InsaneJournal

A Lot to Learn (Neville/James, NC-17)
Title: A Lot to Learn
Pairing: Neville/James
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: 2349
Warnings: DH spoilers, chan.
Disclaimer: Not mine. JKR's.
Summary: James just wants his professor to teach him a few things—things he can't learn from anyone else.
Notes: I really can't believe this is the first thing I wrote after DH! Someone please hand me my Pervert badge. Thank you.

"Oi, Professor!"

Neville whipped around, shocked at the unexpected greeting, then smiled ruefully and shook his head when he saw who stood at the greenhouse door.

"James," he said, coming forward and brushing his earth-covered hands against his robes, "And Al. And Lily. All back safely for another year."

James grinned madly at Neville, Lily—still a bit shy even in her second year—smiled at her shoes, and Albus gave a half-smile, tugging self-consciously at the green and silver tie around his neck that didn't match the red and gold of his siblings'.

"It's good to see you all," Neville continued, patting Lily and Al on the shoulder. James stuck out his hand in a show of manly bravado, and Neville grinned as he shook it.

"I've got Herbology tomorrow morning, first class," Albus volunteered, and Neville opened his mouth to speak but was interrupted by James, who was very nearly smirking.

"And I've got you in the afternoon. Right after lunch. Looking forward to it, Professor."

Neville paused for the slightest of moments before he replied. "As am I, James. And—Lily? Thursdays, yes?" Harry's daughter looked up at Neville with her huge brown eyes. She was usually so exuberant, but outside her own home she tended to clam up. God, had Neville himself once been so young, so small, so shy?

But Neville's question went unanswered, for Albus was distracted by someone shouting outside the greenhouse.

"It's Hugo!" he announced, looking up at his brother. James was looking at Neville and pushed Albus half behind him.

"Brilliant," he replied, "Go on, then, and take Lil. I'll catch up with you later. Need to talk to Neville."

"You're supposed to call him Professor when we're here," retorted Albus, making a face at his brother.

"Shut up, Al. Take Lil. Have to talk to Professor Longbottom."

James shoved Albus's shoulder and the younger boy tripped out of the greenhouse, his sister on his heels, to meet their friend. Neither sibling gave even a glance back at their eldest brother.

Neville and James regarded each other for a long moment before James edged into the greenhouse, closing the door behind him. The click of the latch stirred Neville into action. He moved away from James, bent over a tray of seedlings on the ground, and began to lift them out one by one, transplanting them into the upturned earth.

"Professor Longbottom," James said then, and Neville had been so intent on his seedlings—had forced himself to be so—that he hadn't heard James creep up behind him.

Neville froze for the briefest of moments, then hoped fervently James hadn't noticed him tensing up.

"Yes, James?"

"Mum—ah, Mum sends her love. She said to tell you." James was kneeling now, close to Neville, his robes half-undone, one knee of his new school trousers planted firmly in the dirt.

Neville stared at the knee. Best to concentrate on details right now. If he let himself see the big picture—if he let his mind drift at all—then he'd—well. Just. Details. Right.

"You're ruining your trousers," said Neville, his gaze still fixed on James's dampening trouser leg.

"Mum sends her love," James repeated. The boy wasn't moving, and Neville finally sat up, and back on his heels, regarding James.

"Well," he said, "Thank you for—for passing that along. She's always good about making sure you—ah, give me—ah, her love." Neville paused and allowed his gaze to travel up James's body to his face. Familiar green eyes were unblinking, unwavering.

"Shouldn't you be meeting Hugo?" Neville asked. He bit his lip at the end of his sentence, and immediately wished he hadn't.

"I—he can wait, right? I wanted to come see you, Neville. Er. Professor. Wanted to talk. Are you busy?"

Neville studied James's face for a moment. "Only to talk, James?"

"Well—" James at least had the grace to blush at Neville's inquiry.

Neville stood, carrying the empty seedling tray back to his worktable. He couldn't bear to look at the boy a moment longer. "What we did this summer was wrong, James. You know that. I know that. We can't—"

"You were helping me!" cried James, jumping up and following Neville. "I didn't tell anyone, Professor, honest! And I won't. I promise. I just wanted to come and see if maybe—"

"If maybe what?" Neville knew full well what, but he wasn't about to say it. And he doubted James, would, either, the very nature of their previous activity not exactly the type of thing that a teenage boy would just blurt—

"If maybe we could have sex again?"

Right.

Well.

Bugger.

Of course this was Harry's son Neville was dealing with. As if he could have forgotten.

Neville turned on James, his voice a low hiss. "We did not have sex, James. That wasn't—sex is—I'm sorry I ever let things get that far. You father would kill me if he ever knew—"

"He'd kill me, too. If my dad knew I was queer—"

"Your dad would not kill you if he knew you were queer! Don't say that, James. I—dammit. Come here." Neville sat on a low bench by the bed of Dirigible Plums. James followed, sitting close to him, rubbing a hand along the earth-stained knee of his trousers.

"Ruined 'em," said James. Neville sighed, took out his wand, and cleaned the dirt from James's knee. James nodded in thanks, not looking at Neville.

"James, listen to me. I was honoured when you came to me to ask your questions. I was glad I could be helpful—it's not easy thinking you're the only wizard in the world who feels that way. I know because I felt that way for years, until someone helped me in very much the same way I helped you. He answered my questions. He was patient with me while I worked through my confusion. He—"

"Did he shag you behind a tree in your dad's back garden?"

"Dammit, James!" Neville smacked his palm onto the arm of the bench. So bloody insolent all the time, this one was. Best of both his parents, apparently.

"I'm only asking."

"No. He did not. I got carried away, James, and I'm sorry if I made you think that we were anything—well, anything more than what we are. Professor and student. Friends. I'll help you however I can. I'm rather good at helping out my friends. But no—we're never doing that again."

James sucked on his lower lip and furrowed his brow, not looking at Neville but at the knee of his grey trousers where there was still a faint ring of earth-stain.

"Do you understand, James?"

James didn't reply right away, and when he finally did, he was still looking down at his knee.

"But I was the one who kissed you. What do you mean you got carried away?"

"I—" Neville passed a hand over his eyes. "Adults are supposed to set an example. Come on, James, that's a simple one. Adults—Professors—aren't supposed to go around doing—things—things like that."

Neville was turned slightly towards James, one arm slung across the back of the bench, and James looked up, then, and moved closer, nearly into Neville's lap. Neville blinked at the unintended embrace.

"James—" he said warningly, but James only moved closer, pressing his face into Neville's neck. Neville shivered when he felt hot breath against his skin, just above his collar.

Neville's arm—well, he would have liked to say it moved of its own accord, but the truth was that he was fully aware of what he was doing as it slipped off the back of the bench and onto James's back. The boy's shirt was damp—it was warm in the greenhouse—and Neville smoothed the fabric under his palm.

"Please, Professor," James murmured against Neville's neck, "I just—need—" and Neville shivered again, the boy's words dancing across his skin, making him cold and hot all over.

Neville didn't reply, but kept smoothing his hand over James's back. He couldn't do anything more or his resolve would break, and he knew it.

But his hand wouldn't stop moving. Lower and lower it crept, until his fingers dipped into the back of James's trousers, and then it was the boy's turn to shiver, and the movement and the puppyish whine that accompanied it chipped away at the dam of Neville's good intentions.

"Please," murmured James, and he darted out just the very tip of his tongue to lick at Neville's neck, and Neville shuddered—

"Please—"

—and Neville shivered—

"—Professor—"

—and Neville broke. He grabbed James's face, kissing the boy, capturing that young, unsuspecting mouth with his own, and James whined and wriggled and Neville didn't stop, his callused and earth-damp fingertips crowding for purchase on James's face, his tongue seeking James's own.

"Fuck," James breathed, and Neville didn't stop to chide him for his use of language but pulled the boy closer, ignoring the voice in the back of his head that sounded like Hermione and McGonagall and his gran all at once, the voice that kept saying stopstopstopstopstop.

"Ground," Neville muttered, and he and James half-slipped, half-tumbled off the bench until they were lying among Neville's plants, damp earth staining their clothes and faces and hands. Neville breathed in the scents of the good sweet earth and this good sweet boy and he couldn't believe what he was doing even as his fingers flew, pushing James's robes from his shoulders, undoing his tie and the buttons of his shirt, rucking up his vest and mouthing along the smooth warm skin he found there, while James writhed under him, stupidly selfishly helpless under Neville's ministrations.

Neville moved lower, then, to the waistband of James's trousers, and the boy—don't think about how you were at his fifteenth birthday party a month ago, don't think about how you changed his nappies when he was a baby—keened and pushed his hips up, up, and Neville smoothed what he hoped was a calming hand along the heated flesh of James's stomach and undid his trousers. James lifted his hips and Neville breathed in the heady scent of boy, of James, as Harry's son—no, no, not that—shoved his trousers and his y-fronts down around his knees, exposing himself to Neville as he'd done only two months before, there in the woods behind Harry's—behind James's house, where the freshly dug earth and the freshly planted trees barely hid them from view, hardly shielded the scent, the noises of their impromptu lovemaking.

Neville took James's smallish erection in his hand, running his fingers down its length once, then took it in his mouth—so easy; James was still developing and oh god don't think of that—and hollowed his cheeks, closing his eyes against the overwhelming sensation of it all, and he dipped a finger under James's still-growing balls, luxuriating in the soft sparseness of the hair there.

James might've muttered Fuck again and he might've only grunted and he might've made no noise at all, but whichever it was and whatever Neville heard it was only moments—fifteen, god, fifteen, and was I ever any better?—before James was spurting, coming, forcing himself into Neville's mouth with no regard for anything or anyone else, and Neville swallowed some of the boy's sweetish come before he felt the hand in his hair. His eyes flew open and he saw the Dirigible Plums hanging just above them, and everything else came rushing back into focus then, too—the damp smells of earth and sweat and boy and the come that was now dribbling out of Neville's mouth onto James's softening cock and onto the ground below, the high-pitched yet quiet keening wail that James let out as he came down from his orgasm, the painful pressure of Neville's own erection as he rubbed himself against the ground.

It was all suddenly so real.

For a moment, neither breathed, and then James was sitting up and Neville followed, he had to, and James was fumbling with his professor's trouser front and Neville was letting him and oh god they hadn't done this before and James shouldn't be seeing—

—or touching—god—oh bugger all Neville was going to hell and he tried his best (no I didn't; I really didn't) to stop the boy, placing his hand over James's smaller, smoother one, but the boy's hand just sped on Neville's cock and Neville bit his lip and swallowed his cry and came and the sticky whiteness, so much more than James had produced, got on James's hand and Neville's hand and James's trousers and Neville's trousers and it fell and was absorbed, drunk in by the earth below them.

They collapsed.

Neville wanted nothing more than to sleep. Maybe when he woke this would be a dream and he wouldn't have sucked off his student—Harry Potter's son, oh god, fine, think of it now, you sodding pervert—on the first day of classes, there in the greenhouse, their mingled come hopelessly absorbed and making its way into the roots of everything.

James turned, then, and embraced his teacher once again.

"I have a lot to learn, still, don't I?"

Neville nearly choked. He reached down and tucked the boy back into his pants and trousers before righting his own clothing.

"We both have a lot to learn, still, James."

"You, too, Nev—Pr—Professor?"

Neville wanted to hold his breath, to control it, but it escaped in a shaky sigh.

"Me, too, James—"

Buggering buggering fuck.

"—me, too."

Part Two