Scarlet Woman

Gran was looking down on us, down that fantastic beak of hers. She tutted, shaking her head slowly. Her feathered hat sat proudly on her head, making demonic shadows around her eyes which stood out, glared, watched my every movement.

Mrs. Weasley turned on the light.

"What are you thinking about, lover?"

Lover.. I'd gone from being a nobody to a lover in thirty minutes. Not bad. But, of course, not good either.

"Please don't call me lover, Mrs. Weasley."

"Sorry."

We lay on Mr. and Mrs. Weasley's bed, under the rather nasty brown paisley quilt. I could feel her soft body surrounding me, folding into my own. Around us, drops of rain beat down on the cracked window. The crack was thin and spidery, spreading its wispy branches along the smoky glass. I turned on to my back and exhaled.

"If I tell you what I was thinking about, Mrs. Weasley, will you promise not to laugh or think I'm weird?"

Mrs. Weasley made a strange grunting noise, which I took to mean that she agreed.

"Well, it's like this. Ever since I was little- like, when I was five and I stole Wayne McFee's yellow crayon or when I was eight and I set the cat on fire-"

She stared at me, horrified.

"Oh, Spot was OK, her fur just never happened to grow back. But, er, that's not the point. Basically, whenever I do something bad or wrong, I-"

She laughed richly, so that the bed shook. She sat up, and I became fully aware of her body. I had always loved a woman with curves, and Mrs. Weasley, I had noticed, was about a million times better than Marylin Monroe. But I wasn't going to fall in love with her. Or fancy her. Or sleep with her ever again- bad Neville, naughty Neville!

But her red hair, splayed out on the pillow, surrounded me.. Cinnamon scented, flame coloured hair, flecked in places with misty grey. I tentatively took a strand of her hair, and twirling it round my fingers, I spoke again.

"Mrs. Weasley, what we've just done.. Well, don't you feel guilty at all?"

She was pulling on her husband's wooly green socks now.

"I mean, we just.. er.. had..." Sex. Still couldn't say it. "You just slept with me and you're sitting there in your husband's socks."

"Neville, dear, it's just sex. You give me what Arthur can't, what's wrong with that? It'll be our little secret, ", she said, tapping her nose, but her eyes didn't quite meet mine.

I was horrified. An hour ago, I hadn't even known Mrs. Weasley. She had been Ron's mum, Gran's friend and the lady who made my birthday cake. I hadn't even noticed that she was beautiful. And now, somehow I ended up in bed with her, more than acquainted. My halo had not only slipped, it had run away in disgust.

"Mrs. Weasley, this shouldn't have happened. It was wrong." I hopped around the room on one leg, unsuccessfully trying to pull on my trousers with dignity.

"I'm very sorry if I misled you," I muttered thickly through a mouthful of wool as I pulled my jumper over my head. "I'll see myself out."

And as I strode out of that gate, I made a promise to myself that I, Neville Longbottom- not Evil Longbottom- would not be seeing Mrs. Weasley again.