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"What was that?"
The cold voice cut through the verdant-damp air as Neville stepped into the greenhouse. He jumped with a startled squeak, then saw Draco's pale figure gleaming in the gloom. Immediately, Neville turned away and pretended to be intensely fascinated with the rows of aconite on a nearby table.
He didn't want to see the look on Draco's face. It reminded Neville of the face he'd made years ago, when he'd told him he wouldn't be friends with him anymore. It was the same cold, cruel face - all the more cruel because he was angry and hurt.
Neville mumbled something in reply, fiddling with the leathery leaves of sea flowers.
"What?" Draco asked, a wintry undercurrent of impatience in his voice.
Neville knew he was seconds away from saying something awful again, and he didn't want that. He didn't think they'd ever really be friends again, but he still didn't want the tentative relationship between them to unravel; he wasn't sure he could endure Hogwarts and his housemates otherwise.
So he turned around and said in a rush, "It's not funny." Neville took a deep breath, something easing inside him with the words. "Not St Mungo's."
He didn't elaborate, didn't get into his parents, but he could see the flicker of Draco's thoughts in the minute shift of his expression and the moment he remembered; they'd met in St Mungo's Hospital. He eyed Neville warily, looking suddenly confused and unsure.
"Okay," he said eventually. He stood up from his lounge against one of the tables, unnecessarily straightening his immaculate robes. "It wasn't even about you," he added as he swept out, and Neville knew it was the closest thing he'd get to an apology from Draco Malfoy.
He stood still for a while when he was alone, staring sightlessly at the sprawl of green around him. He'd never told Draco. Why he'd ended their friendship. He hadn't known how to tell him that his parents were in the hospital, they'd never recover, and it was Draco's aunt who'd put them there. Neville knew Draco loved his family, more than anything, but he also hated it when people acted as if they knew him just because they heard his family name.
It wasn't Draco's fault, but Neville couldn't help but be reminded of it every time he saw him.
With a sigh, he picked up the watering can and moved about watering the plants.
At least magical plants were easy, he thought. They wouldn't ostracise or make fun of him, and he never had to worry about doing or saying the wrong thing.