Haneville: A Love Story (creation event for @nevilledefensenet: Longbottom’s Romance)
Hannah Abbott had been terrified that she would be sent home from Hogwarts as unstable when she had a panic attack over her Herbology O.W.L.S. in the middle of class. Her anxiety had plagued her continually during her Hogwarts years, her heart and mind perpetually torn between her sure knowledge that she needed her magic to live, that being a witch wasn’t optional for her, and her Muggle mother’s desperate desire to persuade her beloved only child to come home where it was safe, leave the wizarding world that had killed her father, and make a life for herself in the Muggle world.
But Professor Sprout hadn’t sent her home after all, had found her a tutor instead - and the best possible tutor she could have found. Not only was Neville Longbottom a surprisingly good teacher, kind, patient, and enthusiastic about plants in a very contagious way, but they found they had a great deal in common as well. He was delighted to find someone who actually enjoyed listening to him go on about plants, rather than dismissing him as a nuisance to be tolerated. She loved having someone treat her as an intelligent and likeable person whose anxiety was just another issue to be dealt with and accepted, rather than a walking panic attack to be managed and tiptoed around. He understood, as no one else did, the nightmares that plagued her, where she woke up at home as a Squib with no place in the wizarding world - he had them too. She understood his driving need to prove himself, to make his family proud of him - she would have cut off an arm if it would have gotten her one ounce of unqualified approval from her mother. She loved the way his hazel eyes shone, all shyness and timidity forgotten, when he was dealing with his beloved plants, and found it endearing that he got up early every morning to go turn over rocks for the roly-polies and fat earthworms that were Trevor’s favorites. He went out of his way to make her smile, because the way her face lit up so completely made him catch his breath, and he treasured the memory of the day he’d caught her singing a soft lullaby to her owl Melisande, in a velvet-honey contralto voice, as she was smoothing the bird’s feathers and scratching her head.
So when Auror Tonks had come by the Hufflepuff Common Room at the beginning of Hannah’s sixth year, as she frequently did, to give the younger Puffs her regular lecture on “keeping yourself safe in relationships and out of them”, Hannah was not entirely surprised to find that the sample of Amortentia she passed around for them to sniff (”so you’ll know what it smells like to you, in case someone tries to slip it into your drink”) reached her nose as a mixture of greenery, Butterbeer, and Neville’s...cologne? aftershave? or just the way he smelled after hours of pruning aromatic plants?
But that had been the day they had come for her in Herbology class, to tell her her mother had been murdered, that the wizarding world she had feared and hated had killed her and left Hannah the worst sort of traitor in her mother’s family’s mind, that Hannah’s choice of magic over her mother could never, ever be repaired or healed. When she went to say goodbye to Neville, she had thought it was for the last time - she could never come back again, they would never permit it. But he had hugged her, hard, without saying a word, and held on to her just a bit too long as she’d cried into his shoulder, and that and that alone had been enough to make her certain she could never be whole without her magic...or him.
She had come back to Hogwarts, despite knowing that it meant that none of her mother’s family would ever speak to her again, knowing that she was now entirely alone, an orphan. And she had come back to find her friend, and everything else, changed - the world was at war, and fear and fury were driving everyone, including Neville, including Hannah, and there was no time for their old friendship, only planning and strategy and the constant burning terror that more of those they loved would be lost, that everything would be lost. But she would have followed him to hell and back, knew that the cause was worth everything she had to give, knew that there was no way on Earth she could ever give up and go home to hide now.
And yet, when she saw him face down Voldemort and the Death Eaters, alone and wandless with all their wands, and their hate, focused on him, all she could think was _Please don’t die please don’t die please don’t die, _and it was only when she felt Pomona Sprout’s gentle arm around her shoulders that she realized she was weeping openly. When Voldemort set the Hat on Neville’s head, and lit it on fire, it was her scream that tore the night first, she who was the first to break the paralysis that held the crowd, she who raced headlong into the charge with her wand held like a sword, like the sword suddenly gleaming in Neville’s hands as he broke free and sliced off the head of the great snake. Then there was nothing but blood, smoke, fighting, fire and rage in her mind, nothing but a battle to be won and people to be saved.
And when it was all over...well. She tried not to be heartbroken when Neville went off for the summer with Luna, she made herself a life, busied herself with finishing her studies and working in the Leaky Cauldron, made plans for her future, her Hufflepuff friends making sure she was never quite alone...and then he walked into her bar again, scarred and hurting and beautiful, and she knew in a minute that she wasn’t over him, never would be over him.
He knew that the safe, affectionate affair he’d had with Luna couldn’t last for long, that he was not the sort of adventurous lover she wanted, nor she the comfortable partner he needed, but he had hoped it would at least give him a chance to heal from the wounds of the war. He had squashed and pushed aside his feelings for Hannah for years, thinking there was no way someone so lovely and sweet could ever have had feelings of that sort for him, had tried to convince himself that it had been just a passing unrequited teenage crush - and then he saw her behind the bar, across the room, and knew where his heart had been all along.
It didn’t take them long after that. And in each other’s arms, finally, each of them found something neither of them had ever known before - love absolute and unconditional, love they didn’t have to earn or deserve, love freely given and freely received. And it lasted a lifetime, and beyond.
