wittering

Oh look, I wrote fic when I wasn't looking. ANYTHING to avoid real work.



Title: Reciprocity
Pairing: Neville/Draco
Rating: G
A/N: Character motivation? Languorous plot development? Oh, that’s so 2005.




Neville’s crush on Draco Malfoy wasn’t going away. Already he’d broken out in a fungus and had tiny frond-like growths removed from his ears by Hermione. His hair was turning brackish and the nails on his fingers were swollen. Neville was a sensitive plant, and Malfoy was giving him rot.

‘Can’t you just, you know, realise he’s a twat?’ asked Harry. ‘He’s, like, the biggest twat there ever was. And he’s a plonker. And a toe-rag. Really, Neville, the bloke’s bodgy.’ Harry’s crush on a Cockney boy in third year had horribly infected his vocabulary. No one had offered to remove that curse from him, they thought it was more amusing to let him sound like an idiot.

‘He’s not a twat,’ moaned Neville. There was a dank cast to his skin and the smell of mould and humous rose from his hair. ‘I’m the twat, I’m the one who’s getting uglier all the time when all I want is to—’ he broke off. ‘Be a beautiful flower,’ he whispered.

‘For the fucking love of petunias,’ Hermione said, curling her fingers into fists, ‘Malfoy’s nothing special. Just a boy with a penis. Go and sort him out. And do it before your leaves start to drop, Neville.’

Neville fiddled miserably with the stamen that was trying to stump its way into being a sixth finger. ‘He’ll never look twice at a weed like me. He’s so cool, with his pale lily skin and his petal eyelids and all that.’

‘Has it occurred to you that Malfoy is just a geezer?’ Harry put in. ‘He’s not as cool as you, little bruvver. And he talks bollocks.’

Neville just made a soft, wet sound.

::

Malfoy careened down the corridor. Crabbe and Goyle skittered behind him. Pansy Parkinson lilted gently ahead, albeit at a brisk pace.

‘Beat Ravenclaw by a hundred and sixty points!’ Malfoy yelped. ‘I feel wonderful! I’m on fire! Time to celebrate! I need something’s arse!’ His face was red with excitement.

They rounded a corner and ran smack into Potter, Granger, Weasley and Longbottom. There was a sultry silence. Neville gulped and hid behind Harry.

‘Oi, pillock!’ said Potter. ‘Watch where you’re going, you gawping nit.’

Granger snarled. Goyle snarled back. There was some kind of ferocious forcefield between them which everyone suddenly realised was unresolved sexual tension. Pansy Parkinson polished her lilac nails.

Malfoy shouldered closer to the group of Gryffindors, then stopped.

‘What’s that smell?’

Neville’s face broke out into moss.

‘It’s your stinking breath, Malfoy,’ Ron said.

Neville sighed loudly, and the moss turned a delicate blushy shade of pink.

Malfoy hesitated. His mouth was open to retort to Weasley, but then his nostrils flared wider, and he couldn’t decide how to breathe. His eyebrows drew together. He sniffed deeply.

‘It’s… it’s… It smells like a garden. A lovely, cool, moist, garden. A garden of… Somewhere damp and sweet, my skin’s so hot, I feel like I’m burning, I’m…’ His face was scarlet. Led by his flaring nostrils, he edged closer to Neville.

Behind him, Hermione and Goyle were glaring at each other from an inch’s separation between their flaring eyeballs. The air around them was lurid. Everyone watched Malfoy and Neville instead.

Malfoy’s pale hands came up, blotched with pink. Steam began to rise from him as he brought his hands towards Neville’s violently vegetative face.

Little ferns curled up all over Neville, particularly in his crotch.

Malfoy rested his burning face against Neville’s. ‘A bower of bliss,’ he murmured.

There was a thud. Hermione and Goyle were grappling on the floor, grunting. Harry caught the phrase ‘Going to kill you, you big horrible gorgeous lunk’. He stepped away in distaste.

‘You’re still a toe-rag,’ he said to Malfoy, as he and Ron walked off. Pansy followed.

‘You’re still naff,’ she said to Harry, but she smiled. A basket of roses appeared in her hands and she suddenly grew a pinafore and bonnet. ‘Buy a flower, guv’nor?