Underdog

There wasn't much Neville could do about this feeling. Couldn't talk to anyone about it; although Luna had asked him what was bothering him when they were walking by the lake last week and Hermione had smiled encouragingly at him yesterday when he stayed awake during History of Magic. He worked late in the greenhouses and smiled to see the tentacula seedlings poking up through the loose potting mix and Sprout beaming as though her face might split with wide-stretched approval.

At night he cast a silencing charm around his bed and never thought to wonder why he'd become proficient at that particular swish and flick. In the morning he woke early and showered before his dorm mates and gathered his equanimity around him with a practised-in-the-steamy-mirror smile. And all the while he watched Harry Potter walking through his sixth year at Hogwarts with a blank bleached look on his face and a hunched resentful quiet about him that was unapproachable and a little frightening. He couldn't do anything about it or say anything about it because - in the end - he didn't know what it was.

That was how it had always been. Watching Harry; wanting his approval; waiting for that generous praise when he didn't fall over his own feet in the Room of Requirement. And now it was gone in a pall of confusion that didn't bear thinking about.

Harry sat alone in the Gryffindor common room night after night pretending to study and his hand trembling on the yellowed pages of some book or other.

Neville wanted to say something to make things better but he was a coward after all. That's all there was to think about anything - so he retreated just like the others and left Harry alone.

And that's how it was until Christmas.

That's how it was and even Ron and Hermione were nonplussed by Harry's apathy so that they whispered behind him and didn't seem to know what to do. Well, Hermione spent even more time in the library and Ron played chess as though his life turned on a queen's bishop slaughtering some hapless pawn. They knew nothing.

Neville knew what to do. He behaved as though nothing was different and that was enough. Harry had to do his grieving in his own way and that was fair. And Neville thought that it might be helping a little: that from him and unexpectedly Malfoy smirking and taunting and snarling when Harry caught the snitch from under his nose again; reminding all of them that petty rivalries and small victories spelled a silly kind of sanity in this world of theirs. And Neville saw that Malfoy's unrelenting, insufferable goading meant more than his own unspoken understanding. And thought - in those spell-shielded moments every night - that hoping might break through impossibility.

Until Christmas.

Grandmother had assured him - on several memorable and red-envelope-underlined occasions that she was doing 'very well, dear, so not to worry . . . and I'm proud of you Neville. You're a good boy.' So he tried not to think about her illness and tried not to think about that formidable personality brought low with years and lost hope.

He laughed bitterly alone beside the lake when the weather ensured his solitude and thought about Snape dressed in an old-fashioned, straight-skirted suit with a reluctant fur about his shoulders; a bulky handbag clutched under his yellow-stained fingers and a stuffed vulture hanging over his glaring right eye. And Remus Lupin laughing in his memory too and Harry's eyes lighting into understanding for a moment. That was colder than the brief snowfall on his shoulders and paler than the lake disappearing against the flurry.

Until he noticed that he wasn't alone after all.

Two people were walking close to the just-frozen edge of the lake; walking close together as if they were talking secrets. And the wind cutting through him with a thin bitter certainty so that he knew he'd waited too long and Harry's laugh - the one he hadn't heard since some time last year - cutting even more painfully through the pale afternoon.

He would have run away then, back to the castle and warmth and Flitwick decorating the Great Hall with enthusiastic glee, but he'd be noticed and he'd have to apologise and look them in the face or something. So he stayed quiet and still and cold when Draco Malfoy pulled Harry Potter into his arms and kissed that surprised mouth and he stayed when Harry sighed quietly and kissed back.

He didn't know why so many students were staying here this Christmas. Didn't want to know.

Didn't care that various Slytherin students walked quietly through the old stone corridors with tear-stained cheeks and haunted eyes; didn't care when his Gran hadn't answered his last awkwardly phrased missive; didn't care when Pansy Parkinson ran away from the breakfast table after a tawny owl dropped a red envelope into her lap; didn't care when he walked into the snow-spattered courtyard yesterday and saw Harry kissing Malfoy again.

Except that he was Neville Longbottom and he did care; and he lent Zabini his battered copy of Know your Fantastic Fungi, and he followed Pansy out of the Great Hall and offered a handkerchief and patted her shoulder awkwardly for ten minutes and worried about her and the worried about others after all. And stood behind the frozen fountain spill and watched Harry needing someone who wasn't him.

He tried to tell himself that he was glad to see that spark in Harry's eyes again and tried to forget that he knew why it was there. And rolled the rememberall between his fingers and waited to hear from someone.

Ron had gone to the Burrow and Hermione had gone with him. Harry smiled again on Christmas Eve and shook Neville's arm as though to reassure him of something. And he watched the frost crackling into star patterns over the tired windows and missed breakfast and lunch - again. And cried for his family because he knew.

"I'm so sorry, Neville." The quiet old voice was sincere and he turned away from it.

He was hiding. He knew he was hiding. There was nothing else he could do until the night was over and he could lose himself in the cloistered certainty of Sprout's greenhouses again. She'd be ashamed of his weakness. So he didn't stay long . . . so he curled into a corner of the Charms classroom through the dark day and cried alone - again; and went to dinner with a sick, hollow feeling in his gut; and almost laughed when Luna Lovegood sat beside him at the Gryffindor table despite the incredulous glares of the other seven Ravenclaws who'd stayed over the break.

And he didn't look - much - at Harry watching Malfoy and the Malfoy watching back.

Neville didn't care that Harry had been watching him - it was too painfully late to talk about anything. He walked beside the lake and thought about his parents caught in the prison of their own minds while quiet-voiced healers fed them and tended them and promised nothing day after day. He thought about how his Grandmother was being buried tomorrow and how the day after that school would recommence and the dark halls would be filled with energy and expectation.

And later . . .

"Hi!" Harry was looking at him a little doubtful and a little embarrassed. "I . . . I wish you'd talk to me, you know? I'm sorry, Neville . . . er . . . talk to me sometime, mate." He then turned away and picked up a book and the fire crackled merrily in the grate and the dark windows frowned at them both.

"Yeah, I'll do that. Thanks."

He wanted to touch Harry. Wanted to find comfort in him - heal together, except it was too late now. He knew that wasn't how things were meant to be and said nothing when Harry left the common room clutching his father's invisibility cloak and smiling back at Neville as though certain of his friend's sympathy.

It was better now. Classes seemed to demand a routine and a certainty and a count of days. And even Snape seemed less scathing and Neville had turned in an adequate potion that week and knew that his cheeks were burning at the Professor's grudging approval. And he didn't cringe anymore when he noticed Harry brush close against Malfoy's shoulder in Care of Magical Creatures and he laughed a little when Seamus teased Dean about love-lorn glances at Ginny Weasley. Ron and Hermione blushed and giggled when he surprised them behind Hagrid'd hut. Luna asked if he wanted to walk with her to Hogsmeade next weekend. And he'd had a letter from Uncle Felix inviting him to visit over summer.

So he was surprised at the way he hurt when he walked around a corner and saw them. Saw Harry crushed against the stone wall and begging and sweating and his fingers clutching desperately in white-gold hair while Malfoy knelt with his face pressed into the other boy's groin. And he turned quietly and almost ran back to Gryffindor tower.

Neville didn't know how to deal with any of it so he put it away.

Two weeks before the summer break Harry disappeared.

Two weeks before the summer break Neville found Draco Malfoy crying beside the lake, choking on emotion and broken; and he tried to say something kind.

They waited together and watched the high table and noticed that Dumbledore's face was set and grim and how his eyes lacked their annoying expected twinkle.

Waited and watched for four empty, gutted days until Harry came back: walked into the Hall on the fifth morning with his eyes blazing and his robes torn and blood-spattered and collapsed in the doorway.

They waited together outside the infirmary with Luna while everyone else was celebrating. Thanked Ron and Hermione and Ginny for their company and Neville held Luna's hand and wondered why he wanted to cry - again.

"Mister Malfoy." It was Madam Pomfrey, quiet and efficient as ever but for her hair falling out of the confining pins. "He's awake. I'm sorry, Neville; only one visitor for now." She bustled away and Draco followed her and then a warm hand squeezed Neville's own cold one.

This was even harder than he'd expected. This was - impossible . . . and Luna started telling him about long-nosed embellicants and made him laugh despite all of it.

Harry smiled at him and reached forward to hug him. Neville stroked his thin shoulder and hugged back.

"I thought of you, Nev." Harry's voice was scarcely a breath. "Thought about what you've lost . . . all of you . . . because of me."

"What you've given us, Harry. Thank you." Neville felt old and scarred and somehow peaceful.

Draco touched Neville's arm - more gentle than a lost moment - and seemed to ask before he gathered Harry into his own arms and hid his pale face against the tangled dark hair. That was how it had to be. Light and dark and something else that he couldn't begin to understand.

So Neville walked away and left them and wasn't even surprised when another hand grasped his - again - and tugged gently and he didn't look back.