HP: Six Kisses (Susan/Neville, PG)
Title: Six Kisses
Fandom: Harry Potter
Pairing: Susan/Neville
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1050
Summary: Susan has never been kissed, and with fewer people returning in her seventh year she worries that she never will be. (And if you love Susan!fic, then please join thelovelysusan!)
When Susan is seventeen she begins to despair that no one will ever kiss her.
She thought she got pretty close at the Yule Ball. She’d resorted to asking Justin out because it seemed like no one would ever ask her, and was extremely relieved when he said yes. That he was kind of cute helped too. They danced a bit, sat down a lot, and she managed to get him up for one slow dance but he trod on her feet and they went back to the common room early. He stopped outside the entrance and put a hand on her shoulder and for one glorious moment she thought he was going to kiss her after all and she sort of lowered her eyelids and -
“Thanks for asking me to the ball, Suze. You’re a mate. I thought I’d have to go alone!”
“Shrivelfig,” she spat at the tapestry, which instantly rolled up to reveal the door to the common room. She went straight to her dorm and cried for a while, then washed her face and got into bed. When Hannah came back, flushed and a bit giddy and wanting to talk all night, Susan faked surprise and said she and Justin had gone as Just Friends, hadn’t she known?
Ernie asked her to meet him at the Three Broomsticks for the first Hogsmeade weekend in their sixth year. “Sure,” she said, glowing inside. It was only Ernie, and though she liked him as a friend she didn’t really want to go out with him. But beggars can’t be choosers and Susan was so sure she was the only person in their year who’d never been kissed she agreed because she thought she needed the experience.
She put on a bit of eyeshadow and let her hair hang loose.
“I thought I’d ask you because you’d know - I mean, you’re her friend, right, she talks to you,” Ernie said earnestly over his butterbeer while Susan stared, aghast at getting it wrong again. “Does she talk about me, by the way? Has she ever said...? No? Well, I just thought I’d ask if you knew her favourite flower. For the next Hogsmeade weekend, after Christmas. It’s usually around Valentine’s Day, and -”
It’ll take that long for you to work up the courage to ask her out again? Susan wants to ask. Ernie and Hannah have been on and off for nearly two years now; how could she have been so stupid as to think he’d be interested in her?
“- Suze?”
Thistles, she wants to say. Nettles, brambles, poison ivy. “Sunflowers and daisies.” What she wouldn’t give for any flower from a boy! She drains her butterbeer in one gulp and makes the excuse of needing to buy a new quill. But before she leaves she spends five minutes in the ladies’ loo mopping at her face with a tissue and cursing all boys in existence.
In her seventh year she scans the boys who have come back with a critical eye, weighing up their good features (nice smile) against their bad ones (bad breath, clumsy, selfish, messy, arrogant) and decides that maybe she’s too fussy, maybe that’s why she’s never been kissed. But she can’t bring herself to lower her standards. After all, it’s not like she’s desperate.
At Christmas she receives an owl from Hannah. Dad won’t let me go back to Hogwarts. I’m sorry. I might see you at Easter, though. Merry Christmas. Love, Hannah. xxx P.S. Ernie and I are going out again.
That January seems bleaker than usual. It’s only her in the dorm; Megan wasn’t on the Hogwarts Express in September and Susan knows that Megan, like so many of her friends, is probably being taught at home, kept within the safety of her family. For Susan nowhere feels very safe right now. She fought with her parents to come back, refusing to let them make her feel guilty. (“What would your Auntie Amelia think of you putting yourself in danger?” “I expect she’d be pleased I wasn’t backing down.”) Even Hogwarts has lost some of the security she felt within its walls, and Dumbledore’s tomb stands as a constant reminder that things will never be the same again.
The first Tuesday back in Herbology she approaches Neville Longbottom, who’s looking rather forlorn, and asks if she can sit next to him. He blinks, goes a bit pink, and nods. When Professor Sprout asks them if they’ve thought about their independent project yet, Susan looks at Neville and asks if she can partner up with him. Ernie’s sitting two desks behind her, but she doesn’t care. Anthony Goldstein’s also sitting by himself; they’d make a great pair, she thinks. Both so absorbed in themselves.
Susan and Neville meet up after lessons to discuss their project. Susan strokes the leaves of the Flutterby bushes and they shiver accordingly, producing a soft rattling sound. She decides she likes plants much better when they’re alive than when they’re in a bouquet. Neville notices the delicate touch of her thin fingers and mentions his Mimbulus mimbletonia. At once an idea for a project is formed between them, identical expressions of enthusiasm lighting up their eyes.
They meet several times after that, in the Greenhouses, and by March Neville has taken enough courage from Susan’s smiles to say one evening, “I know Hogsmeade weekends have been cancelled... But if you wanted to, I don’t know, take a walk, or - or not...”
Susan rests her hand on top of his. “There’s nothing wrong with staying right here.” It’s raining outside anyway, and the windows have steamed up in a cosy sort of way.
Neville licks his lips rather nervously and leans towards her. As they bump noses Susan thinks that perhaps this is Neville’s first kiss too, and that thought is enough to make her gain some sense and lose her balance. She steps backwards and bumps against the shelf, waking up the daffodils, which immediately start honking. Giggling helplessly, she takes Neville’s face in her hands and kisses him five more times. The daffodils begin to settle down again, and Neville hesitantly puts his arms around her.
As she rests her head on his chest and listens to his heartbeat, Susan realises she’d been wrong. There is somewhere she feels safe.
Fandom: Harry Potter
Pairing: Susan/Neville
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1050
Summary: Susan has never been kissed, and with fewer people returning in her seventh year she worries that she never will be. (And if you love Susan!fic, then please join thelovelysusan!)
When Susan is seventeen she begins to despair that no one will ever kiss her.
She thought she got pretty close at the Yule Ball. She’d resorted to asking Justin out because it seemed like no one would ever ask her, and was extremely relieved when he said yes. That he was kind of cute helped too. They danced a bit, sat down a lot, and she managed to get him up for one slow dance but he trod on her feet and they went back to the common room early. He stopped outside the entrance and put a hand on her shoulder and for one glorious moment she thought he was going to kiss her after all and she sort of lowered her eyelids and -
“Thanks for asking me to the ball, Suze. You’re a mate. I thought I’d have to go alone!”
“Shrivelfig,” she spat at the tapestry, which instantly rolled up to reveal the door to the common room. She went straight to her dorm and cried for a while, then washed her face and got into bed. When Hannah came back, flushed and a bit giddy and wanting to talk all night, Susan faked surprise and said she and Justin had gone as Just Friends, hadn’t she known?
Ernie asked her to meet him at the Three Broomsticks for the first Hogsmeade weekend in their sixth year. “Sure,” she said, glowing inside. It was only Ernie, and though she liked him as a friend she didn’t really want to go out with him. But beggars can’t be choosers and Susan was so sure she was the only person in their year who’d never been kissed she agreed because she thought she needed the experience.
She put on a bit of eyeshadow and let her hair hang loose.
“I thought I’d ask you because you’d know - I mean, you’re her friend, right, she talks to you,” Ernie said earnestly over his butterbeer while Susan stared, aghast at getting it wrong again. “Does she talk about me, by the way? Has she ever said...? No? Well, I just thought I’d ask if you knew her favourite flower. For the next Hogsmeade weekend, after Christmas. It’s usually around Valentine’s Day, and -”
It’ll take that long for you to work up the courage to ask her out again? Susan wants to ask. Ernie and Hannah have been on and off for nearly two years now; how could she have been so stupid as to think he’d be interested in her?
“- Suze?”
Thistles, she wants to say. Nettles, brambles, poison ivy. “Sunflowers and daisies.” What she wouldn’t give for any flower from a boy! She drains her butterbeer in one gulp and makes the excuse of needing to buy a new quill. But before she leaves she spends five minutes in the ladies’ loo mopping at her face with a tissue and cursing all boys in existence.
In her seventh year she scans the boys who have come back with a critical eye, weighing up their good features (nice smile) against their bad ones (bad breath, clumsy, selfish, messy, arrogant) and decides that maybe she’s too fussy, maybe that’s why she’s never been kissed. But she can’t bring herself to lower her standards. After all, it’s not like she’s desperate.
At Christmas she receives an owl from Hannah. Dad won’t let me go back to Hogwarts. I’m sorry. I might see you at Easter, though. Merry Christmas. Love, Hannah. xxx P.S. Ernie and I are going out again.
That January seems bleaker than usual. It’s only her in the dorm; Megan wasn’t on the Hogwarts Express in September and Susan knows that Megan, like so many of her friends, is probably being taught at home, kept within the safety of her family. For Susan nowhere feels very safe right now. She fought with her parents to come back, refusing to let them make her feel guilty. (“What would your Auntie Amelia think of you putting yourself in danger?” “I expect she’d be pleased I wasn’t backing down.”) Even Hogwarts has lost some of the security she felt within its walls, and Dumbledore’s tomb stands as a constant reminder that things will never be the same again.
The first Tuesday back in Herbology she approaches Neville Longbottom, who’s looking rather forlorn, and asks if she can sit next to him. He blinks, goes a bit pink, and nods. When Professor Sprout asks them if they’ve thought about their independent project yet, Susan looks at Neville and asks if she can partner up with him. Ernie’s sitting two desks behind her, but she doesn’t care. Anthony Goldstein’s also sitting by himself; they’d make a great pair, she thinks. Both so absorbed in themselves.
Susan and Neville meet up after lessons to discuss their project. Susan strokes the leaves of the Flutterby bushes and they shiver accordingly, producing a soft rattling sound. She decides she likes plants much better when they’re alive than when they’re in a bouquet. Neville notices the delicate touch of her thin fingers and mentions his Mimbulus mimbletonia. At once an idea for a project is formed between them, identical expressions of enthusiasm lighting up their eyes.
They meet several times after that, in the Greenhouses, and by March Neville has taken enough courage from Susan’s smiles to say one evening, “I know Hogsmeade weekends have been cancelled... But if you wanted to, I don’t know, take a walk, or - or not...”
Susan rests her hand on top of his. “There’s nothing wrong with staying right here.” It’s raining outside anyway, and the windows have steamed up in a cosy sort of way.
Neville licks his lips rather nervously and leans towards her. As they bump noses Susan thinks that perhaps this is Neville’s first kiss too, and that thought is enough to make her gain some sense and lose her balance. She steps backwards and bumps against the shelf, waking up the daffodils, which immediately start honking. Giggling helplessly, she takes Neville’s face in her hands and kisses him five more times. The daffodils begin to settle down again, and Neville hesitantly puts his arms around her.
As she rests her head on his chest and listens to his heartbeat, Susan realises she’d been wrong. There is somewhere she feels safe.