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"Oh. Pans. Hi." Neville was in the process of shrugging on his jacket when he answered the front door. He wasn't expecting any visitors today, let alone for Pansy to drop by, though he supposed that now that they were together, she technically could drop by whenever she wanted.
"Hey." Pansy's smile was already starting to slip and he knew that that was down to his reaction to seeing her. It wasn't that he wasn't happy to see her, it was that he was about to head to St Mungos for his weekly visit. He didn't like to be late for his visit, even though he knew that his parents wouldn't realise he was. "Not a good time?"
"I was just heading out, that's all," Neville told her, pausing for a moment before he decided to ask "Do you want to meet my parents?" Neville tended not to take anyone with him to visit his parents, not because he was ashamed of them - he was proud of them and proud of everything that they had gone through - but because he didn't want anyone to judge them. Neville knew that Pansy was the last person that would judge them, however.
Pansy was aware of his parent's mental state so her look of a deer being caught in headlights was not at all surprising. "Oh. That - sure."
Neville gave her a small smile. He wanted her to know that she wasn't at all obligated to come with him, but he had also decided since she had appeared on his doorstep that he did want her to meet his family. He took her hand after he locked the front door and walked with her down the track a little way before he turned to her and wrapped his arms around her waist. "Ready?" He asked and he waited for her to nod before he disapparated.
**
Up on the ward, it was as cheery as ever. There was music playing over speakers that were dotted around and Neville spotted his parents almost immediately after stepping through the door. His mother was dancing with one of the healers, her whole face lit up as she tilted her head backwards and swung from the healer, and his father was sat in a chair beside his bed clapping his hands over and over, almost in time to the music. Neville loved seeing them like this. They almost looked normal when they were like this. Not that he believed that there was such a thing as normal, but they looked happy like this and it was a far better sight than having to watch them being restrained with spells and even potions. He was also glad that this was how Pansy was getting to meet them.
He squeezed Pansy's hand before he lead her over to where his father was sat. Frank paused in his clapping and an expression passed over his features that Neville liked to believe was recognition before he went back to clapping. Neville was hard to this, was used to his parents not knowing who he was. Before they had been tortured and ended up here, he had been a baby and now he was a grown man.
"Pansy, I'd like you to meet Frank Longbottom." Neville glanced sideways at his girlfriend who looked extremely awkward to be there, but at least she had a kind smile on her lips, even if his father wasn't look in her direction. The only person that Frank ever recognised was his wife - and Alice recognised only him. If it hadn't been such a harrowing childhood to never have had his parents know who he was then Neville would have thought it romantic.
"Nice to meet you, Frank," Pansy said softly before her eyes flickered towards where Neville's mother was still dancing. It was obvious which patient was his mother, she looked so much like him after all, but Neville knew that those particular introductions would have to wait until she stopped dancing.
"Would you like to dance?" Neville asked as he nodded towards the middle of the makeshift dance floor. He knew that he could sit with his dad for a while, but at the same time, he wanted Pansy to relax before they did so. There was no point in her continuing to be uncomfortable if there was something that he could do to help it.
Pansy pressed a kiss to his cheek. "That sounds nice." She said softly before she let him lead her out towards where his mother, the healer, and some other patients were already whirling around.
They danced for a while, Neville trying not to think about the dance training that he had been forced into as a child before he noticed that his mother was pulling away from the healer and he also realised the time. The visiting hours' window never felt like it was long enough. He knew that he could come back tomorrow, but he also had work that he needed to do and there was no guarantee that tomorrow his parents would be fit for visitors either.
He led Pansy back over to his father and he sat on the bed beside him, patting the space next to him for her to sit down too.
"Alice?" He asked softly as his mother sat on the bed on the other side of Frank, her eyes on something in her hands that she wasn't showing anyone by the looks of things, and Neville knew that was because she was afraid of having it taken away. "Alice, there's someone I want you to meet." He watched as his mother looked up for a fraction of a second. "This is Pansy."
His mum mumbled something incoherent that Neville wanted to believe was a "hello" but he knew was probably more likely to be nonsense. He gave Pansy's hand another squeeze, but he was pleased to note that she had actually relaxed and was now leaning against him. Meeting his parents was never going to be an easy affair, especially when it appeared that they had no intention of even interacting with him, let alone with someone that they had never met before, but he was glad that Pansy hadn't bailed immediately.
"Pansy's the girl I told you about." He continued. "She's my girlfriend. She wanted to come and meet you two." Neville didn't know what else he could say, or even whether his parents had any recollection of the one-sided conversations that they had had about Pansy over the last few years. Instead, he opted to change the subject. "Your dancing today was beautiful, Alice." He knew why his father didn't dance anymore, or at least he reckoned that he saw it as an act of rebellion. Frank had been forced into dance lessons the same as Neville had throughout his childhood, but Alice hadn't been subjected to that.
To Neville's surprise, Pansy also started to talk about Alice's dancing and about the music that the patients had been listening to and Neville found that all of his worries and anxieties about Pansy meeting his parents and feeling uncomfortable around them completely melted away. He was lucky to have her in his life.