Notes:
In the greenhouse??????? Hell yeahhh 🌺🪻🦋💐🌹🌷🍃🌿
Tip #6: Hosting a party is easy. Hosting while plotting your husband's demise requires heels and planning.
The drawing room looked like the aftermath of a particularly fashionable war.
Swatches of silk in varying shades of blush and ivory hovered in the air beside a floating guest list that glittered faintly with enchantments to update itself in real time. A schedule of the evening's "natural conversational arcs" hung next to it, meticulously timed to ensure no one grew bored, threatened her spotlight, or had the chance to complain about the champagne selection.
Pansy stood in the middle of it all, barefoot in her rose-pink slippers trimmed with marabou, silk dressing gown cinched tight at the waist, hair twisted into a low bun that was rapidly unraveling. A quill hung from the corner of her mouth, one hand on her hip, the other flicking through a floating stack of parchment while she dictated instructions like she was planning a summit between warring nations.
"I want soft pink lighting," she snapped, not looking up from the seating chart. "And none of that tacky flickering nonsense from the last solstice gala. Merlin, it made everyone look like they were being haunted. This is an evening affair, not a séance."
A house-elf blinked nervously up at her, parchment and pen floating dutifully beside him, ears trembling slightly under the weight of her expectations.
"Oh, and a harpist. Live. I don't care if they cost more than a full string quartet. Harps are back in. And I want two champagne fountains. One at the entrance, one by the terrace. But tasteful. Minimalist. I will hex anyone who suggests gold."
She whirled on Luna, who was curled gracefully in an armchair nearby, sipping tea and looking exactly as serene as someone watching a tropical storm approach from the safety of a distant beach.
"I need optics," Pansy declared. "I need elegance. I need controlled sparkle. This is my return to the social calendar and I will not be upstaged by any half-blood with a loaned tiara and too much bronzer."
Luna hummed politely and nodded, which Pansy took as agreement because she was not in the mood for opposition. She gestured sharply toward the hovering board.
"Every arrangement must match the season's palette. Early summer, not spring. No pastels. Nothing yellow. Floating florals above the dance floor, and I want them spelled to drop petals every thirty minutes. Lightly. Romantically. I'm reclaiming the evening. And—"
She paused, wrinkling her nose as she scanned the column labeled "Male Attire."
"—and I need him to look like he doesn't own a shovel. I mean it, Luna. If Longbottom shows up in one of those loose, sad cardigans that look like he inherited them from a cousin who failed his OWLs, I will throw him into the koi pond."
"You could just ask him nicely," Luna offered.
Pansy ignored her. "I'm having custom dress robes made for him. Dark green. Tailored. Structured shoulders. Merlin knows he probably owns nothing but dirt-stained linen and misplaced pride. And one suit. One."
She was still muttering to herself when the door creaked open.
Neville strolled in with a tray balanced neatly in his hands, the picture of irritating calm. He was wearing a plain white shirt rolled to the elbows, faded trousers that had clearly seen too many gardens, and that maddening expression of quiet amusement that always made her want to launch something at his head.
"I brought you tea," he said mildly, setting the tray down with practiced ease. "Thought you might need it. You've been yelling at the wallpaper again."
Pansy spun toward him, eyes narrowing.
"You," she pointed with flair, "are not wearing that to the party. In fact, you are never wearing that shirt again. I've arranged for a tailor to drop off something acceptable. You'll wear it. You'll look presentable. You'll not embarrass me by resembling a farmer who got lost on the way to a Ministry function."
Neville raised one brow in the infuriatingly nonchalant way that made her blood pressure spike.
"Whatever you like, Bloom," he said simply, his voice warm and aggravatingly low, before turning and walking out without waiting for her response.
She stared after him, mouth hanging open for one incredulous second, then turned sharply back to Luna and hissed, "He'll thank me when the Prophet calls him a sex symbol."
The house-elf squeaked as another dress code memo flew past his ear.
"He is going to wear the tie," she muttered darkly, scribbling something new onto a floating clipboard. "He is going to wear the tie and the cufflinks and the damn boutonnière and he is going to like it."
Luna, who had been watching from a fainting couch with the expression of someone trying to decide whether this counted as performance art or just a slow, spiraling breakdown, finally sighed and folded her arms.
"You need to be nicer to him," she said calmly.
Pansy didn't even glance up. "Fuck no."
Luna blinked slowly. "Penthesilea."
Pansy froze.
Her quill hovered mid-air. Her shoulders tensed. Her eyes snapped to Luna's like she had been personally betrayed by the moon itself.
"How dare you," she breathed. "How dare you use my government name, woman. You are evil. You are vile. You are soulless. I have trusted you with everything and this is how you choose to betray me?"
Luna tilted her head. "You're being dramatic."
Pansy clutched her chest like she had been shot. "Dramatic? Dramatic? I am trying to salvage my social standing, my public image, my marriage, and my life, and you — you — sit there on your lavender throne of judgment, sipping my tea and daring to act like I am somehow the problem here?"
"Are you done?" Luna asked, voice still calm but now sharpened by something more than patience.
Pansy narrowed her eyes. "Excuse me?"
"Are you done," Luna repeated, louder this time, setting her teacup down with a soft clink, "because I swear to every celestial body that I am this close to dragging you into the greenhouse myself and locking the door until one of you breaks."
"Luna—"
"Just fuck already."
The words dropped like a thunderclap. The house-elf dropped a candlestick. Pansy's jaw dropped even faster.
Luna stood now, eyes glinting, expression eerily serene in the way that only meant danger when it came to her. "It is absolutely pathetic to watch you pretend you are not interested in him when we both know — all three of us know — that you are dripping for him. Dripping. You are ruining lingerie. You are breaking hairpins. You are spiraling. You are humiliating yourself and for what? Pride? Principle? Please. Open your legs already and leave me out of your drama."
The room fell into stunned silence.
Pansy stared at her, mouth working like she wanted to find something to say, something cutting or clever or cruel, but for once her brain failed to produce anything.
And Luna, who once cried because Pansy accidentally misgendered one of her pixies during a full moon ritual, who had once written an apology haiku to a daisy she stepped on, looked her dead in the eye with the terrifying stillness of a woman who had had enough.
For the first time in her life, Luna Lovegood had gotten her shit together.
And for the first time in her life, Penthesilea Parkinson had absolutely nothing to say.
~
The party had already begun to hum with the low thrum of violins and the delicate clinking of champagne flutes when the grand double doors opened and Pansy finally deigned to arrive.
She was not early. She was never early. That would suggest eagerness. And tonight, of all nights, she would not be seen as anything other than effortlessly in command.
She paused at the threshold just long enough to be noticed, her hand resting lightly on Longbottom's arm, her chin lifted at a perfect angle. Gasps and whispers rippled through the crowd like the softest breeze, all of it feeding directly into her bloodstream.
Her gown was a deep, opulent shade of plum that shimmered with each movement, clinging to her body in a way that felt both scandalous and calculated. The fabric pooled at her feet, the slit up her thigh scandalously high but balanced by the elegant sweep of her sleeves and the sparkle of vintage jewels at her throat. Her hair was piled in a loose, shining twist, a few intentional curls tumbling over one shoulder. Her makeup was sharp and perfect, her lips the exact color of crushed berries, her eyes rimmed in smoky glamour.
And Neville—well, Longbottom was, to her private horror, very nearly presentable.
He wore tailored robes in midnight green, a color she had insisted on because it made his eyes look less annoyingly kind and more like he might actually belong beside her. His hair, for once, had been tamed with product instead of wishful thinking, and he had shaved. Properly. No scruff, no uneven sideburns. He looked clean. Structured.
Respectable.
She could almost pretend he had not tracked soil across her floors that very morning.
Clinging to his arm, she made their way through the ballroom with a practiced smile that never quite touched her eyes, the stem of her champagne flute resting against her fingertips as if she might be considering a toast or a murder, depending on the company.
She laughed at the right moments. Tilted her head just so. Introduced Neville with subtle touches and brief, amused commentary, as if he were both her reluctant husband and her most expensive accessory.
And Neville, infuriatingly, played along with effortless composure.
He did not fidget. He did not blush. He smiled politely, made quiet, insightful remarks about the lighting, the wine, the string quartet.
He nodded to socialites whose names Pansy had only recently re-learned. He asked after a former Ravenclaw's mother, and the woman lit up with delight, because of course he remembered the name of a woman he had never met.
She turned her head just slightly, laughing a little too brightly at something Avery Flint had just whispered in her ear.
He was tall, smug, and infatuated with his own reflection, which made him the perfect candidate for this particular performance.
Her hand lingered on his forearm a beat longer than necessary as she tilted her champagne flute toward her lips, eyes fluttering with exaggerated delight.
Just to the side, Neville stood silent, hands calmly tucked behind his back, surveying the crowd with that infuriating, unreadable expression of his.
She didn't glance at him directly, but she could feel the lack of reaction like a cold breeze. No flicker of jealousy. No flash of irritation. Not even a stiffening of his jaw.
He just stood there like the pillar of patience he always was, utterly unbothered while she practically draped herself across another man. It was maddening. It was insulting. It was, frankly, disrespectful.
She was about to up the ante, maybe lean in and whisper something outrageous just to provoke a single damn flicker of emotion from him, when she heard it. A smooth, too-sweet voice, cutting through the background chatter like a curse dressed in lace.
"Imagine being forced to marry your gardener just to keep up appearances. Shame, really. But I suppose desperation makes for strange pairings."
The laughter that followed was brittle and mean, the kind that scratched beneath your skin even when you told yourself it didn't matter.
Pansy turned slowly, already halfway through rolling her eyes, lips parting to deliver something perfectly scathing and vicious. Her gaze had locked on Daphne Greengrass, smug and polished in winter blue satin, a glass of elderflower wine dangling from her fingers like it was part of her anatomy.
But she never got the chance to speak.
Neville moved first.
She felt his hand slip gently to the small of her back, firm and grounding, and he stepped forward with that maddening air of complete control, his voice quiet but clear, smooth enough to cut glass.
"And yet here you are," he said, tone light, conversational, almost kind, "still single, still clinging to the same tired jokes you made at seventeen, still mistaking volume for relevance and hairspray for personality."
A pause. Small. Measured. Just enough time for Flint's smirk to falter.
"I suppose it makes sense. You've always been the loudest person in the room trying to hide the fact that you've got absolutely nothing to say."
The silence that followed wasn't shocked. It was reverent.
It was the silence of every guest pretending to sip their drink while listening more intently than they ever had. It was the silence of people witnessing something sacred: the art of a slow, elegant assassination, carried out in front of society's elite with a smile and a hand at a woman's back.
Neville didn't linger. He simply turned back to Pansy, hand still at the small of her spine, and offered her a glass of champagne that he had plucked from a passing tray.
Her fingers curled around the stem almost numbly.
She was staring at him.
Like he was someone entirely new.
Like she wasn't sure if she wanted to hex him or climb him like a tree.
And poor, puffed-up Daphne looked like she might combust from the effort of not responding. Her lips twitched. Her hand flexed around his tumbler. But she said nothing.
She couldn't.
Because what was there to say when you had just been gutted with a smile?
Pansy, once she remembered how to function again, took a slow sip of her drink and sighed theatrically.
"This is why I married him," she said to no one in particular, voice dripping with satisfaction.
And the circle moved on. But the hierarchy of the room had shifted.
And everyone knew it.
The conversation dispersed with impressive speed, the way all social vultures do when the blood they came for turns out not to be theirs. Pansy let the crowd peel away around them, her spine straight and shoulders high, but inside, her heartbeat was loud enough to echo through her ribs.
Later, much later, when they finally returned to her sitting room, she turned on him with narrowed eyes, arms crossed tight against her chest.
"You do not get to speak for me," she said, voice clipped. "Especially not in public."
Neville, who had been in the middle of removing his cufflinks, looked up at her without so much as a flicker of remorse. He set one down on the table, slowly, then said with the same frustrating calm he had worn all evening, "You looked like you could use the help."
The worst part was that he wasn't wrong. And she hated him for it.
She seethed in silence for the rest of the evening, glaring at the back of his neck like it might suddenly catch fire from the force of her resentment. He didn't seem to notice. Or, more likely, he did and simply didn't care.
Either way, the power dynamic had shifted, and she was not handling it well.
~
The manor had begun to exhale.
The last guests had vanished into the night, their laughter still echoing faintly through the marble halls, leaving only silence and the occasional flicker of candlelight trailing in their wake. Somewhere, a harp string hummed softly as the residual magic from the enchanted orchestra slowly faded, as if even the instruments were too tired to keep pretending.
Pansy moved barefoot through the corridor, heels dangling from her hand, the sharp click of them replaced by the soft, muffled slap of skin against cool stone. Her gown, which had felt divine when she entered the ballroom hours ago, now clung uncomfortably to her skin. Her curls were falling from their pins. Her lip gloss had worn off. She had never looked more beautiful.
She was furious.
Her other hand clenched into a fist at her side as she stormed past the velvet drapes and past the parlor, breathing hard, the glow of floating lights casting restless shadows across her bare shoulders. Her earrings bounced with every step. Her chest ached with unshed indignation. Her pride was in tatters and for once she did not want to talk about it.
She wanted to tear something down.
Or up.
Preferably him.
The corridor stretched ahead, warm from the party's remnants but too quiet now, too full of everything she was trying not to feel.
She could still hear her own laugh echoing faintly in her head, the carefully rehearsed one she had used all night while clinging to Neville's arm like he was an accessory she could control.
He had let her, the bastard.
He had let her flaunt him like a trophy, had stood there silent and smug while she flirted with Flint and smiled too hard at Yaxley's niece and tossed her hair like she was still sixteen and hungry for attention. He had let her. He had said nothing.
Until he had.
Until that perfect, brutal little moment when she needed him to stay in character, and he turned toward that bitch with that maddening, steady calm and ruined everything with one sentence.
One single, quietly delivered sentence that managed to gut a slut in front of an audience and make her look like she needed someone to fight for her.
She had wanted to strangle him.
She still did.
Her breath hitched, chest tightening as she stepped over a trail of discarded rose petals someone had spelled into the shape of hearts. They crunched faintly under her heel, the glamour already fading, love spelled into dust.
Her hand tightened around her shoes. She should have thrown them. Should have turned around and dragged him by the collar of his fancy new robe and made him feel even half of the fury that was pouring out of her now. But she couldn't do it in front of the others. Couldn't crack the version of herself she had polished for the night. Couldn't ruin the illusion she had worked so damn hard to protect.
So instead she moved through the dark with her spine straight and her mouth set, pulse thudding behind her ribs like it was trying to claw its way out. Each footstep echoed a little louder than it should have. Each flickering wall sconce cast her shadow longer and thinner as she made her way toward the only place she knew he might be, the only place in the house that still felt alive at this hour.
She would find him.
And then, gods help them both, she would speak her mind.
She reached the greenhouse door and shoved it open without a second thought. The glass groaned against the frame, as if it could sense the storm rolling off her.
The warmth hit her first — thick and humid, laced with the scent of damp earth and overgrown vines, with the soft sweetness of blooming things she had never bothered to name. There was something unnervingly alive about the space. As if the plants themselves were watching, aware.
Her lungs filled with the scent and she hated how familiar it had become, hated that she could now distinguish rosemary from sweet alyssum without even looking.
He was already inside.
Kneeling in the far corner beneath a climbing arch of moonflower, sleeves rolled to the elbow, the tie around his collar loose and forgotten. His shirt clung in places from heat and work, and two buttons hung open at the throat, revealing a line of flushed skin slick with sweat and backlit by candlelight.
He was coaxing a vine back into place with careful fingers, touching it like it mattered. Like it was a person. Like it would feel his gentleness and bloom harder for him just to please him.
He looked peaceful, maddeningly so. Like the chaos of the night had never touched him. Like he hadn't just torn her apart with a single, perfect line in front of half the bloody social registry.
She stood there watching him, chest still rising fast from the sheer force of her fury. Her hair clung to the sides of her neck. Her mouth tasted like champagne and acid and pride she was barely keeping down. Her heels were still dangling from one hand, her spine pulled taut like it was holding up the last of her composure.
Then her voice broke the quiet, sharp and bright as shattered crystal.
"You're insufferable."
He looked up from the vine, steady as ever, gaze traveling over her with maddening ease, starting from the bare soles of her feet, lingering at the slit in her dress, pausing just long enough at her neckline to make her blood boil again. "You threw a lovely party," he said simply, voice low and maddeningly soft.
Her laugh cracked out of her like a snapped wand. "Do not patronize me, Longbottom."
Only then did he stand.
He brushed the dirt from his hands in long, unhurried sweeps, as if she were nothing more than a gust of wind disturbing his quiet. When his eyes met hers again, they were warm. Too warm. And still far too calm.
"You embarrassed me," she hissed.
He tilted his head, eyes narrowing just slightly, not with guilt but with some quiet, infuriating amusement. "I defended you."
"I did not need defending."
"You looked like you did."
Another step brought her closer. Her fists curled at her sides. "You made me look weak."
His voice dropped lower, but never lost its steadiness. "No. I reminded them you are not to be touched."
"You spoke for me," she snapped, stepping into the heat of him now, close enough to feel the radiating warmth from his chest. "You touched my back like you owned it. Like you owned me."
He didn't hesitate.
"I thought I did," he said, and the words were so quiet, so unbearably soft, that something in her chest twisted without warning.
Her lips parted, breath catching. Another step. The candlelight caught the glint of her earrings. Her hair was falling loose in waves now, and she had never looked more furious or more exposed.
"You're nothing but a glorified gardener who stumbled into a manor he doesn't belong in."
He smiled at that. A real one this time. Not mocking, not cruel. Just knowing.
"And you're a woman who throws parties so she doesn't have to admit she feels alone in her own house."
The breath left her in a rush.
That did it.
She shoved him. Flat-palmed, right to the chest. It wasn't meant to knock him back, not really, just enough to make a point, to land the sharpness sitting beneath her skin. He barely moved. His weight held steady, solid and unmoved like she had pushed a wall instead of a man.
That only made her angrier.
Before she could step away, his hand closed around her wrist.
"Don't touch me," she breathed. Her voice came out raw and frayed, like it had splintered on the way up her throat.
"I am touching you," he said, without even a flicker of doubt.
They were close now. Too close. The greenhouse had gone quiet around them, the kind of silence that felt thick with watching eyes.
Heat hung in the air, sticky and floral, every breath soaked in the scent of jasmine and soil and something sharper beneath it.
She could feel the warmth of his skin through her dress. The press of his fingers at her wrist. The weight of his gaze, low and dark, fixed on her mouth like he already knew what came next.
She should have turned away. Should have said something cruel. Should have laughed, dismissed him, walked out. Anything.
Instead, she whispered, "You really think I need you?"
His reply was quiet. Certain. The kind of truth that didn't ask for permission.
"No," he said. "But you want me."
Then his mouth was on hers.
He kissed her like a storm breaking open, like he had been holding it in for too long and didn't know how to be gentle now that it was finally here. His lips moved against hers with a kind of furious purpose, like he had waited for her to shatter first.
Her heels fell from her fingers with a clatter that echoed under the glass. Her hands found his shoulders before she could think, fingers digging in, dragging him closer. The kiss deepened, darker now, messier.
She tasted wine and sweat and the heat of something buried between them for weeks, maybe longer. It wasn't romantic. It wasn't poetic. It was want, stripped bare.
She stumbled back and he followed, her spine hitting the greenhouse wall with a muffled thud. The plants around them trembled, vines rustling against the glass. Somewhere near the roof, a moonvine opened in full bloom, slow and deliberate like it had been waiting too.
When they finally tore apart, their chests rose and fell in sync. Her lipstick was smeared, his collar wrinkled and open, both of them looking like they had survived something instead of shared it.
They didn't speak. There was nothing to say.
They stood in the quiet, surrounded by leaves and candlelight, their breath still tangled together in the air between them.
Something had shifted. They both knew it.
The full moon hung high overhead, slanting through the arched glass roof in long silver beams that kissed the floor and crawled up the walls, casting soft light across the stone and the vines that shifted ever so slightly in the presence of rising magic.
He hoisted her up onto the stone table without hesitation, and her breath caught as her back met the chilled surface. It was the same place she had once arranged roses with careful fingers and muttered charms for longevity and bloom. A place of order and beauty, of cultivated elegance.
That was gone now. The petals she had once handled like precious things scattered beneath her thighs and hips, crushed into the grooves of the stone, their fragrance rising thick into the air with every motion. They no longer mattered.
Her legs wrapped around his waist without instruction, muscle and want moving faster than thought. The silk of her gown rode up her thighs as she pulled him flush against her, a soft sound escaping her lips before she could bite it down.
Her hands were greedy. Desperate. They moved without grace, without hesitation, fingers tugging at the front of his shirt, clawing it open with a growl.
Buttons skittered across the greenhouse floor, lost among the roots and flower pots, one ricocheting off the edge of a watering can with a sharp clink that neither of them acknowledged.
She didn't care if she tore the whole thing from his back.
In fact, she hoped she did.
The gown slipped from her shoulder like it had been waiting for permission. The strap dragged across her skin, and her pulse stuttered at the trail of air it left behind. Then the other shoulder followed, the fabric pooling around her elbows, baring her chest to the warm, humid air, to the silver slant of moonlight pouring through the glass panes above.
Neville's hands found her again, sliding up from the backs of her knees, over the curve of her thighs, palms splayed wide as if he could not touch her enough. He paused only long enough to look at her. The way his eyes dragged over her body, the way he drank her in, like she was a spell he was trying to memorize, made her stomach twist with something sharp and needy.
Then he kissed her.
His mouth was hot and unrelenting, crushing against hers like he was punishing them both for waiting this long. She moaned into him, one hand threading through his curls, the other pressing hard into the base of his spine to pull him even closer. His teeth caught on her bottom lip, not by accident, and the pain made her hips jerk forward, instinctive and unashamed.
She didn't care if she bruised from this. She wanted to.
His hands were everywhere now, fingers digging into her waist, her back, the tops of her thighs, leaving behind a path of heat and pressure she could feel blooming under her skin. He grabbed her with a kind of reverence wrapped in raw hunger, like he had no intention of pretending this was gentle. Her skin was slick with sweat, her breath coming in gasps as she rocked against him, the rhythm already starting to build beneath her spine.
The vines stirred at their feet, the magic in the air catching. Leaves shivered and coiled, stretching toward the scent of sweat and arousal. A bloom cracked open beside her head. The air thickened further, as if the entire greenhouse had been holding its breath.
He whispered her name against her collarbone, a low rasp of need that made her legs tighten around his hips. His tongue followed the sound, tracing a line across her skin, tasting her. And she could barely hold still.
It was too much, and not nearly enough.
Her nails dragged across his shoulders, her back arched off the stone, hair tumbling into crushed petals and clinging ivy. She didn't know if the gasp that escaped her mouth was his name or a curse, but it didn't matter. He had already pressed his body full against hers, lips at her neck, hips pushing her open, his hands guiding her exactly where he wanted her.
The table shifted beneath them. The vines climbed higher. And Pansy gave in. Fully. Wildly. Without shame.
She had never looked more like herself.
Pansy leaned in until her lips brushed the curve of his ear, her voice low and sharp like the blade of a spell drawn in close. "Do not dare be gentle."
It wasn't a plea. It wasn't a game. It was a command, rooted in everything she refused to ask for out loud.
Neville stilled for half a breath, and something shifted behind his eyes — something dark and primal and deeply, deeply aware of her. His gaze dropped, dragging over the swell of her breasts, the flush rising along her throat, the smooth length of her thighs wrapped tightly around him. He looked like a man about to ruin something on purpose.
And he did.
He gripped her hips hard enough to bruise and drove into her without warning, no softness, no gentleness. Just heat and pressure and the kind of hunger that had been building between them for far too long.
She gasped, mouth falling open against his, breath stolen clean from her chest. He swallowed the sound with a kiss that was all tongue and teeth and fury, pushing deeper until she was clawing at his back, nails dragging over the remnants of his shirt, scoring red across muscle and fabric.
Her spine arched hard as he thrust into her again, the rhythm rough, relentless, built from weeks of tension and denial and things they had never let themselves say out loud. The table scraped across the floor beneath them, every movement a little louder, a little more desperate, echoing through the greenhouse like a warning.
His breath was hot at her neck, the scrape of his stubble making her shiver even as she chased every thrust with a roll of her hips. She was loud now, moaning without shame, her fingers tangling in his curls just to keep herself grounded.
He muttered her name like a curse, like a spell he couldn't stop casting, his voice thick with sweat and strain. She could feel him everywhere, feel the power in every movement, in every groan that tore from his chest, in the way his fingers gripped her thighs like he would drag her down with him if she let him.
She wanted more. Deeper. Harder. Meaner.
And he gave it to her.
There was nothing patient about him now. No force marriage. No gentleman. Just want. Just hands and mouth and muscle, and the quiet truth that he had never been calm at all.
Jasmine bloomed at their backs, white petals parting open in time with her cries, their scent thick in the air, clinging to the sweat on her skin.
The glass panes above them shimmered with moonlight, casting faint silver patterns across her bare thighs as she clung to him. Ivy crept along the edge of the stone table, curling and unfurling like it was part of the spell, brushing along her calves and wrapping itself loosely around her ankle, responding to the magic building in the air.
The vines knew. Everything in this greenhouse knew.
Pansy tipped her head back, eyes fluttering shut, lips parted on a ragged moan. Her hair spilled across the leaves behind her, a dark halo that tangled with petals and trembling green. Her body rocked with each thrust, hips rising to meet him without thought, only instinct. Her nails dug into his back, not out of anger now, but because she needed something to hold onto. Something real.
She could feel him everywhere. The press of his stomach against hers, slick with sweat. The heat of his mouth at her neck. The rough scrape of his jaw as he bit at her collarbone. His hands gripped her thighs with bruising certainty, pulling her closer with each movement, grinding deeper until she could no longer distinguish the edge between pain and pleasure. It was all one blur now. Raw. Filthy. Sacred.
She sobbed out a breath, body tightening, her stomach coiling, everything in her pulling taut. Her orgasm hit her like a curse breaking, wild and full of ruin. She gasped his name, loud and sharp and desperate, her voice catching on the last syllable like she was choking on the truth of it. Her legs locked around his waist, ankles digging into his back, refusing to let go. Not yet. Not when she was still shaking.
Neville groaned against her skin, the sound low and wrecked, and it did something to her. Something dangerous. His hands fisted the edge of the table as he thrust once, twice more, and then he broke too, coming with a shudder that made the vines pull tighter at the corners of the greenhouse. His breath caught at her shoulder, lips brushing her skin as he collapsed into her, their bodies slick and shaking.
The weight of him pressed her down into the petals. His forehead rested against hers, eyes closed, his breath still uneven. For a long time neither of them moved, their chests rising and falling in a shared rhythm, the greenhouse slowly returning to quiet. The only sounds now were the soft rustle of the leaves shifting above them and the faint trickle of water from a charm somewhere behind the ivy.
Pansy didn't speak.
Her throat was tight. Her limbs were heavy. Her body ached in the most exquisite, intimate way, like something inside her had been torn open and filled all at once. She felt split down the middle, wrecked from the inside out, and yet somehow still whole.
She should have been furious. She should have shoved him off and stormed away, told him this meant nothing, told herself the same. But she didn't. She stayed still beneath him, one hand sliding up the back of his neck, fingertips brushing through the damp curls at his nape, the other still gripping the edge of the table as if letting go might unmake her.
Because something about the way he held her, the way his breath caught when hers did, the silence he kept, it felt like the beginning of something she didn't know how to name. Not yet. Not tonight.
So she let the silence stretch, let the jasmine surround them. She let the vines curl around the edges of the table, protective and wild. She let her heart beat loud in her chest and refused to apologize for it.