Not even a sandpit

Thnks to rainegodalfreya my ONLY reveiwer. Love ya hun and thanks for reveiwing! Glad you like!

The note he sent back was short and sharp:

8.00

He’s angry with me, not that I blame him I haven’t even given him a reason for my behaviour and I wont…at least not the real reason.

He does love me, I know this. Just as I know he won’t leave Cecile and especially not Courtney. Stuck up pair of bitches though they are.

I have only ever seen pictures of them, in the Daily Prophet when it reviews a society ball, I don’t look to long, I don’t like to wonder what he sees in me when he has them.

I have organised for Michelle to sit with Grandmother tonight, she won’t be at all happy when I tell her but it’s obvious she likes Michelle really. She likes knowing what people our age get up to in the world today and…well I’m pretty useless when it comes to that.

Michelle is my very good friend. We met when I had a job, I worked in a garden centre-muggle of course but I loved it all the same. Muggle plants are easy to look after and sometimes boring but in the end they’re still plants. Grandmother made quit, she said she was bedridden. I say she’s lazy.

Anyway she worked there with me and is a witch too, luckily so no worries about the magical neighbourhood.

I wish I could stay and chat to her when she comes but its going to take me three hours to get there and I don’t know how my tiny budget is going to allow for it.

Oh well guess I better to tell Gran.


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I smoke another cigarette whilst waiting for the bus, if I hold my breath coughing is minimal so I don’t look like a fool, although I do get some funny looks from the other people waiting for the bus. I think it’s just me.

My best robes are in my bag. I bought them with my own money from when I was working. They are a nice brown colour and are made of a beautifully soft substance; I don’t know what it’s called. I like brown it seems to suit me…although no one ever buys me clothes in that colour, perhaps it doesn’t.

But now the bus is here and as I get on I realise I forgot to change my jeans. They have soup all over them from when I broke the news that I was going out to Gran.

I think I’m going mad.


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I walk up the wooded path to his house, I have only ever been here once before right at the start of our relationship.

I remember how we met; it was about a year after we’d graduated form Hogwarts. I was working at Florean Fortescue’s ice cream parlour. He came in to talk to my boss about an order of ice cream he’d arranged for one of the Zambini’s famous party’s. He wasn’t married then.

I was struck as soon as he walked through the door at how beautiful he was. I’d always thought so really; when we were at Hogwarts everyone was always so taken with the Slytherin prince Draco Malfoy’s looks. Me? I was always taken with Blaise’s.

But I couldn’t be obvious about it, know one knew I was gay. I didn’t fancy him or anything, I didn’t allow myself to. I was struck now and then by how truly beautiful he really was.

But he had grown up and matured in the year since Hogwarts and I had a job keeping my eyes in my head and my jaw off the floor. I managed it by concentrating on replacing the old tubs of ice cream and generally keeping myself to myself.

I couldn’t help but notice his gaze on me as he chatted with my boss though.

He ordered a lot of ice cream in the weeks following, where he put it or what he did with it I do not know…but gradually he started eating in and sitting at the counter, trying to make conversation with me.

I chatted back of course, it was expected, as he was a highly valued customer. The Zambini name had not been soiled by Voldemort as they had turned out to be surprisingly neutral. It must have been hard.

I snap myself out of my thoughts and cross the style that leads into the kitchen gardens. Of course I can’t just walk up to the front door. I have to be snuggled into through the back like a guilty secret, which of course I am.

A house elf answered the door, she looks me over disapprovingly before informing me that I am to change in the first floor bathroom in the left wing, Mr Zambini is waiting for me in the corner parlour.


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After a lot of wandering about I finally locate the parlour and steel myself to enter. This takes the best part of five minutes, as I am nervous. I hate it when he’s angry.

Pushing the door open I see him sitting in a chair by the fire, it is still late evening so it remains unlit and an orange glow filters through the window due to the setting sun.

He has a glass of fire whiskey in one hand and his foot is bouncing impatiently, the room is eerily silent.

Without even looking at me he says curtly, “Would you like a drink?”

I shake my head and then state “no” in case he can’t see me out of the corner of his eye.

He bids me sit down with a wave his hand and I do, careful not crease my robes. I sit on the edge of the chair, as if relaxing into it would make the coming conversation so much worse.

He stays silent and it unnerves me, I’m guessing this is the point so I look around at my surroundings instead, waiting.

Waiting something I associate with my grand mother, not with Blaise.

The walls are panelled at the bottom, the walls a becoming pink. The furniture is done in cream with stripes of the same pale shade of pink and there are bouquets of wild flowers in vases of cream on either side of the fireplace.

“My wife decorated it” His voice was unexpected and I tried and failed to hide my start of surprise. I hid better the pain of knowing I would never have that kind of control over his home life. Although I doubt I’d be any good at decorating anyway.

I clear my throat, “Did she?”

It explains the pink, although I quite like it, I’ve always pictured parlours as pink.

Silence falls again. I am really tempted to just yell at him you get on with it.

It strikes me that if my parents were still lucid, this would be the kind of atmosphere I would share with them when I had done something really wrong. My Gran had the same reaction no matter what the severity of my crime, explosive anger.

I feel weak; I feel like a child again, I wish I had the guts to-

“What was yesterday about?”

He surprised me again but still I thought about my answer carefully.

“I had a bad day.”

“So you thought you’d take it out on me?”

Well who else would I take it out on? He is the main problem after all. I feel like saying.

“I’m sorry,” I say instead.

He rises from his chair in one graceful movement, his hand raking through his hair, rougher than mine does when I stroke it.

“Fourteen owls Neville! Fourteen owls I sent out for you to ignore and leave out in the cold all night, one of them is sick and that will cost me a fortune to put right!”

“One of them is sick? I didn’t mean to hurt them!”

That’s what I get for playing a game I cant win.

“I know you didn’t Neville, your to kind to want to do anything like that and don’t worry it shouldn’t be fatal.”

He came and knelt beside me. “It’s just you scared me, you’ve never done that before, tell me what was wrong.”

I though about telling him, I really did. But if I did we’d just have the same old argument, so I simply said.

“I told you, I was having a bad day.”

It’s at times like these I know I am a coward.


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We had tea in the dining room…only we didn’t finish the meal. Mid way through the main course he had me on the table, my hair was filled with caviar and the edge of the table was digging into the lower part of my back but I didn’t care, I didn’t even care that I still had my shirt on and the red wine that we had been drinking had spilled over from the force of his thrusts and was staining it irreversibly.

Because he was in me and I felt complete and at this moment in time was perfect and I was happy with my sandpit.