𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑃𝑜𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠 𝑀𝑎𝑠𝑡𝑒𝑟 | 𝑁𝑒𝑣𝑖𝑙𝑙𝑒 𝐿𝑜𝑛𝑔𝑏𝑜𝑡𝑡𝑜𝑚

Chapter 11 - Greenhouse Three

"There you are! I was just about to come looking for you--how was it? Did you get bit? Scratched? Punched? Jinxed? Hexed?"

So he knew, Helena thought. She gave him a smug look. "Don't be ridiculous, I stopped it before any of them could try that nonsense." She met him on the stairs then, and they both began their way toward the greenhouses, Neville only slightly leading. He seemed a bit too excited about this whole thing.

"Oh, come on, there had to be something."

Helena thought. "Well, one of them punched the other in the face, but that's about it. The latter had a terrible bloody nose, and a black eye."

"Did he deserve it?"

Helena gave pause, but then admitted it: "Hell yeah. He absolutely did."

Neville seemed taken aback, surprised by this unexpected answer. "Wait, did he really?"

"Yeah. He was this close"--she held her index finger and thumb close together as an

indicator--"to using the M-slur. I couldn't expect anybody to take that sort of harassment. Fars only did what most other kids are afraid to do—stand up for himself."

Neville puffed up his chest in a coy toughness. "'Cept us Gryffindors, of course."

Helena rolled her eyes. "Fars is a Ravenclaw. Bravery is not exclusive."

Neville smiled. "I was only teasing, of course."

They arrived outside the first greenhouse doors as the sun was quickly disappearing beyond the treeline of the Forbidden Forest. Neville began to fiddle with his set of keys as Helena waited patiently, gazing out over the dying grounds--winter was sweeping in quickly, if it wasn't already here. She would never admit such a childish thing, but she secretly had her fingers crossed that there would at least be snow by Christmas--so far, there had only been nasty sleet and rain, a plague on the bare-bones grounds. The last Quidditch match they'd had, which had been about a week before, was so dreadfully frigid that Helena had considered more than once trudging back up to the castle for a hot drink before the final scores were even close to being called. But Hufflepuff had played, and she would have been damned if she didn't see things through with them, her heart up with every team member in the sky that day.

And then they had won, and that had made it all worth it--especially when Eddard Baxter was absolutely beside himself with delight. A team dogpile had ensued once everybody was grounded, Eddard right on top, beaming as if they had just won a world championship, not a start-of-season game.

"There we are," Neville said finally, snapping Helena from her reminiscent thoughts as the door creaked open. He turned to her. "After you, then."

Always amused and somewhat flattered by his gentlemanliness, Helena strode through the door with her head held up in mock ladyship. "Well, thank you, my good man."

"My pleasure," Neville returned in step with her teasing, and what made it all the better was the fact that they didn't even have to fake their British accents.

"Right then, it's down to business then?" Helena asked as she walked slowly around the room, observing the plants once more--it never failed to put her in awe that Neville really took care of all of these and more. "Gee, Nev, this is always so incredible."

"Always?" Neville raised his brows, smiling at the compliment. "You've only visited twice, how would you know?" Another tease.

"Guess I'll have to make a point of dropping by more often," Helena said, looking over to Neville, whose mouth quirked up into a lopsided smile. He then cleared his throat.