Daisy {has a lot of feelings} Rosier (thornflower) wrote in reduxpitch, @ 2016-09-18 19:14:00 |
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Entry tags: | !thread, character: daisy potter, character: neville longbottom |
WHO: Daisy Potter and Neville Longbottom
WHEN: Sunday, 18 September 2002
WHERE: Daisy and Ginny’s Flat, later followed by Monkshood Cottage
WHAT: Daisy reveals what happened on Crete
RATING: S for Sad
WARNING: Warning for discussion of sex while impaired
STATUS: Completed in Docs
Daisy debated not telling Neville about what happened in Crete. After all, only harm could come from telling the truth. It was unlikely that he would ever find out the truth, she tended to keep her work life and personal life separate, but the idea left a bad taste in her mouth. She avoided him for two days after she got back, pleading both an overabundance of expedition paperwork and plain tiredness from being out in the field. After those two days, however, she knew she couldn’t avoid Neville forever.
All it took was a simple ward inviting him over and discreetly asking Ginny if she could give the two of them privacy. Ginny might have had the completely wrong idea when she agreed, but Daisy didn’t disabuse her flatmate and friend of her notion. The results were the same. Daisy was alone in the flat, waiting for her boyfriend to come over, unsure if he would be remaining that after she told him the truth. Daisy toyed with making tea, but couldn’t even stomach taking a sip, her nerves were too on edge.
But then there was the knock on the door and Daisy knew there was no turning back now. It wasn’t exactly like she could pretend that she wasn’t home. Not when she just invited him over. With a sigh, she went to go answer the door.
--
Neville had believed her when she'd told him that she'd had a massive amount of paperwork and that she was exhausted from the trip itself. He'd had no reason not to, after all. Not seeing her for another two days after already missing her the duration of her trip, though, was difficult. Somehow he managed, but he was happy when she finally invited her over to the flat she shared with Ginny. Or he had been until she opened the door. He'd known Daisy long enough to know that something was wrong just by the look on her face. She was probably trying to hide it, remain neutral, but Neville knew better than that.
The smile that had been on his face faded out pretty quickly as he stepped into the flat with Daisy. "What's wrong?," he asked her. He'd hoped there'd be kissing and maybe some cuddling because he'd missed her and she'd been gone far too long for his liking, but right now he was too concerned about why she didn't look all that happy to see him.
--
Either she was losing her ability to put on a brave face or Neville knew her too well. She was betting on Neville, however, because that face had gotten her past her parents more than once and had fooled more professor than she could count (except maybe for the one who REALLY counted, but again that one knew her far too well). Sighing, Daisy shook her head and beckoned him in. “It was a long, tiring trip,” she explained, doing her best to sidestep his question. “I missed you terribly. You would have been incredibly fond of the local flora.” It was true, she’d nearly picked samples for him, but then realized she had no way of getting them back to the UK. Or knowing which ones were mundane or truly unique to the island.
“Do you want tea? I just fixed myself a cup. The kettle should still be warm.” Daisy led him back into the kitchen, probably the room she felt most comfortable in besides her bedroom, but thinking about that room right now wasn’t going to lead to anything productive.
--
He was fairly certain she was pushing off answering the question outright and he wasn't sure if that made anything better or worse. She wasn't lying about how long and tiring the trip was, but he could tell there was something else. Something more than what she had said already. He let it be tabled for now, though, focusing instead on the fact that she said she missed him. "I missed you too," he told her easily because he, of course, had missed her. "I've yet to meet any flora I'm not fond of," he went on, flashing her a little smile though it didn't fully reach his eyes.
He didn't really feel the need for a drink, but he didn't refuse her. Instead, he just followed her along to the kitchen, sitting down at the table and watching her as she moved about. "Did you at least enjoy the trip?," he asked her. "I know it was work, but surely you had time to at least have a nice look around."
--
Daisy let herself be soothed by bustling around the kitchen. It wasn’t quite the level of baking, but familiar, repetitive movements helped more than they hindered. As she fixed his tea to his liking, she tried to rehearse what she was going to tell him in her head. Daisy had about a million speeches rehearsed and had rejected each and every one of them. She was well and truly screwed.
Placing the mug in front of him, Daisy sat across from him with her own cup, though she did not make a move to drink either. “It was good. Fun. Dare I say even educational.” She gave a small smile. “We did have a day off at the end so I got to experience the wonderful beaches, but I still would have preferred the Galapagos even with the threat of camping rather than a hotel. But you really don’t want to talk about my trip.”
Daisy gripped the mug between both her hands. “Neville. We need to talk. Something.... Happened.”
--
Neville had opened his mouth to say that he did want to hear about her trip, but she silenced him pretty quickly with her last statement. He might not have had a harem of girls in his past, but he knew what it meant when a woman said that there needed to be a talk. Talks were never good. He'd certainly never experienced a good one that started out the way that Daisy had led up to the one that was coming. His stomach churned uncomfortably.
"Okay…?," he said, not sure if he wanted to hear the rest. He wasn't sure what to expect but he definitely didn't like the way his insides felt already. Tight and suffocating. "What happened?"
--
“I…” Daisy’s throat closed up and she couldn’t get the words out. Gulping her tea despite it’s heat, she just forced out what needed to be said, despite every flight or flight response of her body telling her to get out of here, that this was just going to end badly for the both of them. “That day off I spoke of. We were all feeling pretty good with our results, you see. They split us into teams to find the cache and get through enchantments. My team got through first. We won and we were celebrating.” She spoke quickly, words tumbling over one another in her rush to get them out and to not lose her nerve.
“We started off on the beach with those drinks with the fancy little umbrellas. We eventually moved to a little bar where there was far more rounds ouzo than should be strictly legal.” Her hands were moving as she spoke now, indicating the size of the drinks and the number of shots she may have consumed that night, a sure gesture of her nerves. Her heart felt like it was in her throat and there was blood pounding in her ears.
“I really don’t remember what happened after about the fifth round when the other team joined us and began purchasing rounds too.” But they were young and dumb, celebrating and having a good time on having a successful mission. Could anyone really blame them? “But the next morning I woke up with a hell of a hangover and I wasn’t in my room. I was in one of my teammate’s beds and I’m pretty sure we had sex, but I can’t remember. “
She looked up at him, eyes wet with unshed tears. Daisy wasn’t going to try to emotionally blackmail him with a pretty pout and the crying routine that she may have used on others in less difficult circumstances. The emotion was real and she did regret her actions. “I didn’t want to tell you because I know you would be upset and that it would hurt you, but I also didn’t want to lie. I’m so so so sorry.”
--
Neville wasn't sure what he expected her to say as she started her story. Drinking on a day off and even being hungover hadn't seemed like that big of a deal, but the moment she mentioned she wasn't alone when she woke up, a fire seemed to reflect in his pupils. It stayed there as she continued, anger easily visible but not directed at her or at anyone in particular. It stayed there for a moment or two before the hurt swept in like a summer rainstorm. The fire flickered in his eyes, then faded from view entirely like the last breath of an ember in a fire pit as the rain rolled through and tamped it out completely.
For a long moment he just stared at her, unblinking, unseeing. The tightness in his chest had spread out through his stomach and his limbs and he wasn't sure that he could move if he'd tried. His throat felt like sandpaper and a lump formed inside of it so large that he could hardly swallow. That lump felt like it grew spikes every time he repeated her words over to himself in his head.
I'm pretty sure we had sex…
Like a record, broken and on repeat. Over and over again. His eyes burned but he refused to blink, unwilling to break down in front of her despite the ache that swelled inside him. The ache only seemed to magnify when her eyes met his. She was upset about it, that much was clear in her eyes. She hadn't intended to hurt him, he could tell, but that didn't take away from the fact that she had hurt him. The thought of someone else touching her made him sick to his stomach and he knew if he thought too long on it he was going to be sick.
"Oh," he breathed out finally. Lamely. Then he stood up, tea cup untouched, and turned to head back out of the kitchen the way he'd come in. En route to the door, he managed to trip over his own two feet and nearly went sprawling, catching himself on the doorframe with a soft grunt. Swallowing, he went on his way, knowing that if he stayed for another second that he wouldn't be able to hide the hurt from her.
Letting himself out the front door, he made for his own home as fast as his feet would carry him.
--
Daisy stood when Neville did, why she didn’t know. There was no way in the nine levels of Hades that he would want her to touch him, not when she had betrayed his trust. She had seen the look in his eyes and known his anger was for her and her damn inability to hold her liquor and keep a clear enough head to keep her damn hands to herself.
Even as she berated herself those hands wanted to reach out and smooth out the errant locks of hair that fell into Neville’s face, Straighten his collar and give him a kiss on the cheek. She should have known those dreams were too good to be true. Daisy knew before this even began that she was destined to hurt him, which is exactly she had done.
Silently she trailed after him as he made his way to the door, starting forward and pausing as he stumbled. He didn’t even turn to look back at her. To say anything. Daisy didn’t make another sound until the door shut behind him, leaving her alone with her guilty thoughts.
“Stupid, stupid, stupid.” Daisy berated herself as she leaned against the wall, all the strength and fight gone from her. She had ruined possibly the one decent relationship she’d ever had and what was worse, a friend. Who would forgive her now? If she were in any other position she’d be calling for her head on a silver platter.
One thing was for sure, she would not be able to stay here, not where she would relive the last five minutes over and over again until she sent herself mad. Daisy drew the last reserves of her strength to fetch her wand from the kitchen so could disapparate for Monkshood Cottage. If one couldn’t go home, then certainly her godfather would have space in his heart to not throw her out on the street. She hoped.
---------------
Neville never made it home. He'd headed in that direction walking despite the fact that he could have disapparated because he needed to think. He needed some air. He needed… something. He knew that Hermione was likely home and hiding the hurt that seemed to be weighing him down from her was like hiding a bowling ball under a teacup. There was no point in trying to accomplish something so ridiculous. So, instead of going home, he'd just walked. He'd walked so long that his feet started to ache. It was at that point that he'd turned around and went back the way he'd came.
As upset as he was about what had happened and as much as it hurt, walking and thinking had only made him more certain of the fact that it didn't change a damn thing that he felt about Daisy. It didn't make the way he'd felt about her for years go away. It didn't make him care for her any less. It hurt - and fuck if it didn't hurt - but it didn't make any of his feelings go away. He knew, deep down, that it was all Daisy sabotaging their relationship because she didn't feel like she deserved it. He'd seen the sorts of guys she tended to date before him and he knew that they all had one thing in common; they weren't worth a damn. The relationships that she had before him couldn't really be called relationships because they were destined to be doomed from the very start. What they had was different. He knew it and deep down he was sure that Daisy knew it too.
He didn't want to be the same as any of the people she'd been with before. He didn't want to give up on Daisy because, unlike the other men she'd known, he actually cared about her. He cared about her enough to not give up just because things got hard. Neville intended to tell her as much once he got back to her flat, but upon reaching it, he found that Daisy was gone. It wasn't hard to track her down, though. If she was upset, there were only a few places that she would go. The most likely was the place that Neville traveled to; Remus's home.
Once there, he knocked on the door, hoping that he wouldn't have to go searching every one of Daisy's runaway spots to find her.
--
Once Daisy had discovered the delights of the carnal pleasures she had never once shied away from expressing her enjoyment. There was never anything to be ashamed of in her opinion and as long as she was consenting, where was the problem? Now, for the first time in her life, she felt less than worthy as a result of sex. She felt dirty. She was a slut. Dirty.
Her godfather had plied her with all the usuals. A well-worn cardigan served as her blanket as hot chocolate was forced into her hands, both used to ward off the chill that had settled into her bones. Daisy had sobbed and blubbered her way through her tale, more embarrassed about how she had hurt Neville than about revealing intimate details of her life to a man she’d known her entire life. With her story done she’d been packed off to the usual guest room, though she eschewed her usual favored top bunk bed for the bottom one, curling up on top of the quilt, surrounded by pillows and even a stuffed wolf bought one year as a joke.
She had wanted to be left alone so her godfather had withdrawn, though both knew that he was well within earshot of she needed him for any reason. The only problem was that Daisy wasn’t entirely sure that she deserved even that. Hugging the stuffed wolf to her chest, Daisy tried to sort out her thoughts as to how it all went so wrong.
--
Once Remus had let him in and Neville explained that he'd like to see Daisy, the man had directed him to the room that Daisy was in. He approached that door, still not sure what he was going to say to Daisy. He knew that he didn't want things to end this way - or at all, for that matter - but he wasn't sure how to even put the words that were filling up his mind as he reached up to knock. Taking a deep breath, he waited for a beat, then spoke.
"Daisy, it's me. Can I come in?"
--
Daisy hadn’t realized that Neville would be able to track her down and for a second she thought maybe her godfather had owled him, but meddling didn’t seem like the man’s style. Instead, she had just ruined something with a person who knew her far too well. She sat up in bed, curling her shoulders slightly as to not hit her head on the bottom of the bunk above, she nodded, which of course did nothing as he actually couldn’t see her.
“Yes,” her voice was raw from all the crying she’d been doing, “the door’s unlocked.”
--
Neville's stomach churned at the sound of her voice. It didn't take a rocket scientist to know that she'd been crying. As much as he still hurt, he didn't want her to be hurting. Pushing the door open, he stepped into the room. Looking around, it was easy to see where some of Daisy's style had come from. The room was practically a little nest, a hiding place. It was fitting, really. Daisy did a lot of hiding, mostly from what she really wanted.
Closing the door behind him, he tried to figure out where he wanted to start, eyes on his own hands as he wrung them together. "I'm sorry that I ran off like that," he told her firstly because he was apologetic about up and leaving without a word. "I just needed to think and…," he shrugged, not even really sure what he needed to do besides leave at that moment to avoid showing her how hurt he was.
--
Daisy wanted to be mad at him. Why did he have to come here to break up with her? She was off licking her wounds, trying to find and fix her armor for the inevitable, but he had to get there first, to hit her when she was most vulnerable. She wanted to be mad, but couldn’t. First off, Neville wouldn’t intentionally cause harm to someone even if the person deserved it (she did) and second, what right did she have to be mad? He wasn’t the one who struck out first.
“You don’t have to apologize,” she told him as she dragged her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them, “you don’t have anything to apologize for. I’m the one who fucked this up. I’m sorry it has to end this way. Hopefully at some point we’ll be able to be friends again.” Because there really was no other option from her current vantage point. She had betrayed his trust in ways that were unforgivable.
--
He shook his head, moving to sit on the bottom bunk with Daisy. "No. We can't go back to being friends." Neville hadn't intended for the words to come out the way that they had and before she could say anything, he shook his head again and held up his hand. "Not because I can't forgive you," he told her, letting out a breath. "But because I don't want this to end this way. Or at all." He brushed his hand awkwardly through his hair like he always did when he got nervous and tried to sort out his words in his head, never figuring out the right thing to say or how to say it.
"I'm upset," he told her. "Angry. Hurt. Whatever you want to call it. I can't pretend I'm not because that would be bullshit and we both know it." There was no point in splitting hairs and pretending that it wasn't killing him that she'd done what she had. "But, I don't want to give up on you because you made a mistake. You don't give up on people that you love."
--
The words hit Daisy like a slap in the face and she couldn’t hide how she flinched away. Not only had she ruined a relationship, but a friendship as well. THere was no telling what this would do to Neville and Harry or any of the numerous connections between their family and friends. Then the rest of his words caught up to her and Daisy shook her head. “You don’t mean that. You don’t love me. You can’t.” The idea was inconceivable. This relationship was barely more than a handful of weeks old. One could not learn to love another in that short a time. Even as she denied it, however, Daisy knew that to be wrong. She’d been in love with Neville Longbottom for more than half her life, but she’d thrown that away like rubbish.
Despite his words, it really didn’t register with Daisy. He was willing to forgive her, or at least attempt to, while she had yet to reach that point. It was honestly far more than she even deserved.
--
Neville reached out to catch her chin with his hand, guiding her head enough that he could get her to look at him. "I've loved you for years, Daisy. I wouldn't lie about that. What would be the point? Just because you tell me that I don't mean something doesn't make it true. You might have gotten good at lying to yourself and everyone around you, but I couldn't lie my way out of a wet paper bag and you know it." He sighed, his thumb brushing instinctively against the soft skin just beneath her lower lip. "I just want you to stop trying to push me away." He knew that was exactly what she was trying to do, subconsciously or otherwise.
"You're so afraid of not being good enough that you're pushing me away. I don't want to go anywhere, Daisy. I'm here because I want to be. I'm here because you're good enough. Stop trying to convince me otherwise."
--
She stared at him long and hard before giving him a broken sort of laugh. “I’m a Slytherin, Neville. Don’t you know we’re liars and cheats? Not to be trusted.” It was talk and prejudices they’d grown up hearing, comments casually tossed about by elders who maybe didn’t realize how much impressionable minds absorbed. “Despite Harry’s claim that I’m not like the rest we both know that’s not true.” Like he had just said, Daisy had gotten far too good at lying to everyone, even herself.
Pulling her chin out of Neville’s grasp, Daisy looked away, her gaze finally settling on her feet, covered by thick handknit socks also foisted upon her by her mother hen of a godfather.”I don’t understand how you can be here right now. I might as well have dug your heart out with a rusty spoon. A sensible person would have written me and this off as a loss. Lesson learned and all of that.”
--
"You might lie, but I trust you with my life, Daisy Potter," he told her, meaning every word that he spoke. "You don't lie because you're a Slytherin. You lie because you want to protect yourself. You want to be safe in this little hidey hole that you've created where you know that you won't ever be hurt because you're the only one that you let inside. You're safe here because no one ever gets past the gate. You make sure that no one does. You go after people that you know don't give a damn about you because they don't bother to come to that hidey hole you've made for yourself." He sighed, hand once more finding it's way into his hair, pushing it away from his forehead nervously.
"Until me. I don't qualify as one of your usual suspects because I care about you. So, when you can't run and hide like you usually do, you decide to make yourself as undesirable as you possibly can so I'll run away and you can blame yourself like you always do. It's not going to work, though, Daisy. Yeah, you hurt me. Yeah, maybe a sensible person wouldn't be here, but love isn't always all that sensible." Neville wanted to say a million other things but he wasn't sure where to start or what to cover. He wasn't sure that he'd ever really convince her that she was worthy of his affections. She'd spent too long convincing herself that she wasn't worthy of much at all. "If you didn't care about me, you wouldn't have told me," he finally said. "You wouldn't care that you hurt me. You wouldn't be trying to convince me that you're no good. If anything, all of that just makes me more sure that you care, even if you don't want to admit it."
--
Daisy wanted to tell Neville that he was wrong, that she let people in, but at the bottom of her heart she knew that was wrong. She’d been pulling away from those she most often confided in one by one as they found love, something she was never quite sure she would get for herself. Even with Evan she’d been slowly pulling away, convincing herself that she was doing so for the benefit of his relationship with Andrew rather than face the nasty fact that she might be jealous. “You don’t get hurt if you hold all the cards and stack the deck in your favor,” she said simply. It’s what she’d been doing for years, finding her angles and advantages, but right here and now she had none of that.
With Neville’s canny observation she’d been stripped bare. She had no idea he could read her so clearly and that fact alone had her pulling the borrowed cardigan tighter around her shoulders. “Just because I care doesn’t make it right,” Daisy snapped at him. “I’m not a nice girl, Neville, and that’s what you deserve.”
--
Neville sighed when she snapped at him. "I never said that what you did was right," he reminded her. "It hurts to think of you being with someone else. Waking up with someone else." He swallowed and shook his head to get rid of that thought as fast as it slipped into his head. "Did you ever stop to think that maybe I deserve someone I love?" Maybe by most people's standards Daisy wasn't a nice girl, but she was the girl that he wanted regardless. "I can't make you stay with me if you don't want to," he told her, letting out a breath. "But I can't turn off how I feel about you either. I want to be with you, Daisy. I want to make this work."
--
Closing her eyes, Daisy leaned back against the pillows and the wall. At any other time it might have appeared that she was relaxed and undefensive, but she did not uncurl nor did the lines of her body ease in any way. “Merlin, Neville. You deserve so much.” And not because he was the Boy Who Lived. It was because he was the goddamn nicest person she’d ever met and all she was doing was hurting him. He shouldn’t be settling for that.
“I…” She shook her head and pinched the inside of her arm where he couldn’t see to stave off tears. For just that moment she wanted to be her normal selfish self and take all that she wanted, which included Neville Longbottom. “People are going to disagree when they find out. Because they will.” And though Neville still wanted to be with her now, that would change once public opinion had their say.
--
"It's not anyone else's business," he told her. "And they can disagree all they want to. This isn't about them. It's about you and me." He had no intentions of telling anyone about what had happened, but he knew that it was unlikely that it wouldn't come out somehow to someone. It was just the way the world worked. The coworker of Daisy's could have a big mouth, for all he knew, and run around blabbing to anyone who might turn a listening ear in his direction. It didn't make a difference, though. Not to Neville. It didn't change how he felt about Daisy in the slightest. He knew he wouldn't care if the entirety of the world knew and disagreed with his decision. What he did care about, though, was how it would make Daisy feel.
"I'm not going to tell anyone because it's not about anyone else. The whole world could disagree with me, but that still doesn't change my mind. I've wanted you practically my whole damn life, Daisy. That hasn't changed and it isn't going to." Letting out a breath, he laid back, feet still on the floor and the top half of his body against the mattress and blankets. "No wonder you come here," he murmured. "I might have to usurp your hiding spot."
--
“You are a bloody obstinate man,” Daisy accused, affection coloring her voice even as she was annoyed with him. Even as she spoke she could feel her resolve crumbling, her defenses weakening against Neville’s calm, but steady reasoning. Her heart no longer felt like it was close to shattering, but perhaps it was close to bursting instead.
Opening her eyes, Daisy slid down against the pillows and curled onto her side so that she lay opposite Neville, close enough if they wanted to touch, but not quite doing so just yet. “You can’t have it,” she mumbled, “Uncle Moony wouldn’t let you. He likes me best.”
She was quite content to lay there quietly with him, but the spell would break sooner or later and they would have to address issues that she did not want to touch with a ten foot pole. “I don’t deserve you.”
--
Neville smiled a little at her words. "You're probably right," he agreed. Remus definitely liked her best of all. He couldn't blame him. He had his own soft spot for Daisy Potter, after all.
Shaking his head at the last bit, he shifted closer, slipping his arm around her shoulders and turning his head so he could kiss the top of hers. "That's where you're wrong," he told her. "You deserve a lot more than you give yourself credit for and the minute you realize that, you'll stop trying to sabotage everything for yourself. You deserve to be happy, Daisy. You deserve to be with someone that loves you. You might not believe that yet, but it's the truth."
--
Laying her head on his shoulder, Daisy sighed. She really didn’t deserve this and Neville deserved better, but he wasn’t going to listen to reason and she was selfish enough to let him make this mistake. “It’s too early to talk of love. We already have one friend who is engaged. Let's not have others begin to think wedding bells for us as well.”
She didn’t want to think about how he might be right and how she might be the one self-sabotaging her own happiness. Those habits had been too long ingrained in her to think that anything might be wrong with them. Not when she had been the one who smiled for so long, made everyone else happy ahead of herself. “Your faith is ridiculous,” she told him, “I can only hope I live up to it.”
--
Neville chuffed a soft laugh at the thought of wedding bells. He knew that people would talk regardless of what love they might have spoken of or not spoken of. He didn't much care for what other people had to say about his relationship. He'd respect the opinions of those he cared for, but in the end, it was himself that needed to be happy with his relationship, not others.
"I think you will," he told her. "Just try to curb the drinking on assignments, yeah? Otherwise you're gonna incite a jealous streak in me," he teased. Making light of the situation was better than feeling hurt over it so he pushed down the hurt for humor instead. "And for the record, I forgive you. In case you were wondering." He figured that was obvious, but he wanted her to hear it because he felt she probably needed to.
--
Daisy wanted to joke, pretend like this was just some small dustup that they could sweep under the rug, but she couldn’t bring herself to do so. Instead, she simply smiled and let out a soft sigh. “You’re a good man, Neville Longbottom, with a good heart.” Reaching over, she laid a hand on to of his chest, right where his heart was. “If you’re not careful, someone’s going to break it.”
But for right now that someone wasn’t going to be her. She would stand between him and whomever tried to bruise that gentle soul. She had the armor and could take some damage. Neville she wasn’t so sure about.
--
Lifting his free hand, he rested it atop hers on his chest. "Maybe not," he told her. "Still doesn't change my mind." His heart was sore, but it wasn't broken. Daisy had spent far too long thinking that she wasn't deserving and all Neville really wanted to do was make sure that she learned that she was deserving. He wanted to get close to her and for her to let him into that sanctuary she housed her heart in, far from prying eyes. He knew it wasn't going to be an easy route, but he didn't want to go in any other direction.
Giving her hand a little squeeze, he pulled it up to his lips and pressed them against her palm. "Is Remus going to come in here to kick me out of your hidey spot?," he asked her, smiling against her palm.
--
“I don’t know,” Daisy answered. “Maybe if we started a pillow fight? He always seemed to know when Evan and I weren’t sleeping when we were supposed to.”
Speaking of her godfather reminded Daisy that she had all but barged into his home and disrupted his day. She should at least put something together for tea by way of apology. Daisy dragged herself up and into a sitting position, looking down at Neville. “Thank you,” she whispered, tugging the cardigan up over her shoulders from where it had slipped down. She wasn’t quite able to be that vulnerable yet. “You’re welcome to stay for tea if you’d like. I don’t know what I’m fixing yet. Depends on what Uncle Moony has in his cupboards.”
--
He wanted to hold onto her for a while longer, but he didn't put up much of a fight when she moved to sit up again. He stayed where he was, watching her face as she thanked him. He didn't think he really needed to be thanked. He didn't feel like he'd done much but forgive her and that was just what you did for people you cared for. He knew that Daisy felt bad for what she'd done and likely wouldn't have dreamed of doing it if she'd been sober. Forgiveness didn't mean that he was alright with what she'd done, simply that he could move past it because she mattered more than some one night stand that she didn't even remember.
"Do you want me to stay?," he asked her, giving her the option because maybe she wanted some time with her godfather. If she did, he wasn't going to impose upon that.
--
“If you want to.” Daisy didn’t want Neville to feel obligated to do anything, not after he had extended the olive branch and even had gone so far as to forgive her. She knew she had to tread lightly as to not upset this new balance they’d found themselves in. “I mean, we’ll probably end up talking about obscure books and authors as I try and fail proving my superiority when it comes to curse knowledge.” She had many years to go before she even rivaled her godfather.
She should probably have asked her godfather permission to invite others to eat a meal in his house, but Daisy didn’t think about that. She was sure it would be alright.
--
Neville nodded a little. "Of course I want to," he told her, finally leaning up to a seated position again. "You've been gone forever," he pointed out. "I've missed you." Even with the difficult situation between them, Neville had still missed Daisy's face and her company and wasn't really all that eager to leave again. "I'll stay for a bit," he told her. "If it's alright with Remus," he added, realizing it wasn't fair to assume that the man would be alright with company.
--
Daisy scooted over to lean her head against his shoulder, letting out another sigh. “I’ve missed you too.” She took his hand in hers and squeezed it, unable to put all that she felt into words right now. “You can sit with me as I cook at least. I can send you home with something.”
Even as she spoke Daisy didn’t make any move to get up and do said cooking. For the next few moments she just wanted to sit here in relative quiet, basking in Neville’s quiet strength. Maybe she didn’t believe in herself, but he believed in her. So maybe for now she would believe in his faith and hope for the best.