The Chessboard is Set

Neville was fed up with Pansy—not in the way that would ever truly compel him to leave, because the thought of walking away from her, of detaching himself from the hurricane of her presence, the sharp brilliance of her mind, the chaos she brought to his perfectly ordinary world, was laughable at best and absolutely impossible at worst—but in the kind of way that made him drag a tired hand down his face multiple times a day, muttering under his breath, wondering if this—whatever this stretch of mercurial, erratic, wild-eyed behavior she had recently descended into—was just a phase or the beginning of something deeper unraveling inside her. She had always been a lot—his life had never been quiet since the moment she bulldozed into it wearing couture and an attitude—but lately, it felt like she had cranked up every dial on her personality, pouring fuel on every fire, letting her sharp tongue and bottomless energy run unchecked, until even he—Neville Longbottom, who had once survived an entire war with nothing but sheer willpower and a love of plants—was beginning to feel like he couldn't quite keep up.

She had always been over the top. That wasn't new. That wasn't the problem. But lately, it wasn't theatrical in the way that made him laugh behind his tea or shake his head fondly when she swore at the pugs for ruining her carpet. No, it was theatrical in a way that frayed his nerves, chipped away at the corners of his usual steady calm, made him wonder if perhaps she was picking fights just to feel something, anything, and if maybe—just maybe—he wasn't giving her what she needed anymore.

And the truth was, she annoyed him constantly now, in a way that didn't feel like affection laced with exasperation, but like a thousand tiny barbs pressing against his skin, death by a thousand cuts that left him irritated, unsettled, and unsure of how to reach her.

It wasn't the usual kind of annoyance either—not the habitual chaos of her leaving the tea pot empty on the stove as though she were expecting the dishes to clean themselves, nor the way she claimed ownership over his jumpers and socks and sweatpants and then had the audacity to argue that it was written into their marriage contract when it very much was not; not even the way she could turn the simple act of buying wand polish or potion ingredients into a full-day affair involving three unnecessary stops, an argument with the shopkeeper, and a treat she'd "earned" for surviving the trauma of shopping in public. No, those things he'd learned to love, because they were hers, and they were real, and they were woven into the wild tapestry of their life together.

But this? This was something different. Something colder. Sharper. She was clinging too tightly and pushing too hard all at once, hovering over him in ways that weren't about affection but control—or maybe fear—like she was testing him, poking at his edges, deliberately provoking him with a strange sort of desperation, as though she needed to know just how far she could push before he finally pushed back.

And she had always been sharp-edged, always drawn blood with her wit, always known just where to strike when she was bored or hurting or needed to assert some strange form of dominance—but this wasn't cheeky or playful or the kind of sparring they both secretly enjoyed. This felt like she was actively daring him to lose it, to raise his voice, to walk away from her mid-argument, to break the rules of their relationship in a way he never had before.

And the worst part of it—the part that truly made his stomach twist with guilt and unease—was that he didn't understand it. He didn't know what had changed in her, what silent fracture had formed beneath the surface of her usually polished façade, what anxiety had burrowed into her skin and turned her into this version of herself who seemed hellbent on unraveling everything they'd worked so hard to build.

But even more terrifying, even more paralyzing than that uncertainty, was the quieter, darker question that had begun to haunt him in his most honest moments: What if it wasn't her who had changed at all? What if it was him?

What if he had become too slow, too dull, too uninteresting for the hurricane that was Pansy Parkinson?

Because once upon a time—not in the fairytale sense, but in the ordinary, quiet magic of shared toothbrushes and late-night confessions—he would have found her antics charming, would have simply rolled his eyes with a tired but amused smile, leaned down to press a kiss to her temple or her lips or her collarbone, and whispered something that would melt the ice she wrapped around herself like armor. He would have distracted her with affection, lulled her storm into stillness with the steady, grounding rhythm of his touch, the kind of love that didn't demand explanation or apology. But now, now there was something entirely different simmering beneath the surface of his skin, something hot and unspoken, crawling through his chest like a slow, insistent burn. It made his shoulders tense and his words sharper. It made him clench his jaw instead of kiss her quiet. It made his patience stretch thinner with each passing day, until even the smallest sigh felt like surrender, not to her drama, but to his own exhaustion.

And he didn't want to think it, didn't want to believe it, but the thought still clawed its way to the surface, making his stomach twist with guilt and confusion: Had he grown too used to her? Had he somehow lost the ability to be endlessly entertained, forever enthralled by the beautifully chaotic whirlwind that was Pansy Parkinson-Longbottom? Had her fire dimmed, or had he simply stopped basking in its warmth the way he used to?

The idea sat heavy in his chest, something close to shame pooling deep in his gut, as he looked at her sprawled across the couch like royalty in exile—one arm draped dramatically over the back cushion, the other flicking through pages of a book she had absolutely no intention of reading. Her foot bounced restlessly, not with impatience, but with a kind of quiet demand, a physical tic born of anticipation, as if she was waiting—waiting for him to speak, to flinch, to react, to give her something, anything, to latch onto.

She was testing him. He could feel it in his bones, in the way her gaze flicked toward him from beneath lowered lashes, in the pointed silence she wore like perfume, daring him to be the first to break.

And for the first time, maybe ever, he was tired of being tested.

With a breath so heavy it seemed to echo through the walls of the house, Neville crossed the room with deliberate slowness, each step a quiet declaration, until he stood before her, shadowed by the soft light spilling from the windows, waiting until she finally, finally lifted her eyes to meet his. Her gaze, sharp as flint and twice as volatile, locked with his, the space between them charged with something volatile and unspoken, like two duelists standing on opposite ends of the same emotional battlefield.

"What?" she asked, her voice a smooth, practiced drawl, the kind of casual venom that only Pansy could wield so effortlessly, as if she hadn't spent the past week poking at his limits like a child tormenting a sleeping beast, as if she wasn't entirely aware that her every word, every glance, every sigh had been designed to unravel him one thread at a time.

He ran a hand through his hair, fingers tangling at the base of his neck as he exhaled through his nose, grounding himself before he finally said it—the question that had gnawed at him, unrelenting, for weeks now.

"Pansy," he said, quietly but with weight, "what the hell is wrong with you?"

She blinked, caught off-guard for the briefest of moments by the directness of it, as if she hadn't expected him to actually confront her, to press where it hurt.

"What do you mean?" she asked, too fast, too innocent, her voice light with false curiosity as she returned her gaze to the book in her lap—a flimsy shield, and they both knew it.

He folded his arms across his chest, the muscles in his jaw ticking. "You've been insufferable lately," he said flatly, not cruelly, but honestly.

She muttered something under her breath that he couldn't quite catch—something about charm, maybe—but it didn't matter, because she was already retreating into herself, using sarcasm like scaffolding.

And he wasn't having it.

He reached out and plucked the book from her hands with quiet finality, tossing it unceremoniously onto the coffee table, ignoring the sharp inhale of protest that slipped from her lips. "No," he said firmly. "Enough. You're not going to hide behind that. Talk to me."

Her scowl was immediate, instinctive, but there was something else flickering beneath it—something fractured, uncertain, almost afraid. It was in the way her mouth trembled before she could twist it into a sneer, in the way her fingers twitched in her lap like they were searching for an anchor.

And in that moment, something shifted inside him—his frustration didn't vanish, but it dulled beneath the weight of something heavier, something far more dangerous: worry.

Because he knew her. He knew her in ways no one else did, knew the patterns of her silence, the signs of her unraveling. And this—this wasn't just about annoying him. This wasn't sport or amusement or idle cruelty.

This was a cry for help dressed up in cynicism. This was a scream hidden in a smirk.

And for the first time, truly, he began to see it—she wasn't trying to push him away because she didn't care. She was trying to find the edge of him. She was testing the structure of their love, brick by brick, to see if it would still hold if she set fire to the foundation. She was daring him to stay. Daring him to still love her when she was at her most difficult, her most unlovable, her most self-destructive.

Would he still be there?

Would he still love her if she made herself unbearable on purpose, if she reminded him again and again that she was not easy, not soft, not the kind of woman you married for peace and quiet?

Or was it only a matter of time before even Neville Longbottom—her Nevie, her hero, her constant—finally gave up?

She had been unraveling for weeks, maybe months, pulling at the threads of herself in private, hiding the fray with clever words and deflection, pretending she was still whole when all she felt was splintered. And instead of speaking to him, instead of handing him the pieces and asking for help, she had pushed. She had poked. She had dared him to leave.

Because deep down, in the place where even she was afraid to look too closely, she was terrified of the answer.

And somehow, somehow, Neville finally understood.

And now, here it was—the moment she had always known would come, the moment she had taunted into existence with every sharp word, every exhausted sigh, every refusal to let herself be soft in his arms for fear of unraveling entirely. The inevitable end of their cruel little game. Their push-and-pull, love-laced war of attrition had reached its breaking point, and this was the final move. The checkmate she never actually believed he would make.

"I'm going to a conference for a week," he said, the words cool and deliberate, spoken with the kind of forced calm that only made the storm beneath more obvious. His voice was a scalpel—clean, careful, and precise—and yet each syllable sliced into her as he stood there in the doorway, his wand already tucked into the inside of his coat, his bag packed with surgical efficiency, like he'd been planning this longer than he'd let on.

She didn't respond at first—couldn't. Her breath hitched. Her fingers froze around the ribbon she'd been tying in her hair. Her entire body tensed as if someone had pulled a string in her spine tight enough to snap it in half. "What?" she asked, her voice sharp, brittle, all the blood draining from her face as she turned to look at him, eyes wide in disbelief.

His expression didn't change, didn't crack, didn't show a trace of the chaos she knew had to be coiling inside him too. "I'm leaving, Pansy."

Four syllables. Two seconds. One blade to the chest.

The words slammed into her with the force of a body blow, knocking the breath from her lungs so violently she almost staggered. There it was—the confirmation of what she had always feared, always expected, the moment she had both dreaded and dared to come.

Three words.

Three simple, brutal words.

The same three words she had spent three years pretending wouldn't destroy her if he ever said them. The same words she had pushed and poked and needled out of him with every manipulative trick in her arsenal because part of her—some deeply damaged, hollow part—had to know what it looked like when he finally stopped choosing her. When even Neville Longbottom had finally had enough.

And now, it was here. Final. Inevitable. Like the snap of a wand. Like the thud of a door closing for the last time.

She had told herself this would be fine. That she'd be ready. She'd rehearsed it in her mind like a play—how she'd laugh coldly, maybe toss out some quip about him being too sensitive or too tired or too ordinary to keep up with her chaos. How she'd roll her eyes and wave him off, a picture of indifference, untouched and unbothered. She had prepared for this. She'd been bracing for this.

And yet, now that the moment had arrived, now that he was really standing there and really saying the words, a cold, aching terror began blooming in her chest, coiling around her ribs like a serpent, sinking into her lungs until she could barely breathe through the sudden heaviness.

Because it wasn't just anyone leaving.

It was him.

The one person who had seen her at her absolute worst and still kissed her temple goodnight. The one who held her hand without needing her to explain why she was spiraling. The one who never flinched when she bared her teeth. The one who had stayed. Always.

And now he was walking out the door.

Part of her screamed to stop him. Part of her wanted to collapse to her knees and cling to his coat and beg like she was made of nothing but desperation and foolish pride. She wanted to yell, to fight, to throw something, anything, just to make the moment bigger than it already was—because if it was big enough, loud enough, messy enough, maybe it wouldn't feel so permanent.

But instead, her body betrayed her. Her mouth curled into a sharp little smirk, her spine straightened, and her mask slipped into place with practiced ease, like muscle memory.

"Okay," she said, the single word slipping past her lips with such hollow casualness it felt like someone else had said it. Her voice was flat, distant, not her own—not the voice of a woman watching the love of her life disappear.

No screaming. No demands. No claws.

Just… okay.

And for a second—just a second—he hesitated. It was barely a breath. A pause that might have meant nothing to anyone else, but she saw it. She saw the falter in his step, the way his shoulders stiffened, the way his hand gripped the strap of his bag just a little tighter, like part of him was waiting for her to say something, anything, to call him back.

But she didn't. She wouldn't.

She couldn't.

Because if she called him back now, it would mean admitting she was afraid. It would mean showing him that the thing she feared most in the world was happening and she couldn't stop it.

So she stood there and watched him nod once—curt, impersonal, like this was business, like they hadn't built a whole life together. And then, with a crack that felt like the universe itself splitting at the seams, he was gone.

The silence that followed was immediate, deafening, all-consuming.

She didn't breathe.

She didn't move.

It was just her and the echo of him, and all the things she'd never said.

She exhaled, slow and heavy, the sound low and raw as it slipped through her parted lips, pressing a hand to her stomach—not for comfort, not for anything as soft as solace—but as if anchoring herself against the wave of nausea twisting through her, that sick, low churn of dread and regret and a heartbreak too swollen to name, as though touching herself might somehow keep her grounded in a body that suddenly felt foreign, too hollow, too fragile to contain the ruin blooming inside her chest like something rotting from the inside out.

Well. It is what it is, isn't it? The words echoed in her head with a dull finality, sharp and ugly and unforgiving, and it might've been funny if it wasn't so fucking tragic—if it didn't feel like her entire world was collapsing inward while she stood in the eye of the storm pretending it was just a bit of wind, just a bit of rain, just another day in the glamorous, self-constructed theatre of her own undoing.

A laugh slipped from her throat, sharp and thin, the sound brittle as broken glass and twice as dangerous, bitter as poison and just as bitterly earned, and she turned without ceremony toward the liquor cabinet like a woman who had already made peace with the worst version of herself, ignoring the tremor in her fingers, the one she would later swear was from cold and not from panic or grief or the kind of aching loneliness that cracks people open from the inside.

Her hand moved on autopilot, reaching past the prettier labels, the more civilized bottles meant for company, for charades, for keeping up appearances—no, tonight she wanted something older, something darker, something that burned its way down like it had something to prove, something that wouldn't flinch when it met the wreckage inside her.

The cork came out with a pop she didn't bother to muffle, her teeth tugging it free like she was in a hurry to lose herself, and without bothering with a glass or a toast or even the most basic pretense of control, she tipped the bottle back and took a swallow so long and deep it felt like punishment, like penance, like she wanted it to scald her throat as much as she deserved to be scalded.

"Cheers to me," she muttered, her voice thick with mockery and too much emptiness to hide, the words curling like smoke in the space around her, and her throat clenched around them, her jaw tightening as if to keep the sob at bay, the kind of sound she knew if she let out, she might never be able to stop.

Another swig followed, and then another, her hand steadying only in defiance, in that bone-deep refusal to admit how shaken she really was, how gutted, how goddamn alone. The brandy burned a path down her chest, blooming warm in her belly, but it didn't chase away the cold—that creeping, aching chill that had nothing to do with the air and everything to do with the empty space at her back, the silence where his voice should have been, the absence where he should have been standing, breathing, arguing, staying.

Because this time, she had pushed too far, hadn't she? This time, the sharp edges she wielded like armor had actually drawn blood, and the echo of her own cruelty had finally drowned out the sound of him staying, staying, always staying—and she knew, deep down in the place she never let herself feel too long, that this wasn't one of their usual storms, not one of those spectacular blowups they survived and laughed about later, this wasn't just another fire to walk through barefoot while clinging to each other.

This time, it wasn't just bruises and bickering and bruised pride.

This time, he had left.

And this time, she had no one to blame but herself.

~~~~~~

Pansy was certain he wouldn't come back. Not this time. And really—why the hell would he? There was nothing left to tether him here anymore, nothing left of the shimmering, beautiful chaos they used to be, just the ruins of a love she'd chipped away at piece by piece with every cutting remark, every irrational demand, every defensive jab disguised as a joke. She had tested him for months, maybe years, nudging the boundaries of his loyalty, daring him to stay, daring him to leave, always dancing on the knife's edge of ruin. And in some twisted, masochistic part of her soul, she had been waiting for this moment—the moment he would finally prove her right. That even Neville Longbottom had a limit. That even he, who had weathered wars and monsters and her, especially her, would one day reach the end of his rope and walk.

And now, he had.

The house—their house—felt cavernous in his absence, like it had expanded in his wake, like every room was stretching out with the unbearable echo of not-him. The walls no longer hummed with warmth; the air no longer carried his steady, grounding presence. It was just furniture and flooring and a bed she couldn't sleep in. A silent vacuum of comfort and structure and scent. The kind of silence that pressed down on her ears until she wanted to scream just to hear something that wasn't her own heartbeat or the relentless ticking of the clock on the mantle. Every inch of the place screamed of him—his boots by the door, his stupid Gryffindor mug that she always pretended to hate, the empty space on his side of the bed that might as well have been a chasm.

But she had known. Of course she had. Somewhere in the deep, private recesses of her soul she never let anyone see, she had known this would come. That someday she'd push him one too many times, twist the knife just a little too deep, and he'd stop loving her out loud.

So, she did what she did best.

She took the sick, nauseating grief that curled like a fist in her chest and shoved it so far down it might as well have hit the center of the earth. She smothered it in bravado and absurdity, drowned it in distraction, because if there was one thing Pansy Parkinson had mastered, it was making heartbreak look fabulous.

She got high.

Not in the casual, cheeky way she usually did. Not the post-party haze or the lazy Sunday indulgence. No—this was a deliberate detonation. A full-throttle, chemically-assisted departure from reality. She smoked until the world blurred at the edges, until she could barely remember the shape of his voice or the color of his eyes, until the ache in her chest numbed just enough that she could breathe again without wanting to claw her ribs open.

She sank into the velvet cushions of the living room sofa like she was being swallowed whole, the ceiling above her spinning softly, the lights fracturing into prisms she wasn't entirely sure weren't real. Her limbs felt heavy, disconnected from thought. She could feel her pulse in her fingertips. She could hear her own thoughts echoing too loud in her skull.

And then—because of course, of course—came the flash of divine lunacy. The kind of mad, glittering, sparkly idea that could only be born from heartbreak and marijuana and a total lack of adult supervision.

Princess's Doggy Birthday Extravaganza.

Obviously.

If her life was going to collapse around her like a cursed soufflé, then goddammit, she was going to make sure her dogs—who would never leave her, who would never pack a bag and say goodbye, who would never sigh like she was too much and walk away—felt like the queens they were. She was going to throw the kind of party people wrote biographies about. The kind of party with a budget so obscene even the Malfoys would raise their eyebrows.

She grabbed the nearest notebook—some ministry file she was supposed to return to Neville weeks ago, sorry Nevie—and flipped to a blank page with the ferocity of a general strategizing a war. Ash from her half-finished joint scattered across her lap, little grey flakes dotting her silk dress. She didn't care. She didn't even notice. The gears had shifted. The switch had flipped.

Step one: gold-plated dog bowls. Not brass. Not polished bronze. Gold. Real, fuck-off gold. Because Princess wasn't some mutt from Knockturn Alley—she was royalty.

Step two: an organic, grain-free, enchanted dog cake baked by that insufferable patisserie Luna liked, the one that used vegan fairy butter and whispered affirmations to the batter. Only the best. Only the absurd.

Step three: party favors for every guest—tiny designer collars, bone-shaped macarons, maybe even bespoke party hats enchanted to sparkle but never fall off. She'd get Blaise to foot the bill; he owed her anyway for that mess in Lisbon.

Step four: Dog yoga? No. Dog massage. Yes. Dog masseuses flown in from France. Theo knew people.

And maybe—just maybe—a tiny tiara.

Her hand paused, pen hovering in the air, as the high washed over her like velvet water, soft and surreal. A tiara. Yes. A tiny diamond-studded tiara for Princess, with matching crystal paw cuffs for Lady. Something expensive and absurd and utterly devoid of emotional consequence.

Because if Pansy couldn't control her heart, she could control this. She could control the glitter and the invitations and the dog outfits. She could control the centerpieces and the guest list and the custom cocktails named after her pets.

She couldn't make Neville come home.

But she could throw the goddamn party of the century.

And that, at least, was something.

God. She should be crying, shouldn't she?

She should be curled up in their bed, wrapped in his scent, mourning the loss of something she hadn't even admitted to herself that she needed. She should be feeling something, anything, other than this cold, weightless numbness.

But crying wasn't Pansy Parkinson's style.

Crying was for people who hadn't seen this coming, who hadn't laid the groundwork for their own destruction.

This? This was just her reaping what she had sown.

This was her getting exactly what she had been asking for.

A small, bitter laugh bubbled up in her throat as she scribbled the words royal canine fashion show onto her list with more force than necessary, pressing the pen so hard against the paper that the tip nearly tore through it.

So this was it, then.

A tiny taste of what hell must feel like.

And the worst part?

She had chosen it.

~~~~~~

Pansy had sent out invitations to absolutely everyone—not just the close-knit circle of people who usually made the cut for these absurd social affairs, not just the vaguely tolerable acquaintances or the people she had passive-aggressively bonded with over overpriced cocktails at Ministry events—everyone. If she had exchanged more than three words with a person in the last fifteen years, if someone had once stood behind her in a queue for croissants, if they had shared a smoking corner or complimented her earrings in passing, they were now the proud recipients of a luxurious, gold-foiled, hand-delivered, personally enchanted invitation to Princess's Royal Doggy Birthday Extravaganza. Each invite came wrapped in silk ribbon, sealed with enchanted paw prints that shimmered in the recipient's house colors, and accompanied by a tiny, charmed voice recording of Pansy herself saying, "You are cordially summoned, darling. Don't be a bore—show up or suffer eternal irrelevance."

The whole thing was laughably extra, even by Pansy's standards—so extravagantly unnecessary that it bordered on performance art—and yet, no one batted an eye. Because this? This was Pansy Parkinson. Unapologetically lavish, unrelentingly dramatic, and currently spiraling through emotional devastation masked with glitter and champagne. No one dared question it. Not out loud. Not unless they wanted to be annihilated by a well-aimed insult and a withering glare that could turn bones to dust.

Of course, behind the layers of absurdity, beneath the lace and diamonds and blaring enchanted speakers playing classical remixes of dog barks, there was a deeper truth. She wasn't just throwing a party. She wasn't doing this because she was bored or because Princess deserved a royal celebration—although, in her opinion, the dog absolutely did. No, this was about something far less fabulous. Something far more pathetic. She was filling a void. A big, yawning, Nevilless void that had taken up residence in her chest, stretching wider with each day he stayed gone. A void she couldn't scream at or seduce away or laugh off, no matter how many accessories she bought or invitations she sent. So she did what she always did when emotions threatened to breach the surface—she performed. She dressed the heartbreak up in velvet and opals, poured rosé over it, slapped a tiara on its head, and called it an event.

The first guests to arrive were Hermione and Draco—ever punctual, ever composed, ever suspicious. Hermione stepped into the garden with the polite curiosity of someone who had braced herself for chaos and still found herself underdressed for the absurdity, while Draco looked around like he was calculating the cost of every decorative decision just for the satisfaction of judging her for it later.

The garden had been transformed into a spectacle of wealth and madness. There were thrones—literal thrones—for the dogs. Bowls of champagne for both canines and humans. A harpist in the corner playing a hauntingly delicate rendition of "Who Let the Dogs Out," and centerpieces made of magically suspended bones encased in crystals. Draco paused, took it all in, and turned to her slowly, his voice as dry as a drought.

"Parkinson," he began, the word already dripping with exhaustion, "are you having a full-blown mental breakdown? Because I mean this with love—but this is somehow even more deranged than Theo's baby shower. And that had swans. Live ones. Wearing crowns."

Pansy, who was draped across a fainting couch in what could generously be called a dress and more accurately described as an expensive cry for help, lifted her glass and smiled with zero shame. "I am having a breakdown, yes. Thank you so much for noticing. Now be a good guest and place your offerings in the designated tribute zone."

She waved her glass toward a gold-canopied display labeled, in foot-high letters, "Offerings for the Queen", under which sat Princess on a silk pillow, looking very unamused in a custom Versace dog cape.

Hermione, still hovering near the entrance, did a quick visual sweep of her friend and didn't even try to hide the growing concern etched across her face. She looked Pansy up and down—at the smeared eyeliner, the too-bright smile, the way her laugh kept hitting just a few notes too high—and leaned in toward Draco.

"You think she's okay?" she whispered, her voice low and cautious. "She looks like absolute shit."

Draco made a noncommittal noise that sat somewhere between a hum and a stifled groan. "Mon cœur, don't say it like that—she'll hear you and accuse you of undermining her femininity." He paused. "But yes. She looks fucking terrible."

And she did look terrible.

Not in the obvious sense. No, this was Pansy Parkinson. She still looked devastatingly glamorous, like a couture banshee who haunted luxury hotel lobbies and ruined men for sport. But beneath the highlighter and the perfect lipstick and the hair sculpted by three separate spells, there was something hollow in her eyes. Something distant. The kind of tired that sleep didn't fix. The kind of ache that no amount of dog tiaras could hide.

Blaise and Ginny arrived next, arm in arm and dressed like they were attending the Met Gala rather than a glorified pet birthday. Behind them trailed Luna and Theo, the latter immediately clocking the mood with a practiced eye while Luna blinked slowly, as if unsure if the scene was real or just one of her more elaborate hallucinations. As soon as their eyes landed on Pansy, they all exchanged a single glance—wordless, heavy, knowing.

That carefully blank expression spread across their faces, the one people wear when they see someone grieving but don't know if they're allowed to say it out loud. That particular brand of frozen sympathy that said, We love you, but we are terrified of you right now. They knew better than to ask. Knew better than to poke at the wound when it was still raw and bleeding and covered in glitter.

Because there was no denying it anymore. She could cover it up with theatrics, she could wear couture and throw money at the pain, but everyone could feel it.

No one had seen Neville.

And the silence around that absence, that gaping hole in her carefully orchestrated world, was so loud it rang in all their ears. It was the only thing louder than the music, louder than the laughter, louder than the ridiculous spectacle of dogs in velvet capes and floral collars.

It was his missing place beside her. And it was deafening.

Ginny shifted in her chair with the subtle discomfort of someone who'd walked into a play mid-act, unsure whether to laugh, gasp, or pretend it was perfectly normal. Her eyes flicked from the string quartet playing jazzed-up lullabies to the champagne fountain shaped like a paw print to the life-size ice sculpture of Princess the pug—which, judging by the sheer glint of it, was enchanted to wag its frozen tail. "Are we just…" she muttered under her breath, casting a glance at Theo, "pretending this is normal now? Like this is just a casual Wednesday in Pansy's brain?"

Theo, who had long ago mastered the art of emotional triage, barely blinked. He inhaled once, slow and measured, the kind of breath you take when you're preparing to walk through fire, and exhaled just as carefully. "For now," he said evenly, his voice as flat as the champagne flute in his hand, "yes."

Blaise, who had just watched Pansy toss back her third glass of champagne in under ten minutes and then casually summon an actual dog butler—an elf in an embroidered uniform with a tray of diamond-dusted macarons balanced on its tiny hands—sighed with the quiet resignation of a man who had accepted the insanity. "Yeah. Let's just… play along," he muttered, taking a large sip of his drink as if bracing himself for whatever inevitable emotional catastrophe was lurking beneath the glitter.

And then there was Luna, serene and moonlit as always, dressed in celestial silk that billowed around her very pregnant form like she'd been conjured from stardust and fairy tales. She didn't speak right away. She didn't have to. Her eyes stayed locked on Pansy, narrowing ever so slightly, that dreamy softness sharpening into something older, quieter, knowing. She saw it—the cracked mask, the way Pansy's hands trembled when she thought no one was looking, the way her laugh hit the wrong pitch every time someone complimented the party. Luna saw it all, because Luna always did.

But Pansy was not ready to be seen.

She never was, not when it mattered. She caught their stares and immediately smoothed her expression into something biting and beautiful and impossible to approach, like an ice sculpture with fangs. "Lovelies," she called out, voice syrup-sweet and laced with acid. "You're all late. Do be dears and place your gifts in the shrine, and then come drink. Or sulk. Or cry. Or whatever it is you emotionally complex people do at social gatherings."

And just like that, the gears clicked into place. The music swelled. The servers floated by with trays of absurdly tiny hors d'oeuvres. The fireworks display—spelling out "Happy Birthday, Princess" in sparkly cursive—went off over the enchanted gazebo. And the party began.

And just like that, no one dared to ask about Neville.

Not because they didn't care. Not because they weren't thinking about him. No, it was precisely because they cared that they didn't speak his name. Because the air around Pansy wasn't just brittle—it was charged, humming with grief she refused to name, sparking with the volatile edge of someone who had built a palace out of denial and dared anyone to knock on the door. It was the kind of pain you don't touch unless you want to bleed for it.

So they didn't ask. Instead, they stood awkwardly near the gilded snack table, clutching drinks like lifelines, casting each other helpless glances, and pretending not to notice the way Pansy's hand shook every time she refilled her glass, or how she kept talking just a little too loudly, laughing just a little too hard.

Theo's gaze flicked to Luna, who met it with the exhausted disdain of a woman in her final trimester who had been through it. She shook her head slowly, deliberately, one hand resting protectively over her belly, the other gesturing as if warding off the very idea.

"Sunny," she said flatly, "I am not going to ask her anything. I refuse. I'm far too pregnant to be verbally assaulted by a heartbroken she-devil with an eyeliner wand and unresolved trauma."

Ginny, lounging in her seat like she was recovering from war—which, in fairness, motherhood was—raised her hand weakly. "I literally just gave birth like… I don't know, five minutes ago. My pelvic floor is still recovering. I'm too fragile for this."

That left one obvious target.

All eyes turned—slowly, inevitably—to Hermione.

She glanced up, saw the looks, and groaned like she'd just been nominated for a Hunger Games she hadn't entered. "Oh, I see. I'm the sacrificial lamb? That's cute. Fuck all of you."

Blaise, who had been watching the chaos unfold with the detached amusement of a man observing wild animals at a zoo, arched one elegant brow and lifted his glass. "If she starts to scream, Granger, I'll scream back. It'll be very cathartic. We can harmonize."

Hermione looked one second away from launching her drink across the garden, but before she could, Blaise stood, stretching like he was preparing to give a TED Talk on emotionally unhinged witches.

"Alright, alright," he said grandly, smoothing his jacket with a flair that suggested he'd been waiting his whole life for this moment. "I'll take the heat. Golden Girl clearly can't find any gold in her heart to console a lost soul."

Theo and Draco shared a look—the kind that could only be formed after years of shared trauma and shared secrets. Draco adjusted the cuff of his custom suit with a theatrical sigh and said, "I suppose we're going in, then."

Theo rolled his eyes, folding his arms like he was trying to anchor himself to the spot. "She's not going to listen to you," he muttered.

Luna, munching on a lemon tart and radiating nonchalance, chimed in with a sing-song cadence, "She never does."

"Which is exactly why it should be me," Blaise declared. "If I die tonight, just know I went out as her favorite."

Ginny snorted. "You were only her favorite before she grew a conscience."

"Oi!"

"Don't act like it's not true."

Hermione rubbed her temples like she was massaging away a migraine. "If you get her riled up, Blaise, and I have to clean up the fallout, I swear to Merlin—"

But it was already too late. Blaise was off, sauntering toward the storm in designer boots, every inch the confident idiot who thought charm could defuse emotional bombs.

Draco followed with the resignation of a man who'd made worse decisions and lived to regret them, nudging Theo with his elbow.

"Come on," he said. "If we're going to walk into Mordor, we might as well do it together."

Theo exhaled, looked up at the sky like he was asking the gods for patience, and stood. "Fine. But if she throws something, you're taking the hit."

"Wouldn't dream of doing otherwise," Draco said smoothly.

And just like that, the three of them moved toward the eye of the hurricane, where Pansy stood like a queen atop her crumbling throne of glitter and grief.

Luna hummed thoughtfully, watching them go. "Ten galleons says she throws her drink in Blaise's face."

Ginny considered. "Twenty says she makes them all cry."

Hermione, still not looking up from her drink, added calmly, "Thirty says she roasts them all within five minutes."

Luna grinned. "You're on."

And just like that, the girls were sixty galleons richer—cold, hard victory lining their pockets like the smug satisfaction plastered across their faces—because every single outlandish bet they'd placed, every ridiculous prediction they'd cackled over like a coven of chaotic witches, had come true with terrifying accuracy. Not only had Pansy managed to insult all three of the brave idiots within the first five minutes—Hermione had literally checked her watch and counted—but she had also hurled her champagne (Veuve Taillebelle, 2243 vintage, no less) directly in their faces with the flair of an Oscar-winning actress mid-divorce scene, screamed at them with such raw, feral energy that even Draco—who had once faced a Dark Lord without blinking—visibly recoiled like she'd hexed him in the bollocks, and then, with the precision of a verbal assassin, emotionally flayed each of them like a high-stakes roast gone terribly, beautifully right.

Now, they stood before the girls like wet dogs who had just returned from war: dripping, furious, stunned, and somehow still too proud to admit they had been absolutely annihilated by a woman in six-inch heels and trauma lashes. Champagne clung to their tailored suits like defeat clung to their egos, and their expressions were a cocktail of existential exhaustion, bruised pride, and the haunting realization that Pansy Parkinson didn't just throw parties—she threw emotional grenades disguised as social gatherings.

Draco, the first to break, did not utter a single syllable. He simply turned on his heel like a man who had seen too much, grabbed Hermione's hand in a death grip, and apparated the hell out of there with the urgency of someone who'd just escaped Azkaban and wasn't about to stick around for a second go. The poor man had spent years cultivating an aura of calm, of aristocratic detachment, of silky-voiced indifference—and one champagne-soaked scream from Pansy had cracked it like an egg.

Theo, walking like a man who had just returned from battle with no medal and mild PTSD, stomped back to the table, dragging Blaise behind him—who, it must be said, looked like he was going through all seven stages of grief at once.

"Do not say a single word," Blaise snapped, looking like a drowned model, his once-glorious suit clinging to him like betrayal. He had that hollow-eyed look of a man whose pride had just been peeled like an onion.

Ginny, eyes sparkling with wicked glee, could barely keep a straight face. "I wasn't going to—"

"LUNA!" Theo barked, turning sharply toward her like a man who knew exactly where the most dangerous laughter was going to come from.

Luna, wide-eyed and utterly delighted, looked like she was about to burst. She held a hand to her chest like she was trying to contain the solar flare of pure joy blooming inside her, but it was too late—the dam cracked, and all three women exploded into helpless, gasping laughter. Hermione was bent over in her chair. Ginny had to cover her face with her wine glass. And Luna? Luna looked positively exalted.

Theo sighed the sigh of a man who had officially lost control of every aspect of his life. "Right. That's it," he muttered darkly. "I'm fucking you in the bum tonight. Just for that laugh."

Ginny didn't miss a beat. She took a slow sip of her wine, cocked an eyebrow, and said, "Like you do every time, Theodore?"

Blaise, still shaking champagne out of his curls, whipped his head toward her like she'd just challenged his lineage. "Ginevra," he said, voice full of righteous, wounded drama, "you are getting that too. Raw."

Luna clapped her hands like a child at the circus. "Ooh, that actually sounds fun."

Theo pointed at her, champagne still dripping from his hairline. "Woman. You are dancing on very thin ice."

Luna shrugged, completely unbothered. "It's just champagne. It's festive. And frankly, you look radiant."

Theo slammed his hand on the table like a man truly at the end of his rope. "She insulted my hair."

Blaise, suddenly remembering his own trauma, gasped as if stabbed. He grabbed his chest. "She told me I have a receding hairline. Me! A Black God! Me! Whose hair has been described as 'poetry in motion' in Witch Weekly! I—"

Ginny cut him off with a tug on his tie and a dangerous smile. "Enough, amore. We're going home."

Luna, now gleaming with glee, turned to Theo with wide eyes. "Soooo… are we going home too?"

Theo, looking like a man who had died and been resurrected just to suffer again, groaned. "Oh, we're going home. And I swear to all the gods, Luna, if you laugh about this again—"

"I make no promises," she sang, throwing her arms around his neck with the kind of affectionate recklessness that only made his suffering more eternal.

And just like that, the night ended the only way it possibly could: with three men thoroughly humbled, emotionally drenched, and reconsidering their life choices; three women richer in both galleons and personal satisfaction; and Pansy Parkinson—somewhere deep in the middle of the chaos, sprawled across a velvet chaise lounge with one heel off, her eyeliner slightly smudged, a half-eaten macaron in one hand and her champagne bottle clutched like a sword—completely unbothered, completely wasted, and completely certain that this, without question, had been the best goddamn birthday party Princess had ever had.

~~~~~~

Neville sat in the dimly lit hotel bar, a half-empty glass of firewhiskey in front of him, the amber liquid untouched for the past twenty minutes. The conference had been long, exhausting, filled with lectures, networking, and more conversations about magical agriculture than any sane person could stomach. Normally, he would have been engaged, passionate even, about discussing new hybridization techniques and sustainable potion ingredient cultivation.

But not this time.

This time, he felt like absolute shit.

Not the kind of passing discomfort that a stiff drink or a hot shower could fix. No—this was the kind of soul-deep, stomach-knotting, mind-consuming kind of misery that settled into his bones like an illness. A gnawing ache that had been following him since the moment he had apparated away from her.

He scrubbed a hand over his face, his fingers lingering at his temples, pressing against the dull headache that had been pulsing there all evening. He loved her. He loved her so much it made his chest feel too tight, made breathing feel like an effort.

But he was fed up.

…Wasn't he?

Neville exhaled slowly, staring into his drink like it held the answers to the universe. He wanted to say that he was done, that he had finally reached his breaking point. That after years of her constant pushing, her emotional barricades, her refusal to let herself be fully his, he had finally had enough.

But that would have been a lie.

Because despite it all—the secrets, the mind games, the walls she built between them with infuriating precision—he wasn't done. He knew he should be. He knew that any rational person would have walked away a long time ago.

But Merlin help him, he wasn't rational when it came to Pansy.

He never had been.

And that was the problem.

He had left because he thought—hoped—that maybe the distance would give him clarity. That maybe, if he was away from her for long enough, the ache in his chest would dull, and he'd see things more clearly.

But the opposite had happened.

Because every single second he spent away from her made him feel like a part of him had been ripped out.

Every meal felt too quiet.

Every bed felt too empty.

Every fucking moment felt wrong because she wasn't there.

Even now, he could picture her—probably throwing some ridiculous over-the-top party for that damned pug, pretending she didn't care, distracting herself with extravagance because that's what she did when she didn't want to feel.

And that was what infuriated him the most.

Not her secrets.

Not her sharp tongue.

Not even the goddamn champagne she probably wasted on a dog.

No, what drove him insane was the fact that she thought he was just going to walk away. That she thought this was something she could just outlast, like a storm she could hunker down and wait out.

She didn't get it.

She didn't understand that she was his entire world.

Neville pushed his drink aside and exhaled sharply. He wasn't sure what he was going to do when he got back. Was he still angry? Yes. But was he going to let her keep pretending she didn't care? Absolutely fucking not.

Neville had always been a rational man. Steady, thoughtful, patient. The kind of person who analyzed situations, weighed every outcome, and made decisions with a level head. He was the one who diffused arguments, who found solutions instead of escalating problems. He prided himself on that.

But right now? Right now, he had a fucked-up idea.

Because if Pansy wanted to act like she had moved on—if she wanted to throw her ridiculous dog birthday parties, drown herself in champagne, surround herself with laughter and people and distractions—then fine. Fine. Let her play the part. Let her pretend that his absence didn't matter, that she wasn't crumbling from the inside out just as much as he was.

But if she was going to play that game? If she was going to act like nothing had changed, like she wasn't waiting for him just as much as he was waiting for her?

Then it was time to show her what it felt like.

She thought she could outplay him? That she could move her chess pieces while he sat on the sidelines playing checkers?

Not this time.

Neville Longbottom was done waiting for her to break first.

She wanted to act like she had moved on?

Then he was going to make her believe he had too.

He was going to be cool, calculated, and utterly unaffected.

And Miss Sassy was about to learn what it really felt like to be on the receiving end of that.

~~~~~~

Neville arrived home in the quiet hum of the afternoon, but nothing about his presence felt familiar. The moment he crossed the threshold, the air itself seemed to shift—heavier, colder, more precise. The kind of silence that didn't beg for comfort but dared it to try. He moved through the house like he no longer belonged to it but owned every corner of it anyway, like the absence between them had hardened something in him—something she couldn't quite name but recognized all the same.

Pansy was in her office—the one room she had cloaked herself in all week, a self-imposed exile disguised as productivity. Her calendar was full, yes, her quill scratched dutifully across parchment, and the room looked the part of someone impossibly busy. But the truth of it was bleak and still and stifling. She spent more time tracing cracks in the ceiling than actually writing. More time staring into empty tea cups than actually drinking. She hadn't dared look in a mirror since the day he left, afraid of what she might find—what kind of woman stares back when the person who steadied her world disappears without looking back.

She heard his footsteps before she saw him—measured, unhurried, with the restraint of a man who had decided on his next move days ago. When she stepped out of the room, heart thundering against her ribs, she found him already in the living room. He didn't look at her. Didn't greet her. Didn't ask how she was. He stood with his back impossibly straight, his expression schooled into something unreadable—familiar features made foreign by the distance that had grown between them.

"In the evening," he said, voice as smooth and cold as carved marble, "we are going to Astoria's birthday party. Get dressed and be ready by seven."

Just that. No softness. No preamble. No trace of the man who used to whisper promises against her skin and tuck strands of hair behind her ear just to feel close to her. And when he turned on his heel and walked away—no glance, no hesitation—she was left clutching the edge of the doorway like she might collapse.

She didn't cry right away.

But when she did, it came fast, fierce, and silent. No sobs, just tears that fell too quickly to catch, carving trails down her cheeks as she stood in that empty hallway, breath caught in her throat like glass.

He still had power over her. That was the cruelest part.

She slid into her fuck-me dress—the one that made him feral, the one that always left his fingers gripping the edges of tables, the one that had him dragging her into dark corners at parties because he simply couldn't wait. She wore it with confidence, her makeup flawless, her lips painted the perfect shade of red—red that spoke of sin and desire and mine.

But the moment she saw him, every ounce of her carefully constructed plan backfired spectacularly.

Because Neville fucking Longbottom was standing there in a perfectly tailored Valentino suit, his tie effortlessly sharp, his hair styled in that slightly undone way that made her want to ruin him. He exuded power, control, and a level of detached perfection that made her stomach twist.

He looked like revenge.

Like he knew exactly what he was doing to her.

Like he wanted her to suffer the way he had suffered.

She didn't say a word. Couldn't.

And without sparing her even a second glance, he took her arm, and they apparated to the party—like they were still the perfect couple.

Like neither of them were completely falling apart.

~~~~~~

The party was nothing short of extravagant, of course—it could never be anything less, not when the host was Astoria and the guest list read like a registry of pureblood royalty and Ministry elites. Gilded chandeliers shimmered like constellations above the ballroom, casting molten light across marble floors polished to a mirror shine, while waiters in pressed black uniforms floated through the crowd with trays of enchanted cocktails that smoked and glittered as if each glass contained a piece of the night sky. Conversations buzzed like bees in bloom, soft laughter mingling with the low thrum of a string quartet tucked discreetly into one corner, but Neville heard none of it. None of the polite compliments, the idle gossip, the murmured flirtations of bored socialites—it all passed by him in a haze because his focus had narrowed to one singular, razor-sharp objective: make Pansy jealous.

Not mildly envious. Not irritated. No, he wanted her wrecked. Shaking. Scalded with that special kind of jealousy that started as a whisper in the stomach and ended as a scream in the lungs. The kind that burned slow, deliberate, until it melted every ounce of control she thought she still had. Because she'd been playing games with him for weeks now—cool, collected, untouchable. She'd painted herself in apathy, wore indifference like perfume, and strutted through their shared unraveling as if his absence didn't crack the world beneath her feet. She had been silent, dismissive, so unbearably composed—and it drove him mad. So now, he was going to remind her. Remind her of what it meant to be his. Of how it felt to be wanted by someone who loved with the kind of devotion that bordered on ruin.

And if he was going to start a war, he might as well aim straight for the heart of her pride.

Daphne Greengrass.

Nemesis. Rival. The one woman who could make Pansy see red without lifting a finger. Their feud was legend, its roots buried in childhood slights and adolescent cruelty, the kind of enmity that had evolved over time into something far more elegant and poisonous—a chess match played in stilettos and shade, in whispered barbs and brittle smiles. So naturally, he positioned himself at Daphne's side for most of the evening. Not overly obvious, but just enough. His hand at the small of her back as they navigated the crowd, soft laughter at her jokes, eyes lingering just long enough. At one point, he leaned in, brushed his lips close to her ear, whispered something completely inconsequential—and that was when he saw her.

Pansy.

Standing on the far side of the room, framed by candlelight and gold, wrapped in that goddamn black dress—the one that defied every law of decency, the one that clung to her body like sin made silk. She looked lethal. And absolutely livid.

Her eyes locked on him, dark and glittering, her jaw so tightly clenched he could practically hear the grind of her teeth from across the room. Her fingers curled around the stem of her champagne flute with white-knuckled precision, her expression a mask of polished rage, and for one savage second, he felt triumphant. She felt it. She saw it. And it was working.

Until it wasn't.

Because when the party began to wind down, and he leaned in to press a feather-light kiss to Daphne's cheek, a final flourish in this cruel little performance, he turned around—

And she was gone.

No scene. No tantrum. No signature Pansy outburst. Just absence.

And that—more than a slap, more than a scream—unnerved him.

Apparating home felt like hurtling through fog. He didn't remember where he landed, didn't remember the exact moment he crossed the garden threshold, but he knew. He knew something had shifted the second he arrived. The house was silent, but not in the soft, domestic way. It was hollow. Cracked. Broken.

His belongings had been thrown out.

Not folded. Not placed. Thrown. Shirts draped from branches like flags of surrender. Ties half-buried in garden soil. A shoe in the birdbath. It was carnage.

And inside?

The moment he stepped through the front door, it hit him—the shatter of glass, the echo of destruction. The house elves darted frantically, murmuring apologies to the walls as if they could fix what she'd undone, but he barely registered them. His gaze was fixed on the figure at the center of the chaos.

Pansy.

Hair wild, face streaked with mascara, chest heaving with fury and heartbreak and everything she had refused to feel until this moment. Shards of crystal glittered like ice around her feet, her hands clenched into fists, her breathing shallow and sharp. She turned at the sound of his steps, and their eyes met.

And there it was—the raw, unfiltered truth. No pretense. No games. No masks. Just rage and pain and desperate, aching love.

And it gutted him.

Because he had wanted her to break.

But he hadn't expected her to bleed.