Hannah wasn’t sure what to make of her first few days in the normal Vallo. So far it felt like everything and nothing had happened all at once and she couldn’t quite know how to wrap her head around all of it.
First there was finally getting out of what others were referring to as ‘Vallo Dark’ after being there for over a month, then there was getting adjusted to this better version of the same place with George and Penny, then the pub showed up, then Fred showed up (back from the dead in a sense), and now this.
It was so much and she could hardly believe it had all happened in a matter of a few days.
Though she could have taken a Waypoint easily from the pub to the DOA office, she was still fairly wary of them and instead chose to apparate -- which, realistically, was much quicker for her anyway. One second she was locking up the Leaky and the next she was in the lobby area of the offices, somewhere she’d only been with the building in ruins. The interior of it was lovely and though her eyes were distracted momentarily by it, she dropped her gaze to scan inside before spotting him. “Neville!” she said with a bit of a squeal, running toward him with a burst of excitement.
Neville looked up at the shout of his name. He was leaning as casually as possible, one foot propping himself up against the wall off to the side of the lobby, and he pushed off the moment he spotted Hannah. His face brightened with a smile. "Hannah," he said, meeting her halfway and catching her up in his arms.
"When they said you were here, I almost didn't believe it," he said. "After all, I saw you at home just this morning so how could you have been in two places at once. But the film maybe cleared it up for me, just a smidge. I don't know. But I'm glad to see you all the same."
For him it had only been a matter of hours since he’d seen her, but for her it had been weeks and as soon as his arms wrapped around her, she felt a sudden relief wash over her. Her arms wrapped around his neck and she buried her face against him momentarily, breathing him in and just wanting to be close.
“I don’t even know what film you’re talking about,” she said with a small shake of her head as she pulled away just enough to look up at him, eyes scanning his face. He looked nearly the same as he had when she’d last seen him, but there could have been small differences for all she knew. “Merlin’s beard, I’ve missed you so much,” she finally said after a moment, leaning up on her toes to press a smattering of kisses to his face.
"The one the DOA shows?" Neville started to say, confusion in his tone. "It's sort of like a kind of introduction to here, to Vallo." But then he wasn't saying much of anything anymore as she was kissing him all over his face and he laughed. "I was just about to say you can't have been gone that long but I reckon I'm not right about it." He reached for her hands and pulled them into his, pressed against his chest. "Has it been that long?"
“I didn’t see that, I just got here properly a few days ago and it was a whole ordeal, so there’s several of us that didn’t get the normal introductory treatment, I believe.” Hannah sighed quietly as he took her hands and she frowned, looking up at him still. He was just as handsome as ever, wasn’t he? “Been about six weeks since I last saw you, though.” Six weeks of almost nothing but absolute nightmare fuel, really, but did he need to know that right now? Not likely.
"Six weeks?" he repeated, shocked. Truly shocked. "I don't - well, I can't say I understand any of this but, I'm here now. And as are you. And I see the Leaky's around so that's comforting. Show me around and put me to work, yes?" Neville bent down to kiss her quickly.
She nodded a bit. “Six weeks, give or take a couple of days. Basically it was my birthday one day and the next I was… well, not here exactly but… that’s a whole other thing.” Hannah couldn’t help but smile when he kissed her and she closed her eyes for a moment, returning it. “Luckily we’re able to do just about anything here we can do back home, though it’s within a limit since we’re… a bit stuck here, you know? Hold on.” She squeezed his hand and retrieved her wand again, apparating them from the office back to the Leaky Cauldron, though inside this time. There was no sense in having to unlock the door and let them in. “She’s just about as I left it, fully stocked and all, though I still need to take down the Christmas garland and such.”
Her birthday hadn't been anytime recently but Neville nodded along with her all the same. It was too confusing to try and think about all the bits and bobs that made any of this possible at all. "Well, I can certainly make quick work of all the, er, Christmas decorations." A frown stuttered over his mouth. "Was it not summer hols when you left?"
The decorations would be easy enough to get put away, thankfully, but she looked at him with a moment of confusion before giving him a small shake of her head. “No, it was mid-December, and it wasn’t 2020, either. Or I suppose 2021 now. Seems we got a bit flung into the future winding up here.” There was still a lot for her to wrap her head around when it came to this place, but at least things were beginning to feel a bit more normal.
She gave a flick of her wand to get the fire going under the kettle behind the bar and set out two cups for tea before turning her wand toward the fireplace, so that they’d have a bit more warmth. One downfall of the building being so old was how drafty it could be. “What were you doing when you arrived here?”
"It was summer holiday," he repeated, watching her and taking comfort in the easy way she moved around the Leaky. "We'd been meeting with the florist, and the bakery, and the wedding planner all week and tonight at dinner, you said we needed a holiday from all the wedding planning -" Neville frowned a little. "It definitely wasn't mid-December."
How casually he said all of that caught Hannah off guard and she let out a noise of surprise, nearly dropping her wand and fumbling it for a moment before turning to look at him, wide-eyed. “Wedding planning?” she asked, the surprise just as evident in her voice as it was on her face, though she did her best to soften her expression. Well, if that wasn’t evidence enough that he was clearly from a different time than she was, she wasn’t sure what would be. “Goodness. All right. Erm, w-what… year was it for you?”
Neville nearly jumped at her reaction and he instinctively reached out to try and steady her. "Er, 2008?" he said.
“2006 for me…” Her voice trailed a bit and she reached up to grab his arm gently, holding onto him for a moment. “Though tail end of it, yeah? So about a year and a half…” The shock of it was still there, though mainly brought on by knowing that the two of them had been planning a wedding in his timeline.
Neville started to say something but then instead only an 'oh' came out. He felt his cheeks burn and he ducked his head. "Sorry," he apologized quickly. "I don't know how this works. I just assumed - "
Hannah shook her head a little at his sudden apology and leaned up to give him a sweet kiss, cutting his words off. “Don’t be sorry, Neville, it’s alright.” Surprising, yes, but still alright. Even if she wasn’t sure how either of them would choose to handle that information while they were here, being at two different points in their relationship.
The hand on his arm moved up to cup his cheek and she smiled at him, hoping to ease the embarrassment of the moment away.
If it was 2006 when she left, at the holidays, then he supposed they had just moved in together, and hadn't had that entire year and a half together since to - well, get ready for being married and such. "I'll have to remember that." Neville scratched the top of his head though, shrugging at her. "Or try to at least." He smiled sheepishly.
She hadn’t even experienced him proposing to her yet, let alone start in on any wedding planning, but none of that was going to deter her from being over the moon that he was here now. “Let’s have a cuppa and I can catch you up on everything from my side of things, yeah? Cos when I arrived, it was in a rather nightmarish version of this place, but George and Penelope were there too, at least. Wound up being some snowglobe we were trapped in, like you’d find in Knockturn Alley, I reckon.”
"That sounds like some dark magic at work," Neville said, visibly shuddering at the thought. "But I'm glad - I'm real glad to hear that George and Penelope were there with you too. I wish I could have been. I don't like the idea that you were here that whole time without me." He squeezed her hand.
“I don’t think anyone’s quite figured out the reason for it yet. Several of us wound up there first, and then a whole gaggle of folks from this Vallo got trapped there, too. Bit lucky for it, as awful as that place was.” She sighed a little and squeezed his hand back before flicking her wand to get the tea started now that the water had come to a boil. Then she paused and pursed her lips briefly in thought. “I haven’t been upstairs to our room yet… I wonder if any of our things are there.”
"That would be nice," he said. "Is that how it works sometimes? I arrived with just what I had in my pockets. Thankfully I had my wand on me but I guess not much else." He paused for a moment. "But I am glad to be here with you," he said. "Even if it's a fair bit overwhelming."
“Honestly? I’m not sure. Sirius only just told me about this,” she said with a bit of a gesture to the tavern itself, “being here yesterday. Came by to see what sort of condition she was in but didn’t spend too much time here before heading back to Morningside.” Though she supposed now that Neville was here, maybe she could go back to living upstairs instead of at the flats, as nice as they were. “When I first arrived, I only had my wand and what I was wearing on me, too. Couple of galleons, though that doesn’t really do us any good here.”
Neville smiled. "This place is familiar, I'm glad it's here too. We can get it cleaned up and ready to go. Maybe it'll be a nice place for everyone - especially those we know already - to be in." He smiled.
“That’s what I’m hoping for, anyway.” She wanted it to at least feel like a safer space for those from their world who had arrived. Hannah carefully floated their teas over to a table near the fireplace, and breathed out a quiet sigh. This felt more like home for her than she’d felt in weeks. “Come on, let’s go sit and talk.” But she paused for a moment and smiled up to him, before leaning up on her toes to give him another kiss. “I love you.”
Relief washed over him and he kissed her back, snaking an arm about her waist. "I love you too, Han," Neville said. "So let's relax and you can catch me up on everything that's been doing on here."