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Chapter Text

Neville Longbottom took in a deep, satisfying breath and looked down at his feet. His new shoes broke up the yellow warning lines at the edge of the platform, but he didn't move back. The pristine brogues made the mottled, old paint on the ground look worse and Neville wondered if he had ever looked better than any place he was before, but he still didn't move. He couldn't. 

Neville stared up at the gleaming red steam train - The Hogwarts Express, as his insides squirmed in an equal mix of barely restrained excitement and unparalleled fear.

It was happening. It was finally happening. 

The train's conductor blew a whistle in the distance and Neville was broken from his near trance. He hurried to get moving before he was too late. He turned to say goodbye to his Grandmother, and although he was filled to bursting, Neville knew it was unlikely to be an emotional farewell. 

Augusta Longbottom had been born a stern woman, and her life had seen her further hardened. Still, she was the only parent Neville had ever known, yet, like many of the children standing close to him in clustered family groups, he had mixed emotions about his primary caregiver. 

Neville turned and presented himself in front of her, as he had become accustomed to doing, and his Grandmother ran a cursory eye over his appearance, no doubt ready to list faults as she found them. But when she opened her mouth to speak, she hesitated, and it was so out of character that Neville immediately assumed she must have been unwell. After a couple of seconds, Augusta seemed to shake herself off before she stepped forward and placed a warm hand on his shoulder. 

"You look so like your father," she said. 

To someone else, he imagined the words might have sounded kind, maybe even fond, but to Neville, they were a reminder, and a warning all rolled into one. As his Grandmother instructed him often, he had a legacy to fulfil and a good name to uphold. 

It was an almost unbearable weight for such a small, mild-mannered boy to carry.

Neville had looked in the mirror that very morning and compared himself to a picture he had found of his Dad, one where he was at about the same age. Any resemblance was lost on him, but as he had little more than surface-level information about either of his parents, it was hard to find likenesses. His Gran was reluctant to speak of her son, and Neville had learnt never to press her. Over the years, more distant family members had filled in some of the seemingly unending blanks but they all patched together to be little more than a bedtime story. 

Distant, remote and unable to provide any real comfort. 

Neville's parents had been childhood sweethearts, having fallen in love at school, and his Dad had proposed straight after graduation. They had then married and entered the Auror training programme together, Alice becoming pregnant soon after.

Neville heard the second warning whistle and his feet shifted with impatience. Augusta produced an overly adorned handkerchief from somewhere on her person and wiped Neville's face while chastising him on the importance of his appearance for first impressions. 

"I never had to do this for your father. He was always excellently turned out. You will never get anywhere in life with a slovenly attitude."

"Yes, Gran."

After entering training together, Neville's parents had been attacked by a group of rogue Death Eaters close to the end of the wizarding war. Such a thing often happened in bedtime stories too, but in those tales good came back to conquer evil, and Neville supposed it had in this case. He-who-must-not-be-named was gone after all. But, closer to home, all of the evil spells, that are supposed to go away when the light returned, they lingered. His parent's had been at St Mungo's ever since the attack, and from everything Neville knew, that was where they would remain. 

Neville had been to see his parents the day before, his final visit before he would be able to return over the Christmas holidays. Alice and Frank Longbottom had lived in the same place since they were discovered following the attack, the Janus Thickey Ward. The ward housed residents whose minds had been permanently affected by spell damage and were no longer able to function in the wizarding world, or any world. His parents couldn't speak, at least not in complete sentences, and their comprehension was often limited. But Neville knew they recognised him when he visited. His Mum's eyes would flash as he walked in and she would pause in whatever she had been doing to come and sit next to him, letting him speak and tell her his news while she unwrapped boiled sweets and presented him with the wrappers.

Neville zoned out of listening to his Grandmother's instructions as a small family, a few feet away, caught his eye. The parents were both crouched down so they could be eye level with a small child that was standing in front of them. The mum was smiling as she stuffed more and more items into the child's rucksack, and the dad cuffed the young boy's cheek. Neville turned away when his throat began to itch. 

Apart from his Grandmother, most people said he looked like his Mum, though Neville thought they were just being kind. His Mum was beautiful, and even after all that time lost in herself, he still thought so. She had an inner beauty that not even the forces of darkness had been able to take from her. In contrast, Neville believed he fell somewhat short.

He was chubby, most notably in his cheeks and his teeth seemed a little large for his head. His Uncle Algie often reassured him that Longbottom men were often a 'little heavy' when younger and as soon as he had a few growth spurts it would all even out. Neville would take one look at his Uncle's rather pronounced belly and nod along convincingly, despite not believing a single word.

When she had apparently finished, his Grandmother pulled him forward for a hug as terse and perfunctory as Neville had imagined it would be, before she ushered him up the metal steps. 

As Neville stepped out of her shadow, he focused on the weight of his trunk. The huge oblong filled with all of his possessions felt like the only thing holding him on the ground. The further he moved away from his Gran's disapproving stare, the more he felt like he could breathe.

This was it! 

The first time where he could be himself, not Frank's son that never quite measured up, not the kid with the tortured parents, simply him, Neville.

Somewhat predictably, his soring happiness over his newfound freedom faded quickly. He had been on the train for less than ten minutes when he realised that he had lost his beloved toad, Trevor. 

Neville immediately fell to his knees, hoping to see his familiar pressed up against the side of the corridor. However, after long minutes of frantic searching, Neville still couldn't find him. The halls began to fill as the train started to chug, ready for its departure and reluctantly, Neville walked into the nearest available compartment and hoisted his trunk up into the racking, already looking forward to being able to complete such tasks with magic.

It was only when he turned around that he noticed a girl was sitting on the opposite bench. It was no wonder he hadn't seen her before she was so small. She had to be a first-year like him, and the realisation made him feel moderately at ease, not relaxed as such but not as anxious as he might have been. She had a copy of Hogwarts a History perched on her lap that dwarfed her further, and her hands were pressed on either side, holding it open. 

Her hair was insane. It was the first thing he noticed about her appearance. Neville had never seen anything quite like it; it seemed to move independently around her head, reacting to the subtle movements of the train. It wavered and fizzed in the air like a warning. 

He briefly wondered if it were a living organism that he hadn't heard about yet. Plants and the natural world were a particular area of interest for him, and he had made it his mission to read up on Herbology as much as possible before coming to Hogwarts, as he knew it was one of the core subjects. 

Neville dropped his satchel onto the seat, and still, the girl did not look up. She had made no response to him entering the compartment and did not acknowledge him now despite him staring. Neville summed up all of his courage, reminding himself that no one knew each other yet, not really, and broke the silence.

"Um... excuse me… you... you haven't seen a toad have you?"

The tiny girl raised her head, and Neville's gaze was met by caramel brown eyes assessing him shrewdly. "No, I'm sorry I haven't, and you are?" 

Neville was instantly taken aback by her crisp, direct tone. It seemed so at odds with her slightly wild appearance. "I'm Neville, Neville Longbottom," he replied courteously. His Gran would have had his hide if he behaved with anything less than the utmost civility. 

"Pleasure to meet you, Neville. I'm Hermione Granger, would you like some help looking for him, or her?" she replied. Her voice grew less brittle, and she began to close her huge book ahead of his answer.

"Err," Neville faltered as he stood, "yes, please."

He followed her out into the corridor where he noticed that she, much like himself, had more than a little difficulty walking straight during the rough movements of the now speeding train. Hermione proceeded to knock on every single compartment and enquire about Trevor, never once seeming to falter in confidence, even when talking to much older students clearly not accustomed to being interrogated by such a tiny, determined girl. By the time they approached the last carriage, Neville was starting to feel a bit tearful and was even more grateful that Hermione had taken charge.

When the last carriage door opened, there were only two occupants, both boys in their first year, Harry Potter and Ron Weasley. Neville had heard from his Gran that Harry Potter would be attending Hogwarts that year, and it was clear from the boy's facial expression that he wanted to keep a low profile. He had heard of the Weasleys of course, being a pureblood part of his education as a child had been about the existing pureblood families followed by harsh directives from his Gran on which ones he was allowed to associate with. To some in pureblood circles, the Weasleys would be seen as blood traitors, the Longbottoms too for that matter. Still, his Gran had referred to them as a respectable family, though she had made a few comments about the number of children they had being unseemly... whatever that meant.

With nowhere else to search, Hermione sat down next to Ron Weasley, pressing him to continue the bit of magic he had looked to be attempting when they entered. Despite the lack of warmth in the welcome, Hermione looked set to stay until she glanced up and saw Neville's face. Then, before he knew what was happening, she scrambled to her feet, calling a goodbye over her shoulder as she and Neville headed back to their own compartment. 

"I'm sure he will turn up, Neville," Hermione said reassuringly, and he slumped onto the bench seat opposite her.

"I hope so," he said softly and looked out of the window. He had been truly surprised when his Gran had let him get a familiar. His Uncle may have been persistent, but that hadn't stopped her before. He imagined most of the other children would have picked cats or owls, but as soon as he had seen Trevor floating in a tank, Neville knew he was for him. 

Having Trevor with him had made him feel more confident that he could do this, the prospect of boarding school hadn't felt quite so overwhelming. Now he was gone. 

"So," Hermione said, interrupting his thoughts with barely concealed eagerness. "Which house do you think you will be in?"

Neville fiddled with the edge of his jumper, Hermione was clearly searching for a topic to distract him. Unfortunately, this one did not provide much comfort. 

"Both of my parents were in Gryffindor," he began not meeting her eyes, "but I think there's a good chance I won't be. Not sure where I will end up. I'm not brave like you need to be for Gryffindor and not smart like the Ravenclaws… maybe Hufflepuff?"

"I'm not sure where I would be," Hermione replied with a shrug. "My parents are Muggles, so no indication there. I don't know how smart I could be perceived as being as I've only known about magic for a few months. Everyone from the wizarding world must be so much further along than me."

Her modest smile waned a touch and Neville suddenly comprehended how scared Hermione must have been. He was frightened about the new experience, and he had known about magic his whole life. He felt the need to reassure her like she had tried to do for him with Trevor.

"My family thought I was going to be a squib for a while. I didn't show any signs of magic until quite late," Neville revealed and prayed she wouldn't laugh at him. 

Her head tilted as she looked at him. "What's a squib?"

"Non-magical person born to magical parents. It all got cleared up when my Uncle Algie chucked me out of a window."

"He dropped you out of a window?!" Hermione's voice had become impossibly shrill, and her eyes were wide as saucers. Despite Neville's nerves and his worry for Trevor, he found he was laughing.

"It was an accident," he replied, trying to placate her. "He was reaching for a meringue, and I was sitting on the window ledge, and I got pushed out. Before I hit the ground, I stopped and hovered for a minute before landing gently."

A fit of giggles overcame Hermione, and he couldn't help joining her. After a few moments she straightened out wiping her eyes. "Oh, that's terrible. I'm so sorry. I shouldn't laugh; you could have died."

"It all worked out in the end. Uncle Algie brought me Trevor when I got my Hogwarts letter. I can't believe I've lost him already."

"It will be alright, Neville, he will turn up."

Hours later, Hermione was proved right, something that would repeat itself again and again in later years. After arriving at Hogsmeade Station, a giant man, who Harry Potter whispered was called Rubeus Hagrid, was clutching a toad and shouting for whoever had lost it to come forward.

"TREVOR!" Neville exclaimed as he jumped up and thanked Hagrid profusely before securing Trevor inside his robes. He hoped that he would at least manage to make it to the end of the day before losing him again.

The first years were directed to the shore of the Black Lake to cross over to Hogwarts Castle. Hagrid instructed that they should be four to a boat and himself and Hermione climbed in behind Harry and Ron. They may not have gone out of their way to be friendly early, but they were familiar, and for right now, that was all that mattered. 

Neville listened to the excited chatter around him and allowed himself to exhale forcefully as he felt Trevor's squirming in his front pocket. With everything going on it took Neville a while to notice that Hermione had fallen completely silent, it was jarring after listening to her excited chatter all the way up to Scotland. 

Their boat rocked in the water, and her hand jerked out from under her robes to grip the side of the small vessel, and her knuckles began turning white with the force of her hold. Her eyes were firmly closed, and her teeth were embedded in her bottom lip.

As the first part of the castle came into view, Ron leant forward which disturbed the boat again, and this time Hermione's other hand shot from under her robes to grab at Neville's fingers and he allowed the touch, mainly as he was too stunned to react. 

He had only ever held hands with two people, and it had been a long time since his Gran had held his hand, though his Mum occasionally still reached for it on their visits.

Their boat turned, and they got their first glimpse of the whole castle, perched high up on the rocks it looked beautiful in the setting sun. Neville knew Hermione would appreciate the view, from the amount she had quoted from Hogwarts a History on the way down she must have read the book more than once, and this might be her only opportunity to see it from where they were.

As gently as he could, Neville squeezed her hand. "Hermione, open your eyes, you need to see this."

A moment later he noticed a minute movement as Hermione opened one eye, just a fraction, then gasped loudly and her eyes opened and went almost as full as when he had told her about the window incident.

As they pulled into the shore, Neville kept ahold of Hermione's hand to help her out of the boat, something that was ingrained in him from his 'pureblood training'. When she let go he had to stretch his fingers several times to get the blood to flow back to the tips, she had an unbelievably sure grip, though, he didn't really mind, he was still rather flattered she had reached for him in the first place. 

Lining up for the sorting ceremony, Neville lost sight of any excitement he might have felt earlier that day. He had long been intimidated by the reputation of the different house for excellence, and his biggest fear was the sorting hat being placed on his head only for it to declare there was nowhere for him to go. He wondered if he would be given the option to try again or whether he would need to go home immediately. 

Quicker than he would have liked, the students in front of him diminished and his name was called. Neville tentatively moved towards the stool, and Professor McGonagall placed the old hat on his head. His eyes fell on Hermione, already seated at the Gryffindor table, and watching with rapt attention. Neville had previously thought he would argue for Hufflepuff, there would be no false expectations there, but when he saw Hermione move to the edge of her seat, he was too distracted to make any arguments at all. So he was startled with the hat shouted, "GRYFFINDOR!"

Neville was so surprised, both by the volume of the hat's voice and its judgement, that he got halfway across the hall before he realised the hat was still on his head. He blushed fiercely and raced back to put it on the stool for the next student. As he moved towards the red and gold table, he smiled at the pats on the back, handshakes and residual cheering, Hermione made to shuffle over, and he nudged in next to her.

"We did it, Neville," she exclaimed happily. "They have a place for us, and it's Gryffindor, home of the brave."

"Home of the brave," he repeated, and for the first time, the words didn't fill him with dread.

Chapter Text

A week into his ‘Hogwarts experience’, Neville reflected that his first year hadn’t gotten off to the best start. Against all the odds, in the beginning, it had seemed like it was going to be okay - temporarily lost toad notwithstanding. He had been sorted into Gryffindor, he had made friends and he was happy with his roommates. The highlight of those first few days had been his first Herbology class, it had been nothing short of fantastic. All those hours with Uncle Algie in the greenhouses of Longbottom House must have paid off as Professor Sprout had claimed he had a natural talent in front of the whole class. Neville wasn’t sure he had ever been labelled as having a talent before, let alone a natural one.

Then he’d had his first Potions lesson, and everything derailed so extraordinarily badly that the experience was sure to give him nightmares for weeks to come. 

It was the first time he had ventured into the dungeons of the castle, and if it had been up to Neville, it would have been the last. Hogwarts didn’t even feel like the same building down there. It was as if all the warmth had been removed from the air, the cheer right along with it, just by moving down a couple of flights of stairs.

All of his fellow students had shuffled into the room and found their seats amongst the unusual apparatus when the classroom door had been swung open with a large slam, and Professor Snape had moved into view. Neville had seen him before, of course, at mealtimes and such, and he had certainly heard enough about him. Professor Snape was something of a Hogwarts legend, and he was as unpopular as he was noteworthy. Neville had prepared himself to be intimidated, but nothing had quite prepared him for how scared he would be of the formidable potions master when he saw him up close. 

Neville catalogued Snape’s features like a child listing the characteristics of their most feared monster. When Snape moved, his black robes billowed, flaring around him like a dark magical aura. His so-dark-it-was-almost-black hair was visibly greasy and fell limply to his shoulders; he had a large hook nose and his face seemed permanently set in a sneer. Though, most frightening to Neville was his disposition. Snape seemed to exist in a state of barely holding onto the last fragment of his temper, an eruption into rage being likely at the smallest provocation. Neville resolved to keep his head down and not attract attention. 

When they had been assigned their very first task, and the students got to work, Neville could tell how daunting the other students found Snape by how quiet the room got, but no one seemed to find the sour Potions Master as totally incapacitating as he did.

Neville was working with Seamus Finnigan, which, with the gift of hindsight, was probably not the best combination. Where Neville was supposedly a natural with plants, Seamus had an equally innate gift for pyrotechnics. That said, it was still Neville that made the first mistake. He couldn’t help it. He was unnerved by the way their professor stalked around like a caged tiger, waiting for one of them to err so he could pounce. It didn’t matter how many times he reminded himself to breathe, Neville couldn’t concentrate, and that resulted in him fumbling with ingredients, putting in one too many of the beans he had studiously prepared and accidentally melting Seamus’s cauldron. The resulting explosion drenching him in subpar boil-curing potion was the icing on the cake.

After being screamed at for his incompetence, Neville was sent to the Hospital Wing, for what would turn out to be the first of many many trips; he had hoped that Madam Pomfrey would have something for the burns and it would come without further chastisement.

Once the bad times started, they didn’t want to leave. After being patched up by the lovely mediwitch, Neville was once again clear for classes. However, this meant he was able to join his classmates for their first flying lesson. 

Neville had sat next to Hermione at breakfast, who, for once, was just as nervous as he was. Though instead of staring morosely at her porridge - as Neville had chosen to do - Hermione was aggressively flipping through a borrowed copy of Quidditch Through The Ages. 

Neville was sure there was nothing within the pages of the book that would help, but you only had to glance at Hermione’s crumpled hair to know that she’d had little sleep the night before and so he thought better of pointing out the obvious.

Ron was quietly, quietly for Ron at least, scoffing at her from the other side of the table and Neville pushed a muffin onto her empty plate, in a silent show of support. 

Selfishly, he was rather glad someone was as nervous as he was. Though he felt Hermione, as a Muggleborn, had an excuse if she didn’t pick it up straight away. He should have been more prepared. But his Gran had never let him have a broom. The only time he had braved asking, she had said that anyone as clumsy as he was with both feet on the ground would be a menace airborne and he had defeatedly walked away from the potential argument.

When the class bell sounded, Neville reluctantly joined the others on their way to the side of the castle to meet Madam Hooch who had them line up in two rows facing each other, each student next to a school broom that had been laid out on the ground. 

Of course, this lesson just had to be with the Slytherins. 

Draco Malfoy had seemingly made it his personal mission to make Neville’s life difficult, and they had only been there a few days. Draco was at the top of the list of children his Gran wanted him to have nothing to do with, and this was probably one of the only things that he had ever totally agreed with her on. Malfoy was the epitome of everything that was wrong with the old fashioned pureblood circles. He was loud, rude, cruel and a snob. Worse, he was a coward. He revelled in throwing out his hateful comments, but he didn’t go anywhere without at least two of his little followers with him.

Neville’s Gran had told him many times that the Malfoys were not be trusted, but Neville had only had one experience with the family before Hogwarts. A few years before, he had gone to the ministry with his Gran when she was running errands, and they had bumped into Lucius Malfoy, Draco’s father. Neville had disliked him instantly, and from the expression on the man’s face, the feeling was mutual. Draco was well on his way to becoming a carbon copy of his father.

Almost as soon as the lesson began, Neville lost control of his broom. He had been so afraid of being the only one not to get the thing airborne that he had pushed off too early and ended up going much higher than he bargained for. When he was several feet higher than Madam Hooch’s head, he panicked, and with the resulting lapse in concentration, the broom fell out of the air, and he plummeted to the ground, hard.

Madam Hooch rushed over, and after she helped him off the ground, Neville noticed the weird angle his wrist was sitting at, and she insisted on escorting him to the Hospital Wing. Despite the pain in his wrist, Neville was relieved it was over. 

“Good Afternoon, Mr Longbottom. We meet again,” Madam Pomfrey greeted warmly from behind her desk. 

Neville gave her a watery smile and sat on the bed the nurse directed him to. After running a series of diagnostic spells, Madam Pomfrey informed him he had a broken wrist. He sighed; he had only just got rid of the rash that remained after the potions accident. How could he have injured himself again so soon?

Before he could continue to mentally berate himself the heavy Hospital Wing doors swung open and from the unmistakable hair that appeared, it was clear that Hermione had come to see him. With some difficulty, that he stifled a laugh at, she hoisted herself up and perched on the end of his bed.

“What did Madam Pomfrey say?” she asked with wide eyes as she looked down at the angry red mark on his wrist. 

“She’s getting me a potion, and then I should be okay to go. Did… Did everyone laugh when I was gone?”

Neville hated that he could feel his cheeks flush as he asked the question, he hated to be embarrassed, and he had already spent too much time feeling like the butt of the joke since he came to Hogwarts.

Hermione smiled at him. “No, everyone was distracted. Malfoy took your Remberall and flew off, daring Harry to give chase. Which he obviously did and then he was spotted by Professor McGonagall through her office window, and she came running down onto the pitch afterwards. It looked like she had steam coming out of her ears; she was so mad.”

Hermione’s contempt for Harry’s antics was plain, but Neville was just glad that he might not have been the biggest spectacle of the day.

“Wow, wouldn’t like to be in his shoes… how did the rest of it go for you?”

“Same as before you left really. I kept saying ‘up’ but the broom would not ‘ up ’. It never left the ground the whole lesson,” Hermione signed defeatedly. “You don’t think… Never mind,” her eyes fell to the floor, and her hair fell forward till it was almost totally obscuring her face. Neville was getting used to Hermione’s mannerisms, and she only hid when she was anxious about something.

“I don’t think what?” he probed gently.

“Well… Malfoy… and some of the other Slytherins...”

“You don’t want to go listening to them, Hermione. Idiots the lot of them.”

She lifted her head ever so slightly, and he could see that the corners of her mouth had twinged upwards. “No… I know… but… well... they’ve said a few things about me being Muggleborn, and I wanted to be able to fly so badly because I didn’t want them to know I couldn’t do something. It would feel like I had proved them right, but… but I’m just so scared of it. I don’t like heights at all, and this one time I went skiing with my parents, and there was this huge lift and I…”

Sensing that she was about to spiral, he cut her off. “Hermione, it’s just flying a broom, it’s not the end of the world. And you’ve been brilliant in all our other classes. Muggleborn or not, I’ll bet you’ll be the smartest in our year.”

Hermione’s cheeks dimpled, and Neville fidgeted with the edge of the over starched bed sheet. “Really?” she asked shyly. 

“Really,” he agreed quickly, happy to see a hint of a smile on her face as her legs swung back and forth.

“So, remedial flying lessons it is then,” she sighed.

“Yeah, I guess so,” Neville agreed. “Let’s be honest it was probable we were going to end up there however today went. There should be a few less people in that class, and we only have to know the basics, and then we don’t have to do it anymore.” 

Neville tried to reassure her. He felt silly given that he had precisely the same fears, but when he could comfort Hermione, it made himself feel better. 

“I suppose you’re right,” Hermione said, though she sounded none too happy at the prospect of facing a broom again. “As you’re not going to be here much longer do you want to come to the library with me? I was going to get a head start on my potions homework.”

“So you can help me, you mean?” he said with more bite than he had intended. Neville knew Hermione meant well, but he was on his second visit to the Hospital Wing in a week, and he didn’t want to be reminded of potions at all, impending homework or not.

“No,” she replied primly. “I said I’m going to work on it, if you want to be there reading the same books, quietly discussing the topic, that’s up to you.” 

She smiled brightly at him, and Neville felt his prickly attitude fade. “Also, I wouldn’t mind a bit of help on the Herbology Devil’s Snare assignment. I’m mislabelling something on my diagram and its throwing everything off.”

Neville beamed at her. Maybe it hadn’t been such a bad start after all.

Neville could see that Ron was unhappy from the back of his head. It wasn’t exactly a sign of him having a great sense of empathy. It didn’t take a great deal of concentration to read Ron. The redhead was given to bouts of emotion, and he was quick to anger, especially if he was being kept from his food for any period of time.

Neville was in a cluster of Gryffindor boys leaving their second charms class of the term and Ron was on a tear about Hermione. She had embarrassed him in class when she had corrected him on his spell pronunciation and his attempt at turning the humiliation on her by asking her to ‘prove it’ had failed when her levitated feather made its way higher and higher until it eventually settled on one of the rafters. Professor Flitwick had all but fallen off his book pile in delight.

“Did you hear her? It’s leviosa not leviosar,” Ron said, mimicking Hermione’s voice unflatteringly, and Harry and Dean made some general noises of assent. 

Neville could see where Ron was coming from, though he felt disloyal to even think about it. Hermione’s manner was standoffish at times, and it alienated her from a lot of people. He didn’t think she did it intentionally and she wasn’t like that around him, not really, but with others, she seemed to struggle to express herself.

Despite the lack of reaction, Ron continued. “I mean it’s no wonder she hasn’t got any friends.” 

Neville thought that was a bit strong, they were only in the first few weeks of the term, and while he had noticed Hermione hadn’t ever been in a large group, he had seen her chatting to people in their year, within their house and otherwise. He was willing himself to say something in her defence but before he could articulate anything he was knocked off balance by Hermione herself pushing past them all. For a girl that looked as fragile as she often did, Hermione could be incredibly strong. Neville called after her, but she didn’t so much as turn around. Her shoulders were slumped, and he could see her drag the body of her bag around her front and clutch it to her chest like a shield.

“Did you have to?” Neville asked, still watching Hermione disappear from view.

“What?” Ron answered defensively. “She should hear it. It might do her some good. She’s insufferable at the moment.”

“She’s actually… she’s actually really nice,” Neville finally managed to say.  

The other boys in his house all stopped and turned to look at him, and he forced himself not to cower. He wasn’t made for standing up to people, but Hermione had been nice to him, helping him look for his toad, visiting him in the Hospital Wing she deserved someone in her corner as much as anyone.

“She can come off a bit... cold,” he continued, and Ron snorted. “But she’s not just in a new school. She’s in a whole new world so… so cut her some slack… please.”

Harry appeared slightly abashed, and even Ron looked vaguely thoughtful. Neville nodded awkwardly at the boys and went off in the direction that Hermione had marched in knowing he would probably find her in the library. 

He hoped things would start to get easier for her, for both of them.

Chapter Text

Neville was in the Hospital Wing, which, by now, was no uncommon occurrence. This was after all, the third time he had been sent there since the beginning of term. Though on this occasion, he hadn't been 'sent' at all, he had been carried . Just when Neville thought that things couldn't possibly get any worse, life stepped in and reminded him that there were always greater indignities to suffer. 

If there was a bright spot in the whole affair, albeit a dim one, it was that it hadn't been an accident, and by his own estimation, it was not his fault.

Harry had half carried, half dragged him from the Quidditch pitch, and upon arrival, he had been directed to deposit Neville in what Madam Pomfrey affectionately referred to as the 'Longbottom Suite' - a bed in the far right corner of the ward. 

He'd first heard the name on his last visit, and for a moment Neville had been stunned and a little hurt at what he had considered to be blatant, unnecessary teasing. Though, actually, it went on to be something of a revelation. During his treatment - for a heavily bruised knee from a well-timed tripping hex - Madam Pomfrey told him that the name had come from when his father was at Hogwarts. According to the nurse, Frank Longbottom had been very clumsy as a young man and had visited the infirmary even more than his son had managed in his first few weeks. 

At first, Neville hadn't believed her. He had smiled of course, and pretended to be grateful, he never wanted to dissuade anyone from mentioning his parents, he drank up every snippet of their existence eagerly. But this particular piece didn't seem to fit with everything else he had been told. Whatever his face had shown, Madam Pomfrey had seen his hesitation, so she produced Frank Longbottom's file, to show him all of the instances that had led to him being salved, bandaged and potioned, repeatedly. Neville had poured over the faded manilla folder until long after the main lights of the ward had dimmed. His injury had been minor, but the matron had made no move to chase him on to join his peers for dinner. 

Neville had run his finger over the bumpy parchment that bore his father's name and tried to feel concerned about all of the injuries he had weathered. Concern never came, he was too elated. 

He lost his shame about being so clumsy after that. 

It was the first time anyone had given him any indication that either of his parents were anything less than perfect. 

That he was like them.  

It wasn't as if he wanted to hear that they were horrible, far from it, but Neville had been raised with this image of them, his dad in particular, as the brightest, the kindest and the greatest, they seemed so unattainable like that, so far out of reach. Hearing that Frank had tripped up the main stairs, knocking down two portraits, and breaking a couple of fingers in the process, made his dad, or at least the Frank Longbottom that he had been at that age, seem like a real person, not an unattainable fantasy.

Neville winced against the bright lights and tried to resettle himself on the bed. The tiny movement sent a rolling sweep of pain through his head, and he clutched at his temple in an attempt to calm it. He wasn't sure what had caused the intense throbbing, he had blacked out very early in proceedings, so things were still a little fuzzy. Madam Pomfrey had been over to do her initial assessments and had tutted continually over the litany of bruises covering his face and upper body. Neville ached, and he was sure he had broken a couple of ribs, but nothing could displace the grin that was currently stretched across his face.

This time was different. He felt pride in these injuries.

He had finally stood up for himself, in front of almost the whole school, and to Malfoy of all people! 

All year Neville had found himself on the wrong side of Draco Malfoy's sharp tongue and various hexes. He had no idea why the blond had it in for him, but whatever Malfoy's motivation, he never missed an opportunity to ridicule him. Neville wasn't the only one, Harry and Ron seemed to be on his shit list as well, but as far as he could recall, he had never treated the Slytherin with open hostility like the other boys had, yet he was still a target.

It was just after the Christmas holidays and Neville had been happy to be back in the castle following a very quiet Yule at home. He had visited his parents on Boxing Day, as usual, and though he wouldn't miss it for the world, the call had made him maudlin. At every other time of year, Neville pushed his feelings about his parent's hospitalisation down inside of himself, deep to the bottom of his mind so that he didn't dwell on things that couldn't be changed. Christmas was more difficult. It was such a family orientated holiday, and after weeks of listening to his housemates excitedly discuss their plans and exchange details of long-standing traditions in their homes, Neville found he could not shake the longing for something similar. Even though acknowledging his desire came with an incredible amount of guilt. 

After dropping off his trunk into his dorm, Neville had been heading to the Great Hall hoping to grab a quick something to eat before they stopped serving dinner. Walking into what had appeared to be an empty corridor, he had been set upon by Malfoy and his gang of Slytherin hangers-on. After a few variations on the standard set downs - most were directed at his general lack of intelligence - Malfoy had fired a Leg-Locker Curse at him. 

Neville believed he was okay-ish at defensive magic. DADA wasn't one of his stronger classes, but it was better than Potions. However, his clumsiness slowed him down, and his reaction times were never quick enough. After Malfoy had finally walked away, not before nearly laughing himself sick, Neville had had to bunny-hop all the way back to Gryffindor Tower. He hadn't been able to remember the counter curse, and he hadn't wanted to humiliate himself further by going into the Great Hall in that state. 

After coming dangerously close to losing his temper with the Fat Lady, as she had laughed at his efforts to get through the portrait hole, Neville had eventually stumbled into the common room, where he had swallowed his shame and asked for help. Dean Thomas did the ‘honours’, and Neville had collapsed into a chair to recover. 

Harry, Ron and Hermione, now firm friends following an incident at Halloween with a troll in the girl's bathroom - that all three gave very conflicting accounts of - had been sat at one of the large tables working through Charms homework, though Ron looked reluctant. Harry had spotted Neville when he appeared and urged him to join them. Once he had recounted what had happened, they prompted him to report it, but Neville thought it would make things worse. Harry gave Neville his last Chocolate Frog from Christmas and had told him he was worth twelve of Malfoy. Neville hadn't believed him, but he had felt grateful for the words anyway.

And then, only a couple of days later, Neville had been made to realise that keeping his head down was no longer working.

The day itself had started with such promise, the morning's usual grumblings about overdue homework had been given over to talk of Quidditch strategy and weather conditions, with sly bets being placed in light of the Gryffindor v. Hufflepuff match. Malfoy was apparently still recovering from the shock of finding out that Harry had been given special permission to join the team as a first-year, and was clearly in a foul mood.

Malfoy had been taunting the Gryffindor team - plus Ron and Neville - relentlessly, and Neville felt, with some surprise, that he was beginning to lose his temper. Anger was not a typical emotion for him, probably because he was usually too shy for any real expression of it. Still, he had reached the end of his patience with the Slytherin weeks ago and then Malfoy's voice had broken through the crowd noise again. 

"Longbottom, if brains were gold, you'd be poorer than Weasley."

That was the thing about Malfoy, he may have been a bully, but he was good at it. He had worked out early on what each of their weaknesses were, and he knew Neville was sensitive about people thinking he was stupid, or that his magic wasn't powerful.

The comment had triggered a challenge and ended in a brawl. After standing up to Malfoy and issuing said challenge, Neville had single-handedly taken on Malfoy's friends, Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle, while Ron fought Malfoy. 

Neither of his opponents could be considered on the small side and were both surprisingly adept at Muggle fighting. Although Neville had been knocked out from the repeated punches Crabbe and Goyle directed at his face, Madam Pomfrey insisted that he would make a full recovery.

Ron had ended up on the ward as well, though he had a lot less bruising than Neville did, he suspected that Malfoy's bark was a lot worse than his bite when it came to physical altercations. No doubt, he always relied on other people to do his dirty work for him. Ron had been given a couple of potions and put in the bed opposite, where he had promptly fallen asleep. Having shared a dorm with him for months, this was no surprise to Neville, the only thing Ron loved more than the Chudley Cannons, food or chess was his bed.

Their rivals came in separately and were kept to the other end of the Hospital Wing. Malfoy had similar injuries to Ron but elected to return to his dormitory once he had been seen, his nasty little sneer on his face the whole time. Crabbe and Goyle had embarrassingly few injuries to speak of and had returned with him.

Neville didn't acknowledge that he had been half watching the door until it swung open and Hermione entered. She had come both other times he had ended up there, and he realised with a start that he now expected her to come. No, not expected, he corrected himself, depended . He could rely on her.

He turned to face her, and his tentative smile dropped when he caught sight of the impressive scowl she was sporting.

Hermione berated him for well over ten minutes without interruption. Which, although it didn't sound like much was a long time to speak without wavering. Her arguments all seemed to thread all along a similar theme; how stupid he was, how worried she had been, did he know he could have been killed? When would he learn to stop listening to what Malfoy said? Why would he put himself against those two gorillas? And on and on.

When she finally came up for air, Neville immediately interjected to prevent her from starting up again. "But, Hermione, I stood up for myself. It was the right thing to do."

Hermione sighed and strained to lift herself to perch on the bed, muttering something about them 'needing to get a step, not everyone was the size of Hagrid'.

"I know," she agreed, resigned, and handed him a small bag made of paper that was covered with red and white vertical stripes. He looked at the bag questioningly, and Hermione sighed again. "Just how hard did they hit your head, Neville?" 

She snatched the bag back off him and tipped the contents out onto the bed. Over his legs were an assortment of snowmen, Father Christmas' and penguins all made out of brightly coloured, metallic-looking paper, with string loops coming out from the tops of their heads. Neville lifted one, holding it close to his face and peering at it. 

"What is it?"

"It's chocolate," Hermione confirmed, much of her earlier haughtiness now faded. "In some Muggle families, you have wrapped chocolates like these on your Christmas trees as decorations. You eat them in the run-up to and after Christmas."

"Ok, why are you giving them to me?" He asked her curiously

"Well..." Hermione flushed, fidgeting with the end of her jumper. "You might think this is silly, but it's a tradition my dad started when I was little. I always had a hard time at school and Christmas was my favourite time of year, so the first couple of weeks of term, after the holidays, I would get upset. I didn't want to be at school; I wanted to be at home, with them. So one year my dad made up this rule that we didn't eat any of the chocolate off the tree over Christmas and then whenever I was sad at school in January he would give me one. He said it would make us remember the holidays and our time together and it would cheer us up. Now that I’m here he sent me back with a bag this year. I know it's a bit silly… but I thought… I thought it might make you feel better."

Neville grabbed one of the chocolates from his bed and stuffed it into his mouth so he wouldn't have to speak. His throat had gone horribly dry in the last few minutes. Hermione's casual offer for him to take part in something so cherished in her family, to her , was almost too much, and he was glad for a few moments to reprieve while he chomped through the surprisingly tasty Muggle chocolate. 

Hermione didn't say anything, she probably knew anyway, know-it-all that she was, she simply leant forward and picked up a penguin-shaped chocolate for herself and ate it, a lot more delicately than Neville had.

"So," Hermione said eventually, once the sound of their combined chewing had stopped. "As I apparently didn't need to make you feel better as you were already feeling very pleased with yourself , how about another chocolate as a celebration of your supposed triumph?" 

Neville snatched the chocolate she had picked up off the bed from between her fingers and slowly unwrapped it. Hermione burst out laughing, she went to hit him and then remembering his injuries she dropped her arm while grimacing. Neville huffed out a laugh, and they giggled together for a while, animatedly play fighting over the remainder of the chocolate. 

His earlier smile returned brighter than it had been before.

Chapter Text

Neville was running through corridors trying to employ as much stealth as he had at his disposal - which he knew wasn't much. He winced as his boot clunked on the rough slate floor, and a loud thunking noise rang out in the silent corridor. He pulled himself against a wide tapestry and waited. When no one emerged, he carried on, faster than before. 

Neville had found out about Norbert, the Norwegian Ridgeback that Hagrid had been hiding in this hut. An actual fire breathing, chomping, ever-growing Dragon. Only the large gamekeeper would have called such a creature something as innocuous as bloody Norbert! Neville had been in complete agreement  when Hermione had said Norbert couldn't stay. Hagrid, however, was apparently mystified as to why there would be an issue having a dragon - with the potential to weigh a tonne and capable of breathing fire - in a wooden hut.

Not to mention that just having a dragon egg on your person was illegal. Neville didn't think there was actually a law about private ownership of a Dragon, because so far no one had been stupid enough to try and keep one. 

As soon as Hermione had voiced her opinion, Neville had nodded along with her. He just wasn't sure why Harry, Ron and Hermione were taking it upon themselves to get rid of it. Surely Hagrid could have done it himself? And he could have done it without breaking any school rules in the process. It wasn't as if they would be able to explain themselves if they were caught. Even though Hagrid was something of a loose cannon, the story still wasn't all that believable. But, as usual, nobody listened to him.

Ron had sent a letter to his brother in Romania, and Charlie Weasley had arranged to have some of his dragon tamer friends - seriously, Charlie was soo cool - to come to the Astronomy Tower at midnight to collect Norbert. Harry planned on using his invisibility cloak, something Neville had only heard about this week, to get up there undetected.

Ron had eventually shown him the letter he'd got from his older brother and Neville had been shocked at its brevity. He couldn't imagine being able to let anyone know he had a dragon he needed 'taken care of' and not getting back at least ten sides of parchment on how foolish he had been. Charlie hadn't even asked any real questions as to why there was a Norweigan Ridgeback at Hogwarts. Maybe he had just assumed Hagrid was involved - Charlie had gone to Hogwarts after all - and decided not to mention him in a note that could incriminate him further if it were found? Perhaps that was for the best. 

While he hadn't agreed with the trio's 'hands-on' approach to solving this particular problem, Neville had been content to leave them to it. Until the planned day came around that was, and Neville was on his way back to Gryffindor Tower from the Herbology greenhouses. He overheard Malfoy telling Pansy Parkinson that he was planning on sneaking out that night as he knew 'Saint Potter was up to something'. Against his better judgement, Neville had decided to try and warn them. The plan he had was simple, find the three of them, tell them what Malfoy was up to and then get back to the dorms before Filch or Mrs Norris caught them.

Neville hadn't been counting on being spotted by his Head of House. 

He had spent too much time looking back over his shoulder and had nearly walked straight into Professor McGonagall, who was rightly furious. For the first time that year, Neville thought that he would rather have been on the wrong side of Snape than endure her righteous vitriol. She took fifty points from him, fifty, from her own house, and told him he would have to serve a detention.

The next morning, Harry and Ron balefully told him they had been caught as well and the points counter in the Great Hall made for sad viewing, they were likely to be very unpopular for several days. On the upside, at least Malfoy had been caught too.

Argus Filch's look of positive delight when they met him in the entrance hall was their first indication that it would be no regular detention. The school caretaker had a penchant for severe punishment and even had some torture equipment mounted on the walls in his office, if the Weasley twins were to be believed.

Filch was nearly salivating when he informed them that their detention was going to be served with Hagrid, in the Forbidden Forest. The Gryffindor's exchanged looks that conveyed their palpable fear but also, their complete lack of options. If they tried to protest they would be turned back over to McGonagall and Neville didn't want to so much as cough in front of their head of house for the remainder of his school years, lest she remembered her anger and marched him off the property. With a shrug of his shoulders, he followed on after Ron and tried to stop his hands from shaking.

Filch walked them to Hagrid's door and knocked heavily. When the huge man opened the door, he greeted the Gryffindor's kindly, and Filch and Malfoy responded with equally disgusted looks. The caretaker reminded Hagrid that this was their detention and not a call for tea. Neville didn't think it was appropriate to voice that they were all there because of Hagrid, so the least he could do was smile at them. Apart from Malfoy, of course, he was there because he was an insufferable prick.

Hagrid pulled on his great overcoat and the tiny first years huddled to follow in his wake. Even the grounds of Hogwarts - which looked perfectly lovely in the day time - looked slightly eerie at this time of night. 

Hagrid walked them to the edge of the Forest and Neville started to feel very afraid, he had never even been this close to the tree line before, and especially not at this time of night. The shadows created by the bare branches lingered creepily on the ground, and he cursed himself for the hundredth time for ever thinking it was a good idea to try to warn the others. He had actually read Hogwarts a History, granted not as many times as Hermione, but enough to know that all kinds of creatures called the forest home. All sorts of animals that probably didn't want to be disturbed by some rambling first years.

Hagrid informed them that something in the Forbidden Forest was killing Unicorns and Neville realised why the forest had been named as such, and it certainly wasn't for alliterative reasons. Matters were made worse when he was paired with Malfoy and given Fang's leash to hold. If there was another living thing as scared as he was for tonight's activity, it was Fang. The giant dog would be no use against anything they would come across, friend or foe.

Counter to all of his better judgement, Neville followed the path Hagrid had instructed them to take and began to move deeper into the forest. Malfoy was covering up his fear by tormenting him, he kept droning on and on, and Neville was sure he would alert the beast they were supposed to track of their location, so he whisper-yelled at him to 'shut up'.

The wooded area went blissfully silent for several minutes, and Neville became engrossed in watching the forest floor, so he didn't trip over one of the many stray roots. Suddenly something or someone jumped out of the line of trees to his left and grabbed onto his arm.

He reacted quicker than he could think. Neville shouted an incoherent mass of words and shot red sparks from his wand in the air as Hagrid had instructed them to do if they got into any trouble. During his movement, he hadn't noticed the arm release him, and when a noise broke through his consciousness, he spun around to see Malfoy on the dirty ground doubled over with laughter.

Hagrid came bounding through the trees and taking in the sight before him, it didn't take long to put together what had happened. Hagrid didn't bother to hide his annoyance with Malfoy's pranks and announced that they would re-split the groups; Malfoy, Harry and Ron were to go with Fang and Neville and Hermione would go with Hagrid. Neville liked this distribution much better, though he did feel sorry for Harry and felt a twinge of guilt when the bespectacled Gryffindor sighed, but not guilty enough to wave Hagrid off and carry on in the current teams.

They followed the gamekeeper as he walked back over to take up the path he had been trekking before. Hermione was uncharacteristically quiet, and it took Neville a while to realise that she was just as scared as he was. Though she was trying to cover it as best she could, Hermione was at heart, a practical girl, and she no doubt believed that fear was irrational. 

However, Hermione had an added difficulty, being shorter than the rest of them it was harder for her to navigate her way around the spindly branches. Hagrid made moving through the forest look easy, but Hermione was struggling to keep up, even more so than Neville who had reverted to studying the floor to avoid a tumble.

A tremendous, feral howl sounded somewhere in the woods and in an instant, Neville felt Hermione's hand grip his. It was the second time she had done that, and it surprised him as much this time as it had when she had done it on the boat.

When his mind unfogged from the onset of terror, Neville would know that he felt pleased with Hermione's show of trust. She never liked to let on that anything bothered her. If she ever didn't know something or was scared, she would become derisive and haughty. She would rather have people think she was snotty than know she was afraid. Even so, she never hid her fear from him, not even on that first day. He might have been terrified as well, and he was, but she was seeking comfort from him, and it made Neville feel braver.

The forest became still again, and Hermione made to pull her hand away. Acting on impulse, Neville held onto the tips of her fingers before she could put them back into her pocket. She looked at him, her eyebrows raised in question.

"I'll help you keep up if you stop me from falling over?" He whispered.

Hermione smiled, a little shaky smile before she released a huge breath. "Deal."

Chapter Text

It was the dead of night, and Neville was jolted awake from a deep sleep by something banging against the end of his bed. Immediately awake but reluctant to move, Neville opened his eyes slowly to try and figure out what was going on. He was far too tired for whatever prank Seamus had decided was a good idea.

Neville rubbed the edge of his long sleeve pyjama top over his eyes and, squinting hard, he could just about decipher the time from the blinking of Dean's Muggle alarm clock that glowed red from the other side of the room. It was gone midnight!

Fighting with his tangled covers, Neville pulled himself up onto his elbows and sighed. He could make out the vague, shadowy shapes of two figures moving about the room, repeatedly shushing each other. He didn't need to see better to know it was Harry and Ron. Ron, who was never the most coordinated when he was tired, was stumbling quite a bit. It must have been him who woke him up by colliding with his bed. Prat! 

After several minutes of tense whispering, his out of bed dormmates grabbed their shoes and with a small creek that did not disturb the other sleeping boys, they were out into the corridor.

It took a while for Neville to process what he was seeing, then he realised all at once with mounting horror - they were going out way after curfew again . He couldn't let that happen. The older Gryffindor students were still barely speaking to them following the last big loss of points, and he knew they didn't want another detention in the Forbidden Forest. Harry had been extremely shaken up after the last time, and it was no wonder, Neville had nightmares himself following Harry's description of the dark creature feasting on a unicorn.

Decision made, Neville rushed towards the door and the clothes hooks he knew would be to its left, and felt around for his dressing gown. Donning it quickly, he managed to make it out of the room and down the entire flight of stairs without incident.

The common room felt warm, and there was still the remains of an earlier fire burning in the grate. He spotted them organising themselves before the portrait hole, and Hermione was with them . Neville couldn't believe she would be so stupid. She cared so much about the rules and listening to everything the Professors said. Getting into trouble the last time had been really hard on her. While Professor McGonagall's ire mortified the rest of them, Hermione was heartbroken by it. Neville had suspected their head of house was being a little easier on Hermione than the rest of them, because of her obvious devastation. 

Was all this just so Harry and Ron would stay friends with her?

Neville marched over to them, and all three started as he approached, obviously not having heard him enter the room moments earlier.

"What are you doing?" he asked with as much authority as he could muster. 

"Look, Neville," Ron began, but Harry pushed him back and stepped forward himself. 

"Nev, we have to go and do... something. It's really important, we wouldn't go otherwise, you have to believe us," Harry implored.

Neville was unmoved. He walked around Harry, stood to block the portrait hole and fixed his face into the sternest expression he possibly could. "You can't go out, you'll be caught again, and Gryffindor will be in even more trouble... I won't let you do it. I'll... I'll fight you!"

All three tried to reason with him, but Neville remained unmoved, figuratively and literally. He knew this was important, and that they would thank him for it later, maybe. After minutes of fruitless arguing, he glimpsed Harry direct an exasperated look at Hermione, and she gave him a slight nod, albeit with an air of reluctance. Neville was elated; they were backing down, so he was surprised when she turned to face him and raised her wand but wouldn't meet his eyes.

"Neville, I'm so so sorry," she said earnestly. "You don't… I… I'm sorry."

As usual, Neville didn't have time to react before the spell was fired and then the next thing he knew his body was falling back. Hermione had hit him with the Full Body-Bind Curse. He laid there completely immobile, his mind in much the same state as his body. He couldn't believe that she had done it, after everything they had been through together. 

Neville laid there blinking at the ceiling as the common room grew cold. He hoped her continued friendship with Harry and Ron was worth it.

The next day the news was all over the castle about what the three first years had supposedly done the night before. So far that morning, Neville had heard that they had taken on a traitorous Professor Quirrell, a werewolf, a three-headed dog, an acromantula and a logic puzzle set by Professor Snape while under the threat of fire. The stories got more and more fanciful with every gang of whispering students he passed.

Neville worried for them, for Hermione more than the others, but he couldn't bring himself to ask them what had happened. He kept his distance. 

By the end of the term, Neville still hadn't spoken to Hermione. Granted it was only a few days after what he was referring to as 'the incident', but still, it was the longest they had gone in a year. 

The boys had approached him the next day, and they had sorted everything out with a simple 'Alright Neville' 'Alright Harry' in the way things were done with boys in his dorm, but Hermione had avoided his gaze constantly and removed herself if he came into the room. Neville knew she felt guilty, she spent a lot of time with her hair forward obscuring her face that week, but that didn't matter, he was angry at her, wasn't he?

He moved into the Great Hall to find it decked in Slytherin colours, as expected. Neville swallowed a sigh; it was a shame how much he liked green.

After eating the traditional feast, the hall became quiet for the award of the House Cup. Then, Professor Dumbledore amazed everyone by saying some last-minute points had to be recognised. The first years looked around at the older students expecting some sort of explanation, but their bafflement was clear as day, so the assumption that this was a common occurrence quickly fled.

Ron got fifty points for a game of chess of all things, and Hermione the same amount for logic in the face of fire... maybe the rumours of what had happened were more based in fact than he had imagined? Then Harry was awarded sixty points for outstanding courage. 

There was a pause while Dumbledore made a show of shuffling parchment on his podium and during it, everyone at their table was fiercely attempting to work out what the points totals were now until Hermione spoke.

"That puts us on even points with Slytherin. It's a tie," she whispered, putting an end to the poor show of mental arithmetic that had been going on a moment before. 

Neville hadn't heard her voice in days, but he didn't have time to think about it much, as ever, Dumbledore had more to say. 

"As we all know, there are many different kinds of courage," the headmaster's commanding voice echoed across the hall. "It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much, if not more, to stand up to our friends. I, therefore, award ten points to… Mr Neville Longbottom!"

Neville was utterly dumbstruck and stared open-mouthed at the podium where the headmaster stood, smiling at him with his eyes twinkling. Even Professor McGonagall was clapping. He had thought he would have to wait until at least fourth year before he had a chance to work his way back into her good books.

His world became a flurry of slaps on the back, cheers and excited not very quiet murmurings of 'Longbottom's done it, we've won'. The headmaster spoke again, and the decorations of the room changed in a gust of wind from serpentine green to bold red tinged with gold and the roar from the lions erupted, reverberating around the space.

He couldn't wait to tell his Gran!

The next day, both the term and Neville's first school year were over, just like that. With a heavy heart, he joined the throng of students walking towards the carriages that would take them to the Express for the return journey to London. As he turned to take his last look at the castle, he noticed Hermione running from the main entrance hall towards him. He couldn't really miss her given the speed she was managing and her hair blowing in the wind. 

He spotted the moment she became aware he had seen her and watched as she stilled completely, skidding to a stop. She appeared to be having a debate with herself before he saw her deflate and then continue towards him at a fast pace but no longer a run. Neville considered walking away, but he knew he wasn't upset with her anymore, not really. Hermione did everything and anything for her friends, and he believed, had the situation been different, she would have stunned Ron or Harry for him, it hadn't been personal.

"Erm...Neville, I," she stuttered when she was finally close enough. "I just wanted to say that I am really sorry. I... about using the spell on you that night, I really didn't want to, but felt like I had to at the time... I… I would have prefered to explain it all to you properly, there was...there was no time, and, well, I'm just really sorry."

"It's ok, Hermione."

"Really?" 

Neville felt a bit remorseful at the hopefulness in her tone; he had not intended for her to assume he never wanted to be friends again.

"Of course," he confirmed, making sure he sounded confident of his declaration. 

They started to walk together, and Neville felt a weight lift off his chest. However, it appeared Hermione was less at ease. As they got closer to the end of the path, she squirmed more and more until Neville could no longer take it, and he stopped to face her. He thought about raising an eyebrow or asking what was wrong; in the end, he decided just to wait her out. They had only just begun speaking again; after all, it wouldn't do him any good to spook her.

"Erm Neville," she began eventually, once she had nearly chewed her bottom lip to ribbons. "Will you write to me over the Summer? I'm not likely to get any messages from Harry, as he goes back to his Aunt and Uncle's house, and they won't let him do anything that could connect him to the magical world, and Ron… he isn't one with… words."

"Sure, I will. I'm not very good at letters either though, not sure I've ever really sent one to anyone other than my Gran before." 

Neville wondered what it would take for Hermione to deem you 'one with words'. But, he didn't worry about it for long, his ready acceptance seemed to have drained away all of her anxiety, and she walked quickly beside him.

"That's ok. I probably talk, or in this case write, enough for two people anyway."

They got into a carriage and were swiftly followed by Ron and Harry who were bickering good-naturedly about some Quidditch move or other. Hermione rolled her eyes and pulled out a book from her bag. They moved off with a bit of a start and Neville looked around the assembled group, and his face broke into a bright smile.

It had been a tough year. He'd not been terrific in most of the classes, baring Herbology. He'd had to endure the censure of his peers for lost house points, and he'd spent far too much time in the Hospital Wing, but he'd made friends, really really good friends. It was better than he could have ever hoped. 

Chapter Text

The blood-soaked wall crudely declaring that the Chamber of Secrets was open, unleashed a wave of panic throughout the castle. The news that 'enemies of the heir' were in danger spread and distorted like all rumours travelling through secondary schools. Fear competed with the need for gossip, and the focus of general chatter seemed to be more on scaring each other silly than sharing any real information.

The Professors had to fight against increasingly disrupted lessons as the students had endless questions, especially those in the lower years, like Neville and his friends. The Chamber opening also had the somewhat surprising effect of creating a black market for talismans and other protections from the creature in the unknown lair. It reminded Neville of something his Uncle Algie had once said, 'where there is fear, there is profit'. His Gran thought Uncle Algie spent far too much time in the pub with Mundungus Fletcher. 

After considerable deliberation, Neville purchased a pointed purple crystal that hung from a gold pendant chain which was supposed to protect against 'dark creatures'. Even Neville knew that the description was a bit vague, and if he had been forced to defend the purchase, Neville would have had little to offer, but he was genuinely afraid, since the first attack he hadn't been sleeping well.

After the second attack, on little Colin Creevey, Neville's fears that he would be attacked escalated. He was prevented from purchasing a rotting newts tail by Ron and Harry who then dragged him back to the common room. Once they were in the relative safety of Gryffindor Tower, Harry forcefully, but kindly, reminded Neville that he was a pureblood wizard and so wouldn't be at risk.

But it didn't sway Neville. Years of being made to feel inferior by his relations, exacerbated by school terms of consistent bullying, had resulted in him having very little faith in his magical abilities.

"They went for Filch first, and everyone knows I'm almost a Squib!"

Harry sighed exasperatedly, and Hermione poked her head up from the comfy chair she was sitting in, only her ridiculous hair and eyes were visible. Neville often thought she was like a cat; she always seemed to be located in the warmest spot of the room. Even with only a limited amount of her face showing, he could see her expression was pained.

"Please don't say that Neville," she said pleadingly.

"Why? You know it's true," he countered hotly. He didn't mean to take his stress out on her, but he was feeling incredibly vulnerable. He had wanted to make a strong argument to justify his actions to his friend, but his words sounded petulant even to him.

"Neville," she said softly, and his shoulders sagged as he raised his eyes to face her. "How do you feel when you hear people call me Mudblood?"

Harry and Ron stiffened, and Neville shuddered. He loathed Malfoy for calling her that so persistently, it caused Hermione, who was never one to willingly show her distress, to use it often herself, to act like she didn't care, even though the hurt in her expression was evident for all to see. 

Neville tried to formulate words over the competing rage and hurt he was feeling. "I...I hate it," he got out finally, not able to meet her eyes

"Well," she replied evenly, "that's how I feel when you talk like that about yourself."

Neville let the words sink in and awkwardly brushed his foot back and forth against the corner of the rug at his feet. He wasn't sure anyone had ever defended him like Hermione did, or so regularly. She defended Ron and Harry too, but she also hit them over the back of the head a lot, though, in fairness, they did mostly deserve it. Hermione was always more patient with him. He wondered if it was because she pitied him, but, he reasoned, she wasn't really the pitying kind.

"Ok," he said finally.

"Good, now can we go back to having a peaceful afternoon? I've got my parchment on Defence to finish."

All of the boys groaned.

"You may moan, but Professor Lockhart is a very respected member of his field, a leader even. Can you imagine having that many books published?" her eyes had taken on a dreamlike quality that Neville had become horrifyingly familiar with that year.

Neville ignored Ron's shouts of protest, he might have agreed with him, but he had no desire to argue with her on this. Hermione didn't realise she was so obvious. It was clear she had a bit of a crush on the old purple-robed fraud, but he knew she would never admit it. 

Neville couldn't understand what she saw in him, Lockhart was a complete idiot. It was just so unlike Hermione not to make an accurate assessment of a person's intelligence. Neville had noticed that her copy of Wanderings with Werewolves had acquired a new protective casing since he had caught her asking for Professor Lockhart to sign it. He had been waiting for her outside at the end of class and had overheard her approach their teacher. When Hermione had finally exited the classroom, she was distinctly flustered and even Neville, kind as he tried to be, had to work very hard to not laugh at her.

Oh well, she would learn soon enough. It could have been worse, Neville consoled himself, it could have been Snape.

Then the whole world shifted. Talismans and spurious protective objects suddenly seemed ridiculous and almost offensive to those truly at risk. Lots of things came into focus as Neville stood in the Hospital Wing. 

Despite the number of times he had visited the place he found he barely recognised it that day. It was eerily quiet and full of grief and worry. The ward seemed whiter, the faces of the people - his teachers that Neville had always thought had an answer for everything - were drawn and pale and the silence was so big it threatened to engulf the lot of them. 

Neville had known fear in his life; insecurities had prayed on him since he was little more than in an infant. But that day, he learnt what true fear was, and it came with the realisation that being powerless to save someone he cared about was much worse than any physical or mental pain he had previously endured. 

Professor McGonagall had come to fetch Harry, Ron and himself from History of Magic, she didn't say anything just asked them to follow, and they did so, silently. Neville had known, deep down in his bones, that something was wrong when Hermione wasn't in class, she never missed a lesson, even History of Magic. Most of the students thought it was beyond boring. Yet, when everyone else would be on the verge of falling asleep, Hermione would be sat up, ramrod straight in her seat, diligently taking notes pausing only to shake Ron when he would inevitably begin snoring.

When Neville had realised they were walking towards the Hospital Wing dread pooled in his stomach. When they approached the towering doors their head of house suddenly turned to regard them, she opened her mouth to say something before shaking her head and stepping forward to usher them in.

There was a screen shielding the left side of the ward. It had been put in place following the first attack to prevent students that came in for day to day scrapes from gawking at the petrified students. Despite the gauzy fabric, Neville couldn't even make out shapes on the other side that might have given them an indication of what was happening. 

As they stood there, waiting, Madam Pomfrey came bustling out of her office carrying a whole tray of different vials and looking as grave as Neville had ever seen her. She directed them over to a break in the white screens, and there, in the bed directly opposite, was Hermione. Her unruly curls were splayed over the crisply starched pillows, and her arms were resting on top of the pulled up cover. She looked so posed, so unnatural.

Neville could not stomach looking at her face for several minutes. Instead, he busied himself glancing at her fingernails. Chewed up and ink-stained as ever, but tinged by a ghostly parlour that didn't look real. It was definitely her, any denials that had been climbing up his throat died then. When he eventually looked up, he found that her features were etched with a look of surprise like all of the other students in the row; it looked unsettling on the others but on Hermione… he hated the expression, seeing her face rigid made him long to see her other emotions. She had such an expressive face.

Harry and Ron stood fixed at the end of the bed, but Neville moved forward without thinking. Her right hand was inexplicably holding a mirror, Hermione had once told him, with great pride, that she didn't even own one. His face scrunched with confusion momentarily before, as gently as he could, he wrenched it from her frozen grip.

Neville placed the mirror on the bed and clutched Hermione's newly empty hand between his two larger ones. Her fingers were so cold, too cold. Unconsciously, he began rubbing his hand, rhythmically over her's in an attempt to warm her, he knew it wouldn't work, but he wasn't thinking straight. Neville realised that this was the first time he had reached for her instead of the other way around. He wished it could have been under better circumstances. Neville wondered if she was aware of her surroundings, he hoped if she was that she would derive comfort from his warmth, from knowing he was there.

Suddenly the stillness of her form came to his attention. There was no movement of any kind, not even... there was no rise and fall to her chest. He looked up at Madam Pomfrey in horror.

"She's ok, Mr Longbottom," the nurse said reassuringly. "She is breathing; the nature of this curse means that the whole body remains unmoving."

Uncaring for those around him, Neville stood and draped himself over Hermione so he could lay his ear close to her mouth. He could just make out the faint sound of her raspy breaths, he shifted and could detect a glimmer of air against his cheek, so light you could miss it if you weren't looking so desperately for it. The vice-like fist around his heart loosened marginally.

"Her parents?" He asked, though he already knew the answer.

Madam Pomfrey sighed. "They can't come here, Muggles cannot even see the castle, and there is the… well, the Headmaster is reluctant to inform them… I think he is worried the Muggles might pull their children out of the school."

Neville nodded to show he understood, it wasn't fair in many respects, but he didn't want Hermione to leave school either. It would be a difficult situation to explain to a magical parent let alone a non-magical one but to tell no one, for all of these students to by lying here unrepresented was wrong. He had listened to enough of Hermione's rants to know this was something she would wholeheartedly object to.

Neville stood back from Hermione and squeezed her hand gently; he turned to face Ron and Harry; they still hadn't moved. Harry's eyes looked glassy, and Ron looked like he couldn't decide if he wanted to boil over with rage or scream with terror. He walked towards them and put his hand on Harry's shoulder.

"I'll be back in a little bit… I need to write a letter."

The next day, Neville was sitting in a small chair next to Hermione's bed. He hadn't bothered to go to lessons, and Madam Pomfrey had not been too forceful in her attempts to get him to leave. It wasn't like Hermione would know he was with her, but that wasn't the whole point, he knew that she was in the ward and he couldn't concentrate if he tried. Being close to her stopped his worrying a little, enough for him to be able to focus in any case.

He grabbed Hermione's hand and settled in, opening up his Herbology textbook to begin reading aloud from the chapter on tropical plants. Hermione liked those the best; she was a bit of a Summer baby, and during the cold winters in Scotland she would often ask him to tell her about the exotic plants he knew of and the sunny climes they hailed from.

That was how Augusta Longbottom found them. Neville had dashed off yesterday and gone straight to the owlery. Hermione might not have parents in the magical world, but that didn't mean she was without people that cared about her, he wanted to make sure she was being watched over. He knew his Gran, and he wasn't the only one that was afraid of her. Despite his Gran appearing at Hogwarts being a recurring theme in some of his worst nightmares, this was necessary.

He had told his Gran about Hermione, his first friend, in his letters during the first year and over the Summer holidays. She had been impressed that the girl had the highest marks in their year and seemed interested when, in one of their many exchanged letters over the Summer, she had requested Neville's recommendations for some further Herbology reading. His Gran had encouraged Neville's friendship with her. His Gran had never supported his association with anyone before. 

"This is her then?" 

Neville started as the voice broke through his little bubble, and he completely missed the slight inflexion in his Gran's tone. "Yes, this is Hermione, Hermione Granger."

"Well," she said as she laid a hand on Neville's shoulder, "from everything you have said, it would appear this one is made of stern stuff."

Neville nodded solemnly. "I hope so Gran."

"In any case, sitting here all day isn't going to help." She glanced down at Neville's book and sighed. "Neville, being adequate with plants is one thing, but to have any chance of even a semi-successful career, you will need to make vast improvements in your other subjects. I expect you to be in your afternoon classes."

Neville felt a protest build in his mind, but one look at his Gran's countenance told him that this was not up for discussion.

"I understand," he said, resigned to following her wishes even as he was pondering how he would be even more useless than usual with Hermione's health distracting him. At least he didn't have any practical lessons scheduled, that could have been a disaster.

"Good, now I must go find Dumbledore, all these students mounting up and not a thing said to their parents, not on my bloody watch."

And with that, she marched out of the Hospital Wing and into battle. Neville almost pitied the Headmaster, almost. 

Chapter Text

Neville looked around the busy train compartment and smiled to himself. He was convinced that this year was going to be the best yet. How could it not be? He was sat next to Hermione; brilliant, alive, no longer petrified, Hermione and Harry and Ron were on the opposite bench, sprawled out next to a sleeping professor they hadn't yet met. They hadn't even seen his face. He'd been slumped over covered by his robe when they arrived, and he hadn't disturbed once, not even when the trolley stopped. 

The compartment was loud, disorganised and rambunctious, and Neville loved it. After an initial fallout between Ron and Hermione over her new cat, Crookshanks, the rest of their journey had been spent in relative comfort. Ron talked about his family's trip to Egypt, Hermione about camping in France and Harry and Neville contributed as little as they could without drawing attention.

Neville was once again delighted to be heading back to the freedom of Hogwarts. His second-year grades had left a lot to be desired, and although they had improved since his first year, it had not been enough to satisfy his Gran. She had reminded him, with great flourish, that his dad had been one of the top students in his year from the very beginning. 

Within two weeks of returning home, Neville had begun to shrink back inside himself. Though, rather than her words completely obliterating all the confidence he had gained from another year's schooling, he had felt a little spark of something that made sure he wasn't too disheartened. Whenever Gran was having a difficult day, a small voice in Neville's head that sounded suspiciously like Hermione had chided him to remember that everyone saw things differently. After all, none of his professor's had mentioned that his dad had been close to near the top of his year. Other voices, louder ones, were always there, ready to crush him, but the Hermione voice would tsk and refuse to be silenced. Although the competing arguments made Neville feel like he was on the verge of going mad, it was a relief to have at least one view fighting against the sea of negative ones.

After hours spent acclimatising to being around friends again, the group started to get hungry, and Neville volunteered to go in search of the food trolley. He really should have picked up a sandwich when it had been at their door, but he'd been too excited to worry about how he would feel in an hour or so.

Neville managed to get the stiff compartment door to slide open and hesitantly walked into the corridor. He had barely made any progress - due to the jarring movements - when suddenly the train stuttered, throwing him into a wall, and then they ground to a stop with a hiss of metal against metal. 

Neville righted himself and looked out of the nearest window, hoping to see why they were being delayed. It wasn't unheard of for the train to stop every once in a while, but it would have normally slowed to a brief stop, rather than the abrupt screeching they had just heard. Neville looked out across the grass bank outside that looked the same as all of the others along the way, and was none the wiser. He was about to turn back to the carriage to ask if anyone knew where they were, but a slight movement made him pause. It was just a flicker of black, something he would have missed if it hadn't been accompanied by a chill that tried to rob him of breath. 

Neville stood back from the outer wall of the train as the glass of the reinforced window began to frost over before his eyes. It started at the corners and then splintered through the pane like cobwebs until all of the glass square was opaque, cased in ice.

Neville stilled as the lights flickered and dimmed several times before going out completely. Panicked voices rang from all the compartments, but he wasn't listening; he hastened back down the corridor to the compartment he had just exited.

Guided by the small amount of light still making its way through the frosted windows, Neville opened the door. As soon as he moved into the darkened carriage, he crashed straight into something and stumbled to the floor.

"Ow," a pained feminine voice sounded.

"Hermione?" he asked, scrambling upwards but coming unstuck when he found his legs were tangled up in a muddle of disorganised limbs.

"Neville?" she asked. Her voice sounded relieved. "Lift your foot."

"Sorry I-"

"Not that foot, the other foot."

All fumbling protests were cut off as the carriage door was forced open again, this time with a much less welcome intrusion. Neville wasn't sure whether this was all part of some elaborate illusion, but his eyes were telling him that a dementor had just forced itself inside their small space. 

It moved like it was being operated by a puppeteer he couldn't see, hovering above the ground and shooting up with jerking movements. Neville was reminded of the way an octopus pushed itself inside confined spaces by the way the dementor's robes crept inside the carriage door, reaching like tentacles in the gloom. 

It was so dark he couldn't make out anything but the outline. Neville wasn't sure they had faces or anything under the robes, and he never wanted to find out. 

Neville had seen them once before, but never this close. As a child, they had been the mainstay of nightmares, one of the creatures he had looked up in the family library to scare himself before bed. Then, when he was ten, his Gran had taken him to see Azkbhan. She had deemed it an essential part of his education to know where those responsible for attacking his parents were held. Neville was sure he hadn't learnt anything but fear. 

They hadn't apparated to the island. You needed special dispensation for that, and Augusta Longbottom was not a witch that revealed her inner family dealings without dire need. Instead, they had stood on a hilltop a few miles away, and he had been able to see the fabled guards of the tower hovering in the air in the distance. 

Neville felt the air around him change as all imaginable joy seemed to be ripped from the world. The rest of the carriage, and the people within, seemed to melt away as he became lost in memories. He saw his dad staring at him with blank eyes. He saw his mum with her arms covered in recent bruises and an absent smile on her face while a healer explained to his Gran, in hushed tones they thought he couldn't hear, that she had been having 'a difficult week'. He heard his Gran saying he would never amount to anything, that he would dishonour his parents and his family legacy, and that he wasn't fit to carry the burden of being the last of his house. Then he saw her, Hermione, laid out in the hospital bed, pale and unresponsive, cold and gone.

The dementor stretched ever closer, and it's… arms? Whatever they were, they spread as if preparing to strike. Neville instinctively pushed himself in front of Hermione, who he believed to be still sitting on the floor. His only clear thought was that she couldn't get hurt again and that he wouldn't allow it. He had no idea what Hermione thought of when that thing was near, he had no intentions of ever asking, but if it were half as bad for her as it was for him, Neville would do all he could to spare her from it, even if it meant moving closer himself. 

But the dementor didn't want Hermione. It flew in a gliding motion and directed all of its focus onto Harry. For a heavy second there was silence and then the whole compartment started when Harry screamed. The noise was so childlike it was… pure emotion. Hatred, fear, terror everything encapsulated into one sound that made bile rise in Neville's stomach. 

Before any of the students could reach for their wands, the crumpled figure in the corner suddenly jumped up and with languid ease the unknown professor conjured a Patronus that hit the creature squarely, knocking it back to the other side of the corridor. It was there one minute, slumped against the train wall and then, not a second later, it was gone like the whole thing had been a bad dream.

Moments later, the lights flickered before switching back on, and the train hummed and hawed before starting up slowly.

"I must speak to the driver, I will be back shortly," the professor said, though none of the children on the floor could respond.

Once the events of the last few minutes began to sink in, they all began to move at once. Neville flushed when he realised that in his haste to protect her, not only was he practically sitting on top of Hermione; he had also backed her up to the carriage wall.

He leapt up and apologised, not missing the slight pink in her cheeks as he clumsily pulled her off the floor. As they sat back down on the seats, he saw Ron shooting him unhappy looks. He didn't do it on purpose; he hadn't hurt her. What was Ron's problem?

Professor Lupin - as he introduced himself as - eventually came back and gave them all magical chocolate. Neville hadn't had any of the magic stuff since he had been bitten by a particularly venomous plant in his uncle's greenhouse, and he was relieved the professor had some on hand. With any luck, it would do something to alleviate the lingering feeling of dread that felt like it was sitting on his chest.

Himself and Ron took the chocolate without question and quickly popped it into their mouths. Harry and Hermione, who had been looking on with a bit more trepidation, promptly followed their lead. 

After professor Lupin retook his seat, Hermione took a moment to settle Crookshanks who was making his displeasure known. 

Neville put his head back on the seat rest and shut his eyes to let the feeling of the chocolate wash over him. He was dimly aware that when Hermione sat back down, presumably after she had been able to soothe her mangy cat, she was sitting a lot closer to him than she had before.

Their first term began in the same way as the two previous years, though as third-year students they now had different elective classes they could take for O.W.L.s. It was more intimidating than Neville had expected, he still felt little in comparison to a lot of the older years and yet they were already beginning to talk about their future. 

Neville had picked his classes with his eyes closed, putting a pin in the list. He had shrugged at those he had chosen, not really caring either way. He had no idea what he wanted to do with himself in the far off stretch of time that was ‘after Graduation’ and most of his interests laid within the core subjects anyway. He had vowed never to tell Hermione. He didn't think she would approve.

Neville had two of his new electives in the first week, and neither went by without at least a modicum of drama.

In Divination, which was held in an over perfumed classroom that had an unsettling resemblance to Madam Puddifoot's Tea Shop, the first surprise of the year occurred. All the assembled students were witness to an event they would have previously thought impossible; Hermione disagreed with a professor. 'Professor' might have been a bit generous for Trelawney, but still. Then, not satisfied with that display, Hermione walked out in a familiar huff swearing never to return. All of the Gryffindors were struck dumb, Neville was so shocked he dropped his teacup, an action which was met with far less surprise but also with a proclamation that he would face a choice of serious magnitude in the next couple of weeks. Neville rolled his eyes and put the ridiculously dainty thing back on the table. By the end of the lesson, half the class had been told they would die untimely deaths with a smattering of them gravely informed that they were under threat of mortal peril for good measure. Maybe Hermione had been right to get out while she was still ahead?

Neville eventually caught up with the deserter at lunch where Ron and Harry made a bit of a show of checking that it was really 'their' Hermione, and not someone using Polyjuice to look like her. Hermione did not take it well.

Later that week was their first Care of Magical Creatures lesson. Neville had always liked Hagrid, and as such, he was hoping for a successful experience for the former Gamekeeper. Sadly it was not to be. Where Harry had triumphed in making the Hippogriff bow, everyone that followed failed. Neville himself bowed four or five times without response from Buckbeak and decided to slowly edge away while he still had the chance.

The lesson ended when Malfoy, who had been growing impatient, insulted the animal after ignoring Hagrid's warning about their comprehension and intelligence. The Hippogriff reared back on its hind legs and scratched the Slytherin's arm. Once he had finished screaming, a fawning Pansy Parkinson took him to the Hospital Wing. 

Considering the raw power the animal held, Neville thought Malfoy had gotten off quite lightly, but he kept those feelings to himself. Somehow, pointing out that things could have been much worse didn’t seem reassuring.

Hermione and Harry tried to tell their new professor that everything would be okay, but Hagrid looked as disheartened as Neville had ever seen him. The Gryffindors trudged back to the Tower in relative silence, each speculating on what would happen next. 

It was just possible that owl classes were going to be as tricky as all the others. 

Potions lessons continued the same as they ever had, Neville was nervous, the Slytherins were sneering and Snape was a living, breathing nightmare. 

Neville wished he could hate Snape. Harry and Ron had made loathing their professor into one of their favourite pastimes and Neville envied them. Hate would be manageable. Fear wasn't. One element that had improved was his partner. After the disaster of sitting with Seamus in their first year, as soon as the second began, Neville had moved to sit next to Hermione, and this year, when they walked into the dungeon classroom, Hermione automatically sat on the same bench as him. Being close to her might not have meant that he would ace the subject, but it did mean he was less likely to do himself an injury, and for that Neville was beyond grateful.

In their first lesson of the year, despite being sat together, Harry and Ron were having a more difficult time with potions partners, or rather their fully sanctioned overlord. Following Malfoy's incident with the Hippogriff, he continually complained to Snape about the difficulty of preparing ingredients by himself and their professor instructed Harry and Ron to assist, much to their obvious disgust.

They were working quietly on the Shrinking Solution, and Snape was pacing the room like a caged bear, as usual, when Neville realised he'd made a mistake. The potion had somehow turned a muddy orange instead of the lustrous green that the instructions described. Predictably, Snape noticed immediately and was nothing short of enraged. He stalked to the front of Neville's bench, eyed his potion, and his face broke into a sneer.

"You have until the end of the lesson to correct this, Mr Longbottom, and I suggest you do, as whatever you have managed to brew by the end of the hour will be fed to your familiar."

The Slytherins burst into mocking laughter, and Neville eyed Trevor guilty, he knew he should have listened to Hermione when she told him not to bring his toad to classes. Snape swept away with an air of victory and Neville deflated. In his embarrassment and despair, he didn't notice Hermione edging towards his cauldron, keeping her eyes on their professor lest she be discovered. She darted a look down at the contents and took a deep sniff before silently stepping back behind her own potion.

"Neville," she whispered out of the corner of her mouth. "You've added too much leech juice." He turned to face her in surprise.

"Don't look at me," she whispered. "Just listen to what I say, and do exactly what I tell you and we will save Trevor," she continued encouragingly.

Neville nodded and tried to focus though his hands shook. He and Hermione worked quietly over the next twenty minutes trying to save his potion and as a consequence, his toad.

Snape approached their bench with great fanfare at the end of the lesson. Neville noticed in his peripheral vision that the other students had inched from their places, gathering round to get a better look. He stared up at Snape's face intently, and he was able to detect a tiny flicker in his eyes when he leant over the cauldron to see the glimmering green liquid within.

Neville dutifully, albeit reluctantly, handed Trevor over and watched with bated breath as Snape administered precisely two drops of his potion onto Trevor's back. The room was so quiet you could hear Snape's pipette squeeze, and there was no movement at all for a second until, very gradually, Trevor began to shrink and then, with a faint pop, he became a tadpole. Snape sneered. He flicked his wand lazily and returned Trevor to his toad form before rounding on Hermione with fire in his eyes.

"I do believe I asked Mr Longbottom to correct his potion, Miss Granger, not you."

Hermione stiffened and flushed, averting her gaze. "Sir… I-"

"I do not want to hear your excuses, Miss Granger. Five points from Gryffindor for being such an insufferable know-it-all."

The Slytherins laughed as Snape dismissed the class. Hermione packed up her things without saying another word, and the Gryffindors headed for dinner. She paused at the doors to the Great Hall and shuffled before pulling her bag up higher on her shoulder. 

"Erm… I think I might miss dinner tonight. I'm not feeling very hungry."

Neville wanted to force her, but he had seen the faint hint of water in the corner of her eyes and let her retreat feeling dreadful. An hour later, his brain was full of Harry and Ron's rage monologues on Snape's teaching methods, and he entered the portrait hole to find Hermione snuggled on a sofa in front of the fire with Crookshanks perched on her lap. He crept over in an attempt not to startle her. As he approached, Crookshanks raised a tired eye at him, staring him down for several seconds before he shut it again, presumably to return to sleep.

Neville's hand circled Hermione's wrist gently, and she made a small noise of surprise before he deposited a napkin in her palm. She eyed it wearily before opening it to find a small apple tart.

"Thank you," her voice was a horse, and now he was closer he could see her face was blotchy.

“No point going without your favourite because Snape’s a dick,” he snapped, with far more bite than he had intended. 

“Professor Snape,” Hermione corrected on a reflex but she managed to smile weakly when he laughed. 

“Maybe not tonight. Tonight he’s just Snape.”

“I think I can handle that,” Hermione replied. “Maybe.”

Hermione resumed stroking her cat and Neville stared into the dying fire. 

"You're not insufferable, Hermione," he asserted quietly. She made no response; instead, she started on slow breaking up of the tart.

"And as for being a know-it-all," he continued. "Well, maybe sometimes that's a little true," he tried with a small smile, and he saw a faint quirk of her lips and was reassured he wasn't offending her. "But if you weren't, what would have happened to Trevor?"

She laughed, it wasn't the same light, bubbly sound as usual, it was strained, but when he looked at her face he could see some of the lines diminish around her eyes and he thought that was probably good enough for now.

Chapter Text

Neville was standing in a busy corridor waiting for the first Defence Against the Dark Arts lesson of the new term. Having seen professor Lupin in action on the Express, he was confident he was in with a good shout of being the best Defence instructor to date. Though, it wasn't exactly a hall of fame professor wise. So far they'd had a man terrified of his subject and a complete fraud. 

He cast a cursory glance over at Hermione who was organising her study planner ahead of being assigned homework, probably in a state of ecstatic delight at the very idea. Neville noticed that the little pink hearts he had caught glimpses of last year were absent, and he felt... relieved, which was strange. He reasoned that it was silly for her to have crushes on professors, especially ones like Lockhart and that he was only glad as he wouldn't have to watch her mooning all year. 

Neville wasn't sure what to expect. This class didn't seem to follow a syllabus as directly as some of their others did. So far, their education had been centred more on the instructor's field of expertise. With Quirrell, it had been everything that went bump in the night, with Lockhart, it had been the man himself. 

Before Neville could speculate much further, Professor Lupin opened the classroom door and stepped outside to greet them. "Hello third years, welcome to Defence Against the Dark Arts. We have a special practical lesson today so when you go in, please leave your bags at the edge of the room and stand in the centre of the cleared area."

Before anyone could move as instructed, the dark, unwelcome figure of Professor Snape appeared in the corridor, presumably on his way to the dungeons.

"Possibly no one's warned you, Lupin," he began in his familiar bored drawl. "This class contains Neville Longbottom. I would advise you not to entrust him with anything difficult. Not unless Miss Granger is hissing instructions in his ear."

Neville flushed and not for the first time he wished he didn't find Snape quite so debilitating. It wasn't as if he wanted to give him a piece of his mind, but he did wish being abused by the man wouldn't cause him so much angst. Especially as most of his fear was irrational, almost like a phobia, it wasn't as if Snape would actually harm him. Well, at least most of the time he was sure he wasn't going to. 

The dour potions master brought out all of Neville's biggest insecurities, seemingly without even trying. He made him feel clumsy and awkward, stupid and simple, and most damaging of all, irrelevant. Being in his presence and failing to deliver was like being told that the voices he had overheard as a child were correct. The admonishments of his Gran, and the whispered conversations of his Aunts over tea, ' such as shame he's not gifted like his father '. With that pressure growing in his chest each Potions lesson, Neville would crumble. Outside of his Potions lessons, Neville was still not the brightest student, but he was never made to feel small or weak. Getting the answer wrong didn’t make him nervous anywhere else. 

As Snape's usual sneer stretched into a smirk, Neville felt his heart sink into his shoes. He didn't want another teacher to write him off before he could even try. He was broken out of his thoughts by Professor Lupin responding. 

"I was actually hoping that Neville would assist me with the first stage of the lesson, and I am sure he will perform it admirably." His words were tame, but there was something in his tone, a particular bite that left Neville in no doubt that there was no love lost between the two professors. 

Neville perked up, though only momentarily. He was sure the new professor would be forced to agree with Snape's assessment by the end of class. 

-/-/-/-

Filing into the corridor an hour later, Neville couldn't wipe the grin off his face, not that he would have tried. The image of Professor Snape in his Grandmother's best outfit, including stuffed fox stole and vulture trimmed hat, could never be taken away from him. He wondered if Hermione would help him with extracting the memory so he could view it in a Pensieve at a later date… over and over again.

Neville had adequately if not confidently dispatched the Boggart, winning ten points for Gryffindor in the process and he was pretty sure he felt taller as the rabble made their way to lunch.

At Christmas, Neville had suspected, but by mid-March, he was sure; something was going on with Hermione. He didn't know what exactly, but something was unsettling her. She was more harried than usual, and her eyes seemed to lose focus if you tried to talk to her for any length of time. He hadn't been aware it was possible to study more than she had last year, but she was. When Neville had managed to get a glimpse at it, he found that Hermione's timetable didn't make sense, she seemed to be taking all the available O.W.L. subjects, apart from Divination. How was she finding time to do them all?

When he noticed that Hermione seemed more agitated and distracted, Neville watched her. She wasn't eating properly, but she was doing her best to make it look like she was. She would come to the Great Hall, sit down with everyone else, and try to join in with those around her. To someone that wasn't paying particular attention, it would appear like nothing was wrong, but she wasn't eating anything. She would put some food on her plate and pick at it uninterestedly before scurrying off to the library. He wasn't even sure she knew she was doing it.

How had no one else noticed that she had lost weight? That she spent every waking moment in the library? Was she truly so invisible to everyone?

Then came the incident with the Firebolt. It had arrived at breakfast with no note, no nothing and Hermione had taken it to Professor McGonagall because she was worried Harry was in danger. Their head of house had agreed with her concern and had confiscated the broom to 'run tests'. When Hermione told the boys there had been a big blow-up in the common room. Harry and Ron weren't speaking to her at all, and it had gone on for weeks.

Following the third week of her 'punishment' from the boys, Hermione got noticeably worse. Where she had been irritable and snappish, she became quiet and withdrawn. Neville wasn't certain he had even heard her speak that week. In classes she had moved to sit towards the back, she kept her eyes averted and answered none of the professor's questions, even when they asked her directly she would simply shake her head or shrug.

Her face that had been drawn through weight loss now became pale. Her eyes that had bags under them now had circles so dark it looked like bruising. She looked perpetually on the brink of tears and like a strong wind would blow her right over. 

Neville had had enough. 

He could understand the boy's frustration, it was an awesome broom, but to ignore her, to act like she didn't exist, both of them… it was too much. They had to see the state she was in. Hermione didn't have many friends, so when she fell out with Harry and Ron, the effect on her was dramatic. That stress, coupled with whatever had been going on already, was too much for her.

Neville sought her out in the library, but she wasn't there. So he set off to walk the length and breadth of the castle until he finally found her in the Astronomy Tower, surrounded by books, and shivering despite being wrapped in a thick woollen blanket.

"Hermione, are you okay?"

She looked up at him, eyes wide as if she hadn't even heard him approach and was afraid of being caught. Her hair was piled up on top of her head though most of her springy curls had escaped the confines of the band she used. Her skin was so pale she looked like she had been petrified again. Her eyes seemed impossibly large in her small face.

"Yes," she said, but her voice hitched as if just the simple enquiry was enough to bring on tears.

Neville moved to sit down, carefully navigating the books littered all over the stone floor. He strolled as if approaching a wild animal that would startle and scamper off if he got too close too quickly.

"When was the last time you ate? Or slept?" he asked gently.

"I'm... I'm not sure," her brows furrowed. Neville didn't think she was being evasive; it was like she genuinely couldn't remember.

"You're not looking after yourself," Neville asserted.

Her bottom lip started to tremble, and Neville felt what could only be described as extreme panic. Her quivering mouth gave way to heartfelt sobs and, at a loss of what else to do, he very woodenly put his arm around her shoulders and pulled Hermione into him, letting her cry against his chest.

"Why didn't you come and speak to me if you were upset?"

"I thought… I… I thought you would be an… angry about the broo… the broom too," she choked out between sobs. Neville pulled her tighter.

"Never, Hermione, never. I'm never not speaking to you okay? Especially not over a bloody broom."

"O… okay."

"Hermione, what's all this about?"

"Told y… you… broom."

"No, not that, this started before then. Whatever you're doing, you're running yourself ragged."

"Taking a… a lot of classes… and need to do well. Professor McGo… McGonagall… she put her tru… trust in me… need to do well… and now Buckbeak… have to help… Hagrid."

There were several more sentences after but by that point, Hermione's words were almost unintelligible. Half an hour later once she was all cried out, Neville moved out from underneath her and started gathering her things.

"What are you doing?" she asked. Her voice was thick from having cried for so long, and her face was blotchy with her eyelids almost welded together.

"I'm collecting up your stuff, come on." His voice was more authoritative than he had heard previously, and she looked somewhat stunned before she scrambled to stand and went to take her bag. Neville waved off her hand and put her satchel onto his shoulder then grabbed her hand and headed to the common room.

When they entered the portrait hole, most of the common room turned around to see Hermione enter with him. It was only with all eyes on him that Neville realised they were still holding hands. He felt Hermione attempt to pull away, but in a moment of bravery, or something close to it, he gripped her small hand tighter. If she needed strength, he would happily give it to her. He was done watching her suffer.

Hermione flushed under the scrutiny of their housemates, but she didn't try to pull away again. Neville was guiding her further into the room when Ginny came bounding over. The fiery redhead looked at both of them and quickly eyed their joined hands but said nothing. She smiled kindly at Hermione.

"Hi Hermione, I haven't seen you for a little while. Luna and I were wondering if you wanted to come down to the kitchens with us after dinner and have some cocoa?"

Hermione looked sheepish, but Neville tugged on her arm, pulling her forward almost as you would to a shy child at a playdate.

"Yes, Ginny, that would be lovely," Hermione answered finally. Ginny beamed, and Hermione managed a shaky smile in return.

Neville's heart lightened at the improvement it made to her appearance.

"Hermione go to bed for a couple of hours, yeah? I'll wait for you down here before dinner." 

He wanted to capitalise on the compliance he had managed to achieve through shock in the last couple of hours and get her to eat and sleep before it wore off. Unbelievably she made no protest, though Neville doubted she had much fight left in her. Instead, Hermione nodded then let go of his hand before reaching to take her satchel from him. Neville stepped back, moving the bag from out of her grasp and shook his head.

"You won't need this for sleep."

Hermione was straightening herself out, getting ready to protest until tiredness must have won, and she sagged. "Okay."

He and Ginny both watched as Hermione trudged slowly up the stairs, when she had disappeared from view Ginny turned to him.

"Thank you, Neville. I don't know what you did, but it must have worked. I have been so worried about her. I've been trying to get her to talk to me for days, but it was like she couldn't hear me."

"That's okay," Neville agreed awkwardly. It was one thing to take care of Hermione but somehow being thanked for it made him uncomfortable. "Would you mind going up to check she has actually gone to sleep? I know she's probably got some more books up there."

Ginny smiled knowingly. "Good idea. I'll go check."

"And will you help me get her to dinner? After she has some rest, she might go back to her old self and hex me for having bullied her into sleeping."

Ginny laughed and promised she would bring Hermione back downstairs before they left to eat. Neville turned to find a vacant chair and saw Ron and Harry eyeing him curiously. Deciding he might as well get all of the planned confrontations over at once, Neville approached where they sat next to an abandoned chessboard.

He hadn't even managed to open his mouth before Ron started up. "What are you playing at Neville? Hermione-"

Neville was exhausted, he had ever seen anyone as upset as Hermione had been earlier, and he didn't have the energy to deal with one of Ron's explosions so he cut him off before he could get started. "Make up with Hermione."

"Neville you can't be serious," Ron replied, shaking his head. "What about what she did? What about the Firebolt?"

Neville sighed. "I really don't care about the broom Ron."

"The broom? The broom? It isn't just a bloody broom it's a-"

"Make up with her," Neville asserted again. "Not that you should need a reason, but in case you think you deserve one, if you haven't already noticed, she's crumbling. Hermione puts herself under a ridiculous amount of pressure to be the best to prove that she should be here, that she has a right to her place in the castle. Then on top of all that you shut her out because she was worried about Harry. She's so skinny I could have probably carried all the way here from the Astronomy Tower without even noticing." He turned to face Harry who had so far remained silent. "How can you not care? She is supposed to be your friend."

Harry flushed. "To be honest mate I… we didn't realise she would take it this hard she's normally so… we'll speak to her Neville, I promise."

"Good." 

Neville was glad the confrontation was over, the adrenaline was wearing off, and the shock that he had argued with both the boys was settling in.

"Has she really not been eating?" Harry asked hesitantly.

"No," Neville sighed, sitting down next to them. "Or sleeping."

"Okay, we'll talk to her," Ron said with a reluctant determination that made Neville want to roll his eyes.

"Great," Neville said without enthusiasm. He rubbed his face and tried to think of a way to defuse the tension. "Can I play the winner?" he asked and pointed to the chessboard.

"What you mean is, can you play Ron next?" Harry said with a smile, and they all laughed.

Neville sat back and waited his turn and tried not to be too overt when he cast glances at the ceiling to where he hoped Hermione was tucked up in bed. 

Chapter Text

Neville had always been forgetful, it had become something of a running joke at home, and then, as soon he came to Hogwarts, it became a running joke there as well.

It wasn't like he forgot important things, it was the little stuff that he struggled to keep a grasp on. Had he remembered to put that essay he finished in his bag? Where did he last put down Trevor? Things exactly like the password to Gryffindor Tower. Neville had been continually forgetting them since he arrived at the castle. In their third year, they had been changed so frequently that Neville had been locked out of the Tower three times in as many weeks. He had been so embarrassed by having to wait for someone to come by and let him each time that reluctantly he wrote them down.

When Sirius Black broke into Gryffindor Tower, no one could understand how he had managed it until a small piece of parchment was found outside the portrait hole. Black had supposedly dropped it in his haste to get away, and it hadn't been noticed the night before. 

Neville had been milling around outside the Tower with the rest of his year while their head of house stomped back and forth demanding answers. As soon as she was handed the small square, he had known what it was. The scrap showed a list of the rotating ten passwords drawn up in scratchy lettering. Writing the passwords down was strictly against the rules and recognising the handwriting immediately Professor McGonagall rounded on him.

"Mr Longbottom, my office...now!"

Neville didn't stop to say anything to the faces that were turned towards him. He broke free from the group and walked behind McGonagall in silence, his throat turning dry with apprehension. They eventually made it to her office, and she gestured for him to move inside. She didn't take a seat, and Neville knew, after years of being set down by strong women, that her remaining standing was a bad sign. 

His head of house's expression was grave as she banned him from all future visits into Hogsmeade for the remainder of the school year and instructed that he would have detention with her every night for a week. He would also now not be trusted to receive the passwords to the portrait hole at all. Instead, he would have to wait outside the Tower until someone came past and let him in, the very thing he had been trying to avoid in the first place. Finally through with her rant, McGonagall dismissed him, and Neville darted from the room willing the stinging feeling behind his eyes to abate before he ran into anyone he knew.

Disheartened, Neville headed back to the Tower. He was terrified of seeing the rest of his house, but he didn't have anywhere else to go. Everyone would know what had happened within the hour, which meant nowhere was safe. As he turned the last corner, dragging his feet, he saw Hermione settled in an alcove at the side of the corridor.

"Hi Neville," she greeted with a wave that made Neville stop in his tracks. "I thought I would wait for you here. I wasn't sure if you would want to go back to the Tower yet? Do you want to go somewhere else?"

Neville was silent; he had been so worried about Hermione's reaction to his latest failing. She was such a stickler for the rules, and he had put Harry in danger, two things she usually had zero tolerance for. Neville realised as soon as he saw her, settled with a book, apparently happy to wait for him that he had once again underestimated her. Not only had he done a disservice to her loyalty but in her regard for him also. What had he told her at the beginning of the year? I will never not be speaking to you. It appeared the sentiment was mutual. 

She jumped up from out of the shadows and grabbed his arm. "Come on! I found out something new this week."

Hermione dragged him down corridors heading towards the Hufflepuff dormitory only stopping when they reached a giant portrait of a fruit bowl.

Neville looked at her questioningly, and Hermione tilted her head towards the painting. He didn't think much of her taste in art. One of his aunts had gone through a still life painting phase, and Neville could still remember being sent to the attics to hide away the last batch they had been gifted.

Hermione looked between the painting and him and crossed her arms over her chest. "Tickle the pear," she requested, smiling at some unknown joke.

"What?" Neville replied, looking incredulous.

"Tickle. The. Pear." 

Hermione was trying to sound severe but considering she was also trying to suppress laughter that kept threatening to spill over, the effect was somewhat muted. Realising she was determined, Neville reached forward, and feeling like a prize idiot, he did as instructed and tickled the pear. He started as the fruit twitched and made a tinkling laughing sound and a doorway appeared in the wall.

"Follow me," Hermione said and marched down the corridor that had been revealed.

They ended up in the Hogwarts kitchens, of all places. The elves appeared as if they had heard them and Hermione asked them very kindly if they might have some tea. An officious looking elf nodded, and they were directed to a table at the back, out of the way of what seemed like over a hundred very busy elves.

Hermione had come to him earlier in the year demanding to know if his family kept house elves, which they did. She seemed to have got some twisted notion concerning their welfare off the back of Dobby's treatment with the Malfoys, which Neville assured her was atypical. His eyes had widened as she outlaid her plans to free the Hogwarts house-elves and form a group for their protection. It took a long time, a lot of protracted arguments and the promise of arranging a meeting with one of the Longbottom family elves before Hermione would agree to give up her plan. Neville was almost totally convinced she believed him now, though she would still ask any elf she came across how they were and how they were treated. The elves indulged her, but occasionally Neville would catch one of them looking at her as if they assumed she was somewhat mentally deficient.

A moment later, a full tea service arrived with a secondary tray filled with all manner of cakes and biscuits. Hermione poured the hot liquid and asked what McGonagall had said in a suspiciously conversational tone that Neville had attended too many pureblood tea parties to trust whatsoever. 

Neville took the tea she proffered and told her everything. He had never been very good at lying, and while it might have been humiliating, he reasoned that he needed to tell someone. 

When he had got to the end, Hermione was furious. She ranted for five full minutes about how heavy-handed the punishment was and how others had gotten away with way worse in the castle, and that those people had intended to harm. Neville was shocked… again. Not only did Hermione never disparage teachers, but McGonagall was practically a Saint to the curly-haired witch.

Hermione reached forward to grab a chocolate eclair, stuffing it into her mouth and eating with a lot less elegance than Neville was used to seeing from her. If he wasn’t feeling so bleak he would have been amused by how her emotions carried into everything she did. He had never seen anyone rage eat a pastry before.

"We have to do something Neville. We can't have you sitting outside the Tower waiting for people to go past, it's not fair…"

Hermione continued, but Neville had become distracted by a large blob of cream that had smeared on her nose. It muted the anger on her face… and made her look… Neville thought she looked adorable actually. Though he wasn't sure where that thought had come from. He'd never looked at her, well, anyone like that. Before he could check himself, he leant forward and gently swiped his thumb across the bridge of her nose. Hermione stilled and stopped talking instantly, her wide eyes locked onto him.

Neville flushed. "Oh, sorry… you had cream… from the eclair. It was on your nose." He held up his hand in front of her face, feeling the need to provide evidence for his explanation.

Hermione's cheeks went pink, not the kind of all over flush that Neville sported when he was embarrassed, her's was rather… prettier.

"Oh… Oh… thank you," she murmured. "That will teach me not to use a fork."

Silence fell between them and for the first time, it was uncomfortable. Neville racked his brain to think of something to say, but it was if all subjects were lost to him.

"So," he coughed out in a slightly strangled voice. "What's your plan?"

Hermione exhaled slowly, looking as relieved as he was that the silence was at an end.

"I'm not sure yet, but I'll work on it. I promise Neville. I'll do what I can."

Neville barely saw Hermione in the days following Sirius Black's break-in. True to her word she had been in the Library looking up something that would supposedly help. Neville felt bad for adding to her workload, especially when only a month or so before she was teetering on the edge of a nervous breakdown. But he couldn't find it within himself to ask her to stop either. It was nice that she cared enough about him to try, and standing outside the common room at least twice a day was humiliating in the extreme.

Neville thought he had got off lightly when McGonagall made no mention of sending a letter home. However the following Friday, the owl post brought a very unwelcome addition to his morning. Amongst the usual letters, and pulling the attention of most of the Great Hall, was an unmistakable, deep scarlet envelope. Neville felt a sense of foreboding as it was dropped in front of him, almost into his cereal. 

Logically he knew that the longer he left it, the worse it would be, but Neville couldn't get his body to respond to the screaming voice in his head telling him to grab the Howler and run from the hall as quickly as possible. How much more embarrassment could he take?

Neville knew he had waited too long when the sides of the envelope started to smoke and the red parchment ripped from his fingers, flew up into the air and formed a mean-looking, slit-eyed, scowling face.

"NEVILLE LONGBOTTOM YOU ARE..." his Gran's booming voice began but whatever he was supposed to be was left to the imaginations of those present as the envelope seemed to implode in on itself, creating several small fireworks, before fading into ashes that slowly fell to the tabletop.

All eyes went to Hermione who was nonchalantly putting her wand back into its holster before she dusted some of the fallen debris off her shoulders. Seeing everyone's eyes directed at her, she lifted a brow. "What?"

"Err, Hermione… how did you know how to do that?" Harry asked.

"It's no big deal, Harry," she responded with a shrug and folded herself onto the bench opposite. "Last year, when Ron got one from Mrs Weasley, I researched the magic. I thought it would be a pretty good idea to know how to get rid of one."

"Can you teach me?" Seamus asked eagerly, and Hermione winced. 

"With your natural talent for combustion, Seamus, I'm not sure an incineration spell would be a responsible thing for me to teach you."

The table laughed and the remaining tension from when the letter arrived dissipated. Everyone went back to their breakfasts and conversations resumed around them. When Hermione got up to leave to head to the Library, as usual, she turned to face Neville directly, for the first time since she had appeared waving her wand, and he mouthed a 'thank you' at her.

Hermione's cheeks flushed as she mouthed back 'you're welcome'. 

Definitely pretty, Neville decided. He forced himself not to worry about the realisation, much.

Neville began to wonder if he should be worried again a week later when he noticed Hermione was driving herself as hard as she had been before. She didn't retreat into herself like the last time, but there was a certain… unravelling that had occurred. He counted no less than three pencils in her hair at breakfast. While at the table, Hermione had repeatedly failed to get toast into her mouth as she was focussing on a massive book instead of her plate.

Neville considered waiting for her in the common room, but he didn't want to have to wait outside for an age in case no one was there, so he headed towards the Library, assuming he'd find her among the shelves and was sighing to himself when a tiny hand reached out from the corridor wall, and he was dragged behind a tapestry. The hand closed around his mouth, and a small voice cast a Lumos. Neville stared as the light revealed Hermione, and their surroundings - a large alcove with two small chairs. She moved her hand away and sat down, and he followed.

Her hair was everywhere, Neville was certain she couldn't have even tried to pin it back any more. Her eyes didn't look tired, more too alert and darting all over the place for good measure. She flicked a quick silencing charm at the tapestry and bounced her feet on the ground.

"I've done it, Neville… I came here to test it. I didn't want to be seen casting the charm in the Library or the common room, but I've done it," she rushed out.

"Done what?"

She reached into her pocket and pulled out two Galleons, she placed one in Neville's hand, and he eyed it curiously.

"Put out your other hand," she directed, and she carefully laid the other coin inside. "Now grip the coin in your right hand." Again, Neville did as asked and Hermione raised her wand to tap on the outside of his closed palm. Neville stared at her, wondering if she had finally gone insane until the coin in his left hand grew hot.

"What in the name of Merlin?" he asked. He opened his palm and stared at the rapidly cooling coin. But how? Her magic had touched the other hand.

"It's like a messenger service. When you want to get back into the common room you grip the coin and there is a simple spell I will teach you. I will have the other coin which will grow hot, letting me know you are waiting and I will come back to the Tower to let you in. Ideally, I wanted to send messages across them, then I could have just sent you the passwords... that's not technically against the rules as they wouldn't have been written down. But the magic was too advanced for me. I think we will have to keep it as an alert thing for now. Hopefully, I'll be able to add the messaging thing later, once I have done a bit more research, and practice, I definitely need more practice."

She bit her lip and glanced at him hopefully. Neville couldn't believe she could feel inadequate after what she had done for him.

"Hermione… I… I really appreciate this," he cleared his throat." I'm not sure how I'm ever going to repay you for it."

She laughed. "You don't have to, I'm sure I owe you a few. Besides, you managed to talk me down out of the Astronomy Tower already this year, how about we say we're even?"

"Even?" Neville asked incredulously. He tightened his fist around the coin feeling it bite into his hand and swallowing back all he wanted to say. "I think I can live with that."

Chapter Text

On their way to school, Ron took centre stage as he spoke animatedly about their trip to the Quidditch World Cup over Summer. Neville was in a state of complete and utter rapture. He didn't even believe that to be hyperbolic, just listening to all of the detail was amazing. He was sure he had never been so envious of anyone before. He couldn't believe Hermione had gone. She hated Quidditch. His Gran hadn't wanted to go - or for him to go without her - so they never got tickets. It was so unfair.

Ron showed him his miniature Viktor Krum and Neville was awestruck by the tiny figure, the amazing seats Mr Weasley had obtained, the rows and rows of tents, the mascots, and the spectacle, everything sounded incredible.

Everything except what happened after. 

Neville had known Hermione was going to be there from her letters before she went to stay with the Weasley's, so when Death Eaters had attacked the campsite, he had almost sent her a Howler. She hadn't mentioned anything untoward had happened in her letter following attending the match, so when he had heard the news he had been entirely unprepared. When Neville had opened the Daily Prophet to see the spectral image of the Dark Mark blazing in the sky above the campsite, he had been terrified and then livid.

Once he had calmed enough to write to her, he decided against a Howler but only because he knew Hermione could incinerate them at will. The letter he did send could have been described as incandescent, at best. He had been determined to get his point across, and so he sought permission to use his Gran's owl Lyssa, who was the worst tempered creature he had ever had the misfortune of meeting. There was no way the bird would have left without a response from Hermione.

In the letter that he received shortly after, Hermione had apologised profusely for keeping it from him, explaining that she hadn't wanted him to worry, and had planned on telling him everything when he saw her next. Over time, Neville had calmed down and was now at peace with the whole event, enough to enjoy talking about it again at least.

Ron was in the middle of his fourth re-enactment of one of Viktor Krum's better moves from the game, without the tiniest complaint from Neville when the sound of muffled giggling caught his attention. Turning, he noticed Hermione, Ginny and Luna all huddled together on the far side of the carriage. Ginny was animatedly explaining something in her typical fashion, tiny arms flailing everywhere, and at regular junctures, all the girls would laugh.

Neville had been mildly surprised when they first entered the carriage, and Hermione hadn't sat next to him. Since their first year, they had always sat next to each other on the Express. When the boys had launched into their descriptions of the match, Neville had assumed Hermione had moved away because, knowing her, she had probably reached her limit with Quidditch talk by now. He doubted she had heard much else over summer. But Ginny was even more Quidditch mad than he was, so why wasn’t she joining in with their conversation? What could they possibly be talking about that seemed to require so much diligent attention?

Neville didn't think he had ever heard Hermione really giggle before. The way she pressed her fingers over her lips as if attempting to stop herself was disconcerting. When the girls carried on, he turned his attention back to Harry and Ron, who had not noticed his distraction. But Neville couldn't help keeping half an ear out for the girls, though unfortunately, he could only pick up bits of what was said, and it was mainly Ginny speaking.

"Those Irish players were so so hot… I know he has the dreamiest smile… knows how to fill out a pair of trousers… Do you think the new DADA might be a woman this year?... Luna, you won't believe it, we got the treat of our lives, didn't we Mione?"

Neville shuffled in his seat to try to hear better.

"Going for the portkey… out of nowhere… jumped down... right from a tree… can you believe it?... he's adorable… very sweet… chatted to Mione, didn't he?"

Neville turned to look at Hermione, momentarily forgetting that he was supposed to be pretending he wasn't listening. Her cheeks had flushed pink, his pink ... No, not his pink, but, well, pink.

"Yes, but only about classes for next year Gin."

"Is he as lovely as everyone says he is?" Luna asked, her dreamy voice floating to his end of the compartment.

Desperate to hear the response, Neville inched forward till he was in danger of falling off the bench.

"Well, yes… actually, Cedric was perfectly lovely."

Cedric? As in Cedric Diggory? As in the Prince Charming of Hufflepuff? Neville hadn't taken Hermione for a girl that would be affected by someone like that. Sure, Cedric was nice and everything, but really? He didn't think she had ever even liked a boy, like that, apart from that silly crush on Lockhart in the second year.

Neville stood abruptly and moved to sit as far away for the still tittering girls as possible. He dropped down inelegantly and crossed his arms in front of himself. He didn't want to hear any more of their conversation.

Neville's attitude hadn't improved by the time the train pulled into Hogsmeade Station. He was sure he would be in a foul mood for the rest of the evening, ruining one of his favourite nights of the year, which made him even more irritated. 

Everyone began moving out of the carriage, leaving him behind as he was having some issues dislodging his trunk that had got caught on the rack above. Channelling some of his frustration, Neville yanked at the handle hard, forcing it to fall to the floor. When he turned around, only Hermione was left. She was also struggling to remove her trunk. Hers hadn't got caught, Hermione's issue was her size. Despite being nearly fifteen, she was only a little taller than Ginny and Luna, and they were almost a year and a half younger than her.

"Neville," she sighed exasperatedly, "could you just… Neville?" she turned abruptly and walked straight into his chest.

He'd had a bit of a growth spurt over the summer, about four inches in total, taking him to just below six foot. He wasn't used to it yet, at times it felt like he was learning to walk in someone else's body. Incidents of clumsiness had reached a level not seen since his first year, but it seemed his Uncle Algie had been right, the men in the Longbottom family did even out, eventually. Neville couldn't have been called chubby anymore, though he maintained some fleshier areas, especially in his cheeks.

"Hermione, are you okay?" he asked, staring down at her.

"Err... yes… yes. I'm fine," she stuttered. "I just wasn't expecting… you've got so… so very tall."

Neville smiled self consciously and rubbed the back of his neck. It suddenly seemed very important to have something to do with his hands. "Yeah, grown a bit over the summer. Let me help you."

He pulled down her trunk with relative ease and watched as she dove on top of it, opening the clasps and rifling through the contents.

"Come on, Hermione," he whined, "we'll miss the carriages." He couldn't wait to get some fresh air and a decent dinner.

"Wait a second… there," she replied and then triumphantly held a small bag aloft and handed it to Neville. "I knew you were disappointed you couldn't come to the match, so I got you a souvenir."

He gently opened the bag, inside was a programme from the World Cup and an Ireland scarf. He beamed at her.

"Thank you, Hermione. You didn't have to."

"I know, I just thought… well, I don't know. I missed you, I suppose. It would have been nicer if you had been there," she finished, resolutely staring at the floor.

Neville felt himself brighten for the first time in hours. He wasn't sure if he liked flustered Hermione more than flushing pink Hermione, but as long as he was the cause, he would take either. He could now spend his evening more agreeably, trying to pick a favourite, after he had steered her to sit facing away from the Hufflepuff table.

The group of Gryffindor's, plus Luna, attempted to find the best possible spot outside the front entrance to await the arrival of the other schools competing in the TriWizard Tournament. It seemed that just when Neville thought he had missed all the excitement they would get that year, it was coming to him. Nobody knew who the champions would be yet. It was too soon to tell. Though, he hoped for Cedric Diggory - even though he had started to dislike him a little - over Roger Davies or Marcus Flint. 

Neville was hugely excited and gasped along with the rest of those present when an enormous glittering coach and horses landed outside the castle. The Headmistress of the Beauxbatons Academy, Madam Maxine, got out first and it was clear that she was a giant, she utterly dwarfed Dumbledore, and even Hagrid looked small standing next to her. The students that got out afterwards were all impeccably dressed to a level that made Neville feel scruffy, though the lack of coats was a definite oversight. As they moved closer, he noticed that the girls in their party were all gorgeous. As they got closer, most of the boys in the older years straightened themselves up, himself included before the blue-clad students moved past the assembled masses into the Great Hall.

"Just what we need, more competition," Ginny grumbled.

"I don't think anyone is much competition for you, Ginny," Hermione soothed, kindly hugging the girl towards her.

The group turned as the Black Lake began to bubble and churn until suddenly a ship appeared in the middle of it, a huge ship. Well, Neville had no reference for the relative size of a sea-bound vessel, but that had to be a big one.

In the distance they could see students disembarking all dressed in furs looking severe, none more so than the Headmaster. Neville's latest letter from his Gran had warned him to stay far away from Igor Karkaroff at all costs, and one look at the man in question assured him that he would have no issue complying with her wish.

As the figures got closer, Ron started to jump up and down. "Look, look! It's KRUM. It's Viktor bloody KRUM!"

Neville stood up on his tiptoes, automatically putting his hands on Hermione's shoulders for support as he leant around the other students to see better. He heard her tsk slightly, but he just squeezed her tighter until she laughed at his antics.

The boys watched on in awe as the Durmstrang students walked by. The whispers regarding Krum had reached fever pitch as he got closer and more of the assembled crowd had been able to identify him. The much-loved Quidditch star reached their place by the doors as Hermione had begun chastising Ron, who had been beside himself with excitement and babbling nonsense for the last two minutes.

"He's just a person Ron, like everyone else."

Neville wasn't sure whether Krum had heard her, or if it was something else, but as he walked past, Krum’s face - a face that Neville had only ever seen set in a grim line - broke into a tiny smile, and it was directed at Hermione. His hands on her shoulders tightened unconsciously.

"Neville, ow!"

"Sorry, sorry," he replied, letting go too quickly, resulting in her stumbling forward. Neville rushed to catch her and in the process pulled her into his body, immediately flushing to his roots as he realised what he had done. Not wanting to acknowledge the close contact, he simply stood back, slower this time, and pulled her through the chattering students to get back inside the warmth of the castle.

"What did you think of… you know, the Durmstrang… err… boys."

Hermione looked perplexed by the question. "Well, they seemed more appropriately dressed than our French guests," she answered finally. Neville thought that was woefully beside the point, but Hermione stepped closer to him as they walked. 

"Neville, do you have time before classes tomorrow to go back over the next Potions chapter with me? I know you hate doing it, but I always feel better when I have covered it off with someone else before going to the lesson."

Neville wasn't fooled, he knew Hermione too well. She always found a way of covering off any Potions work with him in advance; it was her way of helping and assuring herself that Snape would have nothing to pick on him over.

"Yes, of course, we can do it after breakfast if you like?"

"Great, thank you."

"You're welcome," he replied.

After a moment's indecision, he placed his hand at the small of her back and led her into the hall. He saw her blink in surprise, but she didn't say anything. Neville took it as permission and tried to keep the smile off his face when it was clear that Durmstrang were being seated at the other end of the hall. 

Everything was going to be fine.

Chapter Text

Another year, another Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor. The idea didn't even raise eyebrows anymore. Granted, Remus Lupin had been a better teacher than the rest, by far, but it had still been expected that he would only last the year. Neville felt sorry for the werewolf, and for Harry, who seemed to miss him very much. 

In his first letter to his Gran that year, Neville wrote that the famed Auror, Alastor Moody, had come to be a professor at Hogwarts. The response he received was not totally favourable. Although his Gran affirmed that Moody had once been a great Auror, she went on to express that in recent years Moody had suffered a decline. The words she used hadn't been quite so kind as that, but Neville, consistently underestimated and overlooked himself, had made it one of his life's missions to make up his own mind about people. 

Neville's attempt at open-mindedness aside, gossip shared by the twins was somewhat more condemning. Apparently, Professor Moody was known as 'Mad-Eye', and the intimation was that it wasn't just because of the roving magical eye in his head. Neville wasn't sure if this nickname was one shared with him, and as such made the decision not to try it. Being young, and easily impressed, Neville couldn't help but feel that 'Mad-Eye' was a pretty cool nickname. Though, he imagined that Professor McGonagall wouldn't agree with him.

Soon enough, the day of their first lesson rolled around. They filtered into the classroom that had once again been redecorated over the Summer, while Professor Moody was writing on the board. Moving to sit in his usual place, Neville found himself on a bench next to Harry in front of Hermione and Ron.

Neville quietly observed along with the rest of the class as Moody barely turned around to greet them. Instead, he focused on composing scratchy words in chalk and then patted his hands together to remove the remains when he was done. 

Moody had an odd appearance. As a younger man, Neville believed he must have been slim, if what he knew about Auror training was true, now he was… past his prime. He stood with a slight hunch, caused by laying too much of his weight onto his fake leg. He seemed twitchy and paranoid. An impression that was not helped by the darting of his truly unsettling eye. 

Neville had seen a wizard that had lost an eye before. One of his Uncle's friends had an unfortunate incident trying to charm a Muggle lawnmower. Magic had not been able to repair his eye, but St Mungo's had fitted him with something that was a reasonably good replica. It might not have been functional, but it looked a damn sight more appealing than the option Moody had gone for. Though, Neville supposed he shouldn't have been surprised. The old Auror clearly didn't care much about his appearance. 

Leaving no time for pleasantries, or even an introduction to the year head, their professor announced that his first lesson would be on the Unforgivables. If Neville was not mistaken, after making the shocking announcement, Moody paused for effect. The class fell silent, and Neville sucked in a deep breath. Moody didn't seem to react to the sudden change in the atmosphere though Neville could swear he saw him tap his tongue against his top lip before he whirled around and banged the table. The sudden noise led to several squeaks of surprise around the room and Neville heard the slight creaking of chairs as Ron shifted closer to Hermione, probably unconsciously. 

Moody asked for the names of the curses with a tone that brooked no refusal and someone, though Neville couldn't have said who in his current state, said Imperious. There was some chatter after that, and something was said about Malfoy, but then Moody rechallenged them. 

Their professor lunged forward, bearing his teeth. You would have more readily believed he was inviting them to duel rather than to answer a question. Mechanically, Neville raised his hand.

"Yes, you," Moody pointed at him.

"Cruciatus Curse, Sir" he answered, his voice wavering. Moody regarded him carefully, and Neville was hyper-aware of the stares of the rest of the class. He couldn't remember the last time he had volunteered an answer in any lesson that wasn't Herbology. Honestly, he wasn't sure why he had done so now. The only thought in his mind had been to end the awful situation as quickly as possible; to give the professor the answer he wanted and then hopefully he would assign reading so Neville could hide behind his textbook until class was over. 

"What's your name, boy?" the professor asked, not unkindly despite his gruffness. 

"Longbottom, Sir, Neville," he managed to reply, but he kept his eyes averted.

Moody merely nodded and moved on. Neville retreated inside himself. He would rather have been just about anywhere in the world than in the classroom at that moment. He could feel Hermione's eyes boring into the back of his skull; he knew she would have picked up on his mood. He resolutely kept his face forward and attempted to keep his eyes impassive.

That was until their professor produced a spider at the front of the class for a demonstration. Neville's eyes unwillingly fixed on the creature as Moody enlarged it - so they all had a better view - before placing it under dark curse after curse. The spider twitched and writhed, and Neville gripped the desk in front of him hard in an attempt to keep from calling out or throwing up.

He could vaguely hear other noises in the classroom around him, but he felt distant from it, almost like he was underwater. Then suddenly, it all stopped as quickly as it had begun. Neville slowly straightened himself out and turned to see Hermione standing out from behind her desk, her face red and her eyes like fire. Not even the Slytherins said anything to mock her outburst. If you were to look at Theodore Nott's face, you would think they were grateful it had stopped as much as the rest of them.

There was a heavy silence where no one said anything until Moody shrunk the spider back down and swiftly ended the lesson. 

Harry sped out of his seat and stood by Hermione as she repacked her bag, the pair of them locked in some silent questioning and comfort that was unique to the two of them. The class began to empty, and with the extra space, Neville felt like he could breathe again until Moody asked him to wait behind. Neville's shoulders slumped, but he wasn't surprised. He had known as soon as he'd confirmed his name that Moody would know all about his parents. Kingsley Shacklebolt had told him once that all Aurors were told about his Mum and Dad, it was part of their training. Neville wasn't sure whether that gave him comfort. 

Neville picked up his unused parchment and shuffled it into his bag without any discernible order. If they needed to have this discussion, it was best to get it out of the way. 

He remained in his seat while the last few people left, but he knew Hermione had waited behind, even before she approached the side of his desk. Neville was grateful for her support, but right then, he didn't feel like he could face her. He felt raw like someone had removed his skin and all of his soft and vulnerable inner parts were on display. If he talked to her now, he was sure he would cry, and that wasn't the way he wanted to tell her about his parents.

"Go on, Hermione, I'll be fine," he managed to say though his eyes traced the deep grooves on the desk rather than her face.

"You sure?" she asked, clearly not believing him. Neville was certain he wouldn't be able to school his features or say anything that would convince her, he just hoped she would understand. 

They locked eyes. "Please, Hermione," he offered with as much emphasis as he could. "I'm fine."

She hesitated for a second, clearly debating whether or not to attempt a protest again then thought better of it. "I'll see you at dinner?"

"Yes," he managed, and she left, albeit reluctantly.

"Well now," his professor began when they were completely alone. "Let's you and me have a cup of tea."

Moody moved to the back of the room and opened the door to his private office. Neville trailed along behind. He could count the number of his professors' private offices he had seen on one hand. It wasn't that they were strictly private, they were more invite-only, and as Neville wasn't usually the type to either get into trouble or earn himself an accolade, his teacher's inner sanctums were largely a mystery to him. If Moody's was anything to go by, he wasn't missing much. 

The room had heavy slate slabs for the floor that felt colder than anywhere else in the castle and exposed brickwork. There were gadgets and machines on almost every surface, whirring, spinning and jangling. Typically, Neville would have found the noise distracting but in his present state, he was happy for there to be something breaking the awkwardness of their interaction. 

Moody settled slowly behind a beaten up looking desk and summoned a tea set with his wand before gesturing at him to sit down.

Neville had been concerned that the professor would want to talk about what had happened to his parents, but he didn't. Instead, Moody told him that Professor Sprout had been talking in the staff room about his talent with plants and he had a book that he thought Neville would enjoy, Magical Water Plants of the Mediterranean.

Neville left the office half an hour later feeling improved but now very confused. The first thing that had entered his mind when he saw the book was showing it to Hermione; she always encouraged his further study in Herbology. While she was not expressly interested in the subject like he was, she was keen on plants from warmer climes, though he sometimes suspected she had made that up just to encourage him.

Thinking of Hermione made him wonder whether he should tell her about his parents, about everything. He wasn't sure. It wasn't like he didn't trust her; he didn't trust anyone more. She kept everyone's secrets, but he didn't want her pity, he would not have been able to bear it if she felt sorry for him. On the other hand, he knew her well enough to know she would take it personally if she found out and he hadn't told her.

He would hate that, she was so very important to him, his first friend, and his closest friend and maybe… well, he thought he felt something more.

Neville's brain was still swirling back and forth when he entered the Great Hall. He approached Hermione in a bit of daze, and when she noticed him, she scrambled to remove a jumper and bag from next to her on the bench.

"Saved you a seat," she said with a smile.

Neville slid in and began piling his plate absentmindedly. He often found himself wondering if his mum or dad had ever sat exactly where he was now, on the benches. Had they been happy? Had friends and laughter surrounded them? There was just so much he didn't know.

"Neville, are you alright?" Hermione whispered.

He noticed other eyes on the table falling on him and decided to keep their chat as brief as possible. While he might have thought it was best to tell Hermione more, he had no desire for this to be an open discussion. "I'm… yes, I'm fine."

She smiled and went back to her own plate, and he was grateful that she hadn't pushed the issue in front of an audience. It made his decision. Neville played with the food on his plate, not really eating anything at all, and when he was sure that most of the other diners had turned to their food, he whispered to Hermione.

"Can we speak later?"

"Yes, of course," she answered out of the side of her mouth.

"Erm," he hesitated, wondering how she would take what he wanted to ask. "It needs to be… well… not the common room?"

Hermione paused in her movements - her fork had been halfway to her mouth, and several peas plonked back to her plate.

"What about the back of the library, where the wingback chairs are? No one ever goes there. We could meet there an hour after dinner?"

"Yes, ok."

That gave him an hour to try and get his thoughts in order. Now or never. 

At eight, Neville was transcending the quiet corridor in front of the library. He made it in, through the heavy double doors, not even getting a raised eyebrow from Madam Pince, and made his way to the very back of the library. Along part of the back wall, there were small alcoves that each had two or three large chairs in them. During the day they were exclusively occupied by NEWT students, who guarded the semi-private spaces like dragons did their eggs.  

Walking along, he spotted Hermione in the very back corner, sitting in a chair that looked as if it was made for someone twice her size, pouring over an Ancient Runes textbook.

Neville dropped heavily into the chair next to hers and put up some silencing spells he had been practising over the Summer. He might have hated the townhouse, and being home with only his Gran for company. But it did mean he mainly got away with using basic magic, as long as he was careful. 

His need for secrecy caught Hermione's attention, and she sat up a little straighter, closing the book within her grasp and dropping it onto the low table near her feet.

"Is everything alright?" she asked, clearly concerned. Now that they were not at dinner, surrounded by others, she wasn't hiding her worry. Gone were the small smiles she had offered him before; her face was drawn.

"No… Well, yes, I'm fine, but… I need to, no, not need. I want to tell you about something… but this isn't easy for me to speak about, so could you not ask questions or anything? Just until I'm done?"

Hermione nodded, and Neville felt his throat go dry. He had never spoken to anyone about this, everyone in his family already knew, and though he imagined it was far from a secret to most of those in the castle - the purebloods at least - it had never been something casually remarked upon. He wasn't embarrassed by his situation, far from it, he was very proud of his parents, he just had no idea where to start.

He found a spot on the wall, above Hermione’s shoulder, where the paint was slightly peeling, and he fixed his gaze at that position, rationalising that it would be easier to talk without looking directly at her. Hermione's face was expressive, even for a Gryffindor, and he didn't want to be derailed by knowing precisely what she thought at each and every moment.

"I know I don't really… talk… I don't talk about my parents much. I suppose with me being raised by my Gran everyone assumes… well, I suppose they assume they're dead," he paused to swallow roughly. "But that's not fair on them because they're not dead, they're in St Mungo's."

Neville chanced a look at Hermione. She didn't look pitying or horrified that he had kept it from her, her little face was warm, open and encouraging.

He continued before he could lose his nerve. "During the first war… they got... They were Aurors, you see. They were paired together when they got out of basic training. I don't think they do that anymore. But back then they used to think that you were best paired with people that knew you well. They were dating before they left school but I… I don't know all the details."

Neville loathed the gaps in his understanding and admitting to them brought its own kind of pain, but there was nothing else for it, he simply had never been told enough. 

"The night that… when it all ended, and he-who-shall-not-be-named fell, they were captured and tortured by the Lestranges and Bary Crouch Jr." Neville felt ashamed of the tears that began to prick his eyes, and he stopped for a moment to gain some composure.

Hermione stood, and she flicked her wand at the high backed chair he was sitting on, whispering an incantation that transfigured it until it was big enough for two, snuggly. She curled in next to him and grasped his hand. Neville let himself sink into her familiar comfort for a while, gaining strength from her presence and unwavering support.

His arm snaked around her waist as she rested her head against his shoulder. The curls of her hair tickled against his chin and gave him something to anchor himself to as he tried to speak and ignore how her bare legs were pressed against his school trousers. 

Neville blinked several times and then stared at the ceiling. He was forcing himself to get the last of it out now that he had started.

"They took a few successive bouts of the Cruciatus Curse… their doctors say it addled their minds. They need constant care. They tell us they don't understand the world around them anymore, don't recognise people and are unresponsive to any stimulus but…" his voice dropped to barely above a whisper. "I know they know me."

Neville used his hand, the one that was not still ensconced in Hermione's grasp, to wipe his eyes roughly. "Does that sound stupid?" he asked hesitantly.

"Of course not," Hermione breathed. Her voice sounded thick. Neville tilted himself back, and he could see that her eyes were glistening with tears. 

"Thank you for telling me," she said softly.

"Thank you for listening," he replied automatically. It sounded like such a ridiculously trite thing to say, but he was grateful.

Before he could recompose himself, Hermione stretched her arm around him from her place in the chair and completed the link between them, pulling him into a tight hug. After a moment's surprise, Neville melted into her safe embrace, giving in to the urge to pull her closer, and smell her wonderful hair.

"I'm sure they know you, Neville, you'd be a hard person to forget."

Neville sniffed and learnt his head back, calming himself down. He held onto Hermione a little longer before they eventually broke apart. 

"Would you take me one day? I'd like to meet them, unless you… I don't want to overstep," Hermione fiddled with her fingers, and Neville retook her hand in his grasp.

He smiled a watery smile. "I think they'd like to meet you too."

Chapter Text

Although two weeks had passed since Harry's name was drawn from the Goblet of Fire, the atmosphere in the castle had not improved, especially in Gryffindor Tower. Life in the common room and the boy's dorm had been particularly challenging when it became apparent that no one believed Harry's protests of innocence, not even Ron.

Hermione was being treated like a rag doll that both boys wanted to play with - at the same time, without the other one being part of it. Neville could see her frustration easily, even though she tried to hide it. Hermione never took sides, not like they did when they fell out with her, and it was causing her additional stress that she didn’t need. Neville helped out where he could, firstly by making sure both she and Harry knew without a doubt that he didn't believe that Harry had put his name in the Goblet. For one, Harry wasn't good enough at that kind of magic to have gotten past the measures Dumbledore had put in place, and for another, he was rash and impulsive, but he wasn't a total idiot. Lastly, if by some stroke of genius he had figured it out and forgotten himself long enough to actually have a go, he would have definitely brought Ron along for a go as well.

Continuing efforts to keep the peace between the feuding boys, Neville had switched seats with Ron in Transfiguration. So he was sat with Harry when Professor McGonagall announced to the room that, in keeping with the traditions of the TriWizard Tournament, there would be a Yule Ball. They could ask a fellow student to attend with them, and dance lessons would be required. All the boys in the room groaned, Neville included, he wasn't particularly coordinated when he was stationary, let alone when he was expected to twirl around the dance floor. 

He knew how to dance, of course. While his Gran might have thought that attending parties to form friendships was unnecessary, he'd had to participate in dance classes as a child. All out that training felt slightly academic when he had never had any call to put into practice.

Though dancing in front of his peers made his stomach churn, as he sat a much more worrying issue arose in his mind. Who was he going to ask? Unwittingly his gaze fell on the wayward brown curls in front of him. Neville paled slightly at the thought. Why did girls have to be so intimidating? 

As the news of the upcoming Ball filtering through the castle, the atmosphere fluxed again. Overnight, no one seemed to care about Harry anymore; in fact, Ron had made it up with him following the completion of the ridiculous first task. Dragons! For the love of Merlin! Now the boys in his dorm were more concerned with who they were going to ask. Well, that wasn't strictly true, Neville knew who he wanted to ask, and he was pretty sure Harry had picked his target as well if his constant gaze towards the Ravenclaw table was any indication. The much more disconcerting issue was how they were going to ask, but as talk about girls was more relaxed than any discussion of bravery, they stuck to comparing. 

Neville listened attentively for the first few minutes of that evening's chat, expectantly waiting for Ron to mention that he wanted to ask Hermione, but the redhead never did. 

Neville had noticed that Ron had been paying a bit more attention to Hermione. It was nothing overt at first, just subtle little indicators that his feelings may have changed. They had been friends for a long time, but this was something different. Ron watched for her at mealtimes and sat next to her when they were out on the grounds. But it never went any further than that. As far as Neville knew he had never asked Hermione out, and he hoped she would have told him if something like that had happened.  

Once the conversation turned to the likelihood of getting one of the Beauxbatons girls to go with them, Neville shut the rest of the conversation out to focus on his own strategy.

-/-/-/-

Neville spent days planning how he was going to do it. The hardest thing seemed to be getting her alone. He had previously thought Hermione spent a lot of time by herself, in the library or taking a quiet walk on the grounds. Apparently, she was a much more social creature than he had ever imagined. Hardly a moment went by where she wasn't with Ginny, or Luna or even one of the Beauxbatons girls that had taken to speaking to Hermione when they weren't sure where classes or rooms could be found.

It would have been the only thing standing in his way. However, all that time spent watching her brought to light another, much more serious issue. 

He wasn't the only one watching.

Viktor Krum had seemingly taken an interest in Hermione, and from the look of it, it wasn't casual. When they had been studying, sat by the Black Lake, Viktor had gone past jogging (show off!), and he had stopped briefly to look at her. When Neville had gone to join Hermione for early breakfast in the Great Hall, he had felt dark eyes watching and then when he went to the library, where he was meeting her to discuss potions homework, Krum was there again, sat on the end of her table, asking her questions about herself while a large table of giggling girls sat nearby, watching his every move.

Neville knew he needed to act soon; the Bulgarian superstar obviously intended to ask her as well.

How could he compete with a world-famous Quidditch star and TriWizard Champion?

Not by asking second. 

-/-/-/-

The next day, Neville shook for most of the morning. Nerves made his stomach unsettled, and his fingers tremble. It had to be today. He couldn't wait any longer, though he would honestly rather ask Snape for remedial potions lessons than do this. The one thing forcing his arm was that the night before when he had tried to sleep, he had been plagued with the image of Hermione being spun around the Great Hall by Krum. He'd felt his heart clench when dream Hermione's face had broken out into a pretty blush as Viktor leaned in towards her face and… STOP! Neville cut off the unwelcome recollections with a shake of his head. 

There was nothing else for it. It had to be today.

Before lunch, they had Herbology, and Neville knew this would be his best chance. That was where he felt most confident. When Professor Sprout called the end of the lesson, he packed away in double time and stood at the end of Hermione's bench. She was furiously washing the soil off her tiny hands from their practical lesson and turned when she noticed his presence and beamed at him.

"Hi Neville, thanks for waiting. Have the others gone on to lunch?"

Neville looked around the room aware it was now empty bar the two of them. He assumed they must have all gone to lunch, but he hadn't noticed them leave, he had been too focused on her to see anything else.

"Err… yeah," he responded absentmindedly. Suddenly the collar on his shirt felt unbelievably tight. "I was wondering if you had… five minutes… to talk… with me?"

Hermione dried her hands and moved back towards him. "Yes, of course. Is everything okay?"

"Yes," Neville replied quickly, then winced at how high his voice sounded.

Hermione folded her things into her satchel and then faced him expectantly. She took a couple of steps towards the door, but when he didn't follow, she glanced back over her shoulder, and her brow pinched. Neville felt his cheeks flush and he shuffled his feet. 

Don't just stand there like an idiot. Say something!

"So Erm… the Yule," he coughed to clear his throat. "The Yule Ball?"

Hermione nodded. "Yes, what about it?"

"Did you… ah… would you?"

Hermione moved back towards him, looking concerned. "Neville, are you okay?"

"FINE," he shouted louder than intended, and she jumped back. He put his arm on her shoulder both to steady her and to apologise and she flushed. "I'm fine," he said again, in a much more controlled voice. He hadn't removed his hand, and her flush gave him a speck of hope. It was enough to force his words out in any case. 

"Hermione, will you go to the ball with me?"

Her blush deepened, and Neville would have smiled at how pretty she looked if he wasn't positive he was about to be sick.

"Are you sure you want to go… with me ?" she asked in a tiny voice, her eyes searching his face.

"Yes!" he shouted, losing volume control again and hoping if he said it, she would be tempted to give the same answer.

Hermione looked up at him, a shy smile tugging at her lips. "Yes, Neville, that would be nice… I mean, really nice."

Neville beamed, and his chest felt lighter than it had in days, but then a dark thought crossed his mind when thinking of their last private conversation. He'd thought back to that evening more times than he would have freely admitted, and not just to muse on Hermione's compassion. He'd thought about her pressed up against him and the feel of her arms around him. But at that moment, all he could think of was his tears and her kind face. 

"It's not because you feel sorry for me, is it?"

Her large eyes shot up to his, and she stepped forward to close the gap between them reaching for his hand. "No, never… I… I don't pity you, Neville."

"Sorry I… I'm not sure why I asked that." He knew it was stupid, but he couldn't help feeling a tiny bit relieved.

"That's okay," Hermione replied. She looked a little selfconscious now and she moved the strap of her bag on her shoulder several times. "Lunch?"

"Yes, let's go."

Hermione let go of his hand to head to the exit, and Neville immediately missed her warmth.

Only days later, Neville was forced to admit the growing depth of his feelings for Hermione, at least to himself. After a particularly boring detention with Snape, he was headed towards the library. Despite spending his Saturday morning cleaning potions equipment, he was feeling rather smug. In retaliation for their professor's uncalled for comment about Hermione's teeth, himself and Seamus had both blown up their cauldrons. Deliberately and with relish. The result had been spectacularly messy, and for once, Neville had been able to look at Snape's angry face without cowering. It was amazing how much joy he could get by doing something on purpose that would usually cause him so much stress when done by accident.

He had promised Hermione he would drop in to the library and see her once his detention was over. She had, of course, thoroughly chastised him for doing something so reckless, but Neville had been able to see the slight sparkle in her eye that made him think she was grateful, even if she wouldn't admit it. 

Immediately after pushing through the heavy doors, Neville saw his curly-haired friend with Victor Krum sitting very close to her. They appeared to be discussing something in hushed tones, and there was a tell-tale blush on her cheeks. Neville stared at the scene before him for a full minute and then, without thinking, he immediately began walking the other way back to the common room, hoping he hadn't been seen. 

His heart was racing. What if Krum was asking her to the ball? Neville swore under his breath. There was no 'if' about it; he had seen him following her around that was definitely what was happening.

Although he had asked her to the ball, Neville hadn't specified that he liked Hermione as anything more than a friend, he knew he did, he was just scared to say anything… yet. He had stopped himself from asking if she would come just as friends, and he had taken that as a small victory. He was pleased that he hadn't taken the coward's way out.

Surely she wouldn't accept Viktor, would she?

-/-/-/-

Neville sank into an armchair and stewed for the best part of an hour before Hermione walked through the portrait hole. She immediately came to sit in the chair beside him.

"Hi, Neville, what happened earlier? I thought we were supposed to meet in the library? Was your detention bad?"

The concern on her face and in her voice chipped away at Neville's darkening mood, but it wasn't enough to settle his anxiety. 

"I came, but you were busy… with Viktor," he replied. He wished his voice had sounded less irritable, but he didn't feel very in control.

Hermione nodded. "I saw him when I arrived. He was completing a Charms essay. You should've come over."

Neville huffed under his breath. "I didn't want to interrupt."

Hermione's head tilted, scattering her curls. "Don't be silly, he was barely there five minutes and then he left again."

"Enough time to ask you to the ball?"

Her eyes fell to the floor, giving him all the answer he needed. Neville went to walk away, but Hermione pushed her hand down on his arm to stop him from moving. She wasn't strong enough to hold him place, not really. She might have had a tremendous force of will, but he was a lot bigger than her. Neville stayed put because he wanted to, because hope was a bloody awful thing and because she was his friend. 

"He did Neville, but I said I was already going with someone because I am, aren't I?"

"You told Krum that you were going with me?"

Hermione nodded, pushing on his arms gently until he retook his seat. "I did."

"I wouldn't mind you know, if you would prefer him," he said, lying through his teeth. "He's a big star, and he wants…"

She interrupted him with a sound of sheer frustration pushing through her teeth. "Neville Longbottom, how could you think I would care about something so trivial, something so..."

Recognising the danger he was in, Neville attempted to throw her off course. "Hermione…"

She stopped to look at him, her eyes narrowed. "I'm sorry, I just thought you might, well… want to change your mind when someone better asked?"

Her eyes softened, but her tone was still brusk. "Well, I haven't, I would hope you know me better than that."

"I do," Neville sighed. He gritted his teeth for a moment before he threw caution to the wind and leant over to grasp her hand. "Sorry, it's just… my Gran and sometimes my Uncle. I know who I am Hermione. I know what people will think when they see together."

Hermione squeezed his hand and then intertwined her fingers with his. "To accept someone better than you I would have to meet someone that fitted that description, and as I am yet to, it's unlikely to happen in the next fortnight is it?"

As with most of Hermione's speech, it took Neville a little while to catch up, and when he did, his face morphed into a grin, and he almost let out a laugh that would have been something near a giggle. Hermione looked flushed after her bold statement but to Neville that only made the situation better. 

Take that Viktor bloody Krum!

Chapter Text

Neville strolled around the castle in a state of euphoric disbelief after Hermione agreed to go to the ball with him. He found himself searching her out whenever they were in the same room. His world became one of secret, shy smiles and suddenly awkward conversations, and he loved every moment of it.

It was a while later before his bubble of happiness was intruded upon. In hindsight, he'd got a longer run than he anticipated. 

Hermione approached him in the common room, looking a little bashful and asked if they could go for a walk. Neville quickly agreed, delighted to spend a bit of time with her away from prying eyes, and they hurried to get ready to go out onto the grounds. 

They walked close together, not close enough that they were touching but so close they could have easily held hands if he had just made a move to do so.

"Viktor came and spoke to me today, while I was in the library," she began. 

Neville grit his teeth but didn't say anything, he had handled Viktor's interest in her poorly the last time, and he wouldn't doubt her again. 

"He's asked someone else to the ball, one of the Beauxbatons girls."

Neville huffed out a breath. The news wasn't exactly reassuring. Viktor could hardly have gone on his own. "What did he want to talk about?" He was proud of how breezy he sounded. 

"Something about saving a dance for him? I’m not sure why he couldn't have just asked on the night?"

Neville sagged, it wasn't as bad as he had feared. "It's a pureblood custom, an old one, from when there were a lot more balls, and that's where young people met. All the girls had dance cards that people would request spots on before the event." 

"Oh… that's… antiquated."

Neville smiled at her expected frown. "Maybe, but it's tradition."

"You aren't like that though, and you're a pureblood."

"No," Neville agreed. "But I still learnt the old ways, we all do. I think maybe," Neville tried to think about his words so he could articulate himself properly. "Maybe if I hadn't asked in time... and you were already going with someone else, I might have done the same thing."

"Oh," Hermione smiled at him. "You would have?"

Neville nodded. "I would have made sure I got a dance at least."

Hermione flushed and rearranged her scarf around her neck. "I'm sure you would have made it sound a lot less stuffy."

"Maybe," Neville said with a grin. He didn't quite believe her assurance, but it was nice to hear it. "But I might have tripped over my feet and knocked you over before getting a word out."

She laughed. "Come on let's go back inside, it's freezing out here."

-/-/-/-

A week or so later, Neville awkwardly stumbled into the common room, making a whole lot of noise. His joints were not responding properly after being outside for over two hours assisting Professor Sprout in the greenhouses. It took him a while to notice, as he made a beeline for the fire to warm his fingers, but the atmosphere in the room was utterly still, something that was seldom the case. He hadn't even been shushed by one of the upper years when he clattered through the portrait hole.

Neville glanced around the room, taking in people's expressions. They were all looking in one direction. In the eye of the storm, Ron and Hermione were standing off against each other. They were both rigid. Hermione looked seconds away from completely losing her mind, but there were no wands drawn… yet.

Neville sidled over to Harry who was lurking off to one side regarding his friends with trepidation; neither of the warring pair had taken any notice of Neville entering the room, they were too fixated on sending death glares to each other.

"What's going on?" He asked in hushed tones.

Harry darted a look at him and sighed. "I think Ron just asked Hermione to the ball, either that or he's trying to commit suicide via the end of her wand."

"You think?" Neville asked, his brow furrowing. "I don't follow?"

Surely he did, or he didn't, right? How much more complicated could it be?

"He was panicking about not having a date and when Hermione walked in-" 

Harry trailed off, dropping his head into his hands and massaging his temples. "I think he began with, 'Hermione, you're a girl, you could go with one of us'. He kind of assumed that no one would have asked her and said as much. She didn't take it too well."

Neville winced. "I would imagine not."

"It gets worse," Harry admitted. 

"How?"

How could Ron have made that worse?

Harry rubbed the back of his neck without taking his eyes off his friends. "Hermione said she couldn't go with either of us because she already had a date and Ron he... well, he scoffed,"

Neville's hands gripped into fists as the noise from the other two began escalating, their voices filling the usually cosy space.

"If you're not going to tell me who, Mione, it means no one asked."

"I don't have to tell you who asked me, and you certainly aren't acting in a way that would make me want to welcome you into my confidence."

"Why are you lying? Just go with me, otherwise you're going to be on your own. It's fine for boys but girls... You'll just look stupid."

Neville heard Harry swear under his breath before he left the chosen one in the shadows and stepped forward. He didn't frequently intervene, Hermione could look after herself after all, but there was a reason she wasn't saying anything. Neville suspected it was the same reason she had been surprised to be asked to the ball in the first place. He wanted to speak up just in case Hermione was worried that he wouldn't want people knowing, which was ridiculous. Neville had already sent letters to everyone in his immediate family, and he had been half tempted to place an ad in the Daily Prophet. He hadn't told anyone at school because he thought Hermione might not want people to know she was going with him.

"Ron," he said firmly, and both Hermione and Ron jumped at the intrusion. Apparently they hadn't even seen him walk over. "Hermione cannot go to the ball with you, because she's already agreed to go with me."

"With you?" Ron spat.

"With me," Neville replied, lifting his chin and daring him to say something.

"But why…"

"Ron, whatever you're going to say isn't going to help. I asked Hermione almost as soon as we heard about the ball." He faced Hermione who had gone completely still and was watching him, he waited till her eyes locked with his and continued. "She was my first choice."

The declaration was met with stunned silence till it was broken by Seamus' deep Irish brogue calling out, in what he probably thought was a whisper. "Jesus, life’s going to be a nightmare in the fecking dorm room now."

Ron reddened and then paled before storming off. Neville wrapped his hand around Hermione's and nudged her over to one of the sofas, trying to ignore how virtually their whole house was now staring at them. He heard a slam a minute or so later that confirmed Ron had retreated to their dorm. Neville thought it was probably wise to leave it a while before he went up to shower. 

He hoped to Merlin that someone told Ron about Viktor Krum asking Hermione as well. Maybe it was worth a subtle word to Ginny?

Neville waited until he could feel that Hermione's breath had slowed and he pushed some of her hair off her face. "You okay?"

"I think so," Hermione replied, exhaling in a rush. "You?"

"As long as you are," he replied honestly. 

Hermione smiled an expression that turned a little wicked as a thought had obviously entered her mind. "That was rather chivalrous you know Neville, you're setting the bar rather high for the ball."

Neville laughed. "Etiquette lessons with my Gran set the bar high, I think I can manage a school dance without disgracing her, or you."

"I look forward to finding out."

Somehow despite Neville feeling like it would never, ever arrive, the day of the Yule Ball dawned bright and otherwise unassuming.

Neville had hoped to spend a bit of time with Hermione in the afternoon, he thought that being together might abate his nerves, but no such luck. He hadn't seen Hermione for hours, not since she finished lunch when she had been frog marched to the common room by Ginny. 

Harry had eventually asked Ginny to go with him - after a failed attempt with Cho Chang - and by all accounts, the younger redhead was thrilled, as she wouldn't have been able to go otherwise. Neville was sure that being asked by Harry was a bigger prize to her than general attendance, but he wouldn't tease, he was in much the same boat himself. 

Neville had been daydreaming about the ball for weeks, though he had never got much further than picturing himself dancing with Hermione. Even that imagining was riddled with uncertainty. Despite his constant pestering, Hermione hadn't told him anything about what she was wearing. He had written his Gran to ask what he should give her, and Augusta had responded at some length, clearly pleased to have been consulted. She had instructed that a white corsage would be best as he didn't know what colour would match. Neville thought he detected a hint of approval for Hermione's evasiveness in the missive, but it was never outright commented on. His Gran had also suggested that maybe a small, more substantial gift would be appropriate if he were 'interested in pursuing a courtship with Miss Granger'. Neville had stared at the words for a long time without really knowing what to say.

He couldn't deny it anymore; he definitely was interested. He considered that if by some miracle, she was interested in return, he would have so much to explain to her. Hermione wouldn't know about half of the customs purebloods had for this sort of thing, and while he, as she had rightly pointed out, was nowhere near as observant of such things as some families, some things had been ingrained.

Neville had never had any desire to date casually. In the wizarding world, people met and married young, and while he didn't have designs that way, it was very much a not yet rather than not at all. He couldn't imagine meeting anyone in the years to come who would match up to Hermione in his eyes.

After some deliberation, Neville had decided against a traditional gift; something told him to wait. Then when he gave Hermione a gift, he could do it while declaring his intentions properly. 

After getting ready in a fraction of the time that it was evidently going to take the girls, the boys filed downstairs to wait for them, and all made a good pretence of feeling comfortable. It was odd to be in such formal robes, especially while at school. Neville thought they had the weird effect of making them all look younger, like they were dressing up for a play or something.

They were all lost in ribbing Ron about his ancient dress robes when Neville suddenly got elbowed pretty hard in the ribs by Dean Thomas. Neville turned to glare at his dorm mate, but Dean was staring agog in the direction of the stairs. He followed his gaze to see Hermione, Ginny and Luna descending. Neville barely noticed the other girls; his entire focus was on the tiny, delicate creature in the soft blue gown.

When Hermione made it to the bottom of the stairs, it took him a couple of seconds and a shove from Seamus before Neville walked forward to take her arm. Fumbling even more than usual, he proffered the corsage he had put together himself - with Professor Sprout's permission - from the school greenhouses. He'd gone for white, he knew better than to ignore an instruction from his Gran, and right now he was pleased with it. The flowers looked perfect on her. 

"Hi," Hermione greeted shyly, and Neville was lost. 

Hermione looked down at the corsage and ran her finger over one of the delicate petals. "Will you tell me about the flowers?" she asked earnestly. 

Neville's brain stuttered. "You want to talk about plants?"

"Not really?" she admitted, sinking her teeth into her lip. "But you talking about them will probably make me feel calmer. I'm a bit nervous, is that silly?"

"Not at all," Neville replied.

He took her arm and followed the other departing couples. As they made their way to the ball, Neville glanced down and went through the flowers in the arrangement from top to bottom. At some point, he forgot why he had butterflies and just drank the moment (and the girl next to him) in.

Neville heard the whispering around them as they walked side by side into the hall. To him, the noise was as clear as shouting but thankfully not as interpretable. It was better that he just imagined what the crowd were thinking. He caught the envious looks of the boys and the raised brows of almost everyone, there were quite a few that didn't even seem to recognise her. Neville stifled a smirk as they walked past a cluster of Slytherins to hear Malfoy's surprised squeak. "Is that... Merlin, that's Granger ."

Once they found their seats at the table they had been assigned, they stood to await the arrival of the champions. A very nervous looking Harry was preceded by a grim Viktor Krum who could not seem to raise a smile despite the apparent rapture of the girl on his arm. When the champions arrived at the head table, Neville watched Krum's eyes scan the room with purpose until he spotted Hermione. The stoic boy's face softened instantly, and Neville turned his head slightly to observe her reaction, only to discover she had none. Hermione was fully occupied, mouthing words of encouragement and last-minute dance tips to Harry. When he turned back to face the head table again, he found the Bulgarian was assessing him. Neville squared his shoulders and stared right back. He got the impression Krum didn't think much of his competition, at least for Hermione. He was after all three years older and an international sporting hero, however, he was the one with the witch on his arm, so Neville refused to be intimidated, much. Well, not while he was at this distance. 

They were finally given the signal to sit and Hermione's brow furrowed as she glanced at the menus. Neville, sensing an opportunity, and a little riled up by Krum, leant over to whisper in her ear. "You say what you want, out loud, and then it appears."

She jumped, apparently startled by his proximity. "Oh... thank you."

After the food appeared, they began chatting together, the noise in the room prevented much conversation with anyone else on their table. Hermione shyly observed that their evening was nowhere near as awkward as some of those around them. Ron, in particular, was having a bad night, though possibly not as bad as Parvati who looked bored to tears sat next to him. Neville clocked their ginger friend scowling at Hermione several times and was relieved she hadn't noticed. He might be his friend, but there was no way he would let Ron ruin this night for him. He'd had his chance, and he'd blown it, fairly spectacularly. Neville would not spare him any sympathy.  

They moved to the dancefloor after the champions had danced the first song, Harry got through it with Ginny's gentle encouragement. Neville led Hermione to an open spot, as the room began to darken and lights glittered from above. He was already trying to catalogue moments of the evening that he could go back and think about once it was all over.

They danced in silence for a while until they both relaxed into it a bit, their nerves at the unfamiliar activity seemed to thaw, and Neville only stepped on her feet twice.

Once he was sure they were far away enough from anyone that could hear him, he started a conversation he had wanted to have with her all night. He wouldn't have said he was extraordinarily brave, but there were some moments where the need to take a chance in front of you was greater than any hesitation you might have. 

Leaning in slightly Neville held her hand a little tighter. "I wanted to say you look, well, you look beautiful Hermione. Not that you don't always, you… well, you know."

Hermione was pinker than he had ever seen her, and she tried to reply, but nothing came out.

"I miss your hair though," he blurted without thinking.

"My hair... really?!" she asked utterly bewildered. 

Neville wasn't surprised. Hermione had a long-standing cold war going on with her hair. It was curly, insanely so, and in no way controlled or orderly like she tried to present herself as. It was heavy and almost as expressive as her eyes. 

"Yeah," he affirmed, smiling at her disbelief. She had once threatened to shave the entire lot off, after a particularly bad moment during an exam. Harry had kept an eye on her wand for a week following, just to make sure she didn't follow through with it. "I mean it's mental, but it's just one of those things... Hermione things that make you... you."

"Hermione things?" she asked softly.

He nodded. "Like how your hair gets bigger when you're stressed or angry and when it's exam time you don't even bother trying to tie it back anymore, or how no matter how hard and often you wash your hands they're always covered in ink. Or when someone is giving the wrong answer, you have to nearly bite through your lip to stop yourself from correcting them, those kinds of things."

"I had no idea anyone noticed… those kinds of things," she said her eyes widening

Neville could feel heat rise up his neck. It wasn't because of the dancing. "I notice… I notice everything."

Their happy moment was interrupted when Krum hulked over to claim his dance with Hermione, butchering her name in the process.

Neville sat at the side of the dance floor next to an animated Harry and Ginny who had just stopped for a rest. He watched, as subtly as he could manage, as Krum twirled Hermione about the floor. He didn't like it at all.

He was beginning to feel bleak until he heard Ginny whisper to Harry. "It doesn't look like she's enjoying it very much."

He looked again, harder this time, not caring if she saw him. Neville noticed Hermione was more rigid than she had been with him and her smile looked brittle. He expected to feel triumphant, but he didn't, he didn't like the thought of Hermione being uncomfortable.

The dance finally ended, and he flinched as Krum held onto Hermione's arm, dropping his face to whisper in her ear. After the two longest seconds of Neville's life, he saw her smile apologetically and shake her head as she gave a brief answer to what was obviously a request for more of her time. As she moved away from the Durmstrang champion, Neville watched her lift onto the balls of her feet to see above the crowd, and he immediately stood up waving, his face splitting into a grin as she spotted him and made her way straight over.

"Would you like a drink?" he offered. She'd said she wanted chivalry. He was no white knight, but he could be a gentleman.

"Yes, please."

He left her sitting with Harry and Ginny all smiling and happily chatting when he came back, the mood was very different, and Ron was once again shouting.

"Oh, you come over now, do you…. Thank you for gracing us with your presence Hermione… Haven't seen you all evening."

"Ron, I've been dancing."

"Yeah, I saw, with Viktor. Hermione, he's Harry's competition... the enemy."

When Hermione looked like she would bolt, her standard reaction to stressful situations she couldn't handle, Neville took a deep breath and put his hand on her arm, gaining her attention.

"Hermione, I brought you a drink. Punch okay? I made sure it wasn't from the bowl the twins spiked."

"Seriously, Neville, we were talking," Ron spat before launching back at her. "What were you thinking, Hermione?"

"I'm pretty sure you were yelling," he levelled at Ron. The taller boy pivoted closer, and Neville did his best to remain where he was. He had felt animosity pouring off him for weeks since Ron had learnt he was taking Hermione to the ball, well tough . If he had wanted her to go with him, he should have asked first.

"Whatever, Neville," Ron moved to push him to the side so he could continue speaking to Hermione.

Neville moved more in front of her in response. "As for Harry's competition, you have only been on Harry's side for about a month, so I don't think you've got much of a leg to stand on there. It's perfectly fine for Hermione to dance with Krum, the whole point of this tournament was to make friends with other schools." Neville didn't want to highlight he'd rather she didn't dance with him either.

Hermione drank her drink down in one gulp. "Neville I think I might..."

He turned to face her, blocking out Ron and all of his dramatics. He wasn't ready for it to end yet. Not like this. "Come on, Hermione, one more dance?"

"Oh, I'm quite tired," she mumbled, not meeting his eyes.

Neville stooped to meet her gaze. "I insist," he said, smiling and dragged her to the dance floor before she could protest further. A song later and the light sniffles he had dutifully been ignoring subsided and a slower song began. Suddenly aware of the change in pace they stilled momentarily before she awkwardly moved her arms around his neck.

"Ignore him, Hermione, he's having a bad night and wants everyone else to have a crap time because he is."

She laughed and rested her head on his shoulder; Neville was worried she would hear his heart threatening to beat right out of his chest.

"I know you said you were tired, but you can't fall asleep on me." he jested. Yes, you can, his traitorous brain whispered.

After he watched her stifle a couple of yawns, they agreed to leave and started the walk back to the common room along with all of the other returning couples. When they got into Gryffindor Tower, Neville stood fidgeting not knowing what to do next. He'd had a night better than he could have ever imagined and his best friend was turning into so much more in his eyes, he didn't want to push things too far and risk losing her.

Before he could articulate anything, Hermione rushed forward, and her hands wrapped around his neck. He falteringly looped his arms around her waist, mirroring the position they had assumed while there were dancing.

"I had a wonderful night Neville, thank you for asking me," she said.

"Thank you for saying yes."

Once they broke apart, she looked as awkward as he felt, and after switching from one foot to the other, she rattled off. "Well, goodnight then," and all but sprinted off in the direction of the girl's dorms.

An hour later, Neville was still sitting in front of the fire, unwilling to go to sleep yet, when an incredibly enthusiastic Colin Creevy practically fell through the portrait hole.

"Colin? What are you doing up so late?"

"I was given permission; by Professor McGonagall to photograph the event. It was so much fun. I took so many pictures. I even had my picture taken with Viktor Krum. Did you see him dance with Hermione? I thought she looked pretty. Would you like to see the photos... you're in a few?"

Neville took a few seconds to comprehend all that the younger student had said and nodded. It would seem poor Colin might have had a sip or two from the punchbowl Neville had seen Fred hovering by earlier in the evening. Colin immediately began rifling through the stack in front of him, passing over a smaller wedge.

Neville happily flicked through the photos, glad of the distraction, until he came to the last one.

It was their last dance, Hermione had her hands around his neck and her head pillowed against his shoulder, her eyes were closed with a look of contentment on her face. At the beginning of the rotation, he would lean down and whisper to her, and her face would split into a wide smile as she laughed all while they twirled softly on the spot.

After watching the motion more than ten times, Neville tore his eyes away. "Do you mind if I take this one, Colin?"

There was no reply. While Neville had been looking through the pictures, Colin had succumbed to the excess of excitement and the late hour and fell fast asleep on the sofa. 

Neville smiled to himself and summoned a blanket to put over him before pocketing the picture and heading up the stairs to sleep.

Chapter Text

After the ball, the rest of the year swept away quickly. With the constant distraction of the international students and the tournament itself, there was always something else to do. Hermione was busier than ever, trying to keep Harry alive was apparently a full-time job, especially when he seemed so determined to make it difficult. Neville didn't mind, that was the kind of person Hermione was, and she had made Harry a priority a long time ago. He could only hope that in time he would become the same.

He tried to keep the same feeling of calm indifference in his present situation, as he watched the cruelly unbroken surface of the water. Neville glanced at the large illuminated countdown clock hovering above the bank. Where were they? They were approaching the end of the time limit, and there hadn't been a sign of them.

The second task was by no means a spectator sport, something which might have only mildly irked Neville had it not been for the fact that Hermione was apparently at the bottom of the Black lake. He'd approached McGonagall when it all started, who had waved him off with a brusque 'it will all be fine'. Neville hadn't wanted to argue, but he very nearly pointed out that if they didn't want them to worry, they shouldn't have spent four years regularly telling them how dangerous the lake was, and how unwelcoming some of the creatures that lurked in its depths could be. 

Cedric had already got back with a besotted Cho, and Krum had returned with one of his friends from Durmstrang. Neville glared at the lake's surface as if he would somehow be able to see through it if he looked hard enough.

His Gran often criticised Dumbledore, and his methods and Neville had always tuned her out. Even Hermione had questioned his actions from time to time, but nothing had ever swayed his steadfast belief in the Headmaster, until now.

Anger at Dumbledore, however new, was welcome as it pushed back the feeling of dread that had crept into his mind the moment he had heard that Hermione was somehow the person Harry would miss most. Neville had taken his place next to Ron and Ginny on the newly erected grandstand and watched the water. None of them spoke, and he would have been hard-pressed to assess which of the assembled was the most put out by that news.

On top of his uncertainty, Neville had to contend with the growing fear that she might be drowning. It was apparently perfectly safe, but that assurance had been given by the same people that believed it was acceptable for students to battle a fully-grown dragon. As such, it was a hollow comfort. 

After the forty-five-minute mark passed, Ron got up and mumbled something about needing to go for a walk, Neville empathised, he felt the need to do something, anything to alleviate the panic, but he daren't move away.

Once they were alone, Ginny fidgeted with the hem of her jumper and bounced her feet, looking at him and then turning around. She moved so much she managed to shake the bench, and before Neville could lose his temper and demand that she spit it out, Ginny leant into him and dropped her voice to a whisper. "Do you think…"

"No," he firmly interjected before she could even articulate the whole thought. "And nor do you, not really, they're friends."

"But they said it was her that he would miss most."

"I know," Neville sighed, "but I don't think they're relationship is like that. She sees him as family, and she knows how you feel Ginny, Hermione would never do something like that without talking to you first."

Ginny nodded. "Yes, your right. Sorry… I should have thought about Hermione. She wouldn't have acted on feelings for Harry even if she did have them, not without speaking to me at least."

Neville could have done without dealing with Ginny's jealousy, but at least it took his mind off the lake, if only for a second.

He had his own moment of indecision before he thought he might as well throw his cards on the table.

"Does Ron, well, you know?"

Ginny stopped moving abruptly and glanced at him. "Yeah."

He'd assumed as much. What else was there to say?

Any further conversation was derailed by a bubbling on the surface of the lake followed by a gasping Hermione appearing with Harry and Fleur's little sister and whatever Ron felt was pushed to the back of Neville's mind as he raced down the grandstand to get to her. 

The year was finally over, and Neville was once again sitting in a grandstand counting down time. He couldn't wait for this stupid tournament to be over. Then maybe he would be able to claim some of Hermione's attention; he was also unlikely to lose sleep over the loss of 'their friends from the North'.

Viktor Krum had continued his pursuit of Hermione even following her less than interested reception at the Yule Ball. Neville found he couldn't fault him, not really. From what he had seen, and what Hermione had told him, Viktor was never pushy or overly attentive. But still, he couldn’t say he was immune to jealousy. Neville had found himself glancing at the boat in the lake now and again and fantasising that he was watching it disappear from view.

A gust of wind blew across the field in front of them (the first noise they had heard in over ten minutes), and a few of the leaves that made up the enormous walls of the maze rustled ominously.

Neville sighed. At least he had Hermione next to him this time. He found the task a lot more enjoyable when he wasn't worried about her drowning. Though what he was spectating on, he wasn't sure.

After a series of red sparks shot into the air, Hermione shuffled closer to him, and Neville stretched his hand out to envelop hers. His fingers intertwined with her delicate digits, silently giving support in the way that had become normal for them since they were eleven. He watched her shoulders sag and turned back to focus on watching nothing, silently hoping that the ridiculous hedges would cause no lasting damage to the Quidditch field.

The mood in the train carriage on their way home was the worst it had ever been. Harry was barely speaking, Hermione looked drawn and nervous, and Ron had given up trying to brighten the atmosphere and instead, had fallen back on one of his favoured pursuits from the latter half of the year, glaring at Neville.

Neville's mind was equally engaged in dark thoughts. Voldemort being back was serious, he wondered if he would be a target because of his parents? He worried about Harry, but mostly he worried about Hermione. If anyone was a shining example that everything the Death Eaters stood for was a load of crap, it was her.

He also had other thoughts niggling at him. He had seen Viktor approach Hermione at the end of term, giving her his address. He had overheard Ginny tell Luna that the world-renowned Seeker had asked Hermione to visit him over the summer. Neville knew that these worries were silly in comparison to the rise of the Dark Lord, but somehow they left him just as panicked. He doubted Hermione would realise how a visit, on her own, to Viktor’s family home would set expectations in pureblood circles, serious expectations.

With all in the carriage occupied with their thoughts, the journey to London seemed to take twice as long.

-/-/-/-

As they finally pulled into the station and the other occupants stood to leave, Neville linked his fingers around Hermione's wrist and asked her to wait. She stepped back to get out of Luna's way, and both were silent until the little blonde exited the carriage. Now on their own, Hermione turned and looked at him expectantly.

"What are your plans over the summer?" he murmured. He could have asked her this at any point on their way home, but he had been worried about his reaction if she confirmed she was going to visit Krum. He didn't want to be trapped with Hermione for hours on end if she admitted she was looking forward to seeing Viktor again.

"Not much, maybe a short trip away," Hermione replied with a shrug. "Possibly a week but no longer than that."

Not wanting to push but needing to know in equal measure, Neville pressed her. "Oh, that sounds… nice. Where are you going?"

"Not decided yet," Hermione replied. "But I think my mum is fairly set on Rhodes. She tends to tell my dad he can pick, but really, we all know we'll go wherever she thinks is best."

Neville felt his very blood sing with relief. He flexed his hands to stop himself from dragging her to him for what would probably be a hug close to bone-crushing in its intensity.

"Oh, Rhodes? How fantastic," he enthused. He coughed a little, aware of how high his voice had become.

"You really like Rhodes. I take it?" Hermione answered, slightly bemused.

"Never been, but it sounds like the perfect place to go."

"OK, well, I'll be sure to owl you with all the…"

"Visit me?" Neville blurted.

"Sorry?"

Shit! That was Neville's first thought, he hadn't meant to say anything, but deep down he'd known he had wanted to ask her that for some time. At least part of his bad mood on the journey had been because the whole summer was stretching out in front of him where he wouldn't see his friends. Wouldn't see her. 

"Come and visit over the summer," he said, as calmly as he could manage. "You can bring the boys, but come and meet my Gran and I can show you the greenhouses and stuff."

Hermione beamed at him. "That would be lovely."

After exchanging various letters to sort the dates, Hermione was finally due to visit Longbottom House with Ron and Harry in tow. Neville had initially requested that his friends stay overnight as he was keen to spend as much time with them as possible, but his Gran had pitched a fit at the idea of a young woman staying unchaperoned at their house. In desperation, Neville had complained that Hermione stayed at the Burrow all the time and it had never been an issue. Augusta had raised an eyebrow and muttered something about her having forgotten more about propriety than Molly Prewett had ever known. Then she said something in an even lower register, where all he caught was 'young William… seven months after the wedding… thinks we're all daft' and he hadn't asked again.

Irritation aside, Neville was glad he would get to see them, even if it was for less time than he would like. Unlike most people he knew, he dreaded the summer months away from the castle. He knew Harry was the same, and he felt bad about that. His situation was nowhere near as bad as Harry's, but he still felt isolated. He hated those first few moments on the train at the start of each new school year, where all the others would talk about what they did together over the holidays. He always felt so horribly left out.

When the wards alerted him to his guest's arrival, Neville collided with his house elf Tip in his rush to open the door. The haste ended in them both being sprawled out across the entryway. Neville managed to right himself as Tip scrambled to answer the door. He hoped that Hermione wouldn't pick now to take him up on his promise to speak to one of his elves. Judging by the epic scowl the tiny creature was giving him behind her back that conversation was not likely to go well.

-/-/-/-

Neville was embarrassed by the formal setting of lunch, with his Gran sitting in all-state at the head of the table. Neville hadn't wanted to have it in the dining room, it didn't make sense for so few of them, but once again he had been overruled. 

His Uncle Algie had come over, no doubt to meet the famous Harry Potter and had even donned a moth-eaten bowtie for the occasion. Neville bit the inside of his cheek and told himself to be grateful Algie hadn't brought anything for Harry to sign. He watched as Ron's eyes widened when he saw the amount of cutlery and Neville sighed and looked at the ceiling. Cherubs winked at him from an ornate painting done at the time of his Great-Great-Grandfather. Neville bet it wasn't like this at the Burrow.

Harry looked to be as awed as Ron, though he was doing a better job of hiding it. Neville thought he looked thin, which made him all the more glad he was there, gilded surroundings notwithstanding.

Harry's attendance had only been confirmed at the very last minute. Dumbledore had requested that they not contact Harry over summer, and Neville had been minded to agree, but things over the past year had left him with doubts, and so once he returned home, he spoke to his Gran. Augusta Longbottom, head of an established and distinguished house and member of the Wizengamot, took umbrage with her grandson receiving any kind of directives from a headmaster and had 'taken Albus to task'.

In the end, Harry had been cleared to come a day before he and Hermione were set to join the Weasleys at Grimmauld Place. 

Despite an invite from Harry, Hermione and Molly, Neville was not allowed to visit the home of the ancient and noble house of Black.

Lunch was quiet, as expected, but Neville needn't have worried about Hermione being bored, she seemed to enjoy the more civilised eating arrangements and nudged Harry to show him which spoon he should use. Neville didn't imagine her parents ate like this, but knowing Hermione, she had probably read up on it in a book. Neville watched on, experiencing a feeling of something near disbelief as his Gran hid a very rare smile behind her hand as the curly-haired witch hissed at Ron in low tones about his, admittedly appalling, table manners.

That was until his Uncle brought up his end of year results and any smile that might have been on Augusta's face was replaced by a much more familiar pained, disapproving frown.

"I don't know what to do with him Algie," she said with a put upon sigh. "Both his parents were brilliant, but Neville's grades leave a lot to be desired, and his potions mark was nothing short of abysmal."

Neville was mortified and suddenly, not very hungry. He was all too aware of the pitying eyes of Harry and Ron opposite him. Neville had met Molly Weasley before, and he imagined this wasn't the first time Ron had born witness to someone being brought down a peg at the dining table. Harry lived with a horror story version of Muggles and as such Neville assumed he was used to much worse. He couldn't face looking at Hermione, and as he was caught up in wishing the ground would open up and swallow him, he didn't hear her set down her heavy soup spoon.

"I believe, Mrs Longbottom, that Neville's potions marks have much more to do with our professor's dislike of him than any difficulty with the subject."

Neville glanced up in time to see his Gran's head snap to face the young witch in a manner that reminded him far too much of a snake. Dread pooled in his stomach and out of the corner of his eye, he could see his Uncle unconsciously shift away from his sister.

"Is that the case, Miss Granger?" Augusta replied in a voice that seemed to strip any warmth from the room. "It is my belief that only the weak blame circumstances outside of themselves for failings that could be overcome if they tried harder."

Obviously thinking that was the end of the matter, his Gran resumed eating. The boys at the table however, knowing Hermione a lot better than the self-assured matriarch, turned to face Hermione, awaiting a retort. Neville was torn between wanting her to stop, he had no desire to see his Gran tear into her, and waiting to see what she might say next. She had criticised Snape for Merlin's sake! A professor!

"That may well be the case, but Neville wasn't laying the blame on outside influences, I was . In any case, there are many areas of specialisation in magical education, and as I'm sure you know, Neville excels in Herbology. I, for one, would much rather have an innate talent in one space than be average across the board."

His Gran delicately placed her napkin over her food and turned her chair to face Hermione squarely. "I am given to understand that is not a choice that you will ever have to make, Miss Granger," she said with barely concealed venom. It was an art form, this level of barbed social interaction, and one that Neville had never truly mastered. His Gran had somehow managed to compliment Hermione's intelligence while still making it sound as if she, and her opinions, were wholly beneath her notice.

"While it is to be applauded when a person rises to the top in one field, I am more interested in magical ability as to how it matches up with potential. If a child was born to excellence and they do not achieve it, the missing ingredient must be effort, wouldn't you agree?"

Neville felt his blood run cold. He watched Hermione delicately fold her napkin onto her plate with firm resolve. Born to Muggles she might have been, but she could spar with any pureblood lady worth her salt if she could calmly take on his Gran.

Neville was very aware they were discussing him, and he was sure he would feel the stab of his Gran's comments later, but they were dulled for the moment. Firstly because he had heard them so many times before, and secondly because he was too engaged in watching what was happening between the two women. Neither had raised their voice in the slightest and to any casual observer, they might have been engaging in something as mundane as discussing the weather.

"Oh, I certainly agree that effort is a large factor in the case of magical ability. I myself am the best example as I have no inherited proficiency at all," Hermione replied earnestly. 

His Gran smiled a Cheshire-cat like smile of victory, but it was short-lived as Hermione continued.

"But in this case, I don't believe it's the most important factor. If we take Neville's excellence in Herbology as a single point of data, it would suggest a high level of natural talent. Propagation is a craft that does not involve practised movements of wands or complex potion instructions that can be revised and learned. It is simply the heightened understanding of the complexities surrounding magical plant life. Most of our other classes involve the use of wands. I study with Neville regularly, and he never displays difficulties with the intricacies surrounding the texts, in fact, he often understands things much quicker than I do. Where things become more challenging is when he tries to apply the theory."

"I fear you are dancing around a point, Miss Granger, please do not keep us waiting."

Hermione swallowed. Neville wasn't sure if anyone else had seen it, but they may have, considering everyone was now watching her openly. He knew that girl, had known her since she was a child like him, and she couldn't mask a single thought that went through her head. Whatever she wanted to say, it was something she believed. It was something she cared about, and she was worried about showing her hand too early.

"I have read numerous studies in which trusted academics have concluded that magical development can be hindered when a witch or wizard uses a wand that had not been specially selected for them."

Neville gasped in a breath and watched his Gran's knuckles turn white from the grip she was pressing onto the table. "Miss Granger using that wand is the highest honour-"

"I mean no offence," Hermione interjected soberly, her tone softening. "I simply meant to suggest that Neville may benefit from being brought his own wand. I understand that the wand holds a high level of sentimental value, and as such, it might be safer being kept here, at home. I know Neville would be devastated if something happened to it."

The room fell silent and looked set to stay that way until the elves arrived with their main course. After a few tense moments where all that could be heard was the clicking of knives and forks against their plates, his Uncle took hold of the conversation and started to pepper Harry with every conceivable question he could have about his life. 

The weird thing was, after the display between his Gran and Hermione, it didn't even feel that awkward. If he wasn't mistaken, even Harry was finding his Uncle's weird interest in what the Muggles he lived with planted in their garden amusing.

Neville hoped the atmosphere might clear by pudding. If not, he could sneak Hermione out soon after his Gran left the room. It wouldn't do to take any chances. Augusta Longbottom had been a fearsome duelist in her day, and he hadn't seen her that angry for a long time. 

His own wand though, that was something to think about. 

-/-/-/-

After lunch, Ron and Harry went off to one of the fields at the back of the property to race their brooms and Neville took Hermione on the promised tour of the greenhouses. Neville was immensely proud of the look of wonder on her face. She had only seen the magical ones at Hogwarts and as those were primarily restricted by growing what they needed to fit the curriculum they were less pleasing to the eye. Their design was functional, as was right. Neville believed, in his own humble way, that the greenhouses at Longbottom House were the most beautiful thing about the old place.

His favourite one of the three on the property was almost entirely purple, at least it appeared that way from the overwhelming amount of flowers in that hue. It was his Gran's favourite colour, and so Neville had slowly added more and more of it over the years until it had taken over. The previous summer he had removed several of the glass panels in the top to allow the climbing plants to stretch out onto the roof. 

Despite their serene activity, it had taken twenty minutes for Hermione to stop apologising for her behaviour at lunch.

"...I shouldn't have spoken out of turn…"

"... So rude…"

"... I shouldn't have spoken for you…"

"... I'm so sorry if I embarrassed you…"

Neville led her to a small nook at the back of the greenhouse where the old tiles of the floor were the cleanest, and he had a large comfortable armchair, a bookshelf and some blankets. It was his hidey-hole over the holidays, a haven where he could spend a few unsupervised hours getting some peace. 

Neville sat down in the chair and pulled on Hermione's arm lightly, to encourage her to sit down next to him. She did after a moment, though she blushed profusely. It was snug, like the seat they'd shared when he had when he told her about his parents, but neither of them seemed to mind.

They chatted about everything and nothing until she asked him about finding out about Barty Crouch Jr being their DADA Professor in disguise. No one had asked him about that, and honestly, Neville didn't know how to feel. He hated that man almost more than anyone in the world, except for his co-conspirators. To find out he'd been having tea with him for a year had stung. As he spoke about the realisation, Hermione moved to lay her head on his shoulder, and he moved his arm around her.

Neville closed his eyes, smelled the flowers and listened to the quiet. It was a warm summer's day, and the light was glinting off the ample glass in every direction, and Hermione was with him. Despite being at his own house, there was a somewhat dreamlike quality to the afternoon that Neville knew would come back and haunt him when she was gone. It would feel colder now he knew what he was missing. 

It was already worth it. 

Just as he was getting comfortable, something that was about to slip his mind made itself known. Neville suddenly jumped up, dislodging Hermione from her cosy spot. "I have something for you," he called to her as he darted to the other side of the greenhouse. 

He returned quickly, having known exactly what he was looking for, and passed her a potted rose cutting without delay. "It took a while, but I think I've managed to make a magical rose grow in Muggle soil, so you can have it when you go home."

Hermione smiled up at him, and he noticed she had soil on her cheek. Where she got it from, he would never know. Absentmindedly, Neville lifted his hand to dust it off with his thumb, and his breath hitched as Hermione leaned into the touch. On instinct, he took the pot from her fingers and placed it on a nearby table before dropping his face to meet hers.

He thought about pushing his hands into her hair, cupping her chin on both sides - soil on his fingers be damned. 

A crash outside startled them both and Neville reluctantly pulled away just as Harry and Ron bounded around the corner. 

"Come on, Mione, time to go," Ron called.

Hermione was still looking at him, and Neville tried for an indifferent shrug of the shoulders. 

"Mione," Ron pressed, and Neville realised how much he was beginning to hate that nickname.

"Coming Ron," she replied, and she finally stood, securing the potted rose in her grasp. "Thank you for this Neville. You truly are wonderfully talented. You'll write to me?"

"Of course," he responded immediately.  

Like he would do anything else?

Chapter Text

Neville arrived on the platform at King's Cross earlier than usual before the start of the new term. There was a tension between himself and his Gran that had made him keener than ever to leave home that morning. For once the atmosphere at Longbottom House was not near vibrating with suppressed disappointment, this was something else. Neville got the impression that there was a lot his Gran wanted to say, she just didn't know how to broach the topic. It was a first in his memory, Augusta Longbottom had never been short of a word or two before. 

It had been that way since Hermione and the boys had visited. Following their blunt exchange over lunch, his Gran hadn't uttered more than three words together for two whole days. Then, without warning, he had been summoned to go 'back to school' shopping. Neville hadn't been surprised at the timing; his Gran often liked to get it out of the way early to beat the crowds on Diagon Alley. However, he got the shock of his life when they stopped outside Ollivanders, and she told him, utterly without ceremony, that they were getting him a new wand. Her tone had been such that he had known questions were not welcome, and not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, Neville had kept any thoughts firmly to himself and set about waving sticks until he found the one that was right for him. For the first time. 

The changes Neville found in his magic, and himself, when using his new wand were instantaneous and extraordinary. After only a few days, he approached spell casting with excitement rather than trepidation. It was liberating. 

Neville had spent the summer practising to make himself familiar with his new wand before he returned to school. So far, his success had been mixed. In some cases, it was like learning all over again. But he wasn't disheartened. He was having a job regulating the amount of power he needed. But still, Neville didn't complain. Occasionally having too much force seemed like a very good problem to have and he resolved to squeeze the life out of Hermione in thanks the next time he saw her. 

Unfortunately, even after his eventful shopping trip, the air at home had remained heavy. Neville had thought things might have gotten better, now the issue of the wand was out of the way, but there were much darker things at play than the retirement of his father's old wand. 

Every day a new issue of the Prophet came containing another story blighting the names of either Harry of Dumbledore. At first, it had been small articles, a word or two tucked into a discussion about something else. Then suddenly it was as if the whole paper was devoted to discrediting and vilifying them. His Gran read them all with a kind of silent fury, until one day when the newspaper arrived, and she didn't even open it. She looked at the front and promptly vanished the entire thing. 

Neville didn't understand it. Voldemort was back, and there was no denying that as far as he was concerned. His Gran believed too. She certainly wouldn't have let him go to Hogwarts if she thought Dumbledore was guilty of all the things the Prophet said he was. 

Augusta Longbottom sat on the Wizengamot, she saw her seat as a privilege, and it was taken extremely seriously. When she had come home the day of Harry's full trial for using magic in a Muggle area, Neville had watched in astonishment as she consumed nearly an entire bottle of wine at dinner. While not exactly a staggering amount of alcohol, he had never seen her have more than the odd glass of brandy on special occasions.

Having not known what to say to break the silence that had fallen between them, Neville had made to leave the room only to have his Gran raise her arm to halt his progress.

"It's starting again, Neville" she had said as she locked eyes with him, and her expression was filled with more emotion than he had ever seen. "Stay safe, and when you don't know how to do that, ask Miss Granger, she seems to be the only one of you to have a healthy sense of self-preservation."

Neville had nodded, momentarily robbed of speech and he was then dismissed with a head full of questions. The next day it was as if her solemn mood had never happened. His Gran was back to what passed for normal, and apart from a spattering of weird silences, life carried on as before. Sometimes though, when she thought he wasn't looking, Neville would catch her gazing at him, and her expression was almost pained.

Staring absentmindedly at the gleaming red engine, Neville was happily distracted by a tugging on his arm, and he turned to find Hermione beaming up at him though he could sense she was a little nervous.

"Hermione," he greeted warmly. "It's so good to see you. You'll never guess what happened-"

"Hi Neville," she interjected. "I can't wait to hear all about your summer, but, erm, I wanted you to meet my parents before they head back to work. Is that okay?"

Neville looked over her shoulder to where two adults in smart Muggle clothing were hovering with intent. "Of course," he replied, sounding slightly more confident than he felt and Hermione gestured them over.

"Mum, Dad, this is Neville Longbottom and his Grandmother, Mrs Longbottom."

Neville hadn't been aware that his Gran had followed them, but it was a good job she had. She would have given him a flea in his ear for wandering off otherwise. The adults exchanged pleasantries, and then Hermione's mother started a conversation with his Gran about some brooch or other she had on. 

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Neville," Hermione's dad said as he shook his hand. Neville smiled at his kind face and felt comforted by his calm presence. He was instantly struck by how much his brown eyes were reminiscent of his daughters. Neville had expected Hermione to look more like her mother, but he could see she took after her dad more. There was no hint of Hermione in Mrs Granger's sleek, wavy hair.

"Hermione cannot stop talking about you," Hermione's dad continued as he elbowed his daughter teasingly. "It's good to have a face to put to the name finally."

"Daaad," Hermione hissed under her breath before she attempted to kick her father in the shins. 

David Granger held his daughter back by her shoulders, keeping her flailing limbs at a distance while doing nothing to suppress a smirk. "I understand we have you to thank for the magical plant taking over a prized section of my vegetable garden?"

Neville flushed. "Oh... I'm sorry Sir, I-"

Hermione's dad laughed. "Please, Neville, it's David, and I'm just kidding around. It was wonderful to see Hermione out of doors during the summer. You normally have to leave books in a trail like breadcrumbs to achieve that." Hermione rolled her eyes as she flushed. "I promised Hermione I would send notes on the rose's progress in our letters, I'm sure she'll find a way to pass that to you."

Their conversation was thankfully cut short by his Gran as Hermione looked close to breaking several Ministry rules and hexing her father mute.

Neville took a step away from the family as Hermione's mother enquired why she was blushing, and his friend wasted no time in throwing her father under a bus. Mrs Granger turned her attention to her husband and then both the women in David Granger's life were talking at him at breakneck speed while he grinned.

Hermione came over again once her parents had gone (after they had waved goodbye to Neville). "It is lovely to see you again, Miss Granger," his Gran said, and Neville felt relieved that at least this interaction would be civil.

"Thank you, please call me Hermione, Mrs Longbottom," she replied sheepishly.

"Hermione then," Augusta agreed. "Good luck this year, my dear, and keep each other safe."

His Gran had few parting words for Neville and then she disappeared from view, lost in the sea of other departing parents and guardians.

"My dear?" Hermione said looking up at him in shock. "I wasn't sure if she was going to talk to me at all and then I get, my dear?"

Neville shook his head. "I've given up trying to understand what she's thinking this summer. Come on, let's get going."

-/-/-/-

After enduring the usual pushing and shoving that came with boarding the train, they managed to find an empty carriage and Neville put up his trunk and then offered to lift Hermione's. Once their cases were secured, Neville stopped still, suddenly aware of how close they were standing. At this distance, he could see all the different colours that danced in her eyes and the freckles that lingered on cheeks. 

"What?"

He was startled by her addressing him. "What do you mean what?"

"You were staring."

Neville flushed, and he took a step back. There was no point saying anything now, even if he could somehow think of words to string together, they would be burst in on at any moment. "Sorry, I think I was just a bit shocked."

Hermione looked around the carriage as if she was expecting something to pop out at her. "Shocked? How come?"

Neville looked deliberately thoughtful. "I'm not certain, but I think you might be marginally taller."

Hermione spent the next ten minutes throwing whatever she could get her hands on at him until Harry and Ron appeared with Ginny and Luna in tow and Neville stood to sit next to Hermione on her side of the carriage.

The journey passed by quickly, as the crowd happily chatted with each other, only Harry remained quiet and snappish. After he had shouted at Hermione for the third time, Neville sat forward in his seat until he was blocking Hermione from the rest of the group. 

"Calm down," he entreated softly, so no one else would hear, and Hermione blinked several times before sitting further back in the seat. She was trying to make things better, Neville knew that, but sometimes, Hermione didn't know when to stop. With the mood Harry was in, things could get nasty pretty fast, and Neville was too pleased to be around everyone again to have the day ruined. 

While Hermione remarked on things they saw out of the window, Neville told her all about the Mimbulus Mimbletonia he had received as a present from his Uncle Algie. He was planning to house it at Hogwarts for now, and hopefully, if he got sign off from the professors, they could try and breed it so the school would have their own supply. It was an ambitious project, and one that Neville might not have ever thought of himself as capable of, but the new wand had changed all that.

Sensing that Hermione was still preoccupied, Neville tried to distract her further. "If I get approval from Professor Sprout to breed the plant for the Hogwarts greenhouses will you be able to spend some time helping me with the research to complete it?"

"Yes, of course," Hermione agreed quickly. "But I'm not sure I'll be much help, you're the expert with Herbology."

Neville schooled his features. Teasing was new to him, but he finally felt a level of comfort in their relationship that made him feel sure it was okay to try. "Oh, I don't need your brain, Hermione. I need an assistant, someone to carry books, shovel soil, mop my brow that sort of thing."

He couldn't contain his huff of laughter at the complete outrage on her face. It took her a moment, but after she saw his laughing eyes, her gaze narrowed. "Neville Longbottom you absolute pest," she laughed as she pinched his arm.

In a welcome reversal of the usual term events, Neville assisted Harry in getting into the Tower that night. The troubled Potter had not yet learnt the new passwords as he had been detained following the Sorting Feast by Dumbledore.

Harry was sullen and well, a little unpleasant to be around, but it was hardly surprising. Neville couldn't imagine what his friend had gone through after he had been portkeyed out of that maze. He debated saying something, anything to try and alleviate his suffering, but he had seen the way Harry reacted to Hermione's kindly meant conversation on the train - which was, not well - and so he thought better of it. 

-/-/-/-

What had started as a great day ended with a shouting match and very nearly fists being thrown in the boy's dormitory. Seamus Finnigan had somehow not heeded the warning that was evident in Harry's expression and decided to pick a fight with him, insinuating that Harry was losing his marbles.

Their words escalated until Seamus charged across the room. Neville knew that was unlikely to end well, so he threw himself in Seamus' way without thinking and pushed the much smaller boy against the wall. 

"Steady on Nev," Dean called out, but Neville didn't stand down.

"Listen, we've all got to live together this year, yeah, so whatever you think, keep your mouth shut."

"Don't be a fecking idiot," Seamus spat back at him. "You're not telling me you believe that horseshit he came out with at the end of the year?" Seamus pointed at Harry angrily and made another move to get across the room. Neville forced him back against the wall.

"That's exactly what I'm saying," Neville replied. "My Gran cancelled our subscription to the Daily Prophet at the end of June, she reckons it's reporting has completely gone down the pan, and she sits on the Wizengamot."

When it was clear Seamus wasn't going to reply, Neville let him go, and he shoved past Neville to force the door open, making it slam against the wall. He stormed out of the room, followed by a half apologetic looking Dean. 

"Thanks, Neville," Harry murmured.

"No problem, Harry."

Ron walked in a moment later with his dressing gown on, still looking back over his shoulder. "What the bloody hell is going on? I've just seen Finnegan exploding a sink in the bathroom."

Neville gestured towards Harry and realisation hit Ron fast. He sat next to Harry on the bed and talked to him in low tones until Harry sunk his head in his hands.

It was going to be another long year. 

In his first Charms class of the year, Neville was finally able to put his new wand to the test, and he marvelled as much as everyone else when he was able to summon water on his first try. Professor Flitwick momentarily paused in his instruction, before jumping up on his stack of books and squealing with delight. 

Neville won ten points from Gryffindor and the surprised congratulations from everyone in the room. Well, everyone except Hermione who said, 'Well done' with the biggest look of smug satisfaction Neville had ever seen plastered across her face.

Neville had been agitated before the first DADA lesson of the year. The memory of the Unforgivables being cast in front of him had barely faded, sometimes when he went to sleep, he still heard the sounds that had come from that spider. He hadn’t been aware that they made much of a noise before then.

Neville couldn't come to terms with what had happened. It was incomprehensible that one of his parent's attackers had been standing in front of him for a year. In their very first class together, Crouch had used the curse that had robbed Neville of the life he should have had for what appeared to be shock value, in front of school children, with no remorse. 

When Neville entered the rather neutral looking classroom, he played with his fingers and the edges of his parchment as he waited to see what this year held. 

He had assumed that after already facing a man possessed by Voldemort's spirit, a fraud, a werewolf and a Death Eater in disguise, they would have seen the worst of what Hogwarts had to offer when it came to professors. 

He had been wrong.

Dolores Umbridge was the worst kind of teacher, in every way, and Neville surprised himself by immediately resolving that she was worse than Snape. Snape may have hated children, and often Neville in particular, but at least he knew his subject. He wasn't convinced Umbridge knew anything at all. 

Harry shouted, Hermione gritted her teeth, Ron looked fit to burst, and Malfoy rubbed his hands together. Somehow it was more of a farce than when Lockhart was teaching. But whatever else Umbridge was, she was no joke.

Throughout the first term, tensions in the DADA classroom between Harry and Umbridge ratcheted up week on week. Harry was in an almost permanent detention cycle, and it seemed as if their professor had a particular dislike for anyone even partially associated with the-boy-who-lived.

Neville watched with some trepidation when he spotted their apparently qualified teacher eyeing Hermione with a look that he failed to identify properly, though, to him it looked hungry.

Umbridge quickly gained the nickname 'The Toad' because of her squat bulbous face and permanently glassy eyes. As someone that had a toad as a familiar for many years, Neville was offended on Trevor's behalf. He was glad his toad was no longer living in the Tower, Neville was sure the twins would have commandeered him for a prank or other.

Last year, when he and Hermione had been revising by the lake, Trevor had escaped from the confines of his tank. Once he got free, he had hopped with more speed than he had ever displayed before to the water's edge and Neville had never been able to find him again. 

He often wondered if his toad had felt the same crushing relief as he had.

Neville stood back in awe the first time he entered the Room of Requirement, a place in the castle he'd had no idea even existed. Hermione had taken him up to see it ahead of the first defence club lesson, and she stood to the side, smiling while he rushed about looking at everything.

Once he'd had a go at firing a number of hexes at the dummies positioned on the far wall, she called him over to a table in the corner.

"Look at this," she instructed as she tipped up a small pink purse and galleons fell all over the table surface.

"Why are you carrying so much money?" Neville asked while flexing one of the coins between his fingers.

"They're not real," she explained with a small smile. "There for the club, for the members to communicate with. I got the idea from the coins I made for us in the third year, but I've finally been able to figure out the magic to send messages."

Neville looked down at the small coin in amazement. "Wow, Hermione, that's so cool!"

"Thanks, Neville," she beamed. "So, Harry will have the master coin, and then when he sends a message, the rest will heat up and tell everyone when the next meeting is... Here you take one now," she directed and then proffered him the fake galleon.

Neville still had the last one, the prototype for this you might say, safely stored away in his trunk. He was thankful that he no longer needed it, but he didn't think he would ever be able to bring himself to get rid of it.

He slipped the new coin into his pocket and then pushed his hand against it from the outside. He enjoyed it. It was like a subtle reminder of belonging to carry around with him all day.

"Oh and I did something else," she brushed all of the galleons back into the little purse and then pulled out another smaller one from her inside pocket. Hermione grabbed Neville's hand and emptied the contents, two sickles, into his palm.

"What are these ones for?" Neville got the impression she was a little embarrassed if the way she wouldn't meet his eyes was any indication.

"Well, erm, while I was practising, I managed to perfect a two-way charm. These coins are not like the others in that they both work as a master coin. Using them you can send and receive messages," her voice continued getting smaller and smaller. "I thought you might like to keep one… you know, test them out... And such."

Neville gently circled her wrist and then put one of the coins back into her palm before picking up his wand and waving it over the shiny silver surface of his own. Hermione gasped, and Neville assumed the spell must have worked. 

U R AMAZING

Hermione looked down and snorted though Neville thought she looked pleased then they spent the rest of their afternoon taking on the dummies and passing increasingly silly messages back and forth through the coins.

They decided to save duelling each other for their first proper defence lesson of the year.

Umbridge could suck it. They were going to be prepared. 

Chapter Text

Another year, another term spent watching Hermione work herself into a complete tizzy over Harry and his safety, Harry and his mental state or her all-time favourite, Harry and his grades.

Neville had tried to be compassionate and understanding, and he was, he really was. Anyone that knew Harry knew that he'd had a rough ride of life and this year looked set to be the worst yet. Harry couldn't catch a break. He was under so much pressure with Voldemort being back, everyone's constant finger-pointing and Umbridge looming over them all. Neville empathised, but despite his good intentions, he was jealous. 

He’d thought after him and Hermione getting closer last year and their night at the Yule Ball that their relationship would have progressed somewhere. The memory of their near kiss in the greenhouse at Longbottom House seemed to be burnt into the insides of Neville's eyelids. Still, he couldn't detect anything from Hermione that indicated she was feeling the same.

He wanted more.

Neville supposed he would have been ok, not happy but ok to take a permanent place in the wings had it not been for Hermione having changed considerably over the summer. Of course, she changed every year, but this year she looked… Neville wasn't exactly sure how to describe it. Hermione was still tiny and slim, but somehow full at the same time. Her jumpers were tighter, and her face was a little different too, it was... nice. It made Neville feel things, newish things that he'd only been aware of in a distant sort of way before.

Unfortunately, it was becoming increasingly apparent that he was not the only one noticing. Maybe the Yule Ball had changed things, perhaps it had been more subtle, but whatever it was, Hermione was garnering interest. Neville had been willing to stand aside because of the war. He was less keen when there were so many sharks in the water. 

Neville was removing his jumper after the first DA meeting. The space created by the Room of Requirement was cavernous and chilly, but after two hours of throwing himself about he had got significantly warmer. There had been odd numbers for the session, so when they broke into groups, Neville had been paired with Ron and Hermione. Each of them had more than made the others work for every small victory. Neville was knackered now but in the best possible way. Using his own wand was beginning to feel less new, and he thought he might have been getting better. He might never be a natural with Defence, like Harry, but it no longer felt like he was fighting to get his magic to ignite.

Neville watched on with pride as Hermione explained the coins she had created and then handed them out. He hadn't been able to suppress a slight gloating air as he told Ron, who had passed a coin in his direction, that he already had his. However, he didn't mention the sickle that was in his pocket. That felt too private to share, something that was just for them.

The warm feeling in his chest turned to ice as he watched a smiling Terry Boot saunter over to Hermione. The slick Ravenclaw grabbed her by the arm in a proprietary way and began a very animated discussion about the coin.

"... brilliant magic, Hermione…"

"... you really should have been sorted into Ravenclaw you know…"

"... wondering if we could get together, to pick your brain…"

Neville's fists clenched, and he turned to look at her, and his eyes narrowed as he observed her blush and her averted eyes. It meant Hermione couldn’t see Terry's very appreciative gaze, but Neville could. He didn't wait to see what Hermione was saying; as far as Neville was concerned, her response was written all over her face. He turned to grab Luna to leave as per Harry's instructions.

-/-/-/-

The next day, despite having slept well, Neville was still angry with Hermione. Rationally he knew it wasn't her fault, they weren't together, and he hadn't so much as asked her out, but she must have known he liked her? Mustn't she? The whole thing was ridiculous, but he still couldn't help himself. He had been so frustrated at the beginning of the year, and although most of that anger was for himself, it was spilling over.

Hermione walked into breakfast soon after him and sat directly opposite. "Good morning, Neville, how are you?"

The warmth in her greeting made Neville's teeth clench. "Fine," he replied with petulant abruptness and turned his attention back to his food. He could feel her glancing at him during the meal, but she never asked him another question.

When Hermione got up to go to Potions she asked if he was coming, Neville fumbled through some half excuse about needing to collect something first. Though Hermione seemed confused, eventually she nodded and left, without him. Neville didn't miss the hurt in her eyes, and he spotted a glowering Ginny further up the table doing nothing to hide the fact she thought he was evil incarnate. He pushed away from the memory of Hermione's sad expression and got up to go to class, making sure to walk as slowly as possible so as not to catch her up.

-/-/-/-

Neville collapsed on his bed at the end of the day and stared at the canopy. Despite knowing it was cruel, and the kind of behaviour he had argued with others for, he had done his best to avoid Hermione for the rest of the day. He just couldn't face her. Whenever he saw her, he would be flooded with images of her and Terry embracing, or worse kissing, and it just made him so mad. 

He had been worried she would ask him what was wrong, and then he would have to own up to how he felt. He had shown too much. If he had been braver, Neville would have just told her, then maybe Hermione would understand. For now, he felt as if he wouldn't risk losing the friendship if she was offended by his intentions.

You're risking that already, his mind whispered. Neville attempted to shut the thoughts out and think about mundane things. It didn't work.

He was distracted from the swirling of his thoughts by a warm sensation in his pocket, he reached in and pulled out the tepid silver sickle. The letters appeared emblazoned on its front.

NEVILLE?

He waited several seconds for the word to disappear, then he threw his head back exhaling slowly until the coin began to heat again, and he raised the surface to his face.

ARE U THERE?

With a heavy heart, Neville rolled the small coin in the palm of his hand before placing it on his nightstand and getting ready for bed.

When he woke up the next morning, he stared down the innocuous silver coin for several minutes before turning on his heel and leaving it where it was.

A whole week later, Hermione had stopped trying to talk to him. The coin that he had since placed back on his person wherever he went, never heated again. Neville had started to notice signs from her that she was struggling a bit with the shutdown of their friendship, but he had no idea what to do. Neville was drowning in guilt, and he wanted to put things right but couldn't do that without admitting why he was acting as he was.

It was all a bit of a mess. 

More than ever, Neville wished he could talk to his Dad, but that option wasn't open to him.

Their Herbology lesson was ending, and Neville was cleaning equipment with Seamus when a light giggling carried from the other side of the classroom. Both boys glanced up to see a small cluster of Hufflepuff girls talking amongst themselves in loud whispers until Hannah Abbott was all put pushed in their direction.

She took a moment to centre herself before she stood in front of the sink he was working at and there, in front of the whole class, she asked Neville to go to Hogsmeade, that weekend.

Neville was stunned, he had never been asked out before, and Hannah was a very pretty vivacious girl, a lot of the boys fancied her. He must have been taking too long to respond as he felt Seamus punch his side. He knew he had to say something, and try as he might, he just couldn't say no in front of the whole class. It felt too rude. As someone who had been wrestling with their own lack of bravery, doing something like Hannah had done suddenly seemed quite awe-inspiring.

"Sure... yeah that sounds great."

Hannah smiled at him, and he was sure his face was bright red. Seamus ribbed him a bit, and he could see Dean heading over, likely to join the pile on that was growing around him. Neville turned in time to see the back of Hermione's curled head leaving the greenhouse with a perplexed Ron and Harry looking after her, and somehow it didn't sound as great anymore.

Neville met Hannah by the castle gates that Saturday and they made their way into Hogsmeade together, he hadn't noticed how tall she was until they were side by side. The observation brought him up short - figuratively speaking. Hannah wasn't as tall as him, far from it, but maybe taller than he would like? That sounded ridiculous even in his head.

They made polite, if somewhat awkward conversation until they reached the town where she smiled at him and suggested they go to Madam Puddifoot's Tea Shop. Neville looked at the pink laced cafe with a degree of trepidation but moved inside. 

Inside was worse, inside was definitely worse. 

Neville hadn't seen that much pink in the span of his whole life and even his Gran would have baulked at the amount of lace one table alone held. Still, he smiled his polite if somewhat strained smile and continued the conversation as well as he could.

Neville got a little lost looking at Hannah's hair, as they started sharing out the cakes. It was blonde, a fair, light yellow colour. All of it looked like the same hue, not like those girls where every individual strand looked like a new shade. Some would be chocolate others would be more like toffee, and some would be as light as brown sugar. It was also perfectly straight, there was nothing wrong with that of course, but he realised how much he preferred curls. Curls sprang forward and begged to be touched, pulled on... He shook off the wayward thoughts as he noticed Hannah looking at him strangely, how long had he been lost to his reflections?

After he paid, they left the tea room, and Neville had to stop himself from gulping in the unperfumed air. The pair slowly made their way back to the school with the conversation between them slightly more stilted now they had talked about every topic that readily came to mind.

When they got to the gates, Hannah was swallowed up by a group of fifth years, and Neville spied Hermione, Luna and Ginny sitting down by the lake. Hermione was conjuring elaborate paper butterflies out of her planner, and Luna was shooting charms at them, so they changed colour and glittered while Ginny laughed.

Stealing himself, Neville walked towards them, and he could pinpoint the exact moment he was seen, all of the girls tensed slightly. He forced himself to keep walking and put his hands into his pocket.

"Hi girls," he greeted and turned to face her. "Hi, Hermione." It was the first time he had spoken to her since the morning after the last DA lesson, and he was anxious over her response. It was entirely possible she would ignore him completely. He didn't deserve much better.

"Hi Neville," she replied. He supposed he should have been grateful for her words, but it was tough when her tone could have cut glass. "Did you have a nice time? I hope… Well, I'm glad-"

"Hermione," he interjected, shuffling his feet. "I didn't go because I wanted-"

"Oh, is that the time," Hermione said suddenly, even though there was no clock in sight. "I need to get to the library. I'm… happy for you Neville."

With that, she gathered her stuff and stormed back towards the castle with Ginny scrambling to chase after her.

Neville collapsed on the floor next to Luna, who was gently collecting up the fallen paper insects. Neither of them said anything for the longest time. Neville stared out at the lake and was pretty horrified to find he was near tears. He felt sick. He had been so stupid, so unfeeling. Even from his point of view, he'd behaved poorly, from Hermione's? He couldn't imagine what she must think of him.

"It's not her, you know?" the blonde breathed out eventually, and he turned to face her one eyebrow raised. Luna looked at him knowingly. "It's not Hannah, for you, I mean."

Neville sighed. "I know Luna, I know."

In bed that evening, Neville laid back twirling the sickle between his fingers before he finally sat up and waved his wand over it, watching the message rise on his coin before it was sent.

HERMIONE?

He stared at the coin's surface for ten minutes, and when he received no response, he tried again.

ARE U THERE?

He fell asleep half an hour later on top of his covers with the coin still gripped in his hand. It never warmed.

Chapter Text

Neville glanced up to stare at the slate grey vaulted ceiling. Everything else was so white, so clinical, it felt like a respite for his eyes to look at the only thing approaching colour. Well, that wasn’t completely true, there were odd touches of brights around the place. A limp bit of tinsel stuck inartfully on the wall and a few lacklustre spinning fairies. But, if Neville were honest, they made him more depressed than the white walls and bedding he usually saw.

It was Christmas, not that it felt like it on the closed ward. From all he had heard, Neville was given to understand that Christmas was a time of joy. It didn’t matter how many old tree baubles they dusted off; joy would always be just out of reach. There was too much pain here, too much guilt for the Christmas spirit to take hold. 

Neville smiled gratefully at the nurse as she left the room and managed to parrot back her best wishes for the season without choking on them. He’d never enjoyed Christmas, but this year he felt more despondent than ever.

Neville sat on one of the lumpy visitor’s chairs next to his mother and watched as she ran her fingers up and down his forearm rhythmically. He focused on her hair, now greying at the temples and fought away the tears that always threatened when he was the subject of her absent yet tender affection. He didn’t have to worry about being seen; his Gran was thoroughly occupied with his dad at that moment, she’d probably be able to tell if he had blotchy skin late though. 

His Gran had never approved of him crying on their visits, even when he had been very young. Augusta Longbottom said that they should be thankful they were alive and that giving into melancholy was as pointless as it was self-indulgent. But then, his Gran had always been practically minded. Take today as an example. She had visited a month before, while Neville was at school and found that Frank was suffering from a cold. The nurses had told her his dad was struggling to keep warm. His Gran had said nothing in response to the Healer’s assessment only nodded, though today she brought along four extra jumpers with no explanation, one of which she was aiding Frank in putting on while she spoke to her son in low tones.

Neville tried his best not to listen in when they had their discussions. They may have only been one-sided, but they were important to everyone. He heard a telltale rustle and looked back round to see his mother rifling through the box of sweets he had bought for her. Neville had never fully worked out if it was the sweets or just the wrappers she enjoyed, but whatever it was, they always caught her attention over anything else. He wondered for the hundredth time if she’d had a sweet tooth. Maybe, if things had been different, he would know. Would he and his dad have teased her about leaving sweets all over the house? Would he have made special trips to the shop as a child to pick out her favourites? Would he have instantly known what they were? 

Neville coughed and rubbed a hand over his eyes before he took the wrapper his mum offered and gently pulled it out, so it formed a crinkled square. He placed it back into her waiting hand, and Alice’s eyes traced the edges before she very carefully put it into her pocket. 

He looked over at his dad who was now cosy in a new jumper and sitting peacefully in a chair as his Gran brushed his hair. Neville would bet money his dad would have known all the answers to the questions he had about his mum and vice versa. He might not have known much, but he understood that was how they had loved each other, fully. 

He imagined between them, all the inconsequential things would have been noticed and important. Like how he knew that Hermione had porridge every day but Sunday when she would treat herself with a pastry. She would cut it up delicately and eat it with strawberry jam, but if there wasn’t any left she would take blackberry instead, but she would wrinkle her nose first.

His mum tipped her chocolates onto the bed and hovered her hand over them, deciding what to have next. Neville shuffled closer to make sure she didn’t topple as she leant forward. She had done that before; the bruises had taken forever to fade. His guilt over it had never gone. 

He felt awful for even thinking of Hermione when he was with them, but he couldn’t shut out his anguish, especially now. He had been planning on asking her to come on this visit but that had been before they’d stopped speaking. He’d let his jealousy override his reason, and now he didn’t have her to share his parent’s with. 

Hermione was currently ignoring him in a very clipped and Hermione-ish way. She was civil, barely, but formal and crisp. Neville found he even missed the darting, hurt glances she had given him in the first few weeks after their fall out. They had been horrible at the time, but it had been forever since she had looked at him at all. 

Neville had a feeling it wouldn’t be long before he had a concerned Harry circling him. At least, he hoped it would be Harry; Merlin forbid if Ron came over to speak to him about it. 

He hadn’t spent any more time with Hannah Abbott since their ‘date’ in Hogsmeade. After some deliberation, Neville had decided against just letting things fade away and instead had gone and spoken to Hannah to clear the air. He’d told her, in a somewhat meandering way, that he liked her a lot but would rather remain friends. The beautiful Hufflepuff had been a little taken aback, but in the end, she had said she was grateful for his honesty. Neville was at least pleased he’d managed to make a good showing there, he already had one girl mad at him, he couldn’t possibly upset another. If his Gran found out, she would kill him. 

Neville wasn’t sure if Hermione was seeing Terry Boot, though he wouldn’t have blamed her if she was. He hadn’t been able to bring himself to ask Harry, and while he didn’t know for sure, he could still cling to hope. Bitch of a thing that it was. 

Neville had seen them studying together a few times, sitting huddled close at Hermione’s favourite table in the library. It must have been nice for her to finally have someone on her level to converse with, academically at least. 

Boot had brought her Sugar Quills once, and the prick had brought them to the DA meeting with him. Ginny and Luna had oohed and aahed, and Neville had pushed his feelings inside. He hated Boot for getting her a gift and hated him even more for knowing they were her favourites. Not as much as he hated himself though.

Neville heard the clacking of his Gran’s shoes as she stood up and he readied himself to say his goodbyes even though it felt as though he had only just sat down. Time was a weird thing in hospitals. They always came for two hours and yet there were visits when it flew by as if it were only minutes.

Neville walked over to the other side of the room and gave his dad a one-sided hug and rearranged the blanket his Gran had draped over his legs. When his Gran was finished, Neville pushed a piece of his mother’s hair behind her ear and pressed a kiss to her forehead. 

“Merry Christmas, Mum. I love you.”

Neville squeezed his eyes shut and left the room without looking back. He never looked back. 

Distracted, he walked into the impersonal corridor and straight into Ron Weasley. 

Fuck, just fuck. 

Despite the force of the impact, both boys managed to stay upright, and Ron took a step back, looking completely surprised when he realised who it was. “Neville, what are you doing here?” Ron asked. It was then that Neville noticed the two figures behind him. Harry was standing to Ron’s right, looking distinctly uncomfortable in a way that only Harry could. Neville turned eagerly to find Hermione stood almost wholly behind her ginger friend, and his mind went blank.

In his flustered state, Neville missed that the sound of impatient feet down the hall had stopped. “Have you not told them?” his Gran demanded taking in Ron’s confusion and becoming irate. “Of all the… Young man, I’ll have you know that Neville’s parents-”

Unexpectedly, Hermione stepped forward and placed her hand on his Gran’s arm. “Apologies for interrupting, Mrs Longbottom,” she began, and her voice was much smaller than Neville had heard before. “Neville didn’t keep it a secret... I’ve known about his parents, about your son, for a long time and…” she squared her shoulders, but she wouldn’t meet his eyes, “I know how proud he is of them.”

“I’m glad to hear it, as it should be” his Gran replied, her tone still crisp.

An unmistakable shuffling noise interrupted the awkward interaction as his mother slowly walked over to where he was standing. Neville wasn’t concerned, according to the nurses, Alice often went for a bit of a wander during the day. They didn’t like to stop her too much as she had such limited freedom, and with the matron constantly doing rounds, she was reasonably safe. 

His mum seemed utterly oblivious to the other people in the hall as she grasped his wrist and gently pulled at his fingers until she prized them open. Once his palm was flat, she deposited several balls of brightly coloured sweet wrappers and smiled at him. Neville lightly closed his fingers around the paper before bending to kiss her cheek. “Thanks, Mum.”

The conversation between Hermione and his Gran continued, but Neville tuned it out. Instead, he turned to take his mother back to her room. He told himself he wasn’t avoiding Hermione, but he didn’t much believe it. When he’d woken up that morning, he was pretty sure he couldn’t have felt worse about the whole situation, and then she went and defended him. There should be a bigger word than sorry, one that you could use to convey how awful you felt when you’d really screwed up.  

When Neville came back into the corridor, his Gran was ‘wrapping up’, and Neville used her distraction to put the sweet papers in his pocket.

“We must go, Miss Granger, it is always a pleasure. I do hope we will see you over the Summer,” she said, and without another word, she recommenced her fast pace towards the lift.

“I take it, that’s me off the invite list,” Ron muttered, but Neville ignored him. He couldn’t take his eyes off Hermione, who was resolutely staring at the floor and fiddling with the hem of her jumper. It was a new one from Mrs Weasley if he wasn’t mistaken and it had been made with deep red wool that brought out the pink in her cheeks. 

“I’ll be there in a second Gran,” Neville called before he could chicken out. “Hermione, can I speak to you for a moment?”

Hermione didn’t move, and she didn’t speak, but her knuckles went white. Neville was debating begging when Harry stepped forward and softly pushed her by the shoulder. Her head snapped up to face her friend and after a moment of silent communication appeared to move between them she turned back in Neville’s direction and mumbled out a barely audible, “Yes.”

“Come on, Ron, let’s get to the ward before Mrs Weasley notices we’re missing,” Harry said with false cheer and then took off down the corridor. He paused when he got level with Neville and muttered a commanding “sort it,” before he disappeared from view. Neville nodded. He hoped he was still able to.

Once a bemused but suspicious-looking Ron had followed his friend, Neville swallowed roughly, not sure what he was going to say now he had the opportunity.

Hermione was apparently in no mode for a protracted conversation. “What do you want Neville, because I need to see Mr Wea-”

“I’m sorry,” he blurted before she could disappear. “Really, really sorry.” 

It was as good a place as any to start he supposed, what Hermione thought though was unclear as she kept her eyes averted, but Neville thought he heard her breath hitch. 

“I was being silly,” Neville managed to get out past the lump in his throat, “and… I’ve really missed you.”

Her lack of reaction was killing him, so he did the only thing he could think of and reached for her hand. Hermione had done it when they were eleven, and she was scared, he’d done it when they were thirteen, and she was imploding, and he did it now when they were fifteen, and he needed her to forgive him.

Hermione stilled at the contact, and her entire body went rigid, but she didn’t move her hand away. After a long stretch of silence, she spoke. 

“I’ve missed you too,” she confessed. “But you… you were so cold Neville… and I,” she raised her head, she looked wary and worse, Neville could see tears forming, he slumped.

“I… I don’t like Boot,” he whispered.

“Well, I do,” she huffed in response.

Neville felt nervous; he squeezed her hand gently and reaffirmed his hold. “Is he... Are you dating him?”

“Are you dating Hannah?” Hermione countered harshly, and she raised an eyebrow. Neville hated her sniping at him, but it was infinitely better than tears. For a moment they only stared at each other. 

“No,” he replied plainly. “She asked me to Hogsmeade, and I went. She asked me in front of the whole class and I… I didn’t want to say no. But we haven’t… there hasn’t been anything else... I don’t want anything else”.

Hermione sighed with what Neville hoped was relief. “I’m not dating Boot,” she said eventually, and Neville took half a step forward. “We study together sometimes, but he’s not… he isn’t… I’m not interested in him like that .”

“Can we go back to being friends now?” he asked, wishing his voice sounded a touch less desperate.

“I...”

“Please, Hermione,” he implored, gripping her hand tighter.

“Why?” she asked, her voice louder and more like her than it had been before. “Why were you so angry?”

Neville looked down at the hand in his and realised that if he wanted to have any hope of keeping it there, he was going to have to put some of his fears aside and be honest. “I… I was jealous.”

Hermione’s eyes widened, and she blinked several times before wetting her lips. “Jealous?”

Neville nodded. “I told you, I don’t like Boot.”

They were silent as they stood there in the corridor and Neville tugged on Hermione’s hand. “Can we be friends? I am truly sorry, Hermione.”

Hermione stared down at their linked hands and then a point over Neville’s shoulder. “Yes,” she whispered. “but… you hurt my feelings and… please don’t do it again.”

The promises on his lips were halted by his Gran calling him impatiently from the lift. “I have to go. I’ll err, see you on the Express?”

“Yes, ok,” she agreed, quickly wiping her eyes on the sleeve of her jumper.

Neville wished he didn’t have to leave at that moment. There was still another week until they went back to school, which was plenty of time for her to change her mind. “Can I err… can I write to you?”

“If you want,” she replied thickly.

“Will you reply?” he pushed.

She huffed out a small laugh. “Yes, Neville, I’ll reply.”

Relief washed over him, and he leant forward to press the quickest of kisses to her cheek. “Thank you, Hermione, you won’t regret this,” he garbled out before rushing down the corridor.

When the lift doors closed, Neville looked up in time to see Hermione still standing in the corridor with her arms wrapped around her middle. He resolved to start writing a letter as soon as he got home.

Chapter Text

Following their return to Hogwarts post-Christmas, the frost between Hermione and Neville that had felt impenetrable only weeks before, thawed like the weather outside the castle. Slowly but with hopeful intent. As optimistic as Neville knew he had been to ask if they were friends again, it soon became apparent that though both of them were trying, some things did not become mended just because you wanted them to. It was going to take work, something that Neville was only too happy to put in.

Over time, he discovered that general consideration carried more weight with Hermione than any grand gesture. So, he gave up his Saturday night to search the whole castle for a textbook Hermione had lost that had made her frantic. When he managed to return it to her, Hermione had been so thrilled she had hugged him tightly before remembering herself and backing away before Neville could get a sure grip on her. 

One rainy afternoon they talked about his parents again, and Hermione said she could see that his mother cared for him, whatever the doctors said, and Neville had rested his head on her shoulder. She hadn’t shrugged him off, and he had taken it as a hopeful sign. 

Neither of them pushed too hard, too afraid to break the fragile trust that was steadily being rebuilt, but eventually, they found themselves on more even footing. It was a comfort Neville was more glad of than he could say when their relatively calm world was intruded on by malevolent forces on the outside. 

-/-/-/-

At the end of January, the Gryffindor fifth years had just settled down for an uncharacteristically quiet dinner when, all of a sudden, the peace was broken by the ceiling of the Great Hall darkening in an instant. Neville suspected a storm but when he looked up it wasn’t thunderous clouds overhead, but a veritable sea of owls.

Every head in the hall started up in puzzlement, but the confusion wasn’t set to last long. The sound of dull thunking soon followed as almost every student, and every staff member had a copy of the Evening Prophet delivered haphazardly in front of them. The deliveries had never been so coordinated before, and it left Neville with a tremendous sense of foreboding. 

The room was eerily quiet, and he watched with no small amount of trepidation as Hermione unravelled her copy. 

Neville hadn’t been lying at the start of the year, in defence of Harry he had cancelled his subscription at the same time as his Gran. He had been surprised at Hermione keeping up hers, but when he had mentioned it she had simply said that ‘forewarned is forearmed’.

Neville saw the headline over her shoulder and couldn’t stop himself from snatching the parchment from out of her grasp. He read the words maybe ten times before they would process in his brain, and even then he passed it to Hermione and asked her to read it aloud. She did, after a brief pause, and then it fully sunk in. Ten Death Eaters had escaped Azkaban.

Dread pooled in his stomach and Neville knew before he even looked at the names what he would see. Any expectation otherwise was as useful as fool’s gold. There, in bold letters amongst the rest were Rabastan Lestrange, Bellatrix Lestrange and Rodolphus Lestrange.

Had Barty Crouch Jr not been enough?

Neville couldn’t settle on one emotion, his feelings rattled, changing like lift lights, clicking from one to the other, so quickly he felt nauseous. There was fear, guilt, terror and rage, so much anger.

Before he could genuinely spiral, Neville felt a soft hand tense around his thigh, and his head snapped to look at Hermione who was eyeing him worriedly. His hand clamped around her arm, and he used the connection to tug her closer, pulling her up the bench, so she sat right next to him, their bodies joined completely all along one side. Neville made himself focus on the sensation of her being there and calmed himself. 

Hermione didn’t try to say anything. She just sat there quietly. Neville imagined she must have been speaking to the others around them, but he barely heard it over the sound of blood pumping in his ears. He didn’t move to select any food, but Hermione poured him juice and put it in front of his place. 

Neville was beyond grateful that he had tentatively sat next to her that evening. After weeks of giving her more space he had been opting to sit with her intermittently, and it was little more than luck that meant he had done so tonight.

Neville had finally loosened his death grip on the paper when McGonagall appeared behind their bench. She looked at him, kindly. “Mr Longbottom, if you would come with me please?”

He stood up on shaky legs and followed his Head of House mutely. His mind turned to his Gran and how she would be coping with the news. Neville supposed he would be able to floo call her from McGonagall’s office, and it seemed prudent to check that she hadn’t gone out in hopes of taking vengeance. 

Neville supposed most people in his situation would have been concerned with their relative’s safety, but he knew his Gran. He was far more concerned that she would end up in Azkaban in one of their recently vacated cells. 

-/-/-/-

Neville left McGonagall’s office three hours later. He’d had an extended call with his Gran, who had made repeated assurances that she was fine and that she would not make any moves that were not sanctioned by the Order. Neville thought she might have been preparing to kill him when he asked her to put her hands on her lap, where he could see them when she promised, but she eventually complied. 

By the time Neville made it back into the common room, he felt utterly hollowed out. The last few hours had emotionally exhausted him. He climbed through the portrait hole into the abandoned space and thought about climbing the stairs. The clock told him it was nearly 11.30 pm, so he assumed everyone else had already gone to sleep. Walking over to the fire, Neville paused as he heard the familiar purr of Crookshanks who was lying on top of a sprawled out Hermione. She was reclining inelegantly on a sofa, having clearly not expected to fall asleep. Her body was a tangle of oddly placed limps, and her chin was resting on her chest.

Her cat’s sudden animation caused Hermione to wake up with a start, and she opened her eyes slowly but sleepily recognised him and scrambled to her feet. “Neville are you okay? I tried to stay up but obviously, well... Are you okay?”

He shrugged, he didn’t want to speak about it anymore, not even her. Between the bruskness of McGonagall’s kindness and the delusion of his Gran, he felt stifled. Hermione seemed to understand and instead just placed a hand on his upper arm. “Do you want to stay down here for a bit?”

Neville nodded and joined her on the sofa. Emotional and physical weariness seemed to hit him all at once, and he didn’t think about what he was doing when he lowered his torso and plonked his head in her lap. His breath hitched when delicate, tentative fingers began running through his hair. Her touch shattered the last reserve he had, and he let the tears he had been holding fall.

“Shhh,” Hermione soothed. “It’s going to be okay.”

“Really?” 

His voice was little more than a whisper, but Hermione must have heard him. “I promise, Neville, it’s all going to be okay.”

In the days that followed, Neville found he had new sympathy for Harry’s erratic emotional state. He was finding it difficult to concentrate, and his mind would perpetually run away with him. Neville felt sad a lot of the time, not sorry for himself exactly, but a deep sense of depression that suddenly seemed overwhelming. But sadness was not the only emotion, and that was part of the problem, he was never just feeling one thing. Neville was worried about some of the other things he felt. There were dark parts of him that wanted vengeance and retribution. He had feelings and thoughts that made him feel... less like himself. So, he did what he always did and bottled everything up. 

The problem was that most things could only withstand a certain amount of pressure before they explode.

-/-/-/-

Neville was engrossed in a potions lesson, working next to Hermione, when all of the rage that he had been pushing down inside him burst out. 

The class was particularly humid that day as their potions involved quite a lot of steam and Hermione had tugged the sleeves of her jumper out of the way while she cut the ingredients in the prescribed methods. He saw a flash of something on her hand and moved to face her. 

“What was that?”

Hermione was brilliant at many things, but she was probably one of the worst liars on the planet. Before she had even said a word to incriminate herself, her entire body went stiff, and she clutched frantically at her cuffs to pull the grey wool back down.

Determined, and entirely forgetting their surroundings, Neville lurched forward and gripped at her wrist, pulling her hand away, and there it was, etched into the back of her hand, scratched into her skin; I must respect my betters.

It was unmistakably her handwriting even though her usually perfect script was jagged and uneven. Neville felt sick. He was just about to begin questioning her when the dark billowing robes of Snape appeared before them. 

“If you two could finish your adolescent histrionics in your own time,” he snapped, his voice was taut and menacing, but for the first time, Neville didn’t care, he was too focused on Hermione, on what that bitch had done to Hermione. He came to as she tugged away from his hand and they reluctantly went back to working in silence.

As soon as the bell rang, Hermione sprang from her seat, packed her stuff and exited the room in less than five seconds. Neville rushed to catch up, sending his box of quills flying across the desk in the process. He had just reached the door before a very unwanted voice called him back.

“Mr Longbottom,” Snape drawled emotionlessly. Neville spun on his heel, exasperation written all over his features. Snape ignored his petulance and pointed a finger in front of his desk. Neville sighed before stepping forward. 

“Wait,” Snape commanded when he reached the desired spot and disappeared into his stores. He remerged a moment later and proffered him a small glass jar that looked to contain a murky yellow liquid.

Neville reached to take it. “What is it, Sir?” he asked bewildered. In all the time he had been taught by Snape, they had never had interactions outside of what was expressly necessary. The professor barely ever assigned his detention in the lab, so even being here for a few minutes after classes were highly irregular. 

“Please don’t make me spoon-feed you, Longbottom,” Snape sighed. When he remained staring blankly, the professor shooed him with a wave of his hand. “You can go... I haven’t got all day.”

Umbridge was getting worse. Though she continually implied Harry was a liar and Dumbledore was losing his faculties, she seemed to be the one who was becoming unhinged. Harry’s hand looked worse than anyone else’s by a long chalk and at this point, Neville doubted the scars would ever fade.

With the news of the Azkaban outbreak, Umbridge’s increased tyranny and the appointment of the Inquisitorial Squad, the DA ramped up considerably. Even he had now mastered most of the basic spells and some of the intermediate ones as well. Neville worked harder than he ever had; the threat outside the castle walls was real now. The danger seemed to be waiting for them.

Neville glanced across at Hermione who was practising shields charms with Luna. He wouldn’t let anything happen to someone he loved.

Neville looked up at the ceiling and took a breath, the day’s session had been tiring, and unfortunately, his issues with the Patronus Charm continued. Hermione had manipulated hers into taking a form and now whenever they practised any non-corporeal wisps he would produce would drift to flow under her otter, making it appear as if the tiny animated animal danced across clouds. It was encouraging, but it wasn’t enough. 

Neville wiped a hand over his face and got back up to go and do some final drills before Harry called time.

Standing out in the Forbidden Forest, Neville believed he could hear his heart thumping inside his chest. When he had asked, no demanded, that Harry take them with him he had felt no fear, the belief in his righteousness had settled his nerves. Harry may have been the Chosen One, but he couldn’t do this on his own, likely they couldn’t do it all together, but he wouldn’t let him go without support.

That fire had long since faded, and the flames were getting smaller and smaller since Luna had ventured that she had an idea, they were supposedly now looking at it, at an empty paddock.

“Thestrals,” Luna declared, seemingly delighted with this turn of events. Neville heard a muffled curse and raised his eyebrows as it appeared to have come from Hermione. As that was probably only the second time he had ever heard the witch swear in five years, he doubted he would like what followed.

Minutes later, the idea went from baffling to ridiculous, but it was still the only one they had, and so they found themselves attempting to mount the creatures without being able to see them. Hermione had shrunk in on herself, and before Harry could bring round another of the invisible beasts for her to get on, Neville reached down to grab her hands and pulled her onto his mount, sliding back so she could sit in front of him. 

“You’re okay, Hermione, I won’t let you fall.”

“How will you stop it?! You can’t even see what’s a horse and what’s air,” she replied, sounding slightly hysterical.

“Thestrals,” Luna corrected lightly, and Hermione huffed. “Knowing the correct name is not going to help me when I plummet to my untimely death.”

Neville didn’t want to point out that falling on the way there might have been one of the better fates the evening had in store for them, she was wound up enough. Eventually, Neville felt her exhale and then rested against him and then he followed the others and took off into the sky, wincing as he hands gripped his sides so tightly he was worried she would draw blood. 

He said nothing, he concentrated on the wind on his face and prayed he would be able to keep his promise.

Chapter Text

Neville’s memories of that night came back to him in disordered flashes, triggered by sounds, smells or noises. He slept restlessly as his subconscious seemed determined to wake him periodically so he could check on the occupant of the bed to his left.

Once Madam Pomfrey had finally disappeared for the evening, Neville dropped down from his cot on shaky legs. He summoned his diminished strength to shift his bed till it was nearly resting against hers, leaving a gap you could fit a fist in for the sake of propriety. It wasn’t something he would have concerned himself, given their ordeal. But he didn’t want to be woken up in the middle of the night by the nurse if she assumed he had less than honourable intentions or some other nonsense. 

Neville climbed back into the bed ungracefully, though thankfully silently, and turned on his side, endeavouring to keep perfectly still until he could hear the quiet snuffling of her breathing. He stretched his hand forward to gently grip her fingers before falling back into a disturbed sleep.

There was a flash of pure, almost blinding white light, and he could remember.

Neville could feel the raw, cutting edge of the curse ripping into his skin, his nerve endings shouting in protest as the manic witch of his nightmares cackled above him. “Let’s see how long this Longbottom lasts before he cracks just like his parents.”

That Bellatrix Lestrange was mad was evident for anyone to see. Neville wondered if Azkhan had pushed her to it, or whether she was always destined to be this way. The number of dark deeds she had committed in her life were bound to catch up with you in the end. Neville found it fitting that her mind had become poisoned after she had been one of those that had ripped away the consciousness of his parents. 

Bellatrix played with him like a toy. But Neville didn’t cry out. He wouldn’t falter, he wouldn’t give her the satisfaction. His time under the curse was momentary, but it was enough to strip the air from his lungs. Academically he had known what the effects of the Cruciatus Curse were; Barty Crouch Jr had seen to that, but feeling it was so much worse than Neville could have ever imagined.

He had never seen the Auror report detailing the attack on his parents, but he knew that they had been repeatedly cursed for over two hours. All four of the Death Eaters present had taken turns, and yet, they had never given away a thing, not a single piece of information. Maybe his Gran hadn’t been exaggerating about them after all? Neville had felt pain and fear while being cursed but also a deep sense of pride for his parents. Whatever else they had been, they had stuck firm to their beliefs and held firm together.

-/-/-/-

Neville heaved in a deep breath to scream at Harry not to hand it over. None of them knew why they wanted the prophecy so desperately, but the very fact they did made him determined they would not get their hands on it.

His words were garbled when they left his mouth, and he couldn't form his letters correctly. His speech had been affected by the savage break in his nose and the blood in his mouth. The Crucio had accelerated the blood flow, and now it seemed to be pouring from his face. Somehow, Neville got back onto his feet, he was too much of a sitting duck otherwise, and they got away.

Harry kept his hold on the orb. They survived another encounter, but how many more would they evade before they were caught out?

-/-/-/-

There was a clicking sound coming from somewhere in the ward, a door closing maybe? The noise was much more gentle than the cracking of glass. Neville rolled in his sleep, calm again, the soft sounds of the ward, reminding him that he was safe.

-/-/-/-

The Order arrived, and Neville felt the most sublime relief of his life. As the familiar faces flew into the dank space, he could have dropped to his knees. They would be okay, they would leave, and he would be able to save her. But it wasn’t over yet. The Death Eaters weren’t going down without a fight. 

Dolohov appeared apparently not satisfied with his reign of terror for the evening. He smiled at Neville’s mangled face and Hermione’s broken form resting at his feet before shooting a hex right at him, tripping him up. He and Harry watched on in horror as the orb fell to the ground, smashing into dust as a cloud of smoke arose and billowed. But whatever the prophecy said was lost to the sounds of the battle all around them.

-/-/-/-

Neville woke with a start and opened his eyes. It barely seemed to make a difference to what he could see. It was dark on the ward as the vast space was barely lit by candles burning low on the sides of each bed, but it had none of the murky darkness of the Department of Mysteries. 

Neville looked over to Hermione, her little body was lying in the bed next to his, and she was as still as she had been in their second year. He felt the stirrings of fear in his gut, fear that had started that moment in Umbridge’s office, fear that had ratcheted with each new horror that they had faced.

He remembered their panic in the Hall of Prophecies after Harry had been drawn to an opaque orb with his name on it. Neville, Hermione and Luna had all urged him not to remove it, but as usual, he didn’t listen. He’d had a feeling about it, he said. Once Harry’s hands had wrapped around the glass, and he began to lower it from the shelves, the Death Eaters had made themselves known.

A mask-less Lucius Malfoy and a mocking Bellatrix Lestrange had made Neville’s blood run cold. The little cluster of students had drawn closer to each other. The full magnitude of the event had simultaneously crashed down on all of them; they were outnumbered and very much outclassed. There had been a real possibility they would not make it out of there alive.

A dark shadow seemed to move across Neville’s eyelids.

He remembered his face… Antonin Dolohov, the face that had split into a wide beam as he broke Neville’s nose and raised his large hand to snap his wand in front of his face. Now that he was removed from the intensity of that situation, Neville was once again thankful to Hermione for pushing his Gran into getting a new one at the start of the year. He would have been devastated to watch his father’s wand be broken in that way, by that kind of person. Antonin Dolohov wasn’t fit to touch his father’s wand, let alone break it.

Moments later, Neville had seen Hermione wipe that insufferable smirk off Dolohov’s face. The Death Eater must have thought he’d gotten Harry, he probably believed that they had won, but he hadn’t factored on her. Hermione had stood in front of one of the most formidable Death Eaters that anyone had ever heard of, and her hand hadn’t even shaken as she silenced him.

Neville had been stunned but nowhere near as stunned as Dolohov. He had been too far away when he registered the Death Eater’s face contort, clearly livid at her actions. The very next second a bright purple slash illuminated the dingy space and she… she crumpled, falling to the floor with a tiny thud.

Harry had reacted first, he’d Stunned the looming figure before Dolohov could curse again. As Neville had been wandless, his options had been severely limited, but given half the chance he would have run straight at the man and took his chances. 

Harry had screamed at Neville to get help, and his voice had been wild with panic. Neville had scooped Hermione up and held her close, deriving what comfort he could from her shallow breaths, the evidence that she was holding on, still fighting. 

“Of all the times to finally get to hold you,” he had murmured into her hair.

“Neville.”

He jumped at the unexpected rasp of her voice, and he turned quickly so she could see him. Her eyes were alive and searching, full of fear and pain. Neville rolled over, pushing himself over the gap he had left between their beds and pulled her to his side. Good behaviour could hang.

As he held her against his chest, Hermione’s arms scrambled as if she was being pulled up from water. Neville gripped her tightly until her thrashes became trembles.

“You’re okay, Hermione. We’re back at Hogwarts, and everything is going to be okay.”

Neville gently stroked his hands over her hair as she began to cry. “You’re safe, you’re safe,” he whispered until she hugged him tightly around his middle and settled her face against his shoulder. 

“I won’t leave you, I promise.”

With her resting against him, Neville slept right through till morning.

Chapter Text

Neville remained at Hermione’s bedside with almost no respite for the next week. After three days of her seeming to be at death’s door, she became more capable of waking up under her own command. However, when she did come around, it would only ever be for a handful of hours before she succumbed to sleep again. Those days were the longest of Neville’s life. If he had found the white, clinical, brightness of St Mungo’s oppressive, it was nothing to sitting in the Hogwarts Infirmary for days on end without the gentle comfort of the girl in the bed to keep him company. 

As Madam Pomfrey sought to remind him daily, Hermione was still very sick. The curse she had endured was a particularly dark one that they suspected to be of Dolohov’s design. Neville had heard whispers, mutterings from adults who always assumed that ‘children’ only feet away from them must be deaf. They said if Hermione hadn’t successfully silenced the Death Eater she would probably be dead.

Neville didn’t allow those thoughts house room inside his mind. He took a leaf out of his Gran’s book and didn’t focus on the what-ifs. They were of no use to him; the only thing that mattered now was the future. However bleak the days ahead of them would be, they would see them dawn together.

Most of the little band of misfits that had been on the ride to the Ministry had now been discharged, Neville included. Though he was still sleeping in the Hospital Wing, with Madam Pomfrey’s reluctant blessing. The school nurse had found them, Hermione and him, curled up in bed together that first night and she had not been best pleased. But she couldn’t say it did Hermione any harm. Hermione was calmer when there was someone she recognised there when she woke, and so Neville got to stay. 

Hermione woke up often in the night, and for the first few days, every time she came to she’d had no memory or waking before. The battle would be fresh in her mind, and she would be startled and nervous. Neville had seen her with her eyes blown wide and her limbs flailing more times than he could count, and every time he would be there to comfort her until she calmed back down and fell asleep. He would pet her hair and tell her that everyone was okay even though that wasn’t wholly true. 

Neville would be forced to leave every so often for showers or more clothes, but he refused to go until someone was with her. That was typically Luna or Ginny, who would sit in the seat he vacated and hold her hand until he got back. Neville didn’t trust anyone else. It would have been unconscionable to him to have her watched over by someone that hadn’t been there that night. No one else could understand. So it had to be one of the girls. Ron was still recovering from his encounter in the brain room, and Harry was struggling to come to terms with what had happened, blaming himself for both Sirius’ death and Hermione’s condition.

On the sixth day after they had been brought back to Hogwarts by the Order, Hermione turned a corner. She woke up earlier than usual and while eating a small breakfast she had a complete and very loud freak out when she was told just how long she had been in the Hospital Wing, and consequently, how much school she had missed. 

Neville nearly incurred her wrath by breaking into almost manic laughter. Hermione was becoming herself again; he felt lighter than he had for days.

While resting up on the ward, reading through his Herbology text, Neville heard a worryingly familiar voice. He spotted his Gran checking in with Madam Pomfrey before she walked into the room like a one-woman army. The situation reminded him of their second year, and he hoped she didn’t expect to chide him back to classes today. Much as he never wanted to fight with his Gran, she wasn’t going to win this argument. Neville wasn’t one to take sides, but if that’s what it came to, he would always pick Hermione’s needs over anything or anyone else. Especially now.

His Gran surprised him by not saying anything at first, rebuking or not. Instead, she moved to the top of Hermione’s bed and gently pushed one of her wayward, chestnut curls out of her face, and tucked it behind her ear almost affectionately before taking a seat next to Neville.

Neville braced himself for a clipped comment about his studies, something about how he couldn’t afford to be away for long with his grades, but his Gran kept silent. It was disturbing. She was never quiet. Even when they went to visit his parents, and they were both asleep, his Gran found something to say. Neville felt anxiety bubbling up in him, and he attempted to head her off at the pass. 

“Her parents are Muggles so they can’t come when she’s sick, I doubt they have even been told.” His Gran made no reply. “And I don’t know how much she tells them anyway, about the war, about any of it.”

He looked up at Hermione, where she lay in the bed. The very top of the angry red welt that was causing all this was visible above the top button of her pyjamas. The mark was slashed straight across her torso, or so Neville had been told, and Madam Pomfrey said it would cause a permanent scar. It would fade, but it would never be gone entirely. The thought of such a hateful reminder of the disastrous evening dissecting her chest forever made him shudder and steeled his resolve.

“I’m not leaving her,” Neville declared, and he crossed his arms over his chest. 

His Gran looked over at him blankly, though there was a slight upturning of her lips. “I thought you might say that.”

“You’re not surprised?” Neville asked. He couldn’t remember ever putting his foot down before. 

His Gran scoffed. “Of course, I’m not. I did raise you, Neville, I know the man you are, or, should I say, the man you will be.”

That was dangerously close to a compliment his mind muttered, but Neville couldn’t process his Gran’s assessment of him at that moment. Since her arrival, he had been feeling himself sag. From the moment they got back to the ward, beaten and bloody, he had pushed himself into the role of Hermione’s protector. Neville had done everything and anything possible to see that she was comfortable, rested and in the best possible state for her to make a swift recovery. He had undoubtedly done that because he cared about her but also, it kept him busy, it meant he had less time to think about what had happened, the potential ramifications and what would happen next. 

They had won, in a way, that night. But they had painted targets on their backs at the same time. He-who-shall-not-be-named was now back, and no one could deny it anymore. Open war had begun. 

“Gran, I’m scared,” he admitted quietly.

There was near silence in the ward. In the distance, Neville could hear Madam Pomfrey scratching notes against parchment and checking her stores. On the other side of the mostly empty space, a couple of first years were muttering to each other after a practice duel had resulted in minor injuries for them both. Neville’s words hung in the air, waiting.

“Your father was scared,” his Gran said suddenly, making him jump. When Neville eventually processed her words he looked up at her wide-eyed. She ignored his expression and continued, her voice holding a note of a wobble. “Frank was so scared for your mother. He panicked whenever she went anywhere. It was bad enough when the war started but then Alice got pregnant… your usually affable father became something of a tyrant. They argued more in that period than I believe they did through the course of their lives together.”

Neville was stunned, there were too many things to focus on one for more than a second. Had his father been scared? Had his parents argued?

His Gran coughed and straightened her shoulders and continued in a voice that was much less thick. “Fear, however justified, is a useless feeling. Other than to warn you that things are not as they should be.”

Neville nodded in the way he had been taught as a child to show that he had absorbed the lesson. He did it as a reflex, whether he had done so or not. 

A few moments later, his Gran turned in her seat to face him. “I need you to leave the ward and come with me to Diagon Alley today,” he opened his mouth to protest. “This is non-negotiable, Neville.”

Neville swallowed down his first protest and told himself to be calm, to articulate himself, and not to back down. “I told you I didn’t want to leave, you said you knew me, you must have known I would want to stay.”

“I did. But there are other things of importance that need to be taken care of.” Neville eyed his Gran incredulously. She met his gaze with an unimpressed look of her own. “You need a new wand and I... we need to visit Gringotts.”

“Gran, could we please just visit another day?” his voice was pleading.

“No, actually young man , I don’t think we can.” Neville sighed and she uncharacteristically slumped. “Neville, do you think it might be time to admit that you love her, at least to yourself?” He stilled under his Gran’s scrutiny, his mouth was suddenly parched, and she huffed. “As if I don’t know… Longbottom men are all the same. Do you know how often I heard Alice’s name before your father finally began courting her?”

Neville bit the ‘of course I don’t because you never tell me anything’ that wanted to fall from his tongue and remained silent.

“They sat next to each other at the sorting feast in their first year. He wrote about her in his first letter home. Her name was in the paragraph above even the house he had been sorted into. I believe sometime in his third year he began to have… feelings. According to all that knew him, he made moon eyes at her until he finally stated his intentions in their sixth year but even then, it was only because Sirius Black had pushed him into it.”

“How did he do that?” Neville asked bemused.

“Supposedly the young Black heir pretended he admired Alice, and all of his friends played along. He happened to drop into a conversation in the common room that he was planning to ask her to Hogsmeade. I doubt the potential implications of young Master Black’s reputation were lost on your father. As I understand it, Frank marched straight over to where Alice was and asked if she would accompany him on the next Hogsmeade weekend.”

“What did mum say?” Neville asked, his voice taut.

“She was fairly surprised though she said yes, and your father couldn’t have been too upset about the whole thing as he told the story to a quite humorous effect during his wedding speech,” she stood abruptly.” Come on. We don’t have time to waste.”

“Gran...” he began exasperatedly.

“Neville,” she returned with frustration evident in her tone. “If you are going to do this, you will do it the way your father did, and his father before that. I need you to leave the ward and come with Diagon Alley to me today. I will not ask you again. Hermione is out of danger and well protected.”

He stood from his seat to face her, and his shoulders slumped. 

“For when you tell her,” she prodded eyebrows raised as if he was missing something self-evident and she wanted him to hurry up to the conclusion when he remained quiet she sighed. “I understand now might not be the time, but there are ways things are done to prove how serious you are Neville, and that means a trip to the vaults. Who knows how long it will be before we cannot make trips like this without attracting unwanted protection.”

Neville flushed, but the last of his protests died on his lips. His Gran wanted them to go and get a favour for Hermione. He didn’t know whether to be surprised or delighted. 

He turned to face the curly-haired witch on the bed that he… that he loved. He stood at the top of the cot and placed a soft kiss on her cheek, barely touching her skin in case he woke her. What would she think of all this? He supposed it was time to find out. 

Augusta Longbottom clucked her tongue, and Neville walked to his bed to grab his robe he had left over a chair. 

“And unless it was lost on you after a battle with actual Death Eaters, we are at war. You cannot go scurrying about without a means of protecting yourself.”

Neville couldn’t argue with that point; he had felt vulnerable since the battle. It felt incredibly strange not to have a wand on his person. He thought about saying how glad he was that his fathers had not been destroyed, but he ignored it. 

“I’ll fetch my cloak.”

Chapter Text

Neville was there when Hermione woke up, like always. It had been two weeks since the Order had brought them back to Hogwarts, and she had continued to get better. Hermione was weak and drowsy, but she was healing, and despite the sideboard full of potions she still had to take regularly she was now staying awake for most of the day and sleeping better at night.

Neville had been there when Madam Pomfrey had spoken to her about her scar and told her that it was permanent and although it would fade slightly over time, the aggressive purple marking would not diminish in size.

Hermione had tried to be brave. ‘Seems silly to get upset about it when worse things have happened’ she had said and then apologised for the first few traitorous tears that slipped down onto her cheeks. Neville had held her tightly long after the nurse had left and Hermione remained saddened about the news for days after. When anyone else was there, she masked it well enough. Hermione would ask questions to distract them from their enquiries about her health and put on a brave face that Neville was shocked, so many of them bought so quickly. In front of him, she let herself break, just a little. It was as reassuring as it was gutting to see.

When Hermione had fallen asleep the day before, Neville had quietly asked Madam Pomfrey if they could move her bed to the back of the ward. He had mentioned that he didn’t think Hermione would feel comfortable if people would be continuously gawking at her as they went past. The nurse had appeared to be suppressing a smile, but she gave him the green light and helped him move Hermione’s bed in a way that wouldn’t disturb the sleeping patient. 

When Hermione had awoken that morning, her eyes had flicked around her new location until understanding seemed to dawn. “You had them move me into the Longbottom suite,” she said, more statement than a question as she smiled.

Neville at once felt gratified and exposed. Rather than comment, he simply nodded and reached for Hermione’s hand, rubbing his thumb over the back of it as she wiped the sleep out of her eyes and drank a little water.

“How are you feeling today?”

“Must we?” Hermione asked, but Neville ignored her bad temper. He could understand how the monotony of the constant questions was getting to her. Her prickly reply was a sign that she was returning to her usual self. Hermione did not like a fuss.

She finished her water and Neville waited her out, looking at her impassively until he sighed. “Better,” she replied finally and Neville squeezed her hand in thanks. 

“There are loads of visitors here, are you ready to see some people?”

Hermione began to sit up, and Neville scrambled forward to help adjust her pillows. When she indicated she was ready, he pulled back the curtain, and Mrs Weasley came bustling in talking at a mile a minute. She lamented Hermione’s weight, how pale she was and a million other things Hermione had zero control over while she was recovering in a hospital bed. As Ron’s mother went to sit in his usual chair, Neville made to leave. 

“Neville.” He turned around as soon as he heard her voice. Her tone was beseeching “Would you stay?” Hermione asked tentatively.

Without another word, Neville walked back, climbed onto the bed next to her and took her hand. He was sure Mrs Weasley was gearing herself up to say something, but at the last moment, she suppressed it. Neville momentarily distracted himself by wondering who would come out the victor in a duel between Mrs Weasley and his Gran and those musings allowed him to block out a lot of the conversation and relax.

As the visitors continued to shuffle in and out, he and Hermine edged closer together. Over time Hermione began to get tired, and Neville could feel her slowly relax against him. He wondered how to tell her he wanted to sit like this for the rest of his life.

Hours later and finally, the last visitor was gone, and he and Hermione sat to eat lunch. Neville found that he wasn’t all that hungry, and he picked at the food he had on his plate while his mind span. Neville thought back to how nervous he had been when he was preparing to ask her to the Yule Ball. Now, with the gift of hindsight, he would rather do that ten times over rather than fully admit his feelings. But there was no going back. He didn’t want to go back. Too much had happened for him to be able to pretend otherwise. When Hermione finally got out of the ward, and he was confident that she would do so soon, he couldn’t just pretend that he only wanted her friendship. Not after sitting with her every day and sleeping next to her every night. 

Right at the back of his fear, there was a kind of nervous excitement, a kind of fuzzy hope that whispered to him of things that could be his.  

“Hermione can I talk to you about something?” he blurted before he lost his nerve.

“Of course,” she replied politely, putting the remains of her sandwich on the table by the bed and looking up at him expectantly. He felt bad for disturbing her lunch, she hadn’t been able to eat as much lately, and she needed her strength. Still, they didn’t have long before the afternoon visitors arrived and Neville had gotten to the point where he knew he wouldn’t be able to sit still for another couple of hours even if she asked him too.

Neville exhaled shakily and willed himself to get through this without major incident or misunderstanding. 

“First, this is going to come out all wrong, I’m not as good with words as you and well, anyway...” he stuttered. He thought it was a reasonably good idea to get a disclaimer in there first. “You helped me find my toad when we first met and even though I thought you were a bit of a snotty cow.” Hermione laughed at his description. “You were kind to me.”

People didn’t always see Hermione’s kindness, Neville thought. In his opinion, she was kind to a fault. It wasn’t the type of care that was blind, in fact, often in order to be good to one person she was sometimes cruel to another, but she was loyal, dependable and so fierce it took his breath away. 

“Then you reached to hold my hand when you were scared in that boat, and I think in some way I’ve wanted to hold your hand ever since.”

Neville had felt rather pleased with that line. It had taken a lot of premeditation to get at least one sentence ironed out where he thought he had expressed himself properly. It helped that he had been planning this speech in at least some capacity for the better part of two years. If the rest was crap, he hoped she would remember that bit. 

Hermione’s wide-eyed expression reminded him of an animal he’d seen once at a zoo, a bush baby he thought it was called. He waited for her to say something to interrupt his words, but she was uncharacteristically silent - of all the times for her to keep her opinions to herself. 

“I … I love you, Hermione... Not some image of you, not the girl that took all day to get ready at the Yule Ball, though she was nice too,” he laughed nervously, hoping she would understand his meaning and not be insulted. “You with your insane hair and loud opinions and colour coded revision notes,” he reached forward to grip both of her hands and was relieved when she didn’t pull away.

“I love you because you always saw me. I think I’m the best version of me when I’m around you and if that just means we remain friends, then I can try to be happy with that, but I love you, and I want… I want everything.”

Hermione went to speak, but her breath hitched. She unhooked her fingers from his, leaning forward from her crouched position on the bed to place both hands on his arm. At first, Neville feared that the gesture seemed consolatory, but she began to speak, her voice thick. 

“I love you too… I don’t know when exactly... When I finally realised, it felt like I had felt it always... You’re the best person I know.”

Neville smiled tentatively at her and tried to sort all of his raging emotions before he did something genuinely ridiculous like cry. His hands shook as he reached into his pocket, he retrieved a black velvet box and handed it over to her.

As she opened it, he felt anxiety retake the wheel, and he couldn’t help but babble to fill the quiet. “It’s a piece from my house collection. My dad gave it to my mum on her seventeenth birthday. So Gran said… I’d be honoured if you’d wear it, but you need to understand what wearing it means… You can think about it if you want… I don’t want you to feel any pressure-”

“I know what it means,” Hermione whispered, looking at the necklace on the soft red cushion almost reverentially.

“You do?” he asked, shocked.

She nodded. “It’s a declaration of intent. Formally it means that...you think you might want to well… someday... Well, it’s serious,” she stammered out, part recital part question as her face flushed.

If Neville had been a more fanciful person, he might have believed his heart had skipped a beat. Not minutes ago, she had admitted that she loved him, and yet, somehow learning that she had researched into this hit him as a greater revelation. Maybe Hermione had been thinking of this as long as he had? Perhaps she was considering her life as entwined with him as he felt his was with her?

He nodded. “Told you I was a bit more old fashioned than you thought,” he said sheepishly, and Hermione beamed at him.

Hermione was still running her fingers over the box. “Neville it’s so beautiful… would you mind if I… can I wear it now?”

“If you want to,” he answered calmly though his mind was screaming with triumph. He moved to place the chain around her neck while Hermione held her hair out of the way. When he dropped it against her skin, it fell just above the swell of her breasts covering the beginning of the mark that Dolohov had left her. The chain itself was platinum, and the stone that hung from it was a small ruby surrounded by paved diamonds. It was brilliant, yet understated. It suited her.

As he moved back, after securing the clasp, Neville realised how close their faces were. He could feel her shallow breaths against his cheek and moving cautiously he dropped his forehead to hers and just breathed her in for a few minutes, willing his heart to stop the attempt to break out of his ribcage.

Neville pulled away slightly to be able to see her eyes, keeping one hand cupped around the back of her neck. “I love you, Hermione Jean Granger,” he declared quietly.

He searched her eyes and thought he could detect the smallest amount of water at the outer corners then carefully, falteringly, he dropped his face for their lips to meet. Hermione’s full lips felt slightly chapped, which was no surprise as she never drank enough water, and he pushed against them softly, chastely. After a few blissful moments, he pulled away and pushed his forehead back onto hers, anxious that they should be touching even when he was refilling his lungs.

“Does this mean we’re dating?” Hermione blurted, her cheeks pinking as soon as she realised what she had said.

Neville moved to sit next to her on the bed, pulling her into his side and revelling in all the simple touches that were half an hour ago forbidden to him being possible now. He measured his response carefully. “Well, yes, if you want, but it’s a bit more than that.”

Neville knew he had to be clear. He reminded himself that the fear was over, he had been accepted, but she needed to understand what that meant.

“It means my intentions are more… well, what…”

“I know,” Hermione said, and Neville could see in her eyes that she did. 

He looked back down at the necklace again and the scar that lingered beneath it. Things weren’t going to be easy for them; there was too much darkness right now to hope that there would be time for everything they wanted.  

Neville touched the bottom of the chain and then sucked in a breath, ordering his thoughts.

“I know you, Hermione and I know how focused you are on making sure Harry sees this through, and it will make it difficult, but this means,” he pulled on the necklace, “that I will be here when this is all over. I will still be yours and I will make sure you never experience anything like this again. Because you need someone to put you first and I want that to be me if you will let me.”

Hermione smiled tremendously and pressed a soft kiss to his lips. Neville marvelled at her initiating the contact, and while none of his previous imaginings of this time had included them being in the hospital wing, he found he wouldn’t have changed a thing.

“Thank you for understanding I... would you mind if we didn’t tell people for now,” she asked. His face must have given away that he was not particularly in favour of that idea and she hurried to explain herself. “It’s just, with Sirius dying and everything it just feels a little... disrespectful now and I-”

Neville leant forward to kiss her lips, smiling against her skin. This means of stopping Hermione’s worry monologues he could get on board with.

“If that’s what you want,” he agreed. “But we’ll tell them eventually, right?”

“Of course,” Hermione replied. Then she looked down and touched her necklace lightly.

“And you’ll come and see me over summer?” he asked eagerly.

Hermione smirked. “Rouge Death Eaters couldn’t stop me.”

Neville winced but only just bit back the laugh that wanted to huff out of his chest.

“Too soon?” Hermione asked with something approaching a coy smile, and Neville grinned at her.

“That was in bad taste. I think you should kiss me again to make up for it.” 

He was chancing his arm, he knew it, and he half expected Hermione to punch him for his cheek. So her muffled, shy, “Okay,” took him by complete surprise. 

“Okay?” he asked, and she nodded as her cheeks pinked. 

Neville wasted no time in kissing her again, again, and again. He would have to take these chances now. As soon as Madam Pomfrey saw them, he was pretty sure his prolonged stay in the hospital wing was over. 

It was so worth it.

Chapter Text

Before Neville knew it, the summer was over, and he and his friends were back on the Express, hurtling towards Scotland once again. Their normally bustling carriage was unusually quiet. Neville was reclined in his seat, calmly staring out of the window at the passing scenery. Hermione and Ron had headed off to the Prefect’s carriage for their preterm meeting, and Luna was in the middle of telling Harry about some random thing she had spent the summer searching for with her father.

It had been a little awkward when he had first met Hermione on the platform; neither of them really knew what to do now. How were they supposed to greet each other now they had a new understanding? Neville had debated kissing her cheek but ultimately he felt that was something you would have done with an ageing relative rather than your girlfriend, so in the end, he went with a hug. 

The problem was, he didn’t know how much affection he was allowed to show. Hermione had asked them to keep their relationship quiet, and though Neville had initially been opposed, he understood why she had asked. By the time Hermione had been discharged from the hospital wing, there had only been a week left of term and Harry had been a complete mess. 

In saying goodbye to Hermione after their last train trip, Neville had been comforted by the fact they would see each other over summer, and then, it hadn’t happened. 

Though no one at Hogwarts had told Hermione’s parents anything about what had happened, she had told them she was ill for the last few weeks of school. She had to say something. She was still pretty weak at the end of the year. So, the Granger’s had whisked her away for a three-week holiday to spend some time together and recuperate. By the time Hermione got back, there was summer reading and a whole host of other obligations they both had that conspired to keep them apart. 

Neville had missed Hermione horribly. He missed her whenever they were apart, but the separation felt exceptionally cruel given what they had been through. He would have grown utterly despondent if it wasn’t for her letters. The conversations between them had evolved from what they usually sent. Slowly and cautiously, more affectionate phrases found their way into the notes along with words on how they missed each other and heartfelt passages. Neville had saved them all. And yet, despite all of the communication they’d shared, Neville had never once thought to ask what they would do when they got to school. So he was left in another kind of limbo. 

Neville was disturbed from his thoughts by the unwelcome sight of Romilda Vane bursting into the carriage, her eyes fell hungrily on Harry, and she invited the-boy-who-lived to come into her compartment while making a face at him and Luna. Harry rebuffed her uncharacteristically coldly while emphasising that Neville and Luna were among his closest and most loyal friends.

Neville barely spared the girl a second glance. He wasn’t exactly surprised that Romilda hadn’t set her sights on him. But it did leave him with an anxious thought. What if Hermione thought the same, what if she was embarrassed to be seen with him? Maybe that was why she didn’t want to tell people?

No, that wasn’t fair on her, Neville chastised himself. Hermione simply wasn’t like that. She had genuine reasons for wanting to keep quiet, or at least, genuine at the time. Only, Neville didn’t know how this worked now. Was he allowed to act like her boyfriend in private? Or did he have to pretend nothing had happened whenever he saw her?

He threw his head back with a little more force than he should have done. This was so confusing!

-/-/-/-

An hour later, Hermione and Ron rejoined them. Hermione offered Neville another one of her shy smiles and stepped over the assortment of stuff on the floor to join him on his side of the carriage. No one else seemed to notice how close she sat, but Neville did. Just as he was about to begin a conversation, a second-year poked his head around the door informing him he was invited to join Professor Slughorn in his train compartment.

It was as if the universe was mocking him. Neville would have laughed if he didn’t so badly want to scream.

Neville stood and gave Hermione a shrug as he stepped over all of the things on the floor and awkwardly ambled down the moving train. When he got there, he soon realised that the two bumps he had gotten for his trouble were not worth it.

Professor Slughorn was a portly man in the later years of his life with a red nose and watery eyes. He talked a lot, though most of it required little reply and instead, seemed more determined to have his assumptions about each of them confirmed. Neville endured thirty minutes of probing into his family and their supposed prestige before he was allowed to go.

He got the distinct impression that he would not be invited back. Neville couldn’t say he was sad about it. Given his personal circumstances, using his parents as the key to his own success seemed even more repugnant than it would to most. Given the improvements he’d been making with a new wand, Neville knew his grades were nothing to be ashamed of, and he had achieved those all on his own. 

Eventually, with no further interruptions, Neville sat back down next to Hermione, and they talked over their respective summers, sharing all the small smiles and gentle touches that they could get away with while amongst their friends. Neville pushed a lock of curly hair behind her ear, and she brushed a smudge of pasty off his cheek. He pulled on the cuff of her sweater, and Hermione looped a finger around his.

If this is what it would be like, Neville felt he could cope, as long as Hermione kept looking at him like that, it would all be okay.

Slughorn, the new potions master as it turned out, had become something of a talking point at the school by the time they were approaching the end of the first term. His ‘Slug Club’ gained particular notoriety, and lots of their peer group were trying to find ways to be included. Apart from, it seemed, the students Slughorn most wanted to ‘collect’.  

The whole dynamic made for entertaining, if cringe-worthy potions lessons. As well as almost salivating over Harry, Slughorn had taken a shine to Hermione, which provided Neville with no end of amusement as it was clear she found their Professor vaguely repellent. But, she tried her best to afford him the respect she afforded all of the teachers. Neville was keener than ever these days to pounce on any chance he had to tease Hermione.

They had been muddling along together. It was a lot easier than he would have previously believed possible. Neville had assumed that people would have started to notice by now. It was usually the case that any new relationship in the Tower would be sniffed out in a matter of days. But, he and Hermione seemed to fly under the radar. 

Neville had wondered at first if this meant that their classmates didn’t expect them to be a couple, but, over time, he began to think they had just spent so much time together, for so long that they never really raised any suspicion. 

All in all, it was a good thing. While they weren’t being forced to hide too much, they got away with subtly holding hands and the occasional clandestine kiss. After liking Hermione for so long, those little moments of bliss when they found themselves alone were more than he could ever have dreamed of.

Neville wasn’t sure why they still weren’t telling anyone, but he didn’t know how to bring it up. Things were going too well, and he didn’t want to cause an argument that could potentially ruin everything.

There were two weeks until Christmas break, and Neville was planning a trip to Hogsmeade the next day, hoping to find something for Hermione’s Yule gift. He shuffled into the Great Hall along with the rest of the crowds, ready to have dinner. He ended up getting a space with the boys from his dorm, just down from Hermione, who was in deep conversation with an animated Ginny. 

He had only just been commending himself on how relaxed he was about the whole thing. Neville had been ruminating on whether they ever needed to tell anyone. After all, what difference did it make? He didn’t need the validation from others if he had it from her, and Hermione was her own person, he would never want to change that about her. 

Then, all of his progressive, forward-thinking left him in an instant as he watched Cormac Mclaggen saunter into the hall and squeeze in between Hermione and Ginny on their bench. Neville didn’t have to strain to hear what he was going to say, everyone around them went utterly silent, all of them in various stages of subtle, clearly trying to listen in as well.

“Hermione, you’re looking lovely today,” Mclaggen drawled before reaching forward to finger one of her curls. Neville felt himself stiffen. “I know we’ve both been invited to go to this Slug Club thing.” Mclaggen waved his hand as if he received party invitations every day. Then again, maybe he did? “So I thought we could go together, what do you say Granger? You, me, a glass of mulled wine, some… mistletoe,” he said flirtatiously, then he winked at her.

It was clear from the blonde’s approach that Mclaggen assumed Hermione would go with him; he seemed completely confident of her response. After apparently saying all he was planning too, Mclaggen leaned forward to pick a slice of bread off Hermione's plate, which he then appeared to be attempting to eat… suggestively. Ron muttered something that made Harry grimace, and though Neville didn’t hear it, he shared the sentiment entirely. He waited anxiously for Hermione’s reaction, unconsciously gripping the sides of his chair.

Mclaggen was sitting entirely too close though at least Hermione had managed to shrug away his hand from her hair. The sight of someone else touching her with that level of familiarity made his chest hurt.

As much as Neville might have wanted to look away, after only a few moments, he could feel eyes on him, and he knew without looking that it was Hermione trying to bore a hole in the side of his skull. Neville pushed his food away and gazed down the bench. Hermione was looking at him directly, and she appeared so uncertain, even faintly pleading. At that moment, it occurred to Neville for the first time that she might think that he was hesitant to tell people for his own reasons.

What if they had both been avoiding saying anything for the sake of each other? What if Hermione had expected him to raise it again, and when he hadn’t, lost her nerve?

Before he could think about it too carefully, Neville stood up from his seat and moved up the table to where Hermione was sitting. Falteringly, he stood behind her and laid a hand on the top of her arms.

“Mclaggen,” he began as forcefully as his voice would allow. “Hermione is... she’s my girlfriend… So she won’t be going to the party, or any party, with you or anyone else.”

He paused, concerned about Hermione’s response and completely oblivious to the mixture of gasps, incredulous noises or aahs around the table until she straightened up beneath his hands. “Yes, thank you for the kind invitation Cormac, but I’m going with Neville.”

Polite to a fault, Neville thought to himself with a smile. He wondered if she had bid Malfoy a fond farewell after she had punched him in the face in the third year, he couldn’t believe he had never asked. 

Mclaggen looked surprised for a second but then he shrugged, nodded quickly and moved two places down the table and asked another girl. Neville huffed out a laugh, suddenly aware of everyone’s eyes on him. They seemed to have attracted the notice of the other house tables as well. Hermione had a blush over her cheeks; he didn’t think she’d ever looked more beautiful.

Thinking it might be time to end the show, Neville held his hand out, and Hermione took it. He helped her get out of the bench, detangling her from an enthusiastic Ginny. Overcome with happiness, Neville made a show of bowing to her with a muffled ‘my lady’ as they exited, which increased her pretty blush yet again.

“Chivalry again, Mr Longbottom?” Hermione said as she tucked herself up next to him.

Neville grinned. “Anything for you, Miss Granger.”

“Then you’ll come to the Slug Club thing, as Cormac so eloquently put it, with me?”

Neville sighed but pulled her closer to his body. “Do I have to?”

“You said anything,” Hermione reminded him with a smirk, and Neville realised he didn’t care if Slughorn was insufferable, he’d go anywhere if she asked. 

“Got me there,” he replied, and she offered him a bright, happy smile. 

Neville ushered Hermione out of the main doors of the castle. He was going to have to dig out his bloody formal robes.

Chapter Text

The next day, when Neville woke up in the boy’s dorm, he was on cloud nine. Who would have thought that a potential altercation with Cormac Mclaggen, of all people, would have spearheaded such a massive turnaround in his relationship? Neville felt that he really should find a way of thanking that total idiot if he could stomach it - maybe if he could do something good for him where the other boy would never clock on that he was behind it?

Neville rolled over on his bed and closed his eyes. Memories were so much better than the sight of his roommates bumping into each other as they got ready in disorganised, messy chaos. 

-/-/-/-

When they left the Great Hall, Hermione was jittery from all of the attention and Neville tugged her out of the main doors to walk around the grounds. It was freezing, and they only had their school robes, but it was worth it to be afforded some blessed and rare privacy. Neville knew they certainly wouldn’t have any when they got back to the Tower, not after that display.

They followed the narrow, icy footpath that wrapped around the castle until they came to a stop between two of the larger greenhouses, where they could be sheltered from cold winds and prying eyes. Neville turned to face her, grabbing her other hand in his. Hermione drew her bottom lip between her teeth, and for a horrible moment, Neville thought she wasn’t happy. 

“Neville, are you… are you ok with everyone knowing?” she asked shyly from under her lashes.

He released one of her hands to pull her chin up to face him. “Hermione I want everyone to know,” he answered honestly, hoping that she would pick up on the total sincerity in his voice. The smile that broke across her face warmed his heart and made all of the confusion and fear from the last few months melt away.

“I wasn’t sure... That it… I know I asked if we could keep it secret and then… well, then it was summer, and I didn’t really know how to ask, and it had been such a long time, me liking you I mean,” the flush on her cheeks must have been working overtime to heat her face in this weather. “I didn’t want to ruin it.”

Neville thought for a second, he wanted to talk to her properly while they had the chance. He was pretty sure she would be swallowed up by girls of all ages as soon as they got back to the common room, and he fought not to roll his eyes. “Maybe we should promise to tell each other when we are worried about something, yeah? Then we can avoid this… I wanted to bring it up too.”

“You did?” she asked softly.

"I did.”

Hermione raised onto her tiptoes to kiss him, and though Neville could still count the number of kisses between them on his fingers (and toes), this one was almost as special as that first one in the hospital wing. Hermione’s mouth was slightly chilly, but he could still feel the heat radiating off her skin from her earlier embarrassment. Kissing her was magic, pure magic and she wanted to kiss him, and now everyone knew there was nothing to spoil it, no lingering doubts, no ducking in case they got caught.

Feeling encouraged by the display in the hall and their hesitant sharing, Neville gently swiped his tongue against the crease of her mouth, ready to pull away the very moment Hermione showed any sign of discomfort or disinterest. When she slowly opened her lips under his, Neville was sure his eyes widened under their closed lids.

He was nervous of this part, even though he wanted it in more ways than his brain could list, muddled as it was by her proximity. He had never done this before. Neville was momentarily terrified of doing something wrong until he felt the gentle caress of Hermione’s tongue in his mouth. Somehow it was more simple then, or maybe it was just that he had shut his mind off and let his body take the wheel for a moment.

Her mouth was soft, warm and comforting, and the intensity of it blew him away. It was like a magnified version of sitting next to her or holding her hand. Awareness of what they were doing washed over him and he felt tingles prickle all over his skin. After what could have been two minutes or ten years, Neville slowly broke away, his body screaming for oxygen. He needed to find a way of doing that continually for the rest of his days.

When he looked down at Hermione, his girl, and saw the awed look on her face and the slight puckering of her swollen lips, he felt a rush of pure joy. Forgetting himself for a moment, Neville lifted her into his arms and spun around on the spot. She giggled until his foot hit some compacted ice and they fell to the floor in an unruly pile.

Somethings would never change.

“Come on,” she said, pulling him up. “We better get back to the castle before we freeze to death or break something.”

He smiled a little goofily, and they marched up in search of warmth, mindful of each other’s secret glances every few steps.

-/-/-/-

Neville’s happy day time musings were cut short by someone cruelly shaking the post of his bed. “Come on Nev, mate. Less dreaming of my best friend and more getting up for school.”

Neville groaned and threw an arm over his face. “Coming, Harry.”

Neville pulled himself from bed slowly, still unhappy at leaving his blissful sanctuary. He shook off the residual sleep as much as possible before heading into the shower. Sharing the small row of cubicles with every boy in the Tower made him even more glad he was getting towards the end of his school career. Though he currently had no concrete plans for the future, Neville had already strictly ruled out sharing a bathroom with upwards of thirty other men. 

Occasionally he wondered what he would do in more detail. But it was more contented imaginings than detailed prep. Would he get his own place or stay living with his Gran? Would Hermione move in with him? What would she think ab…

“Earth to Longbottom.” 

The laughing voice registered in his brain just as he was violently swiped with a towel. “What the hell, Harry?” Neville grumbled.

“Sorry… sorry,” the messy-haired boy said, though his laughter made him sound anything but. “Listen, I just wanted to catch you before lessons and stuff.”

“Yeah?” Neville asked, his voice muffled as he stuck his toothbrush in his mouth. 

“Well, I just wanted to say… err... well… I’m happy for you Neville.”

“Oh… thanks, I suppose,” Neville replied self-consciously as he tried to pat his hair down into some sort of order. 

“I wasn’t surprised really,” Harry shifted awkwardly.

“No?” Neville asked, flushing a little. He’d always thought he had hidden his feelings pretty well, maybe not from Hermione, but everyone else.

“No… but… I sort of hoped. Hermione you see… I always knew she liked you.” Harry must have taken in Neville’s wide-eyed expression as he quickly added. “She never told me anything, but she’s my friend, and she was… different with you.”

“She’s always had a lot of time for you… and Ron,” Neville replied with what he hoped was a tone without bitterness.

“Yeah but... She treats us like siblings, younger siblings, ” Harry said and smiled as if lost in some memory. “You, she talks to like an equal... She thinks I’ve got too much on my plate, so she never tells me when she’s scared, but she tells you.”

Neville thought for a moment, and he wondered if Harry was right. It was an alluring proposition. Although Hermione had hinted she’d had feelings for him for a while, he had never really considered that it might be the case. Harry set a steely gaze on him. “So you’ll look after her, yeah?”

“Yeah, of course.”

“Oh, and one other thing.”

“What Harry?”

Harry rubbed the back of his neck. He was not overly happy with whatever he had to say. “Be careful of Ron, yeah? I’m not sure how seriously he has taken this relationship thing between you and Hermione.”

Neville nodded, understanding perfectly. “No worries Harry, if it comes to it, I’ll set him straight.”

Chapter Text

As it turned out, Harry had been right to warn Neville about Ron. Sooner than Neville would have thought possible, their short-tempered friend made his unhappiness at the new development known.

Neville had been out on the Quidditch pitch that morning to watch this year’s team tryouts. The competition was fierce, and everyone had an opinion on who was best for the various open spots. Hermione had asked why he didn’t have a go himself, and Neville had shrugged it off. A couple of years ago it would have been because he wouldn’t have thought he was good enough. Now though, Neville was much happier to watch from the stands. With the improvements he was making with his grades, he was suddenly more motivated to study and it was time he was loath to miss for practices. It certainly had nothing to do with his study partner, nothing at all.

Neville had watched with Seamus and Dean while Ron made a pretty good showing, despite his obvious nerves. They’d thought he’d done enough to make the team once he had saved four out of five quaffles. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to beat McLaggen, who saved all five with irritating ease.

The groans from the stands were loud and heartfelt as the blond swaggered to the ground - as much as he was able on a broom. 

Once the exercises were complete, and everyone had had the chance to show off their skill, Neville dragged himself down towards the pitch to hear Harry make his announcement. It had been something of a foregone conclusion that McLaggen would make Keeper, but Harry still didn’t look happy about it. Neville couldn’t blame him.

Ron didn’t stay long after Harry made his choices and he was long gone by the time the rest of the fifth years walked forward to congratulate the newly appointed team and Harry, on his first proper act as Captain. Galleons were already changing hands on the outcome of the next few matches.

Neville eventually headed back to the common room, leaving McLaggen to continue telling tales of County Quidditch games he had played over the summer and brags about how much the team would improve now he was included. Neville was ruminating over how many coins he may have already lost when he came to an abrupt halt inside the portrait hole at the sound of shouting.

Ron was looming over Hermione who was still wrapped up in Neville’s jumper like she had been when he left the common room. Hermione had been determined to watch from the stands, despite her loathing of the sport, but she had been sick for three days prior, and Madam Pomfrey had expressly told her to remain indoors. 

As Ron continued yelling, Hermione’s eyes became as red as her little nose. Neville didn’t want to intervene, Hermione was more than capable of fighting her own battles, but he wouldn’t let her face them alone if he could help it.

Making his decision, Neville moved to the side of the fire and stood behind Hermione, placing a hand on her waist to get her attention. She turned in his grip to say hello, and for a moment they both got a little lost in starry-eyed gazing at each other, at which point, Ron exploded.

“Oi! You don’t have to keep that up, there’s no one here to see you.”

Hermione sighed. “As I keep telling you, this is not an act, Ronald. Neville is my boyfriend.”

Neville tried hard to keep the smile off his face, but it was a near-impossible feat, but when Ron stepped forward, his expression changed automatically. Without thinking, Neville moved from behind Hermione to beside her. “I don’t know what your problem is Ron, but as Hermione says we’re together, so you’re going to need to back off.”

Ron went vaguely purple. “She’s my friend too, and that means…”

“She is your friend,” Neville sighed. “So stop yelling at her because you’re in a bad mood. She’s not your punching bag.”

Ron huffed before stomping out of the portrait hole. Neville sagged and sat into the wingback chair nearest the fire and tugged Hermione down to sit across his lap. His jerky movements made her lose balance, and she landed harder than he had expected, knocking the wind out of him before she erupted into uncontrollable giggles.

When they both came up for air, he twirled a curl around his finger. “Do you think we’ll ever be smooth?”

“No,” she breathed out, still shaking off her laughter before she ran a hand across his cheek. “Falling with you is better than standing with anyone else.”

“That was really cheesy, you know?”

“I do,” she replied with a beaming grin. “I’ve been practising.”

Neville made a subtle scan of the room before resuming his new favourite pastime of kissing his girlfriend.

Neville was looking forward to the Christmas holidays for probably the first time ever. Somehow a Christmas miracle had already been performed. His Gran had agreed that Hermione could stay over for one night and he was taking her to visit his parents - even the knowledge that his Gran would likely talk about her magnanimity for years to come was not enough to kill his mood.

Neville hadn’t been sure how to ask Hermione if she would like to come, but eventually, after finding a rare private moment, he did. As usual, Hermione understood him better than he understood himself, and she thanked him for the invite, quickly replied that she would be delighted to come and squeezed his hand. 

The walk from the apparition point to the hospital was as brisk as the weather, and Hermione was ladened down with a scarf and particularly unattractive woolly hat that she had knitted herself. 

Their group was surprisingly comfortable and Neville felt that at some point the previous evening an accord had been reached. Hermione’s presence seemed to zap away the tension that usually thrummed between Neville and his Gran. Augusta talked endlessly but so did Hermione, and they had managed to find their way to conversing in a way that was closer to debate than Neville would like, though they never outright argued.

Everything seemed more manageable with Hermione there. Usually, the trip to St Mungo’s would have been made in total silence. Hermione twittered on in her usual fashion, almost as if she didn’t notice the lack of participation from her travelling companions, except she obviously would have done, she was smart. Even his Gran looked at the curly-haired witch with a grateful expression as she continued to discuss a piece she had read in The Quibbler without seeming to expect any engagement from anyone else.

When they were standing outside the all too familiar ward doors, Hermione stopped chattering and gripped his hand, squeezing just once before they went inside.

His parents were much the same as they ever were. Reassuringly content if hopelessly blank. His Gran went to speak to his Dad, and the healer in charge of their care, and Neville moved towards his Mum with Hermione following close behind. 

“Mum,” he greeted as he leant forward to kiss her hair. “This is Hermione.” He gestured towards his girlfriend, who shuffled forward.

“Hello, Mrs Longbottom… ah... Alice, it’s lovely to meet you. I have heard a lot about you,” Hermione said warmly. His mum didn’t respond. She was hunched, sitting on the edge of her bed, turning her fingers in her hands and studying the creases in her palms. “I brought you something,” Hermione continued, reaching into her bag and producing a large piece of fabric in a bright red colour. Neville’s brow furrowed, but he didn’t say anything as Hermione dropped her bag and placed the swatch into his mother’s hands.

Alice paused abruptly and then began running her fingers over the cloth with evident eagerness. When her hand swiped from left to right she stilled, then she did it again. Suddenly her head snapped up, and her eyes were wide with delight. His mother stood and held the fabric out to Neville, proffering it so he could see what she had.

Bemused, Neville took the cloth and couldn't understand his mother’s reaction, until he ran his fingers over it. He held it one way and then the other until he worked it all out. Each corner of the fabric was charmed to feel different when touched. One corner was as soft as the socks his mum liked so much, one corner was warm, there was even an area where the fabric crackled underneath his fingers like the texture of the sweet wrappers his mum always carried.

Soon, Alice had her fill of Neville pawing at her gift, and she hastily took it back from him and placed it on her lap so she could run her hands over it. 

Neville looked up at Hermione, who was still watching his mother intently. She shrugged at the intensity that was no doubt in his expression and stepped closer to him.

“Muggles have something similar for babies. It’s called sensory play,” she explained. “I was going to buy one then I thought I would have more options of what to include if I just made it. This way is long-wearing too.”

Before Neville could say anything in response, his Gran called Hermione over to say hello to his father. Neville was grateful for the few moments he got to compose himself while he rested his head on his mother’s shoulder.

All too soon, their time together was over, and when Hermione came to say goodbye, Alice darted forward, one hand circling Hermione’s wrist as she dragged her hand over to the crunchy area of the fabric and beamed at her.

“You’re welcome, Alice. Merry Christmas.”

Chapter Text

Neville ran down the corridor as fast as his legs would carry him. It was times like this that he was grateful for his extra height, even if he didn’t know what to do with it most of the time. Turning quickly, he suddenly realised just how far Luna had fallen behind, and he doubled back to grab her hand. Once he was sure he had a firm grip, Neville continued moving through the halls at a pace she could keep up with, part running, part dragging her behind him.

They were outnumbered and outmatched - again - and somehow, they had all gotten separated. Right now Neville was trying not to panic over whether that had been an accident or part of the plan by the invading forces.

After running flat out for a further five minutes, Neville was spent. He knew he would need to pause for a moment to be of any use if they were discovered. It would be pretty tough to win a duel already wheezing. Spotting a bend in the corridor, Neville pushed Luna into an alcove before dropping his hands to his knees and attempting to get his breathing under control.

Luna huddled herself against the wall and Neville placed a hand on her shoulder. He hoped they would be safe here for a little while, but he couldn’t guarantee it. It wasn’t the time to think about it, but he was angry with himself, they should have seen this coming, and if not them, at least the professors should have foreseen this.

Malfoy had been odd all year that much was clear, but they had been ignoring Harry going on about it. Frankly, Harry had always taken on something of a manic zeal when discussing Malfoy, and most of the Gryffindors had learnt to tune it out, but now… now when Neville looked back, he realised he should have been paying more attention.

The blond Slytherin had always been a bit of a menace, eager to make anyone’s life harder wherever he could. But this year it had all changed. He had become withdrawn and pale, even for Malfoy, and just… well, odd. Still, whether he had taken the mark or not, Neville would never have thought he would have let Death Eaters into the castle. They were all supposed to be safe here. He had thought they still had time.

Hermione had spoken to him, telling him as much as she could he expected, about her plans for next year. ‘It’s beginning’ she had said, ‘we need to be ready’. Neville had thought she was worrying too much and he had been more focused on the painful certainty that the ‘we’ she spoke of, did not include him.

When his DA galleon had burned in his pocket earlier that night, Neville had almost missed it. His and Hermione’s coins, the silver ones, he still kept on him most of the time, they used them rarely, but he had a soft spot for the memento. With the gift of hindsight, he had been falling for her even then. Maybe even from when she gifted him the prototype set in their third year? 

When he had finally seen the message, Neville had jumped from his bed, dressing quickly and arriving in the common room to find Ron and Hermione in a state of acute panic. They promptly explained all they knew, but it wasn’t much to go on. If someone had asked him at the end of last year if he would ever do something so reckless as the Department of Mysteries again, Neville would have answered with an emphatic no. However, this was Hogwarts, and these were his friends. What was he supposed to do? It wasn’t as if he could have just turned and gone back to bed.  

They’d agreed on a plan that was flimsy at best, but there wasn’t time for a more drawn out conversation. Hermione had run off in search of Harry and Ron had gone to alert as many teachers as he possibly could, and Neville had collected Luna and took off towards the room of requirement.

Neville had seen Malfoy with his own eyes, and then he had seen two of the Lestranges. Rabastan was different in the flesh, worse if that could be believed. His appearance was feral and mean. You could tell from the set of his mouth that it was a very long time since he’d had anything approaching ‘good thoughts’. His roving eyes set Neville’s teeth on edge, and he almost looked away in time, but he didn’t, and that was when he saw Bellatrix arrive after her brother in law. 

The impact of her appearance wasn’t lessened by their altercation the year before. How could it have been? If anything it had only thrown kindling on a fire that had been burning since Neville was an infant. Bellatrix Lestrange was a lightning rod for Neville’s every emotion about the war, his parents and his childhood. Bellatrix’s wickedness permeated right down to her bone marrow. Neville wasn’t sure he could ever hate anyone or anything more than he hated her.

In the chaos that followed the Death Eaters arriving, Draco had gotten away and honestly, Neville couldn’t say he was sad about it. At the time, when his vision had disappeared under a blur of Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder, Neville had been incensed, he had wanted to grab the idiot and scream at him until he was hoarse. What had he thought he was doing? But what would it have achieved? Neville might not have believed he was on the same side as Malfoy, but he didn’t think he could fire off a curse at him like he was the enemy either. 

He’d caught sight of Malfoy only once again, an hour or so later. Neville had been on his own and had skidded into a corridor blindly only to see a flash of blond hair and a vast, towering shadow. The breath had left Neville’s body when he realised it was Fenrir Greyback standing hunched in the shadows.

Malfoy had seen him, Neville knew he had, but he didn’t say anything. They had exchanged one glance, and Neville imagined their terrified faces were a pretty close mirror. One word from Malfoy and Greyback would have reduced him to no more than scattered body parts, but he didn’t say anything.

Quick as he had been able to manage, Neville had gone. 

-/-/-/-

In some ways it felt like the shortest time ever before it was all over, and yet, such a lot had happened it didn’t seem plausible that it could have all passed in one night. The school had been breached, Dumbledore was dead, and Snape had been the one to kill him.

Neville had been separated from Hermione almost as soon as the battle began. When it was over, he had been helped to his feet by a worse for wear looking Remus Lupin who had insisted Neville went to the Hospital Wing when he had seen his obvious pain when standing. Neville had politely declined. There was no way he was getting treated until he found out whether or not she was ok.

He shuffled from hall to hall, trying to ignore the sharp pain in his side until he caught sight of her. Hermione was dirty and looked as exhausted as he felt. She had debris lodged in her hair and a cut across her cheek that she had smeared at some point. But she was standing, and her eyes were bright. Harry was pulled against her side, which would have looked ridiculous, given their height differences if it wasn’t for the absolute pain written all over Harry’s face.

“Neville,” she shouted as she saw him and then gently passed as shell-shocked Harry over to Ron before running down the corridor towards him, almost jumping up to pull him into a tight hug. He moaned as the compression hurt something in his side, and she darted back quickly. Neville mourned the loss despite the intense pain.

“What is it? Where are you hurt?” she asked her eyes running over him frantically.

“I’m fine, Hermione,” he said and smiled indulgently at her fierce, incredulous expression. “I promise.”

Harry and Ron caught up with them, and after a few shared words, they all headed to the hospital wing before they were hunted down and dragged there.

Madam Pomfrey fussed over them, and they were all thoroughly chastised by the time she was done looking them over. Despite his aches and the whole terrible nature of everything that had passed, Neville couldn’t help but smile as Hermione was bullied by the motherly matron into having a full examination despite her constant protests that she was fine.

It made him hope for a time in the future when he would be in that situation, forcing her to go to bed if she was sick, taking care of her if she hurt herself. He couldn’t think about the possibility that the war might take that away from him. If he couldn’t have that, then what was he fighting for?

Neville had a few broken bones, including some of his ribs on his right-hand side. He certainly wouldn’t be up and about tomorrow, but he had gotten off far more lightly than he should have done, they all had. Or so Madam Pomfrey sought to remind them at every possible moment.

Neville was bracing himself for Dumbledore to appear and thank them for what they had done in a roundabout way before he reminded himself, the Headmaster was gone.

-/-/-/-

It seemed an age before the lights in the ward were finally dimmed. Bill’s injuries had been more severe than most, and the sobbing altercation between Mrs Weasley and Fleur Delacour had ensured they were all awake at least an hour longer than they wanted.

Neville had finally managed to find a comfortable spot when he felt the mattress creak next to him. At first, he thought he might have been dreaming it until he registered that one side of his hospital issue blanket had been lifted a smidge.

“Hermione?” he whispered in his softest possible tone.

The cover stilled, and he could almost feel her brain whirring in the silence. “No it’s Greg Goyle, of course it’s me,” she replied.

“What are you doing?” he asked, rolling over in the bed to face her. He could barely make her out in the dimmed lights of the infirmary, but he was pretty sure she was blushing.

“I’m sorry I’ll just-” She dropped the edge of the cover and turned to go.

“No, come back,” he called as loud as he dared and held the cover open to her. He saw Hermione turn, or rather he could make out her hair turning, and a second later, her small form was joining him in the slim hospital bed. 

Neville willed himself to keep calm and was thankful for his injury giving him little opportunity to embarrass himself. They had never laid next to each other before, not this close, not while Hermione was entirely well. Once, they had lounged about in the grass while revising, but it hadn’t been the same.

Sensing they were both doing their best not to let a single piece of their respective anatomy touch, Neville sighed and reached for Hermione’s shoulder. He rolled her into his chest so that her head fitted underneath his chin. They’d had another brush with death. Surely he was allowed a hug with his girlfriend? No one needed to know how far his mind may wander.

“Madam Pomfrey is going to kill me,” he breathed out as he kissed her forehead and Neville felt more than heard her soft laughter as she shuddered in front of him.

Neville wrapped his arm around her and held her close. “I’m so glad you’re safe, Hermione. I just kept thinking about… about last time. You have no idea what it was like being next to your bed, not knowing if you were going to wake up. I don’t think I could do it again.”

“Shhh,” Hermione soothed, lifting her face to his and kissing along his jaw. Her breath heated his cool flesh, and her kisses pulled him from unhappy memories. Neville moved his arm to her face to be able to meet her mouth and poured all of his love for her into several minutes of kissing which left her breathless and him painfully aware that he might not be as injured as he first thought.

When Hermione’s slim fingers drifted from his face to gently touch his chest, Neville faltering let his hand trail down her delicate neck to lightly skim her shoulder, all encouraged by her quiet moans directly into his ear.

When his palm met her breast over her ribbed pyjama top, Neville was immediately hit by three thoughts of equal importance. Firstly, Hermione wasn’t wearing a bra. Secondly, boobs were totally and completely more amazing than he had ever thought before, and he had already ranked them pretty highly. Finally, he had no idea what he should be doing with it now it was resting in his palm.

Whether through some latent instinct or the reminisce of a borderline instructional shower room conversation, Neville sighed then moved his hand back to her shoulder in an effort to push her flat against the bed. Everything was going perfectly until he moved in a way his body didn’t like. He yelped without being able to stop it and then buried his face in his pillows to stifle the groan that was torn from his throat.

The light in the infirmary came on, and Hermione reacted instinctively. She jumped from his cot and stood beside his bed as if she had come over when he groaned. “Madam Pomfrey,” she called as the matron hurried over to the bed. “It’s Neville. He must have moved in the night… or something. It really hurt him, could you take a look?”

She looked so earnest, and her eyes were so adorable Neville was sure the nurse would have been wholly fooled if it hadn’t been for her reddened, bee-stung lips, flushed cheeks and wild eyes.

Madam Pomfrey went about examining him and checking his bandages before advising all he needed was bed rest. She made a few notes on his chart and then looked over the others before pausing at the end of Hermione’s bed. 

“Miss Granger, I would advise you not to leave your bed again this evening, no matter how desperately Mr Longbottom may moan.”

The flush she gained on her cheeks made Neville wonder if Hermione had enough blood left in the rest of her body to perform essential functions. He thought he had managed to stifle his laughter admirably well until a pillow whacked him full in the face, at that point he lost all pretence of restraint and on one of the worst nights of his life, he laughed himself to sleep.

Chapter Text

Neville was usually spiritless when he was at the townhouse. Every summer would be the same. There was never enough to do, there was never any company, and his Gran would typically be on his case. Right now he would take a year of those summer days over what he was feeling. The holidays had started a month before, and as the weeks had gone by, Neville had been winding himself up into an increasing state of panic, his mood falling with every letter he received from Hermione.

Something was off. More than the war, more than Hermione’s fear for all of them, there was something she wasn’t saying, and it couldn’t be good. Initially, her odd tone had made Neville feel a little insecure. What if it was him? What if she wanted to break it off ahead of whatever she was planning? But the letters kept coming, sometimes more than once a day. Surely if someone wanted to break up, they would communicate less rather than more? 

Only a week before, Hermione had started using their coins in the evenings. They hadn’t used them so often for a very long time. Hermione always reached out to him, but then she never seemed to have much to say, but, at the same time, she seemed keen to keep the conversation going for as long as possible.

Neville was becoming so highly strung that when his house-elf Tip popped into the greenhouse while he was working, he dropped the terracotta pot he was holding, and the smash rang out into the large space.

“Master Neville, Miss Granger is here,” Tip squeaked and then frowned at all of the ceramic shards and mud on the floor.

Neville bent down so he could be at the elf’s level, and to shield some of the mess. “Is she okay?” he asked, and he saw the answer in the creature’s eyes before he spoke. “Where is she?”

“Madam has taken her into the family sitting room.”

Neville didn’t wait for further information, and he was out of the doors before Tip had even finished speaking. He would apologise for his rudeness later. He crossed the threshold of the house, not caring that he was still in his apron and muddy boots. His Gran could pitch the fit of her life for all he cared.

As he made it to the door of the sitting room, it opened, and Neville stepped back as his Gran came out. He moved to walk past her, but she placed her hand on his chest and pushed him back while shutting the door. She was a lot stronger than she looked. Neville attempted to crane his head around to see Hermione, but he couldn’t.

“I need to-” he began, but he was cut off.

“Neville, listen to me,” his Gran beseeched.” Hermione has had a very trying day, so you are to tread carefully with her. Is that clear?”

“Yes of course, but what-”

“She will tell you herself,” his Gran replied and then removed her hand from his person. “I am going to get some wine; I think Hermione could do it with a glass, not to mention me.”

Neville blinked. That did not bode well. He sucked in a hard breath and pushed the door open. Despite it not being the largest room in the world, he had to scan the place twice before he saw her. Hermione had folded herself down into a chair, and her hair was pulled back in a loose attempt at a braid. 

Neville approached her quietly, fearful of what had caused her to come here unannounced, she never had before. But he was glad, in a funny way, glad that she felt this was a place she could come, somewhere that would be safe.

“Hermione?” he said gently, moving to kneel in front of her in the chair.

At the sound of his voice, tears started to fall from her eyes, and she made no move to wipe them away. From the look of her ruddy cheeks, she had been crying for a while. “Hi,” she breathed out, and her voice was low and thick. “Sorry to just drop in on you.”

“It’s okay,” he responded softly and stretched to brush a curl from her overly warm face. He never got as far as touching her hair, as soon as his arm was extended towards her, Hermione launched, or rather fell into his arms, knocking him back onto his bum. Neville’s arms wrapped around her instinctively, and the touch broke the dam Hermione had built around her emotions like it had so many times before.

Hermione excelled in bottling up her every feeling, but Neville had found if he so much as asked if she were alright, it wouldn’t be long before her defences swept away. He supposed Harry and Ron had always been fairly oblivious to her moods, but he had never been. Neville found after they began dating, that his effect on her was intensified through touch. If Hermione was ever unhappy but didn’t want to talk about it, Neville would cuddle her, and she would have a cry and get it out of her system. He realised over time that not everything had to be solved, sometimes Hermione just wanted to be held.

But this, this was different. Neville patted her hair and talked nonsense at her until she was quiet but then… he had to know. He knew the position she was in, but he hated all of the secrets between them. More so because he suspected she wasn’t sharing the burden with anyone.

It took gentle prodding and continuing tender ministrations, but eventually, the whole story came tumbling out - what Hermione had done to her parents. She had sent them away, wiped all traces of herself from their memories. With every line she falteringly spoke, Neville held her tighter and tighter to his chest, but it never felt close enough.

Finally, she came to a stop and turned her head on his shoulder. “Do… Do you hate me? For what I… For what I’ve done.” 

Neville felt the heat from her tear-stained face against his neck, and he breathed a couple of steady breaths to hold back his own emotion before he spoke. “I could never hate you, Hermione, never. You can’t honestly think that people will hate you for this?”

“My parents might,” she whispered. Her voice was tiny and so broken, the sound was so unlike his girl that Neville barely recognised it.

He looked up to the ceiling and ran his teeth over his lip as he contemplated. “They might not understand, maybe not at first, but they won’t hate you, Hermione, you were trying to protect them.”

Silence fell, and when Neville began to get twinges in his back from being sat too long on the unforgiving floor, he jostled slightly, and Hermione jumped up. He pulled himself to his feet and settled on a comfortable sofa, pulling Hermione towards him. She laid down on the cushions with her head resting on his lap, and he began to card his fingers through her hair, pulling out the fastening to her ineffectual braid.

Hermione must have been tired, as her eyes began to falter almost as soon as her head laid down. 

“Why did you come here?” he asked as she began to sink into his legs and when she stiffened, Neville cursed himself for the insensitive phrasing. An apology was on the tip of his tongue when she spoke.

“I don’t want Harry and Ron to know,” she admitted. “Harry will blame himself, and we don’t need that distraction right now.” Neville nodded though she couldn’t see it. 

Neville’s hands moved around her face, alternating from petting her hair to smoothing the lines above her brow. The only sound for the longest time was the rhythmic ticking of the clock on the mantel.

Hermione was nearly asleep when she spoke again. Neville would have missed her words entirely if he hadn’t felt her mouth move against the fingers on his left hand. “Needed… you... needed, Neville.”

Neville brushed a thumb across her cheek and whispered, “Go to sleep.”

It felt like hours later when the sitting-room door opened again. In that time, he had summoned a blanket to cover Hermione while she continued to sleep but had not sought to move. Neville was aware that their time was becoming limited and he didn’t want her to wake up alone, not after everything that had happened.

“How is she?” his Gran asked softly.

“Been asleep for the last few hours. She told you?”

His Gran nodded. “I don’t think she intended to, but she was so worked up by the time she got here it all came pouring out as soon as I asked her if she would like a cup of tea.”

Neville looked down at Hermione’s face. She looked younger while she was asleep. He imagined it was what she would have always looked like if they weren’t so burdened. 

“She wants to keep it a secret,” he admitted, needing his Gran’s counsel now more than ever.

“That would be wise,” his Gran sighed, and Neville looked up questioningly. “What she has done, noble though it may have been, is highly illegal, if the Ministry were to find out-”

“They won’t, will they?” he interrupted suddenly nervous of what could happen to her.

“I doubt it. I gather we are the only people that know, and it’s best it stays that way.”

Neville rubbed his hand against his jaw. As scary as the idea of the Ministry finding out was, he knew if he was thinking more logically that it was unlikely. Hermione wouldn’t tell anyone else for fear of Harry finding out, and neither Hogwarts or the government would be asking any questions of her. As a Muggleborn, Neville believed that the magical world tried to pretend Hermione’s parents didn’t exist as much as possible. It could be years before anyone ever found out they were even in Australia.

“What will she do now?”

Neville looked over towards the door where a backpack was resting against the frame. It didn’t appear that Hermione had sought to bring much with her. “She said something about going to the Burrow, it’s the wedding on-”

“Certainly not,” his Gran snapped in a muted version of her usual authoritarian tone. “The state she’s in with all of those people running around she’ll be driven mad in a day. No, the wedding is on Saturday, we can take her there on Friday. She can stay here until then.”

Neville blew out a large, relieved breath. “Thanks, Gran.”

“I wouldn’t thank me yet, Neville,” his Gran replied crisply. “I intend to make a bedroom up on the other side of the townhouse. Do not make me have to consider warding your doors.”

“Yes, Gran,” he replied, cheeks flushing.

Neville wanted to tell her that she needn’t have bothered, that he would never have gone looking for Hermione’s room in the night, but his Gran always knew when he was lying, so there wasn’t much point.

Neville looked at the fairy lights that were scattered everywhere as he queued up to get himself and his party a drink. It felt nice to think that, his party, that there was now a group of them. For so long it had just been him and his Gran, but somehow with Hermione, there was the promise of something bigger, better.

She had stayed with them for four days in the end, and that time had galvanised a friendship between Hermione and Augusta. At first, Neville was pleased to see it; however, by the end of her stay, he had the good sense to be mildly terrified of what an allegiance between those forces could mean. It was clear the women would not always agree, but despite their confrontational past, they seemed to hold a level of respect for each other that made their debates more… cordial, than before.

As Neville made it back over to their table, he noticed his Gran was now sat amongst a large crowd of ageing witches with his decidedly young witch nowhere to be seen. Neville proffered the drink he had brought over to his Gran and then moved away quickly, so as not to get sucked into the conversation. As his eyes moved around the room, he saw Hermione. Her pretty red dress was swaying in the slight breeze as she spoke to a tall boy in black robes. Neville took one step closer before faltering. It was Krum, Viktor Krum.

Neville paused for a moment to get over himself and then carried on. He was a bigger man than that, even if he did double check to make sure Hermione was wearing her pendant. It looked beautiful on her tonight, she hadn’t taken it off since he had given it to her, but it usually would rest under school robes or ratty jumpers, today he could see it lying against her skin, and if he could, so could everyone else.

When he got to her side, Neville passed her drink, and Hermione turned to beam at him. He shook Viktor’s hand and made some polite if slightly awkward conversation before he asked Hermione to dance.

They didn’t speak for several moments, and Neville spent the time drinking her in. Hermione however, spent it working herself up to something. He could feel it in the tension in her back and shoulders and the slight frizzing of her hair. 

“What is it, Hermione?” he asked straight into her ear, hopeful they wouldn’t be overheard.

She huffed out a little laugh. “How did you always know?” he said nothing just raised his eyebrows expectantly. They had spoken about her mission in a roundabout way, well, as much as she could tell him. He had been angry at first, but he knew she didn’t want to tell him out of some sense of protection rather than exclusion.

Neville still thought the whole idea was beyond ridiculous and the little he knew was enough to snuff out the small amount of sadness he had still been holding onto over Dumbleodror’s death. The former Headmaster had convinced Harry that this was his destiny. Now, Hermione and Ron would also be following after him.

“It’s time,” Hermione whispered sadly, and Neville held onto her tighter. “I don’t know how long we have, but it’s time. We can’t wait until the beginning of the school year. They will have come to find us by then.”

Neville swallowed down his questions and his protests. This was happening. He didn’t want their last conversation to be an argument. “What will we do while you’re… away?”

“Stay safe,” she said, “and we will have the coins. It would probably be best not to use them too often just in case of detection, but we can get messages to each other.”

Neville pulled her closer and laid his cheek on the top of her hair. “When will you be back?”

“When it’s done.”

“You have to give me more than that, Hermione,” he implored. His arms circled her more tightly as he began to feel a little desperate.

Hermione sighed, and he thought he could hear her bite back a sob. “I don’t have anything else.”

-/-/-/- 

Neville stood next to his Gran with one of his hands held firmly against her arm. They had apparated back to the townhouse a minute or two before, but both of them were still trying to get their breath back. Neville had made to walk towards the house immediately, but his Gran had held him back. She was right to do so. The image of the Burrow burning to the ground would be seared into his memory forever, and what was to stop them doing the same here? 

Augusta wanted to wait to see if anyone was coming for them, she refused to be ambushed inside her own home. After all, it was no secret which side of the war they were on. When no one appeared after more than twenty minutes, they went in out of the cold.

The party had gone to shit after Kingsley Shacklebolt’s Patronus had arrived. Hermione had been in his arms one minute and then wrenched away the next. Neville knew they had to get Harry out of there as soon as possible, but it didn’t stop him feeling bitter about it. 

He saw her as the fighting began. Hermione managed to mouth ‘I love you’ across the stamped down lawn, and then she was gone. She popped into thin air as if she had never existed in the first place.

What now?

Chapter Text

Five days. For five days following the Weasley wedding, Neville waited for news from Hermione. Nothing came. No scant letters to reassure him in her absence, his coin remained cruelly blank.

Neville tried to keep going. It was easier given he had no other option. There was plenty to think about, or so he told himself. There was a school year to plan for, and his Gran to settle. When news eventually reached them that a couple of Death Eaters had ambushed the trio, Neville stormed out of the house. He paused when he got as far as the well-kept lawn. There wasn't anywhere to go. He didn't know where she was.

-/-/-/-

NEVILLE

When it finally appeared, his name, along with the burn of a silver coin that hadn't left his palm since he had lost sight of her, Neville nearly fell over himself in his haste to reply.

HERMIONE?

It seemed silly to ask, no one else would have known to contact him using that coin. Even to those that had been in the DA, it would still seem like an ordinary sickle. But the Order's edicts on vigilance had a way itching themselves under your skin. They were undoubtedly repeated enough. 

WE ARE SAFE

Neville stared at the letters for a long time, letting the knots in his body release. He knew better than to ask where they were so he settled with asking Hermione if she was okay. There was only so much that could be communicated given the small number of letters they had at their disposal. But it was enough. It had to be.

Neville called one of the Death Eaters patrolling on the Hogwarts Express an idiot, which was ironic, given that it wasn't his smartest move to date. He should have felt fearful, but all that was lingering in his blood was anger. He'd had happiness in his life; in the last few months it had been more potent than ever. Despite everything they had been through, everything they had seen, Neville had taken his chance and had somehow ended up a step closer to someone who appreciated him. Someone who, perhaps one day, would gather together the fragments he had and help him build a real family. Now because of this war, because of this pointless divide over something that should never have mattered, he was separated from her.  

When Neville looked at the Death Eaters on the train, he had thought of Hermione and how unsafe she was. Voldemort had taken his family, and now they had taken her.

That anger got him through the first day and the seemingly endless train journey where Neville sat with Ginny and Luna in a carriage by themselves. They pretended everything was fine. It was to be their last chance to do so.

The anger got him through the welcome feast where the students of all years sat in total silence while the new arrivals were sorted. Neville ignored Snape standing in the place of a man he had murdered, and he ignored the skulking Carrows. Instead, he waited until the speeches were over and then introduced himself to every new Gryffindor on the table. 

When the food appeared, there was none of the usual expressions of delight that typically rang out in the hall. It was so quiet you could hear the scrape of cutlery against the plates. The atmosphere was so thick Neville felt a weight on his chest. He wanted to run away. He tried to pretend it wasn't happening. But Neville knew he couldn't, not with all of those little faces looking up to him for cues on how to behave. He couldn't let them down.

-/-/-/-

It didn't take long for things to come to ahead. Amycus Carrow had been made Dark Arts Professor as part of the new, ridiculous curriculum and his sister Alecto took over what had been Muggle Studies. Neville was glad he didn't take the class, but he was terrified about what was happening in there and what it meant. He made a mental tally of all of the half-bloods that remained in the castle. Most of the Muggle Borns hadn't come back.  

As Neville went around cataloguing the most at risk out of the student body, he also studied the new teachers. It quickly became apparent that neither of the Carrows were very bright. It made Neville wonder why Voldemort had recruited them in the first place. But then, brains weren't everything. The Carrows, as it turned out, made up for their lack of intellect with inventive and unrelenting cruelty. 

-/-/-/-

Neville was in the latest nightmare Dark Arts lesson, trying to tune out Amycus Carrow's pathetic attempt at a lecture when the door crashed open and his sister strolled in with three terrified second years in her wake. Neville sat up in his seat and watched them cautiously. From a distance, it was clear they were walking oddly, he initially thought it was fear, but by the time they reached the middle of the classroom, he could see they had been bound. There were thick ropes around their feet and hands, and Neville knew that if it hadn't been for their heavy winter uniforms, the twine would have been cutting into their flesh.

Alecto had brought them there for punishment. Neville didn't bother to listen to what they had supposedly done. He already knew it would be some invented infraction. The brother and sister spent any time they weren't 'teaching' patrolling the corridors looking for students to torment.

"Excellent," Amycus beamed, his broad smile displaying his yellowing crooked teeth before he turned to face the class. "It looks like we have some volunteers for you to practise the Cruciatus Curse on."

Neville's heart jumped into his throat as he watched the colour drain from everyone's face.

Not this. Anything, anything but this.

"Let's see," Alecto called out, and she made a show of scanning the room. It was a pointless production, Neville knew it would be him. He'd been at the Ministry. He'd been there when the Death Eaters had attacked Hogwarts. He was one of the best-known blood traitors in the school. It was never going to go any other way.

"How about, Longbottom ?" Alecto said. Her smirk was just as disturbing as her brothers, but Neville fought against his mounting fear to raise his head and stare back at her impassively. So far he'd only been subjected to stray Hexes and the occasional 'accidental' contact in the corridors. It had been enough to dislocate a bone in his hand and heavily bruise his shoulder, but he knew this was going to be worse.

Alecto gestured for him to stand in the middle of the room, in front of the cowed children she had dragged in behind her. Neville remained sitting. He looked at Amycus who was watching events while leaning back against the blackboard. He raised his eyebrows at Neville, and for the first time, Neville realised that this had probably been planned. There was too much expectation on their faces for him to think otherwise. 

Neville palmed his wand and squared his jaw. "No," he said finally, and he was glad that his voice was loud, clear and without the hint of a shake. It brought the eyes of everyone on him. 

Three more times they told him, they commanded him to obey until Amycus was leaning over the desk bearing his teeth and Alecto was practically foaming at the mouth. Neville nearly bit through his tongue to keep himself from saying anything he shouldn't, but he managed it, he refused all three times. 

He kept his face neutral while his brain whirled over what he could do. Neville had gotten pretty good at defence over the last few years, and he was confident he could hold his own against one of the twins, but both would be a problem. He had watched them over the last few weeks, know thy enemy and all that. Their skill level wasn't high, but they were very aware of each other. The persistent rumours about the true nature of their relationship, that Neville did not want to linger on too long, indicated they would be very adept at fighting side by side.

Anyway, even if he did somehow manage to overpower them, what then? He knew he wouldn't get two feet out of the classroom door before he was apprehended. It left him with only one option. He wasn't going to do what they asked. He couldn't. That only left taking the punishment they dished out.

Neville hoped that standing up to them would trigger something in the rest of the class, or in the second years that had expected him to torture them to save his own neck. It wasn't much, but they could all do with a little hope. 

-/-/-/-

Neville thought about hope later. He'd always been the type of person that associated colours with random things; lessons at school (Herbology was green, Charms was blue), days of the week (Monday was purple and Friday a sort of burnt amber) but mainly, and most consistently he linked colours with feelings. Hope seemed red to his mind. 

As Neville laid on his back panting on the floor of the classroom he had been left in, he imagined the girl in the bright red dress. The gauzy fabric swung loosely around her hips. She turned around, looking at him as if she knew he was there and gifted him with a bright, calming smile. 

While his forehead broke out in a sweat, Neville watched as she disappeared from view - to safety, or so he imagined. 

While he clenched his fingers, trying to promote some feeling in the tips, Neville focused on her red lips as she mouthed 'I love you', right before everything faded to black.

-/-/-/-

Neville eventually made it back to the Gryffindor common room after Madam Pomfrey had given him potions to help with the aftershocks and the leaden feeling in his limbs. The nurse had looked on the verge of tears the entire time she was treating him, and after a moment's hesitation, Neville had pulled her into a hug.

She gave a series of muffled apologies and Neville had shushed her as sternly as he dared. He had almost laughed when he thought about what Madam Pomfrey would have done if he had behaved like that a year ago. Everything was so different now. 

She had quickly pulled away and dabbed her eyes and then went back to reading his charts. Neville wondered how much she had seen in the few weeks they had been back. Madam Pomfrey had no control over any of it. If the teachers acted too strongly in their defence, they would be gotten rid of, and without those few good ones left to safeguard them, it might mean death for the students that were left behind. 

Once he had handed her his handkerchief, Neville wondered if this was how Harry had always felt. It was a burden having to put your hand up and jump into the ring, especially when you were terrified and had no better plan to offer. 

When Neville stumbled through the portrait hole, he found what remained of the Gryffindor contingent of the DA sitting silently. There was no question they were waiting for him.

Neville shuffled in and sat on a chair nearest the door, letting his limbs adjust to a new angle. It hurt a lot, but it was manageable. 'Moody' may have been a Death Eater in disguise but he had taught them one right thing that year, you had to really mean the curses to inflict damage. He did not doubt that the Carrow's wanted to hurt him, but not to the same level Bellatrix Lestrange had. At the Department of Mysteries, Neville had only been held under the curse for a few seconds, and it had felt like his skin was being melted from his bones. While today's experience had hardly been a massage, it had been.. livable. Which was a good thing, as he was sure it wouldn't be the last time.

When no one spoke Neville got to his feet, he desperately needed to sleep, and as much as he knew they wanted reassurance, he didn't have it in him right then. "We'll start training tomorrow," he muttered before climbing up the stairs to be alone with the coin that would no doubt remain cool no matter how much he wished for it to warm.

Chapter Text

The first term of every new school year was an odd one. The castle would be full of students trying to learn their way around the corridors and grounds, and the older years would need to look down wherever they went to avoid tripping over some first year that had got stuck in a moment of awe. It had been funny and at times, a little annoying when you were in a rush, but part and parcel of life in a boarding school. Neville imagined it had always been that way. Until now. Now they went everywhere marching in rows. 

The school was becoming some sort of totalitarian nightmare, but most were complying with the new regime. The Death Eaters in charge might have thought it was because the children were sympathetic to their cause. To Neville, it was clear they just wanted to survive. 

When the message had got out that the DA had covertly reformed, Neville had gone into the room of requirement expecting to find the same twenty or so people, less those that had not come back that year.

There were seventy of them.

Neville had let himself become overwhelmed for just a second, and then he sprung into action. The first order of business was that no one went anywhere alone. The corridors weren’t safe anymore. Greater numbers meant less chance of being picked on. It didn’t mean you were safe, but it increased your odds. That was all any of them could do at the moment. They couldn’t stop the dice from rolling, but they endeavoured to load them in their favour.

As much as the risks involved made Neville’s head spin, it made him feel better to be doing something, to be taking an active stance against the new order. For a while, it had felt like they were making headway. They weren’t winning, and it was entirely possible that they never would, not this year in any case. But spirits were lifting, Neville could see it. There was a subtle air of resistance that was creeping in. People still compiled, of course, but now they did it with a sneer rather than a whimper. It was progress.

Things got infinitely worse after the Christmas Holiday.

Though it had never been his favourite time of year, Neville was looking forward to a couple of weeks reprieve from the castle. He wondered how many of the students would come back and where they would go if they did not. Right now there didn’t seem to be anywhere left to turn.

They had managed to set up a wizarding wireless in the Gryffindor common room and were keeping tabs on any bit of Order information that they could. Trying to stay one step ahead was imperative and almost impossible.

Neville had been sat on the train, wondering what the holidays would bring one moment and then next, he was on the platform staring blankly ahead wondering how and why it had happened.

They had taken Luna.

Neville had been distracted by his Gran. She had been waiting for him, stood away from the crowd and as rigid as ever, but there had been a weariness in her eyes that had him rushing over. Neville had been tying himself in knots, trying to find a way to articulate his concern when he heard them. 

There were Death Eaters with some Ministry bods at the end of the platform. They wrestled two squirming children away in the blink of an eye. Then, Luna walked up to them and introduced herself, calm as ever. ‘I heard you were looking for me,’ she had said. ‘Well, here I am.’

Despite her compliance, she was grabbed roughly by the back of the hair, and they apparated away long before Neville could do anything. 

“Gran,” he said as he darted forward and his Gran gripped the back of his coat. 

“They’ve gone,” she replied. “We have to get home. We have to let people know as soon as possible.”

Neville couldn’t move, his feet were rooted to the spot. His Gran shoved him to the end of the platform and out of the station. 

Neville couldn’t bring himself to tell Hermione about what was going on. He was sure wherever she was, she had enough to worry about without him ladling on top. He knew her and Harry well enough to assume that if they knew they would insist on coming back to help. Harry would see it as his duty, and Hermione would follow. 

On Boxing Day he held his precious coin in his hands and prayed to Merlin she would answer. 

MERRY XMAS

The coin heated up almost immediately and Neville jumped back in surprise.

I LOVE YOU NEV

I LOVE YOU TOO , he sent back urgently and then a moment later EVRYTHIN OK?

It was a ridiculous question, and they both knew it, but they went through the motions each time.

YEST BAD she replied and his chest constricted for a moment until the coin heated again BETTER NOW

Oh, Hermione, he thought to himself. Why must you be such a terrible liar?

When Neville returned to the castle, enough time had passed for the Carrows to identify him as a ringleader in the recent displays of disobedience. He would have thought it was pretty evident that he and Ginny were behind most of it, but then, intelligence had never been their strong suit.

The severity of his punishments began to intensify, and much as it wrangled him, Neville knew that being out in the open was likely to get him killed. After the hardest decision of his life, he moved his stuff and hid in the room of requirement. 

It was a week before there were ten permanent residents.

A month into the new term, Ginny came to find him. Neville was reviewing a charms textbook to study the spells Hermione had used on the DA coins. It would have been useful to have them for the new members. Currently, they were relying on those that still had them whispering messages to others in a pre-established chain. They changed the order every week or so to avoid detection as much as possible. 

The book wasn’t much help, not that he had expected it to be. Neville had already spoken to a couple of other seventh years who said they weren’t able to do it. He was just giving in to his latest sigh when the redhead appeared. Ginny sat down next to him and fiddled with her fingers. She looked twitchy, and he shut his book softly waiting to hear whatever she had to say.

“Neville,” she started a moment later. “I have something to tell you, but you’re not going to like it.”

What a surprise, he thought. When was the last time anyone gave me some good news? His flippancy dissolved when he turned to look at her. Ginny was trembling, though whether through upset or anger he wasn’t sure, there seemed to be too many emotions rattling across her face.

“Ginny?” he prodded.

“When I went home for Christmas,” she began and then squeezed her fingers till the tips went white. “Ron… Ron was there.”

“What?” he asked, not understanding. How was that possible?

Ginny exhaled. “I’m sorry for not telling you sooner, I didn’t know how to mention it and he... well, it was pretty terrible. Dad was completely furious, and even Mum barely spoke up in his defence…”

“Why was he there?” Neville asked, his tone calmer than he felt.

“I don’t know the whole story. Ron was already there when I got back. I overheard something about them not needing him.” Neville’s hands curled into fists. Ginny noticed and placed her hand on his arm. “Neville, listen, I know Ron can be…. while I was there he was distraught. Whatever may have happened, I’m sure he regrets it.”

“Yeah? Not as much as Hermione and Harry I’m sure,” his tone was bitter, and he was fighting down the urge to hex something.

“I heard him cry Neville….at night… he kept apologising to her, to Hermione, over and over.”

Neville shut his eyes, willing himself to calm down. There were just two of them now, two seventeen-year-olds with the biggest price on their head carrying out some unthinkable task. The odds were already stacked against them as it was.

Ginny laid her head on his shoulder. “He told me they were as well as could be expected,” he noticed the thickness of her voice, and he remembered then, he wasn’t the only one desperate to hear any news. Neville moved his arm to wrap it around Ginny’s shoulder. “They’re living in a tent,” she continued. “Hermione must have taken the one we used for the world cup. Dad got a bit teary at that, said he should have known she would find a way to keep them all safe.”

“A tent?... In December,” Neville breathed out, more words wouldn’t come.

“They will come back Neville, they have to,” Ginny said desperately, and he nodded against her head. “Even if it’s just for Hermione to show us how to do this bloody charm.” 

She tried to joke, but her heart clearly wasn’t in it. Neville chuckled, anything to stop his brain from dwelling on his witch freezing in a tent, out in the open with the whole world against her.

By the time the room of requirement had twenty-five full-time occupants, they needed a new plan for provisions. Desperation made Neville take the bold, or more likely idiotic, decision to attempt to get into Hogsmeade. At this point, it was safer than another covert trip to the kitchens. The route from the room of requirement to the kitchen entrance by the Hufflepuff dorms was too far to Neville to want to risk. There was no longer any question in his mind. If he was discovered, he was as good as dead.

Against all the odds, Neville made it successfully into the town, the sight of which shocked him. The tiny village was a shadow of its former self. Doors were boarded up, windows were smashed, and there wasn’t a soul around. Only a few of the buildings remained open, and thankfully his destination was one of them.

Neville walked around the back of the Hog’s Head. Deserted or not it wasn’t the best idea to get caught walking right through the main door. He knocked gently trying to ignore the piercing gazes of the goats that were penned up outside.

During one of his conversations with his Gran over Christmas, she had told him to go to Aberforth Dumbledore if he needed anything. Apparently, he had been a member of the Order during the first war. 

When the large, gruff man answered the door, Neville threw himself at his mercy. When he had finished his plea for help, Aberforth got up without saying a word and quickly returned with two large baskets full of food and a small tin case. When Neville glanced at it, the landlord spoke for the first time.

“Potions,” he said gruffly. “Gather you’ll be needing some healing ones.”

Neville nodded. “Thank you for this I, we really app…”

Aberforth waved him off, cutting short his thanks. Neville knew not to protest. He quickly shrunk everything down and made to head in the direction he came from when a firm hand landed on his shoulder. “Come with me.”

Aberforth led him into the back room of the pub. The space was much cleaner and tidier than the main room, though the furnishings were reasonably sparse. The large man walked towards a painting that dominated the back wall. It was floor to ceiling in height, and its sole occupant was a beautiful girl with long strawberry blonde hair. Aberforth whispered to her, and her face broke into a broad smile before she nodded eagerly.

“Come here lad,” he called over his shoulder and Neville hastened to comply. “This here is Ariana, she will take you back to the castle. Come with her whenever you need to come back.”

“I will. Thank you,” Neville replied. His shoulders sagged in relief at not having to face the high street again. It was too open and too quiet for him to feel safe.

Aberforth looked uncomfortable for a second. “No need to thank me, I owe more than one life debt to your Gran.” Neville’s eyes widened. “Don’t look so surprised. She saved my miserable hide more than once during the first war.”

Neville had never seen his Gran duel. He had never even seen her use defensive magic before. He’d heard things over the years of course, but somehow the idea of her being the one to save the large stoic man in front of him brought him up short. “Thank you for telling me that, I’ve been… worried.”

Aberforth laughed, and it shocked Neville so much he jumped back. “Sorry sorry,” the man said as he placed a conciliatory hand on his upper arm. “You won’t have heard, and I don’t want to scare you, but you should know. The Ministry sent an Auror to your house two weeks ago. They wanted more compliance from her. They sent Dawlish who’s a miserable bastard and coming from me; you can imagine what that means. Anyway long story short he’s currently in St Mungos.”

“Where... Where is she? Where’s my Gran” he asked desperately.

Aberforth became serious. “She’s on the run officially, but I happen to know she’s tucked away in an order safe house. She will be fine lad, now be away with you I have stuff to be getting on with.”

Neville headed the dismissal and quickly combated the odd sensation of walking through the painting, which became a corridor as soon as he was entirely inside. He hated that his Gran had been attacked at home. He knew that nothing would have angered her more. She grew up in a time where you called people out and arranged a place to meet. You didn’t just turn up in someone’s living room and state your demands. Neville wished it hadn’t happened but was grateful she was now safe. If they made it past this term, he would have to think of another plan for what to do when it ended. Home was no longer an option for him.

By mid-march, there were forty people in the room of requirement. They had magically extended the space twice, and hammocks hung from every possible wall or pole that had been erected. Despite all of it, it wasn’t the worst existence in the world. Neville refused to think ahead further than the next day. There were too many variables to do anything else.

He was lying back on his bunk, mentally reviewing his list for Aberforth. He had no idea where the man was getting it from, but he seemed to be able to access an almost unending amount of food for their growing numbers. At least they weren’t going hungry. 

Thoughts of hunger made him think of Hermione. He wondered if she was getting enough to eat, enough sleep with no one there to tell her off if she wasn’t. Neville reached into his pocket to pull out the coin. He had only spoken to her a couple of days before, but his need to confirm her safety grew larger with every passing day. If it hadn’t been so perilous in the castle, with so many depending on him, Neville would have demanded she tell him her location and he would have gone to find her.

He twirled the slim metal between his fingers for a moment before sending a message;

HERMIONE?

There was no response. It happened sometimes; she was busy and couldn’t always pull out the coin to respond.

Hours later and the coolness of the metal was eating at him, and he tried again.

HERMIONE?

Neville went to sleep, clutching the coin that laid cold in his palm.

-/-/-/-

By the third day without response, Neville had become a little unhinged, he wasn’t sleeping and was barely eating, his hands shook with exhaustion and suppressed rage, and he eyed the mocking silver that was in his palm almost constantly.

It was on that third day that Ginny came and tried to talk him round, her words should have been comforting, no response could be good news she said. They might be onto something, and they can’t reply, she tried when it was clear he wasn’t listening. Her gentle tone should have soothed him, but her body betrayed her.

The slump in her shoulders and the blank expression in her eyes pointed to Ginny having no more faith than Neville did that everything would be ok.

-/-/-/-

Neville sent messages regularly, that was what he did, he sat, and he stared at the coin and sent messages. 

HERMIONE

HERMIONE

HERMIONE

HERMIONE

Whenever he snatched up a little sleep, each dream was worse than the last, and so he tried not to drift off. Not for too long in any case. Deep sleep seemed to make the imaginings of his mind worse, and the vivid nightmares took hours to shake off. 

When anyone asked him how he was, Neville said he was fine, and he said she was fine. It was more comfortable than the truth.

-/-/-/-

On the fourth day, after he had just sent another message, the coin heated so strongly it almost burnt his hand. Neville was convinced he must have imagined it having wished for it so hard he had dreamt it into being.

He glanced down at the object he had come to loathe and slumped when he saw the words printed boldly on its surface.

NEVILLE

His throat constricted and he blinked, staring at the coin in disbelief. 

WE ARE SAFE

Chapter Text

In the weeks following the scare with Hermione, time began to drag. They had now filled the room of requirement with as many students as possible. While they would never turn anyone away, something was going to have to give soon, the floor at this rate.

Neville and Hermione communicated as much as possible over the little coins, which he came to realise was not very much at all. Hermione hadn’t told him what had happened in any detail, just that something had gone wrong, and now she was recovering. That word had stuck with Neville. There was something about it that wasn’t wholly reassuring. Hermione hadn’t said that she was okay or better but recovering.

As much as he could, Neville pushed his worries to the back of his mind. There was no way for him to get the answers he wanted right now. In any case, he hoped it wouldn’t be long before they were reunited. Hermione had said they were getting closer, to what Neville had no idea, but even without her saying so, he would have known something was going on.

In the limited time he spent in the corridors of the castle, Neville could feel that the atmosphere had changed; the sense of anxiety was palpable. It was the calm before the storm. One way or another, the end was coming.

Neville was woken by the soft whispering of his name. He shook off the residual cling of a typical nightmare to find Ariana gesturing wildly from her frame in the room of requirement. It had taken some doing, but they had finally been able to move the twin of her picture in the Hogs Head directly into their camp. As far as Neville knew, no one had noticed.

Ariana was too worked up for Neville to understand everything she was saying, but it was pretty clear she wanted him to follow her, Aberforth must have had a delivery for him.

Neville tapped Ginny awake on his way through telling her where he was going. Unofficially she was his number two, not that the operation of sitting in a room needed a second command. Still, it had given her something to do to help take her mind off Harry, and Neville was more than happy to share the ample burden.

When he stepped into the portrait, Ariana almost threw him into the tunnel behind. Aberforth must have been pushed for time. As he walked down the dusty path he could now navigate in his sleep, Neville braced himself for any news that might be relayed. As well as providing much-needed food and other supplies, Aberforth had been passing on information from the Order. Unfortunately, by the time Neville heard anything, it was already several weeks out of date, and the situation was changing rapidly.

He opened the portrait on the other end and cautiously stepped into the back room of the pub. He blinked, even though the light in the room was muted it was a good deal brighter than inside the dingy tunnel. 

“Neville?”

He heard a strangled gasp in a too familiar voice. He whipped around, and his eyes confirmed what his heart wanted to believe. It was her. Hermione was standing just feet away from him. Neville rushed over to scoop her up, in his haste he was oblivious to anything he came into contact with and then he crushed Hermione to his front. He pushed his face into the side of her neck and felt the wonderful irritation of her hair attacking the skin on his face. She smelt of soot, and all her clothes were faintly damp, but he didn’t care, he didn’t care about much at all at that moment. She was there. She was really there!

Eventually, Neville moved one arm so he could fully brace it around her while his other hand ran over her back and arms. He was mindless to their audience. He just had to know she was real.

Neville was reminded of the world around them by Harry helping a grumbling Ron up from the floor. Apparently, Neville had knocked him down on his way to get to Hermione. He couldn’t say he was sorry for it. 

“Easy Nev,” Ron chastised as he dusted himself off, and Neville snapped his neck up to look at him through narrowed eyes. 

“Shove off, Ron,” he spat. “If I get through today, you and I are going to be having a chat.” 

His eyes dropped to Harry, who looked uncomfortable at their display, but Neville couldn’t have cared less. Hermione wriggled as if wanting to be put down, but he held her tighter. “Hermione please, just a little bit longer, okay?” her only response was to drape her arms around his neck.

“Is it time?” he asked to the room at large.

Harry nodded solemnly. “It ends today.”

-/-/-/-

Despite a heated protest from Hermione, Neville carried her back down the tunnel that led to the room of requirement. He was insistent for many reasons, apart from obviously wanting to hold her, he knew what was coming. What if this was it? There was also the added benefit not being able to punch Ron in the face if his hands were fully occupied. He knew Ginny had said that her brother was sorry, but Neville wanted to hear his explanation (feeble as it would no doubt be) before he forgave him as quickly as he knew everyone else would.

Predictably, the room of requirement erupted when they got back. Ginny pulled Harry into a show-stopping snog in front of everyone, and Neville smiled to himself. His messy-haired friend didn’t look so uncomfortable with public displays of affection now he was on the receiving end.

When he finally set Hermione down, with great reluctance, Neville immediately grabbed both sides of her face, filling his vision with her, and only her. “You are so light, too light. What happened? When I couldn’t reach you with the coin I...”

She sucked in a large breath and took a step towards him, wrapping her bruised arms around his middle. “I need to tell you this properly, all of it,” she said, and despite the subject matter, Neville smiled instinctively at the sound of her voice. It had been so long since he had heard her speak. “There is so much to say, so much you need to tell me too. But Harry is going to want to start-.”

Neville brushed his hand over her cheek. “I won’t ask to know it all now, but… the other day, you said it as bad? I need to know before we go into this-”

“We got caught up by Snatchers,” she said and her eyes filled with tears. “That’s not even the half of it, but its the worst.”

Neville’s throat went dry. “Will you tell me who?”

She nodded just once, and the rough motion was enough to dislodge the water pooling in her eyes, Neville gently wiped it away with the pads of his thumbs and bent slightly to meet her face better. “Whatever happened, Hermione, whatever might happen today, I will love you until I no longer draw breath, do you understand?”

“Yes,” she whispered, and he straightened to lay a kiss amongst her curls. They were in as much disarray as usual, and he found that strangely comforting. She was so quiet he almost missed the words she spoke against his neck.

“Say that again.”

He felt Hermione’s head fall forward till her forehead rested under his chin, her mouth was so close when she spoke; it felt like kisses against his collarbone. “Scabior, Fenrir Greyback and… and Bellatrix Lestrange.”

Neville’s brain screeched to a halt. His fingers tightened on Hermione, gripping her harder than he intended. He wanted to pull her away somewhere so they could talk about everything. He wanted to lock her in a room, so she didn’t have to face anything else. He wanted to kill Bellatrix Lestrange so badly it hurt.

But he couldn’t do any of that, so he held Hermione and waited for it all to begin. 

They didn’t have long together. Soon after Neville had pried what he could out of Hermione, he had to let her go again. They all had to split up. They had their orders. After months of being de facto in charge, Neville found he relished being told what to do. 

Ron and Hermione had something to finish to do with their mission, and once they met up with Professor McGonagall, she sent Neville with Seamus and Dean to the covered bridge. They were vastly outnumbered, and their professor was coordinating attempts to eliminate various entry points around the grounds. They all hoped their efforts would leave them less exposed to a surprise attack.

The Snatchers were already at the end of the bridge when they arrived, and chaos ensued pretty quickly. Neville and Dean did the best they could to hold them off while Seamus worked on destabilising the wooden structure.

As he regarded Scabior’s smirking face, Neville felt anger well inside him. It was deeper than he had felt it before, no doubt brought on by Hermione’s gaunt appearance and his continual persecution over the previous year. Living in constant fear had hardened him to the point where Neville wasn’t sure he would ever be the same again. 

Neville saw the Snatcher’s dirty fingers clutched around his wand, and his mind supplied an image of them around Hermione’s delicate neck. They duelled. Neville fought harder than he ever had before, firing curse after curse in the Snatcher’s direction. Scabior was good, better than he had anticipated in fact, he got a couple of good hits on Neville one of them on his right knee, making it twist around until Neville felt a bone crack.

He was so lost in his rage that when Seamus called for them to pull back, Neville ignored him, determined to wipe the smug smile off the other man’s face. Eventually, when they were running out of time, Dean dragged him back to the safety of the hill and Seamus set off all of the charmed fireworks he had rustled up from the banned cupboard Argus Filch had reluctantly given him the key too.

The bridge gave a violent tremor, once, twice, before exploding into pieces the size of matchsticks. All of the forces that had been sent that way by Voldemort were gone. They had fallen so quickly it was like they had just vanished. 

Neville knew in time to come, he would look back at this moment, at all that life that he had assisted in obliterating. What would the cost be to his soul? 

But he couldn’t focus on it now. Neville collapsed back on the raised bank of grass where the bridges anchoring had once been and cast a pathetically weak Episkey at his leg. Healing charms had never been a strength of his, but it would have to do for now. 

Neville was back in the castle cutting through the Great Hall when he saw his Gran. Her hair was ruffled, and there were smudges down the front of her dark robes. Compared to everyone else she looked immaculate but considering he had barely ever seen her with a hair out of place it was alarming to see her even remotely dishevelled.

“Do shut you mouth Nevile, you’ll catch flies,” she said crisply and then she leant forward and pressed her fingers to his hairline. They came away bloody, which was a surprise, he had no idea when that had happened. “Hold still,” she commanded, and then Neville felt a soft pulse of magic as she healed him. “Are you hurt anywhere else?”

“Nowhere life-threatening,” he replied, and she quirked a smile and cupped his cheek. The action was so unexpected that even there, on a battlefield, Neville froze.

“It is good to see you, Neville,” she said, and Neville reached up to grip her upper arm firmly.

“It’s good to see you too, Gran.”

She seized his cheek as she looked into his eyes and then let her arm fall to the side. “Hermione?” she enquired looking so pained Neville wondered what news she had.

“She’s here,” he said reassuringly.

“I heard…”

Neville nodded. “I don’t know all of the details, but they were taken by Snatchers and then… Bellatrix,” he finished softly.

Something flashed across his Gran’s eyes quickly, but it was gone before Neville could assess it. 

Neville threw himself into the fighting with renewed vigour after the success of the bridge collapse, though he would have had to be blind to miss that things were not going as well inside the castle. The reality was the vast majority of those fighting were school children, and even the ones that had spent time training with the DA were no match for an adult Death Eater with battled honed reflexes from fighting in two wars.

Ron’s scream of anguish tore through the air, and Neville turned to see him launching himself after Fenrir Greyback. He chased after him on instinct. Ron would be no match for the werewolf on his own.

As the duel began, it became clear that even with two of them, it was going to be more of a fight than they could probably manage. But there was a hard glint in Ron’s eyes that made it clear he wasn’t giving up. In the end, Fenrir was defeated, not with skill but with sheer dumb luck. Two of their spells collided and the force of the resulting explosion knocked Greyback into an already smashed window. After a moment of revulsion, Neville left him there, impaled on the jagged glass.

Ron’s reason for distress became evident when the boys doubled back on themselves to find Hermione draped over Lavender’s prone body. Ron whimpered when he saw the white cloth against her throat was stained red. “It’s alright, Ron,” Hermione said quellingly. “She’s hurt, but she’s fighting. We need to get her to Madam Pomfrey.”

Ron sprung into action, and after being assured he was alright to carry her, Hermione fixed a gauzy fabric to Lavender’s neck, and Ron charged off holding her close. 

Neville grabbed Hermione’s hand and ignored that she was covered in Lavender’s blood. He squeezed just once before there was a shuddering blast in the distance. They had to run again, away from each other.

-/-/-/-

The next time he saw Hermione, the blood on her skin was her own.

-/-/-/-

It had taken three of them, but they had finally been able to stun Avery Snr and get him into a full-body bind. They levitated the Death Eater to the back of the Great Hall where anyone else they had managed to capture was being detained. Their hostage took the total count to five. It wasn’t a lot to show for the hours of fighting. But then, some of their enemies hadn’t survived the duels. The Death Eaters at large seemed to prefer death to the threat of Azkaban, Neville thought that might have been the only area he agreed with them on.

After securing Avery Snr he saw Hermione again, well, he heard her first. She screamed and then Bellatrix’s voice rang out, her demented, cooing baby talk echoing around the hall. “Come on now little Mudblood, don’t you want to play? You liked it so so much last time. Maybe I’ll give you a reminder?” 

Bile rose in his throat. There, across the room was Hermione being preyed upon by Bellatrix. The mad witch was sending cutting hexes at Hermione’s face and arms. Hermione was doing her best to shield, but she must have been utterly terrified as the opaque bubble around her kept faltering.

As Bellatrix cast her first Crucio, Neville was held up across the room by Selwyn landing in the middle of the hall and shooting off a quick round of hexes to devastating effect. When Neville eventually managed to get closer, he made to break into a run, but he was held back by a surprisingly strong Molly Weasley. His Gran had got to Bellatrix first.

There was no duel, no shouting of famous last words or insults. When Bellatrix Lestrange turned around to face Augusta Longbottom, she made a mocking bow, and his Gran regarded her with the softest, most vulnerable look Neville had ever seen on the woman’s face. In it, Neville could see all his Gran had lost that night when the Aurors came to report what had happened to her son and his wife. It reflected a woman whose family still breathed but no longer had any sense of self. It showed her years of having the person she cherished more than anyone on earth look back at her without recognition. It showed a mother who had lost a son she did not bury, a grandmother who had faced a burden she did not know how to handle.

Hermione whimpered, and Neville watched as his Gran’s eyes hardened. She turned to see Hermione backed against the wall, bloody and trembling. 

“I have waited a long time to meet you, Bellatrix,” she said dispassionately.

Bellatrix cackled, but she didn’t get a chance to reply. The bright green curse flew, and the wicked witch crumpled to the ground. 

When Voldemort’s sickly hiss rumbled around the castle, Neville and his Gran pulled Hermione to the benches where people were getting help. His Gran healed her lip while incessantly asking her questions on potions, dates, transfiguration and names until Hermione’s hand shot up to circle the older woman’s wrist. 

“Augusta, I’m fine, I promise… no lasting effects.”

His Gran nodded jerkily and then carried on healing the slices on Hermione’s face and hands. Neville took the chance to move through the crowds, helping carry the injured to where they could get help. 

When he saw Fred, Neville laid a hand on Ginny’s shoulder and squeezed tightly before walking away from the grieving family to check on Lavender for Ron. Harry followed him looking manic, but it didn’t strike Neville as odd given the day they were having. 

“Neville, you have to make sure we kill the snake,” he said.

“What?”

Harry lurched forward to grip his arm. “When the time is up, and it starts again, you have to kill Nagini, Neville. She has to die.”

Neville looked at Harry quizzically. He had no idea why he would make that request, but from his grim expression, he knew he was undoubtedly serious. “Okay, Harry, of course,” he promised.

“Great thanks, Neville,” Harry said, clearly relieved.

Harry roughly shoved something at him and turned away quickly, when Neville looked down, he had the sorting hat between his fingers. He regarded it slowly, having not touched it since his first year. When he tried to ask what was happening he realised, Harry was gone. Surely he could have explained before he left? What the hell was he supposed to use this for?

A moment later, he heard Hermione scream and ice slid down his veins. “Where is Harry?”

Chapter Text

Their chances had always been slim. They had all known that. But the children of their generation had been brought up on fairy stories, and in those comforting tales, the side of the light always won. In legends, good vanquished evil and the brave and the pure could go on living their lives in the way they were supposed to before the darkness had come.

Watching Hagrid carry Harry’s body was a blow so devastating it almost knocked Neville to his knees. ‘The-boy-who-lived’ had been their talisman for the longest time. Harry was more than a boy. He was a symbol. But to Neville, he had been a dear, dear friend. 

Neville heard Hagrid’s sobs, and he felt his confidence dissolve. He watched as the light went out of people’s eyes around him. But something stopped him from sagging. This year had broken him, shattering him into fractured pieces until the person that was stuck back together was someone almost entirely new. Neville made himself stand taller. They may not win, but it wasn’t over.

When Voldemort began beckoning them to come forward and join him, Neville pushed Hermione into his Gran and looked directly into the face of the woman who was the closest thing he had to a parent, the woman who had raised him. 

“Whatever happens, don’t let her go,” he commanded softly. His Gran held his gaze and eventually nodded with clear reluctance. Neville began to move through the ranks in front of the castle. His steps were laboured, his leg had not done too well under the repeated strain of battle following his shoddy repair.

Finally, after walking through the remaining pummeled soldiers on his side, Neville eventually limped past the battle line and into the centre of the courtyard. 

“Well, I had hoped for better,” Voldemort derisively chortled as Neville stood in the open space between warring factions. No man’s land. He remained unaffected as the Dark Lord’s gaggle of simpering followers laughed with him.

Neville fought to look upon the cruel, twisted face of the enemy with impassivity, he drew himself up and held his shoulders back and tried to remember what everything he had lived for up to this point had been about, hope.

Neville had hoped for years that his parents would get better, that he would be better, that he would make his Gran happy and proud. He had hoped that Hermione would be his friend, that she would love him back, that she would give him a family. He had stood in the face of continual torture, giving those younger than him a reason to hope, a reason to think that maybe things would improve. Harry hadn’t been at Hogwarts that year, but he had. He could do this.

Neville cleared his throat and spoke as loud as his voice would go, he wanted it to carry to both sides of the battlefield. He wanted them all to hear.

“You killed one of us, and we will grieve, but there are hundreds more, hundreds that will stand against you and fight. You’re supposed to be the most powerful wizard of our time, and yet you have been systematically and routinely bested in your endeavours by school children. Well, those children are on the cusp of being fully grown, and thanks to you, we will show you no mercy. You can kill every single one of us, and it won’t be over. While hope survives, so will the fight.”

Neville felt the effects of his words instantaneously, the Death Eater forces looked enraged, and Voldemort himself practically buzzed with anger, but behind him, the air was changing. The sombre veil had lifted ever so slightly, and Neville could feel the energy rising in them, they were preparing to ensure they didn’t go down without a fight.

But nothing was ever that simple. Neville should have known. In fairy stories, the persuasive speech in the all-is-lost moment gives the heroes the spirit and tenacity they need to carry the day. This wasn’t one of those stories.

Three curses hit him in swift succession; Neville was placed in a full body-bind, the sorting hat was wrenched onto his head, covering him down to his neck, and the old relic was set on fire. He could hear Hermione screaming, but he tuned it out. Instead, he thought about the time she had bound him with magic and how mad he had been. Had he been in love with her even then? He thought he might have been. Neville’s face broke into a smile no one could see, and he shut his eyes. He couldn’t let panic consume him. Whatever he did, he had to try to breathe and remain calm. 

Then, before he could even think of what to do next, all hell broke loose. 

Because of his flair for dramatics, Harry Potter made himself the top of Neville’s ‘to punch after the battle’ list. However, his irritation was mitigated when, after jumping down from Hagrid’s arms, Harry released him from the full body bind.

While he had the chance, Neville pulled the understandably indignant hat from his head and ran for the snake that was making its way towards the castle. A glint from inside the ageing fabric caught his attention, and Neville stuck his hand inside. He grabbed the hilt of the sword of Gryffindor just as Nagini lunged for him. It was dumb luck, again, but even dumb luck was better than no luck at all.

As the great black snake reared her head up, and her mouth unhinged to reveal her sharp fangs, Neville unsheathed the sword. He gripped it with both hands, and with no real idea of what he was doing, he used the weight of the metal to swing the blade through the air.

As the very dead snake’s head hit the floor, Neville heard Voldemort scream. It was an inhuman shriek that travelled across the entire battlefield, shaking the foundations of the castle and sending plumes of dried earth in every direction. 

Neville knew he was covered in the Nagini’s blood; he had felt it splatter on him. Weary and panting from the adrenaline, he limped forward until he was once again in full view of the Death Eater forces.

“Sorry,” he said with a sneer, raising a single hand in mock apology. “I thought you said you’d hoped for better.”

Chapter Text

After Neville had been to the infirmary to have someone far more competent than himself see to his mangled leg, he went in search of Hermione and his Gran. Madam Pomfrey had asked if he wanted to stay and get the ‘rest of himself seen to’, and he could have done with it, he was reasonably sure he had a few broken bones as well as some nasty cuts, but he wanted to get out of there more than he wanted to be whole. 

The last year had been hard on all of them, and the castle had lost its innate feeling of safety. His Gran had raised his father and then him, and you didn’t get through that without becoming fairly proficient with healing charms. Whatever couldn’t be fixed then, he was confident could be sorted in the comfort of his own home.

He walked from room to room watching people take in the devastation that had been left behind. Eventually, Neville made it to the Great Hall, where most people were gathered. He spotted her immediately like he always did. He wondered if as they grew older, he would still be able to pinpoint Hermione’s presence even in a vast and crowded room, he hoped so.

Neville’s eyes scanned her too slight frame and dirty face, and he felt his heart clench. How long would they have to suffer after today before they would be okay again? Would they ever be?

As he walked towards Hermione, he registered her tense shoulders, and that’s when he noticed the people around her. The Weasley’s were all standing in a group with his witch a little way behind. She didn’t seem to know what to do with herself, and she looked as if she would bite through her abused lip if she didn’t relent soon.

Slowly, so as not to startle her, Neville looped his arms around her waist and kissed her cheek. “It’s over Hermione,” he said softly into her ear. Her body trembled in his grasp, and he banded an arm around her tightly. “Breathe, it will be okay. I need to find my Gran and then get out of here,” he said. Hermione stiffened, and he looked down at her questioningly. “What is it?”

Hermione glanced at the grieving family of redheads and then in the general direction of a cluster of their teachers before looking at the floor.

“Hermione?” he questioned.

“I.. don’t… I don’t have anywhere to go,” she whispered, almost as if she was embarrassed.

“Nonsense,” a stern voice interjected, and both of their heads swept around to face his Gran who had managed to regain her steely resolve sometime between Voldemort falling to the ground and this very moment. “You are coming back with us.”

“But... I,” Hermione stumbled her eyes filling with tears.

His Gran looked down at her and cupped her cheek. “You are family, Hermione, and you are coming home.”

“Thank you,” she choked out, letting a few tears fall.

Neville gripped Hermione’s hand and followed his Gran out of the hall. He didn’t look back.

When they got back to the townhouse, Neville felt himself relax in a way he hadn’t been able to while he was still at the castle. He was home, and they weren’t in danger anymore. They had survived.

Hermione was being chided up the stairs by his Gran, who was edging her towards a bathroom. Neville would have called her off, but honestly, he thought Hermione needed mothering, even though this aggressive form was probably not one she was used to.

Neville followed them up the stairs and was promptly dispatched to get Hermione something she could wear after she had a bath. There was no chance that anything she had on was fit to wear ever again. He rummaged through his clothes, looking for something that might work. Hermione was so tiny all his things would dwarf her, but he liked the idea of her wearing his clothes, so he pulled out a t-shirt and some trousers that he transfigured, they didn’t look great, but they would do till he could get her some of her own things.

Neville arrived back to the bathroom just in time to hear the water being shut off behind the door. “Right there you go, you will feel much better after a bath. The towels are over here, and there’s a-”

“Would you stay with me?” he heard Hermione interject. “I just… I’m not very… I don’t like being on my own. Not at the moment.”

Neville gripped the clothes in his hand and looked at the ceiling taking a steadying breath. Knowing Hermione as he did, he could imagine how much she had hated making that request. There was silence for the briefest moment. 

“Of course, Hermione,” his Gran replied. “I will stay as long as you need.”

Neville could hear the sounds of clothes being removed and water displacement and then something that registered like a muffled sob.

“Bellatrix... she did this?” his Gran asked, and even though her voice was faint, Neville hazarded a guess that she already knew the answer.

“Yes,” Hermione replied, her voice thick with sadness.

“Well, we can go to a healer and get it looked at, and then you will be right as rain.” His Gran’s voice sounded strangled.

“It was a… a cursed blade,” Hermione replied, her voice trailing off.

“Oh Hermione, I am so sorry.”

Neville slumped down against the door and listened as Hermione let go of everything that had happened to her. She told his Gran the whole story of their time on the run, sneaking into the Ministry, Ron leaving, Godric’s Hollow and then finally, the Snatchers. Neville was pleased he could say he’d been there when Scabior and Greyback died. Maybe it would alleviate some of her fears when he told her they were both no more?

When Hermione spoke about her time at Malfoy Manor, her breathing was low, and her voice soft, but Neville could still hear every word. Thick tears ran down his cheeks unchecked, but he marvelled at her along with his grief. All of this had happened, and she’d survived.

“I lost myself for a moment… when I couldn’t remember how long it had been going on for. I thought I was losing my mind… and then… and then I felt this hot sensation in my pocket. It kept pulsating and cooling and then it would get hot again and then I remembered… it took me ages, but I did... I remembered. I thought about Neville and... our coins... he was waiting, and I knew what it would do to him if… if something happened to me… especially something like that, in the same way…”

Once the talking died down, and Neville could hear sloshing, he dragged himself up onto his feet. He swiftly handed the clothes over when the door opened, and his Gran looked at his reddened face but said nothing before going back inside.

After her bath, Neville got himself cleaned up while Tip ran around after Hermione like an excitable puppy. She had fallen asleep in a chair by the fire in the sitting room by the time he got back downstairs, and Neville was content just to watch her.

Neville somehow sat there for over an hour. Then his Gran returned after presumably having washed the day away too. She nodded at Neville before glancing at the sleeping girl.

“You picked well,” she said, and Neville nodded though he didn’t reply. He wasn’t sure she had been expecting a response. Tip appeared carrying a tea tray, and after placing it down, he went over to Hermione’s chair to readjust her blanket for the third time in under an hour. The little elf glanced over his shoulder at Neville, as if daring him to say anything about his attentions but once again, Neville remained silent.

His Gran poured them both a cup of tea and Tip left. Neville found himself wondering what was next.

“You did us proud today Neville,” his Gran said, breaking the silence. “But then again, I suppose you always have.” 

He turned to her with wide eyes, but she wasn’t looking at him, her eyes were fixed on some point in the middle distance. “Your father was the greatest accomplishment of my life. I had been bright at school, and I suppose I could have done things afterwards but at the time… anyway, that life, whatever I may have dreamed of, those doors weren’t open to me. I was expected to marry, so that was what I did.”

She took a long sip of her tea and Neville put his cup down with shaky fingers.

“When they came for me that night to tell me what happened I had already buried my husband, I wanted to climb into bed and never get out, but they handed me you, and suddenly I realised I was expected to keep going. I wasn’t… I wasn’t all that I should have been. I know that now… when I think back at all those things I let happen when they thought you might be a squib…. I don’t know what I was thinking. Only, In some small way, maybe I had hoped that you might be one.”

Neville’s watched her unfocused face, and he saw a single tear had fallen from the corner of her eye. He felt lost. He felt like he should comfort her and tell her that it was all fine now. But he didn’t know how. He didn’t know if he really believed that it was all okay. They were unpractised in such things.

“I told myself that if by some fluke, you didn’t have magic, you would be safe. I could have kept you here in the house, and no one in our world would have known about you. But it wasn’t to be. Of course, you had magic; of course, you were powerful and brave and good.” His Gran sighed, and Neville was dimly aware that he was properly crying now.

“Then you went to school and got sorted into Gryffindor. You made friends with a little girl on the train, and then Harry Potter. Relationships that I knew would put you right in the centre of the Order if… when … the fighting started. It was all happening again.”

His Gran placed her teacup down and brushed away the tears that had splashed onto her cheeks.

“Then you grew up. Suddenly you weren’t the baby handed to me on the doorstep anymore, but a man in your own right. I tried to remember that, but you look so much like him, so much like my Frank... I’d catch you in moments where you would be deep in concentration with your plants, or trying to tell me about Hermione without betraying your feelings and you looked so much like him I…”

Neville felt like a thousand words were caught in his throat, the desire to push something out almost burned, but it was not to be. A sound broke the tense silence, and he looked up as Hermione stirred in her sleep and her face twisted into a pained expression.

“Neville, take her upstairs,” his Gran said, all sign of previous emotion washed away. “She won’t want to be alone.” Neville stilled and looked at her with his eyebrows disappearing into his hairline. “Oh don’t look at me like that, Neville Longbottom. If you’re old enough to kill Voldemort’s precious familiar in front of his assembled army, I dare say you are old enough to have your girlfriend in your room.”

Not one to wait to be told twice, Neville carried Hermione upstairs, and she never stirred, not once. He considered transfiguring her borrowed clothes into something more comfortable but decided against it; he didn’t want to disturb her.

He slipped Hermione into his bed, all the while wondering if his Gran would bang on his door having changed her mind. Neville then went down the hall and got himself ready to turn in. His ears felt like they were ringing; there was pressure on either side of his head that made him feel like he was underwater. Today had almost been too much to process. He wanted to lay down next to Hermione and think about things and get himself straight.

As he laid down, it was as if the weight of the day, the week, the year fell onto him all at once. Neville was fast asleep almost before his head came to rest on his pillow.

-/-/-/-

Neville woke in the night as the covers frantically moved around him. Sitting up quickly, he realised Hermione was thrashing next to him. Her limbs were tangling, and Neville leant over her carefully to brush the hair off her face and wipe the tears off her damp cheeks. 

Cautiously, so as not to scare her, Neville pulled her into his arms so that she might settle, trying not to hold her too tightly in case she felt constricted and panicked. Hermione’s limbs quieted, but her eyelids still flickered, so Neville softly called her name until her eyes opened with a start.

Her breathing was heavy, and her chest rose and fell rapidly, he ran one hand through her hair, hoping to soothe her, waiting for her to wake up properly.

“Neville,” she said finally.

“I’m here,” he told her, and her body sagged. “Come here,” he delicately instructed and rolled her into his chest, her back pressed against his front, his chin resting on her hair. He banded an arm around her middle and wrapped one leg over hers. He was completely surrounding her. 

“Nothing is going to get you here, Hermione, you’re safe now,” he promised. She whimpered, and he pulled her tighter. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“Tomorrow,” she breathed out. “We’ll talk tomorrow.”

Neville nodded once and tried to get back to sleep. It was a lot easier with Hermione there.

-/-/-/-

Neville had once thought that waking up wrapped around Hermione for the first time would have been glorious but possibly a little awkward. Thankfully, their separation and need for the reassurance of each other’s presence quickly overcame the newness of the feeling.

They sat or laid in various positions throughout the morning as they told each other everything that had happened while they were apart. There were tears, pain and a lot of rage on each other’s behalf, but after there was affection and smiles and warmth. 

There was the promise of peace.

During the first week after the battle of Hogwarts, as it quickly became known, it was like the entirety of Wizarding Britain was in a state of shock, nothing happened, and they were left alone.

In the second week, the funerals started, and that’s when reality kicked in. They’d had their momentary reprieve, long enough to breathe out and be thankful they were alive. 

Up to now, everything had been focused on enduring, now they had to face the consequences of what had gone before. The adjustment period began.

-/-/-/-

Neville returned from a recovering Diagon Alley ladened down with shopping bags. They had taken a reluctant Hermione the week before to get some clothes and a new wand, and he had been notified that morning that some of the items they’d had to order were ready for collection. Neville had offered to go alone as Hermione still found crowds difficult, and it gave him the chance to pop into Muggle London to get some of the sweets she would most like.

As he walked into his room, their room, he found Hermione resting on the small sofa by the window, her gaze fixed on an article within the Daily Prophet. When he dropped the bags on the floor, he heard her speak stopping him from filling her in on his morning.

“Have you been getting love letters?” she asked as she bit her lip.

“Excuse me?” he asked, bemused by the strange question.

Hermione held the paper aloft and waved it through the air. “They’re talking about you again, Snake Slayer Longbottom. There are some quotes from unhappy witches and even some wizards. Apparently, their letters expressing ‘love and appreciation’ have gone unanswered. ”

Neville thought for a moment. He definitely had not received any letters. He wondered if it was his Gran or Tip that was responsible for that? He supposed it didn’t really matter.

“I haven’t had any Hermione,” he said gently, moving to sit next to her and pulling her into his lap.

He felt her tense and saw her fiddle with the bottom on her jumper. He’d been waiting for this for the last couple of days. Something had been eating at her, and she needed to get it out. 

“Neville I…” Hermione began and then paused to tuck her head against his neck; cowering as if she expected a blow. “There has been a lot of… attention since the war and I wanted you to know that I… I won’t hold you to anything if you feel that...”

“Hermione,” he cut her off and moved his hand to trace along her throat until the pendant he gave her was caught between his fingers. “When I asked you to wear this I did so because I am serious about you, not because I had no other choice. I couldn’t care less about the letters, let Tip burn them for all I care. I am completely and utterly besotted with you. ”

Hermione smiled at him, but it was a little shaky. He kissed her cheek and wrapped his arms around her. 

“What do I care if somebody notices me now that I’ve achieved something they deem important, it was always your opinion that mattered most to me, and you took notice long ago.”

Hermione nodded against him, and her shoulders relaxed. Neville’s hands flexed along her skin and decided it was probably best to get his anxiety out in the open too.

“I know there will always be other things, you have friends and a career ahead of you, and I never want to stop any of that but… I need you to be mine now, Hermione. I need to be one of the priorities too. I think we’ve waited long enough, don’t you?”

She raised her face to look at him and held his jaw in her delicate, careful hands before pulling herself closer and nodding against his forehead. 

“Yours, Neville. All yours.”

Chapter Text

Three months after the battle

Light streamed in from the bedroom windows and woke Neville from his pitiful rest. He slowly opened his eyes to adjust to the unfairly bright room and turned to Hermione. She was resting right next to him, as usual, but facing him, which was not. Normally (they had shared a bed long enough for him to call it that) they slept with her back to his front, spooned around each other as Neville teased her for how small she was. But not last night, last night Hermione had fallen asleep crying onto his chest. She wasn’t in pyjamas, Neville had put one of his large jumpers over her head when she’d started shivering earlier in the night, her body reacting to stress much more than any drop in temperature. Once they had laid down, and she had eventually fallen asleep, Hermione remained in it. The overlong sleeves were scrunched up into her palms and gripped hard by her fingers.

Neville hadn’t been able to say anything to soothe her, so he had just let Hermione get it all out and hoped that the catharsis of crying would give her some relief. 

Neville untangled his legs from hers and went into the adjoining bathroom to wet a flannel. He caught sight of himself in the mirror and sighed, the travel back from Australia had been rough on both of them and seemed to have stolen away from the gains they had been making in putting themselves back together. When he got back into the bedroom, Hermione had stirred and moved across the bed into the warm patch he had left behind.

Neville softly stepped across the carpet in an effort not to wake her, before sitting on the edge of the bed and with the gentlest of touches, barely making contact at all, he lifted her chin to brush the warmed cloth over her cheeks. He hoped it would make her feel better when she woke up not to have yesterday’s dried tears still clinging to her face and lashes. 

The visit to find her parents had not gone well, to put it mildly. It had taken two months to locate them, and they had only managed at all because as part of the magic Hermione had used, she had suggested Sydney and potential new names for them. After a bit of hit and miss exploration, they had managed to search them out by looking through registered businesses in the area.

Hermione had been a virtual insomniac for a week before they departed, worrying about what would happen. Principal among her concerns had been the charm reversal she had to perform, and what would happen if it didn’t work. His Gran had advised her to remain circumspect about what she had done, despite Hermione’s protests. The young witch had wanted to consult a few people that might have known more than her, but Augusta was reluctant. She didn’t want Hermione to put herself at risk until she had tried everything. In the end, Hermione had begrudgingly agreed.

As it turned out, all of the worry over failed magic was for nothing; the detailed reversals that Hermione had put together worked perfectly. Mr and Mrs Granger were out for the count for an hour, magic of that magnitude took its toll, but all their vitals suggested there would be no permanent damage. 

It was when they woke up that there were problems.

They felt violated by her intervention and were not afraid of letting her know. Hermione’s parents had already been wary of the magical world from having to send their only child to a place they didn’t fully understand. When Hermione told them everything, they were scared and disappointed. When she explained the magic she had used on them, magic she’d felt she had no choice but to perform for their safety, they were horrified and appalled—a few hours of tearful explanations ended with her parents asking them to leave.

Neville had gathered Hermione up into his arms, took her back to the hotel they were staying in and tried to get her to eat something with limited success.

They stayed in Australia for a week after that, visiting every day. Sometimes it went well, sometimes not, but after the sixth consecutive visit without any glimmer of an impending resolution, Neville had had enough. He’d promised Hermione that after the battle her time on her own was over, and he had to make good on that promise. He wouldn’t stand back and watch her being broken down by continually rehashing the same issues over and over. 

He couldn’t take watching her heartbreak each and every day. So, with no better plan, he called an end to their stay. 

Neville wrote up the postal address to his house and left it with her parents before talking it through with Hermione until she agreed to go with him.

There would be time he had said, time to make it better. They all needed space and hopefully, once they’d had a chance to absorb everything fully, they would understand, and forgive. 

Now they were home. Hermione had stayed with them since the battle, she had made noises about leaving a couple of times, but Neville had waved her off. He liked having her there, even as upset as she had been, Hermione brought so much joy to his life.

Neville nuzzled back down in front of Hermione’s newly washed face and used the quiet time to practice asking her.

One year after the battle

Neville carried the last box of his things into what would become his office and leant back on the desk to take a moment to breathe it all in. This wasn’t exactly where he had expected to end up, but he was happy.

When the fighting was over, Neville had initially wanted to join the Auror training programme. During his last year at school, protecting people had become important to him. It had opened up a side of himself that he hadn’t been aware was lying dormant. Neville had fought for everyone to live in a world that was safer, happier. They needed never to go back to the world they had lived in, never to go back to fear.

That dream had lasted for a couple of months. Neville had signed himself up to complete basic training and had been excited about starting. He would have been joining in the same intake as Ron and Harry, and although his relationship with the former had remained a little stilted, he was happy to be with friends.

It was only when the manuals arrived that Neville began to second-guess his decision. Hermione had found him sitting in the greenhouse, his mind fixed on the images in front of him. Neville hadn’t turned a page in a while. Each new photo took him further back to a time he would rather forget.

She had sat beside him and had taken the parchment from his fingers. Neville had watched her as she flicked through a couple of pages, wincing now and again. Hermione had made no secret of the fact that she did not relish the idea of him becoming an Auror. However, she remained unendingly supportive of his choice.

“Evidence of spell damage,” she had read aloud when she found the page he had folded over. She had firmly closed the book and moved it out of sight. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Neville nodded and dropped his head against her shoulder so Hermione could card her fingers through his hair.

Talk they did, and Neville realised somewhere halfway through that before that moment, he had never told Hermione how he felt in that final year. He had told her all the facts, things that had happened that probably explained some of his changed behaviour and the scars on his body. But he had never talked about the emotional and mental trauma the fear and expectation had left him with.

He told her about the powerlessness and the humiliation he faced daily, and Hermione had listened and soothed him. Then they had talked about what to do. In the end, the books went away, and they began looking into other options. 

Neville pushed off the desk and walked over to the tallest stack of boxes ready to start sorting through everything, turning when he heard a knock at the door. Curly brown hair appeared as Hermione shuffled in carrying two coffee mugs.

“Drink, Professor Longbottom?” she asked as she beamed at him.

He smiled back at her. “Why yes, Professor Granger, do come in.”

After Neville had turned down the training position, Hermione had invited newly appointed Headmistress McGonagall over for tea. After hearing of their lack of plans, his old Head of House had almost fallen over herself to offer them both positions on the staff. Professor Sprout had been anxious to lower her workload and Neville had agreed to a slow programme of taking over the Herbology Professor role under her expert guidance.

With her time now taken up by other duties, Minerva had requested that Hermione take over for her in Transfiguration which his girlfriend had readily agreed to after he had nodded at her encouragingly.

Hermione placed the mugs down on the desk, and Neville’s eyes honed onto the glint that came from a finger on her left hand. He had finally worked up the courage to ask her to marry him earlier that month. He had been putting it off, more scared than he had ever been, though, under increasing pressure from all quarters as well as reassurances of her positive response, he had planned a quiet romantic dinner at home.

Though he had blundered his way through the actual asking, at one point knocking over the dining table, she had still said yes.

Hermione sat next to him on the desk. “I’ll help you with your office, then we do mine?” she proposed.

Neville agreed, eager to get on with the next chapter of his life.

Two years after the battle

Neville stood on the grass verge by the Black Lake, desperately trying to control his urge to throw up. Though they had wisely chosen to hold his stag party a few weeks before, his friends had decided it was a good idea to have ‘a couple’ to ease his nerves last night. His slight hangover, mixed with the anxiety the alcohol had failed to alleviate, left Neville feeling a little peaked.

He and Hermione had decided on getting married on the Hogwarts grounds. It was a place that held emotional significance for them, both as individuals and as a couple. It was because of the school that they had met and their relationship had developed there. Neville hoped, quietly to himself, that having this happiest of memories would help him to eradicate the nightmares that still clung to him from time to time, horrors of the Carrows, his final year and the battle. Though he had taught here for a long time, seeing the changing of faces and becoming a man, it had not yet been enough.

Neville’s introspection was cut short as the music started and he shifted uncomfortably in his dress robes until Hermione appeared. Her hair was pulled back into a loose chignon with her wild curls escaping all around her face. Neville smiled, just like that, his nerves were a distant memory. 

She turned to smile at someone in the crowd, and her veil sparkled with the faintest shimmer and her hair ruffled in the cool breeze. Neville had begged Hermione to leave her hair as natural as possible. It was so her that he found he hated it whenever she tried to do too much to control it. 

Threaded through her pinned back curls were an array of small white flowers. Neville had grown them for her when Hermione had shyly pointed them out in a wedding magazine. He had taken extra care, ensuring he cultivated a plant that would bloom for years and years to come, a memento and something that Professor Sprout - now in her final year of teaching - had found amusingly romantic. 

Hermione’s dress was a simple column of pale white silk that glistened in the sun. The watery fabric skimmed over her curves and pooled at her feet. It made her look like some sort of greek goddess come to life, and if Neville hadn’t already known he was the luckiest man alive, it certainly would have been made clear to him at that moment.

Hermione had decided to go barefoot, on advisement from Luna. As it was a sunny day and they were on the grounds she hadn’t wanted to wear anything that would sink into the grass underfoot. His Gran had been impressed, apparently this was a nod to some tradition Neville had never heard of and Hermione adopting it had given Augusta Longbottom yet another reason to feel smug about their new addition to their family. 

As Hermione got closer in a walk that seemed to take five steps but somehow twenty minutes, Neville felt his heart still at just how perfect she looked. Her makeup was minimal, but all she needed was the smile she was currently wearing to brighten her face. He reached for her hand when she was finally next to him, and when he clasped her delicate fingers, his stomach stilled.

“Nice suit,” she whispered as people began taking their seats, and he grinned at her. 

“Not looking too bad yourself.”

“This old thing,” she shrugged, “I’ve had it for ages.”

Neville let out a sound that was perilously close to a giggle and the officiant regarded them with a soft, genuine smile. 

-/-/-/-

The reception was far less emotionally taxing than the ceremony had been and everyone present partook in far too much of the free-flowing booze, himself and Hermione included.

His Gran was on cloud nine and could be heard at regular intervals telling whoever would listen. “That’s my grandson… killed the snake... brightest witch of her age don’t you know.”

As he twirled Hermione about the dance floor, Neville remembered the Yule Ball, how he’d had the best night of his life and how he had realised that year that he wanted to be more than friends. Now they were here, at their wedding. He had married the uppity girl from the train that helped him search for a toad, the girl that had made him a coin to spare his blushes, the girl who became his best friend, the woman who changed his life.

Chapter Text

Three years after the Wedding

Neville sped round the corner of one of the endless hospital corridors and ran straight into a janitor mopping the floors. “Sorry, sorry,” he chanted as he detangled himself from the refillable bucket and continued at speed. 

Only Hermione could be early , showing off as usual. Every book he had read, and there had been a fair few, Hermione had made a list, had suggested that first pregnancies frequently went beyond the due date. Seemingly not for his wife, no, Hermione was three weeks early and not five minutes ago he had been summoned by her Patronus screaming at him to put down the plant pots and get to St Mungos. 

Hermione had finally gone on maternity leave the week before and had decided to move into Longbottom house while she waited for their new arrival. His Gran had been over the moon, not that she had said anything about it, but Neville knew. 

He skidded to a stop and quickly checked the map on the wall to doubly make sure that he was on the right path. He wouldn’t let it enter his head that he would miss it; he would never forgive himself.

As he made it to the front desk of the maternity wing, Neville managed to wheeze out a barely intelligible version of his name to the nurse stationed there. She gave him a knowing smile and pointed him to the second room on the right, and Neville blurted out his thanks.

Neville burst through the door and scanned the room only to find the atmosphere was relatively sedate in comparison to the thumping of his heart. Hermione was sat on top of a giant inflatable ball, bouncing up and down while holding her hips. She had insisted that Muggles used them all the time to encourage the baby down and the healer they had met with saw no harm in letting her follow things that made her more comfortable.

“Hermione?” he asked, still panting.

“Hi love,” she smiled and looked up from the magazine strewn over her bare lap.

“Ah, your Patronus… you seemed quite… distressed.”

She beamed at him. “I called you during one of my contractions, they are pretty sharp and getting closer together now, but in between, I still feel alright.”

-/-/-/-

The image of his smiling wife was long lost to him ten hours later as he looked into the face of the screaming banshee she had become. Neville couldn’t seem to do anything; anything he did do was wrong. He didn’t rub her back in the right place, or hard enough; all of his topics of conversation were not things she wanted to discuss. In the end, he settled for holding her hand and mopping her brow, telling her how amazing she was.

All he felt was fear, anxiety and totally like a spare part until everything seemed to get more intense and then a cry was heard.

His whole body stilled as the enthusiastic healer turned around with a smile that could only mean good news. “Congratulations, Mr and Mrs Longbottom, you have a baby girl.”

The tiny bundle swaddled in pink blankets was dropped onto Hermione’s chest, and Neville looked down at them both in awe. He could see a darkish tuft of hair poking from the top of the wool, and he marvelled at her tiny features.

When the baby was pressed into his arms, Neville sat in the chair to give the healers some space and brushed his thumb delicately across his daughter’s soft pink cheek.

“Hello, Iris… I’m your dad.”

One year after Iris

Neville walked through the hospital corridors, at a much more sedate pace than the year before. His arms were full with a wiggling Iris who had just found her walking legs and was increasingly reluctant to be carried anywhere.

Hermione and his Gran were behind him chatting about some motion before the Wizengamot that had them both incensed. Augusta had offered to continue to perform the obligations of their houses seat, and Neville had been only too willing to take her up on it. 

Hermione babbled in response to his Gran’s one-word rejoinder, and Neville smiled to himself. His wife still talked non-stop whenever they got to the hospital, seeking to break through their thoughts and keep them from becoming melancholy. It was one of the many reasons he loved her.

Iris shifted again and reached for her mother. Hermione grabbed her round the middle and rested her on her hip while they moved through the hospital.

Neville approached the desk and signed them all in. His hand lingered over his daughters name as it always did. They had initially wanted to call her Alice, for his mother, but his Gran had put her foot down. Augusta thought it was maudlin and fundamentally wrong to burden a child with the past. Over time, Neville agreed, this way, Iris was free to be her own person.

He opened the door into the Janus Thickey ward and placed Iris into the playpen he had brought along from home. Hermione had gotten a collapsable one from Ginny, and it just about managed to keep Iris contained long enough for a short visit. 

Neville went and sat next to his dad and pulled out the Quidditch scores, ready to run through them. Puddlemere were doing poorly, as usual. 

He watched from out of the corner of his eye as Hermione took Alice by the hand and led her over to the playpen. In practised movements, she sat her mother in law on the floor and eased down next to her. His mother never spoke, never showed much outward sign of comprehension, but she never took her eyes off Iris wherever she crawled or stumbled to, and she never ceased her grip on Hermione’s hand.

It was the same every visit, and even though the Healers persisted in their belief that his mum and dad had little awareness of the world outside of themselves, Neville didn’t believe it. It may never get any better, but it was enough. Neville knew, on some deep and unquestionable level, that his parents were aware that he was happy, and that they were still a part of his life.

Two years after Iris

Neville sighed as he shut the door and walked into the cool interior of the townhouse. It was too hot outside today, and he was glad that all of his errands were now complete. He stood still for several moments waiting for the inevitable sound of small feet and as soon as he heard it, Neville headed towards the central atrium. 

When he and Hermione had decided that they would live at the townhouse instead of finding their own place for only part of the year, his Gran had allowed them to make alterations. Neville had expected her to be reluctant, but it appeared after all these years Augusta Longbottom was happy to take a back seat and assume the grandmother role she had always wanted. 

Neville and Hermione hadn’t done much, while neither of them could be considered traditionalists they loved the old house as it was, but some things needed to change to make it more practical for a modern family.

The centre of the house was now dominated by a light and airy main room, where Hermione had managed to bring the outside in, under his expert guidance of course. The bright white space was covered in greens of all kinds, and the plants made him feel almost as at home as she did.

As Neville entered a small smile lit up his face as he caught his wife halfway up a ladder. Iris, who was now a toddler, was watching her with some determination as Hermione chatted away to her daughter as if she could perfectly understand every complex theory she presented. As soon as Iris spied him in the doorway, she ran towards him on wobbly legs.

Seeing her purpose, he strode over to scoop her up in his arms. “What’s Mummy doing Iris?”

Hermione turned at the sound of his voice, looking slightly sheepish. “I know I said I would wait for you to do this, but I just thought I should get it done.”

Neville had meant to change the large light fitting for a few weeks; it just never seemed like there was time at the moment. He should have known Hermione would get sick of waiting and do it herself.

He bopped her on the nose as she reached the bottom of the ladder, and she rolled her eyes.

He smiled at her. “Come on I have something to show you both.”

Moving slowly so that Iris could walk along beside them, Neville led them to the family wing of the house where he had been working for most of the day apart from occasional breaks to the greenhouse. Hermione paused at the doorway of the room and looked up at him tears pooling in her eyes. She got emotional in the late stages of pregnancy, or so she said, he would have said she was always an emotional person, but he wasn’t quite sure he would get away with that.

He moved to stand behind her, looping his arms around her expanding middle as they both looked into the nursery. A large jungle scene took up one wall, and the room was filled with various stuffed animals that Iris was working her way through, holding up various ones to show her parents who would coo at her each time.

“Do you like it?” he whispered into her ear.

She turned to face him. “It’s perfect Neville, just perfect.”

He hoped so. It almost made it seem real now the nursery was done, in a few months their son would be born. Hermione would say that would make their family complete, but Neville was already working on his speech to get her to consider a third. Really they needed another; they had so much space. After such a quiet childhood, Neville could think of nothing better than his children growing up with plenty of siblings for company. 

Iris called for their attention again holding aloft a cuddly, stuffed toad that made a broad knowing smile break across both their faces.

“What do you think of Trevor, for our boy?”

Hermione smiled. “Not on your life.”

She reached forward and held his hand like she had all those years ago and they ran into the nursery, making Iris squeal and charge around with delight. Neville rubbed his thumb over the back of her hand and pulled her in front of him so he could cup her stomach. 

“Thank Merlin for lost frogs.”