Petals in the Wind
Challenge Eighteen: March Madness Redux
Title: Petals in the Wind
Author: cecelle
Wizard/Witch: Neville Longbottom/Lisa Turpin
Rating/Warnings: G/PG
Genre: Romance
Word count: Exactly 500
Prompt: 5 - Cherry Blossoms
Summary: After Snape’s funeral, Neville isn’t quite ready to return to the castle.
The day was incongruously beautiful, with puffy white clouds racing each other across a sky the color of a robin’s egg. The mid-morning sun lit the blooming cherry trees until they fairly glowed with bridal splendor.
It wasn’t right, Neville thought, leaning against a tree trunk as the breeze made white petals dance around him like unseasonable snow.
It was all too cheery. Too bright. Snape had always been one for the shadows.
“I wondered where you’d got to,” a voice brought him out of his reverie. A strawberry-blonde girl was sitting down on the grass next to him. “Everyone else’s gone back to the castle, you know.”
Diffidently, he shrugged. “Just didn’t feel like going back yet.”
He hadn’t felt ready to be part of a crowd again. Even if the crowd, in this case, had been quite small. There had been so many funerals over the last few days….
Lisa Turpin idly twirled her wand tip. “Ordinatio Flosculi.” In response, the swirling petals gathered into a tight white cloud, hovering for a moment before shaping themselves into a pointillist butterfly. It flapped its wings - once, twice - before once again scattering to the wind.
They sat quietly, watching the petals blow away. “I read in a book that the ancient Japanese believed the souls of fallen warriors were reborn in the flowers of the cherry tree,” Lisa said softly.
“It’s a nice thought,” Neville answered, casting an oblique look at her. She was pretty. Very pretty.
The Ravenclaw wasn’t looking at him, her eyes on the same black granite tomb he’d been watching. “It is a nice thought,” she said. “But then - Snape would never consent to coming back as something as dainty as a cherry blossom, would he?”
At that, Neville had to grin. “No. I suppose not.”
She turned to him then, and they smiled at each other, an aching, knowing smile, a smile made of familiarity, and hardship shared, and storms weathered.
And then her cheeks turned pink, and her voice sounded too high pitched and too fast. “Anyway - seems I’ll be going home tomorrow and… My Mum lives pretty close to your Gran, you see… And if you ever… Well, if you wanted to murder a cup of tea sometime… I was just wondering…” She looked away, the pink in her cheeks deepening.
She was nervous, he realized. Nervous about talking to him. The thought sent a sudden surge of warmth through him.
And - another surge, this one turning his own cheeks pink - she wanted to see him again. A pretty girl like that.
“I… I think I would like that,” he mumbled.
Looking up at the tree, now almost barren, it hit him. The wind might have carried the petals away - but that wasn’t it. Something had been left behind, something that would grow and ripen and get sweeter with time.
It wasn’t an end. It was a beginning.
He smiled back at Lisa shyly. “I think I would like that a lot.”
Author's Notes: My inaugural post in this community! According to the JKR, the battle of Hogwarts took place May 2nd, which, lucky for me, is a time when you can still find cherry trees in bloom in Scotland. Lisa is a Ravenclaw in Neville and Harry's year. Many thanks to Bellegeste and Verity Brown for looking this over for me!
Proof-reader:bellegeste and veritybrown