Harry Potter; Fic; Five Places Neville Never Thought He'd Never Get High (And Did Anyway); R
Despite this week of White Collar obsession, I do still write HP fic! Oddly unhappy HP fic, apparently. I'm actually working on a number of other pieces in this fandom, but most of them are for fests/challenges/etc. It might be a little White Collar heavy up in here for a bit--fair warning. For those on my flist who enjoy the White Collar, there will be some up later.
And now, for your reading pleasure, here is Neville Longbottom smoking some pot.
Title: Five Places Neville Never Thought He'd Get High (And Did Anyway)
Rating: R to NC-17
Pairings: Neville/Ginny, Neville/Hannah Abbot, Neville/Teddy
Warnings: Um, drug use, specifically marijuana.
Summary: In which Neville Longbottom gets high in unexpected places.
Author's Note: purple_chalk, I honest to god meant this to be an amusing, lighthearted, fun little ditty. It's, uh, not. Apologies. ALSO, I do not condone the use of illegal drugs in any way; this story is not meant to be read as tacit encouragement for the lighting up of a joint. Ok? Ok.
1: In The Gryffindor Common Room
"Look," Lee Jordan says, grimacing at him, "you can't bogart the damn thing. Just take a hit, yeah, or pass it? Because Jesus, kid, I can't wait all night."
Fred Weasley, next to him, nods sagely. "Speed's the thing. There's rules to this."
George Weasley, directly to Neville's right, grins. "Or, if the ickle princess is too scared..."
"Shut up!" Neville snaps, and colors. "I was just--oh, hell." He takes one last glance around the empty common room and lights the bowl, holding his thumb over the cache and sucking until there's smoke in the chamber. Then he releases, as Fred has showed him, and pulls in a breath.
His lungs. Are on. FIRE.
"Fuck," he gasps, coughing wildly, as the other three roar with laughter. "You might have warned me--"
"Oh, and ruined your fun?" Lee asks, with a wry grin. Neville glares at him with watery eyes and coughs some more. "Shut up, lad, you'll wake the whole House and then we'll have the Scottish Lady after us."
Fred takes the bowl from Neville and raises an eyebrow. "She's not Macbeth, Jordan," he drawls, lightly, before pulling in his own hit. Lee laughs, a low, happy sound, and George grins wickedly in the lamp-light.
Neville is just starting to feel--something, a levity, tickling the edges of his brain and running through his veins, like dancing. It's picking up the cool breeze from the opened window and pulsing the sensation up around his legs and arms and---
"Thank you," he says, "for, ahahaha, for letting me--I couldn't sleep, oh my god, sleep, what a weird word, sleeeeeeeeep--"
"Mischief managed," George says, grinning, and they all laugh, even if Neville doesn't really get the joke.
2: Behind Greenhouse Three
"They're going to find us," Ginny hisses, sticking to his back like a particularly tenacious shadow.
"Not if you shut it," Neville replies. He can feel her glaring at him through the thick cloak he's wearing, through his hair and skull and brain, but he can't keep doing this, he can't keeping living like this, if he can't calm down. Even the promise of--
"Shhh," Ginny hisses, suddenly, gripping his arm. He stops and they both duck behind a suit of armor, and Neville refrains from mentioning that she'd been doing most of the talking. They cling together for a long, tense moment, both trying to ignore Neville's burgeoning erection and Ginny's nipples rising to attention, until the noise passes.
"This can't be worth it," Ginny snaps, and Neville kisses her, shocking her speechless. He revels in it, knowing he has to catch her by surprise to keep her silent about Harry and obligations, about rules and family and destiny and love--he likes to kiss her. He likes to kiss her quietly.
"This is a war," he says, when he pulls away. "Take the small pleasures where you get them."
A soft look comes into Ginny's eyes then, but he doesn't wait for it to come to fruition, just grabs her hand and drags her out onto the grounds, ducking and weaving. It seems like it takes them years to get to Greenhouse Three, though in reality it's only a few minutes. They lean, panting, against the back of the building, and then Neville mutters something and a bush gives way.
The plant that's growing behind it is--really rather massive. Ginny whistles long and low between her teeth. "Guess that answers how my brothers get such specialized shit," she murmurs, looking impressed. Neville tosses her a mock-glare.
"So you have been at their stash! I told them it was you, and they told me they'd never believe it of you. Taking advantage of such good, trusting--"
She laughs. "You're just bitter that they're cleaning you out."
Neville grins ruefully and starts picking, grabbing only the prime buds. Once he's filled the bag he mutters the counterspells, and the plant transforms back into a convincing-enough ivy vine.
"'S nice spellwork--" Ginny starts, and Neville smiles, only a little bitter.
"Yeah, shame I don't get graded on illegal grow operations. You want a sample?"
Her eyes light up, and within a few seconds Neville's done the drying spell and the rolling spell and hands her a perfect joint. He lights it with a wave and she inhales deeply--once, twice--before passing it to him. He pulls hard, harsh, loving the burn on his throat and the strange, resined sensation in his lungs.
He feels the calm settle in his veins, roil in his gut and seep everywhere, numbing the bruises and scrapes and all the places he's been a little too painfully earnest a little too hard. He feels it in his fingernails, his hair, his eyes, his pockets and he says, "Right, then, we'll finish this inside."
Ginny laughs, light and airy and useless already. With a sharp pang Neville thinks of all the things he could do with that smile, if he could keep it--thinks of all the ways it lights up the space it's in, a thousand shades of not his--and then pulls in one more quick drag and starts creeping back to the castle.
3: At The Three Broomsticks
Hannah Abbott is not the kind of girl he'd bring home to his mother, if he'd ever really had one.
Neville sort of remembers a time when she was that kind of girl--it's almost like looking back into someone else's life. When they were children, she'd been sweet and gentle, blonde with a round face, quiet and almost cherubic. But this hard job has left hard lines in her face, hard muscles in her calves and thighs and elsewhere that Neville runs his tongue across.
And across, and across.
"Fuck," Hannah hisses, thrown across the bar like a tossed rag, toes curling in between the whiskey and the Russian vodka. It's only been her bar for a few years now, for as long as Neville's been teaching, and there's something that feels strange and fated about that. He'd come in here for a mead three years ago and Rosmerta'd been gone and this brassy blonde was behind the counter instead. Her lipstick, Neville remembers, had been bright red, and he'd had trouble getting it off in the shower later.
One of these days, he knows, he's going to have to marry her. He doesn't really relish the prospect, but he's equally despondent at the thought of not marrying her. Because she's not, she's not the kind of girl he'd bring home to his mother, but his mother's been more or less a shell his whole life. And he doesn't, he's never going to love her, but he's never really kept anyone long enough to love them, has he? Better this, a fuck now and again, free drinks and a warm bed and something that looks like love in the dim light of a dirty bar. Better this than nothing at all.
"Fucking hell," she cries, and she comes as he prods at her, licking and lapping. He swallows all he can get of her, the strange metallic afterglow lingering like copper in his mouth as he kisses her and reaches 'round to pull a hit from the bong they keep under the counter.
"You and your dirty habits," she whispers, seductive, hooking a finger in his shirt collar.
"You'd know," he tells her, gamely enough, and lets her slip down to suck him in the quiet.
4: On His Mother's Grave
He goes once a year, and only once--if he went less he'd feel guilty and if he went more he'd feel unmoored, loose in the wind, all the time. He has a beer on his father's grave, every year, pours some into the ground like a good son, and he smokes a joint on his mother's, being careful not to ash within the 8' by 4' rectangle he knows her coffin is directly under.
The truth is, he wishes he could just see his father, skip his mother, and forgive himself in the morning. His father's grave is always easy enough: a few quiet words, a couple long pulls of lager, and he's done, feels lighter. His mother--the first year he hadn't smoked anything and he'd just sat there, both parents dead at 18 (but long since an orphan). He'd looked at the stone and thought about his mother's eyes, looking sad and trapped in that limp lost face, and he'd felt crazy too.
So now he gets really obliterated, really unhealthily fucking ripped, and rambles at her headstone instead.
"I wish," he muses, this time (because this is why he's come, at midnight on a random Wednesday in August), "I wish you'd died after five sane years instead of--I wish I knew what to do."
The gravestone doesn't respond, but he pushes on anyway. "I hate this...I hate--she's. Y'know. Leaving, and I shouldn't care, I don't love her--I don't not love her either though, is the thing."
He pulls in another long drag and holds the smoke in his lungs, mostly to shut himself up. He coughs it out, burning his throat, and says:
"I don't really want to talk about her. You know all of it anyway, I guess, that's what Gram said, that people die and they watch you. Creeped me out something awful when I was a kid but now--"
"I just want--there are all these kids and they have no idea that I'm just, just, lost and maybe, hahaha, maybe I should move to Jamacia but I love teaching, I love teaching, it's the only time I feel...together. Whole? I don't know, Mom--"
"--I never called you that. Jesus Christ, I'm in a graveyard at midnight. The sad ramblings of the stoned fool, I'm better than I look, ok? You're somewhere where that'll matter to you now, I think, so: I'm better than I look. I'm going. I'm going."
(He takes the roach with him. It wouldn't do, to mar her grave.)
5: In His Grandmother's House
Of all the places he shouldn't be with Teddy Lupin, his grandmother's house is easily top of the list. She'd be revolving in her grave, that he's sleeping with a man--let alone a man nearly twenty years younger, let alone a man who used to be his student, let alone in her home.
Still, there's something oddly satisfying about it, Teddy's arched back and blue-black hair surrounded by Gran's favorite floral wallpaper, the scent of cannabis still heavy around them. He'd never--of all the places in his life he'd promised himself he wouldn't get high, this is the greatest violation, the last on his list.
"Jesus," Teddy keens, face turned awkwardly into Neville's neck, back pressed flush against Neville's chest, "god it's...in my armpits and my knees and I feel it everywhere."
"That's cannabis," Neville nods, swallowing down a lump of disappointment...
...until Teddy breaks away, turns to face him and says "That's you," with a bright, unbearable light in his eyes. Neville kisses him, drawing him in desperately, and realizes the skip and thud of his heartbeat has nothing to do with the drug.
He feels lighter, more whole than he has in years, when Teddy pulls him down to the floor.
And now, for your reading pleasure, here is Neville Longbottom smoking some pot.
Title: Five Places Neville Never Thought He'd Get High (And Did Anyway)
Rating: R to NC-17
Pairings: Neville/Ginny, Neville/Hannah Abbot, Neville/Teddy
Warnings: Um, drug use, specifically marijuana.
Summary: In which Neville Longbottom gets high in unexpected places.
Author's Note: purple_chalk, I honest to god meant this to be an amusing, lighthearted, fun little ditty. It's, uh, not. Apologies. ALSO, I do not condone the use of illegal drugs in any way; this story is not meant to be read as tacit encouragement for the lighting up of a joint. Ok? Ok.
1: In The Gryffindor Common Room
"Look," Lee Jordan says, grimacing at him, "you can't bogart the damn thing. Just take a hit, yeah, or pass it? Because Jesus, kid, I can't wait all night."
Fred Weasley, next to him, nods sagely. "Speed's the thing. There's rules to this."
George Weasley, directly to Neville's right, grins. "Or, if the ickle princess is too scared..."
"Shut up!" Neville snaps, and colors. "I was just--oh, hell." He takes one last glance around the empty common room and lights the bowl, holding his thumb over the cache and sucking until there's smoke in the chamber. Then he releases, as Fred has showed him, and pulls in a breath.
His lungs. Are on. FIRE.
"Fuck," he gasps, coughing wildly, as the other three roar with laughter. "You might have warned me--"
"Oh, and ruined your fun?" Lee asks, with a wry grin. Neville glares at him with watery eyes and coughs some more. "Shut up, lad, you'll wake the whole House and then we'll have the Scottish Lady after us."
Fred takes the bowl from Neville and raises an eyebrow. "She's not Macbeth, Jordan," he drawls, lightly, before pulling in his own hit. Lee laughs, a low, happy sound, and George grins wickedly in the lamp-light.
Neville is just starting to feel--something, a levity, tickling the edges of his brain and running through his veins, like dancing. It's picking up the cool breeze from the opened window and pulsing the sensation up around his legs and arms and---
"Thank you," he says, "for, ahahaha, for letting me--I couldn't sleep, oh my god, sleep, what a weird word, sleeeeeeeeep--"
"Mischief managed," George says, grinning, and they all laugh, even if Neville doesn't really get the joke.
2: Behind Greenhouse Three
"They're going to find us," Ginny hisses, sticking to his back like a particularly tenacious shadow.
"Not if you shut it," Neville replies. He can feel her glaring at him through the thick cloak he's wearing, through his hair and skull and brain, but he can't keep doing this, he can't keeping living like this, if he can't calm down. Even the promise of--
"Shhh," Ginny hisses, suddenly, gripping his arm. He stops and they both duck behind a suit of armor, and Neville refrains from mentioning that she'd been doing most of the talking. They cling together for a long, tense moment, both trying to ignore Neville's burgeoning erection and Ginny's nipples rising to attention, until the noise passes.
"This can't be worth it," Ginny snaps, and Neville kisses her, shocking her speechless. He revels in it, knowing he has to catch her by surprise to keep her silent about Harry and obligations, about rules and family and destiny and love--he likes to kiss her. He likes to kiss her quietly.
"This is a war," he says, when he pulls away. "Take the small pleasures where you get them."
A soft look comes into Ginny's eyes then, but he doesn't wait for it to come to fruition, just grabs her hand and drags her out onto the grounds, ducking and weaving. It seems like it takes them years to get to Greenhouse Three, though in reality it's only a few minutes. They lean, panting, against the back of the building, and then Neville mutters something and a bush gives way.
The plant that's growing behind it is--really rather massive. Ginny whistles long and low between her teeth. "Guess that answers how my brothers get such specialized shit," she murmurs, looking impressed. Neville tosses her a mock-glare.
"So you have been at their stash! I told them it was you, and they told me they'd never believe it of you. Taking advantage of such good, trusting--"
She laughs. "You're just bitter that they're cleaning you out."
Neville grins ruefully and starts picking, grabbing only the prime buds. Once he's filled the bag he mutters the counterspells, and the plant transforms back into a convincing-enough ivy vine.
"'S nice spellwork--" Ginny starts, and Neville smiles, only a little bitter.
"Yeah, shame I don't get graded on illegal grow operations. You want a sample?"
Her eyes light up, and within a few seconds Neville's done the drying spell and the rolling spell and hands her a perfect joint. He lights it with a wave and she inhales deeply--once, twice--before passing it to him. He pulls hard, harsh, loving the burn on his throat and the strange, resined sensation in his lungs.
He feels the calm settle in his veins, roil in his gut and seep everywhere, numbing the bruises and scrapes and all the places he's been a little too painfully earnest a little too hard. He feels it in his fingernails, his hair, his eyes, his pockets and he says, "Right, then, we'll finish this inside."
Ginny laughs, light and airy and useless already. With a sharp pang Neville thinks of all the things he could do with that smile, if he could keep it--thinks of all the ways it lights up the space it's in, a thousand shades of not his--and then pulls in one more quick drag and starts creeping back to the castle.
3: At The Three Broomsticks
Hannah Abbott is not the kind of girl he'd bring home to his mother, if he'd ever really had one.
Neville sort of remembers a time when she was that kind of girl--it's almost like looking back into someone else's life. When they were children, she'd been sweet and gentle, blonde with a round face, quiet and almost cherubic. But this hard job has left hard lines in her face, hard muscles in her calves and thighs and elsewhere that Neville runs his tongue across.
And across, and across.
"Fuck," Hannah hisses, thrown across the bar like a tossed rag, toes curling in between the whiskey and the Russian vodka. It's only been her bar for a few years now, for as long as Neville's been teaching, and there's something that feels strange and fated about that. He'd come in here for a mead three years ago and Rosmerta'd been gone and this brassy blonde was behind the counter instead. Her lipstick, Neville remembers, had been bright red, and he'd had trouble getting it off in the shower later.
One of these days, he knows, he's going to have to marry her. He doesn't really relish the prospect, but he's equally despondent at the thought of not marrying her. Because she's not, she's not the kind of girl he'd bring home to his mother, but his mother's been more or less a shell his whole life. And he doesn't, he's never going to love her, but he's never really kept anyone long enough to love them, has he? Better this, a fuck now and again, free drinks and a warm bed and something that looks like love in the dim light of a dirty bar. Better this than nothing at all.
"Fucking hell," she cries, and she comes as he prods at her, licking and lapping. He swallows all he can get of her, the strange metallic afterglow lingering like copper in his mouth as he kisses her and reaches 'round to pull a hit from the bong they keep under the counter.
"You and your dirty habits," she whispers, seductive, hooking a finger in his shirt collar.
"You'd know," he tells her, gamely enough, and lets her slip down to suck him in the quiet.
4: On His Mother's Grave
He goes once a year, and only once--if he went less he'd feel guilty and if he went more he'd feel unmoored, loose in the wind, all the time. He has a beer on his father's grave, every year, pours some into the ground like a good son, and he smokes a joint on his mother's, being careful not to ash within the 8' by 4' rectangle he knows her coffin is directly under.
The truth is, he wishes he could just see his father, skip his mother, and forgive himself in the morning. His father's grave is always easy enough: a few quiet words, a couple long pulls of lager, and he's done, feels lighter. His mother--the first year he hadn't smoked anything and he'd just sat there, both parents dead at 18 (but long since an orphan). He'd looked at the stone and thought about his mother's eyes, looking sad and trapped in that limp lost face, and he'd felt crazy too.
So now he gets really obliterated, really unhealthily fucking ripped, and rambles at her headstone instead.
"I wish," he muses, this time (because this is why he's come, at midnight on a random Wednesday in August), "I wish you'd died after five sane years instead of--I wish I knew what to do."
The gravestone doesn't respond, but he pushes on anyway. "I hate this...I hate--she's. Y'know. Leaving, and I shouldn't care, I don't love her--I don't not love her either though, is the thing."
He pulls in another long drag and holds the smoke in his lungs, mostly to shut himself up. He coughs it out, burning his throat, and says:
"I don't really want to talk about her. You know all of it anyway, I guess, that's what Gram said, that people die and they watch you. Creeped me out something awful when I was a kid but now--"
"I just want--there are all these kids and they have no idea that I'm just, just, lost and maybe, hahaha, maybe I should move to Jamacia but I love teaching, I love teaching, it's the only time I feel...together. Whole? I don't know, Mom--"
"--I never called you that. Jesus Christ, I'm in a graveyard at midnight. The sad ramblings of the stoned fool, I'm better than I look, ok? You're somewhere where that'll matter to you now, I think, so: I'm better than I look. I'm going. I'm going."
(He takes the roach with him. It wouldn't do, to mar her grave.)
5: In His Grandmother's House
Of all the places he shouldn't be with Teddy Lupin, his grandmother's house is easily top of the list. She'd be revolving in her grave, that he's sleeping with a man--let alone a man nearly twenty years younger, let alone a man who used to be his student, let alone in her home.
Still, there's something oddly satisfying about it, Teddy's arched back and blue-black hair surrounded by Gran's favorite floral wallpaper, the scent of cannabis still heavy around them. He'd never--of all the places in his life he'd promised himself he wouldn't get high, this is the greatest violation, the last on his list.
"Jesus," Teddy keens, face turned awkwardly into Neville's neck, back pressed flush against Neville's chest, "god it's...in my armpits and my knees and I feel it everywhere."
"That's cannabis," Neville nods, swallowing down a lump of disappointment...
...until Teddy breaks away, turns to face him and says "That's you," with a bright, unbearable light in his eyes. Neville kisses him, drawing him in desperately, and realizes the skip and thud of his heartbeat has nothing to do with the drug.
He feels lighter, more whole than he has in years, when Teddy pulls him down to the floor.