of selfish.”

Draco huffs. “You’re impossible,” he says, and he can hear how fond he sounds. It’s concerning how not mortified Draco is by that fondness laid bare. It’s something he’ll have to examine tomorrow in the daylight.

Nev catches his eye, and it’s all friendly, soft smiles until something shifts. Draco knows he’s not imagining it this time. Their eyes lock, and the air around them contracts down to that single point of contact, unbroken. Draco is pinned by Nev’s gaze, the intensity of it making him practically pant.

His body is on fire, his fingertips and lips tingling, his cock half-hard from a mere glance. They’ve barely even touched, for Circe’s sake, no more than a light brush of fingertips as joints are passed and cards are dealt.

He desperately wants to reach out and push the curls back from Nev’s forehead. To kiss along his jaw and down the line of his throat. To wrap his arms around Nev’s shoulders, broader now, and run his hands down his back and over his perfect arse. He wants to know what it would feel like to have Nev hold him, kiss him, and press against him.

It’s too much to hope for, Draco knows, but he can’t help but want it anyway.

Draco wants to know what it might be like if someone as good as Nev cared for someone as bad as him.

He (reluctantly) drops his gaze to the cards still in his hands. Draco starts to shuffle them again when a golden hand with three freckles by the thumb stills him.

Draco’s heart pounds in his ears, and warmth spreads throughout his body, emanating from Nev’s hand on his. He glances up, and Nev moves toward Draco, clenching his hand briefly. His eyes are soft and wide. Nev glances down at Draco’s lips and up again, quickly, hungrily. He bites his bottom lip, and his crooked tooth is just visible.

Draco thinks he may actually die with want.

While Draco has gotten much better at Shutting the Fuck Up, he still isn’t totally comfortable with silence. It’s gotten easier, but it wasn’t until these nights, until Nev, that he’s managed to comfort in the space between.

But Draco is overwhelmed, and old habits kick in, so he opens his mouth to say something, anything. But before he can, Nev smiles a slow, wide smile and leans in and kisses him.

Fireworks explode behind Draco’s eyes. It’s like Christmas morning, winning a Quidditch match, and getting Outstanding on all his N.E.W.Ts at once. It’s like everything he’s ever wanted, ever dared dream of, is coming true at this very moment as Neville Longbottom, War Hero, Herbology slash Botany Expert, and Fucking Amazing Kisser, cups Draco’s cheek with his hand and pulls him closer, deeping in the kiss.

Draco’s mouth opens under Nev’s (expert) lips, and when Nev brushes his tongue into Draco’s mouth and presses it to his, Draco is very much afraid he whimpers. It doesn’t seem to put Nev off, though, because Draco can feel him smile against his mouth, so he figures fuck it, and wraps his hands around Nev’s neck, pulling him down to the soft ground.

And they’re still kissing, Nev on top of Draco, legs intertwined, hands on arms and necks and shoulders and cheeks. It’s the best Draco has ever felt in his entire life, pinned under Nev on the greenhouse floor. They find a rhythm, their bodies moving together as they kiss and kiss and kiss until Draco feels like he’s floating away. It’s better than being high on Nev’s weed and far more attention-diverting than exploding snap. It’s mad that Draco Malfoy is somehow lucky enough to be snogged senseless by Neville Longbottom, Good Person.

They get into a groove, and there’s kissing along jaws and down necks. Collars are opened, and love bites bloom on exposed skin. There’s more kissing and breathless laughing, and they’re still not speaking, but every time Draco looks into Nev’s eyes, he knows they don’t need to right now—not yet.

There’s some fumbling, buttons undone, zippers unzipped. Pants are pushed aside, and small gasps and moans escape when more skin meets more skin. There are hands and saliva, and oh, Merlin, does it all feel so good. And later, when it’s over, and they’re laughing, happy and loose, lying beside each other on tiny hillocks of dreadlock moss, Draco can’t help but say, “You’re the best person I’ve ever known.”

He’s not even terribly embarrassed when he says it.

Nev’s cheeks flush again, and he tilts his head, his shyness to the fore. And he’s so pretty, Draco’s heart aches with it.

“That’s not true,” Nev says, but he’s trying not to smile, and Draco knows he’s pleased.

“You know who I’ve spent large amounts of time with,” Draco says drily. “I’m fairly certain it’s true.”

Nev barks out a laugh. “Low bar then?” he asks, eyebrow raised.

Draco grabs his hand and kisses the three freckles near his thumb three times, one kiss for each. He twines their fingers together, looks at Nev, those hazel eyes dark in the depths of the greenhouse, and says, “By any measure.”

Nev smiles, which makes Draco’s heart go weird in his chest, and he says, “Go on, then.”

And in this moment, Draco silently thanks Professor Sprout’s Dangerous When Provoked to Actively Murderous plants, a particularly vicious fanged geranium, and many sleepless nights for bringing him Neville Lonbottom, Fit War Hero and Herbology slash Botany Expert. Without whom he might never have known about hydroponics, getting high, and what it feels like to be snogged senseless by a Good Person.

And maybe—just maybe—even more.