Becoming Neville

The next morning Neville dawdled as long as he could before heading downstairs. When he pushed open the kitchen door, Harry and Lupin were already well into their breakfast. Harry looked up at him and mumbled, "Morning," around a mouthful of toast.

It wasn't the most enthusiastic of greetings, but then this was the first morning since Neville had arrived that Harry had actually appeared at breakfast. He cautiously returned the greeting and took a seat next to Lupin, where he concentrated on stacking his plate with toast.

"Since we didn't get to go shopping the other day," Lupin said, "I gave your list to Tonks, Neville. She'll be stopping by tomorrow with the supplies you need for the greenhouse."

Neville perked up at the news. "Thanks, Professor."

"In the meantime, if you two boys don't mind, I could use your help on a project."

Now it was Harry who perked to attention. "A project? For the Order?"

Lupin answered with a faint, knowing smile. "Yes. Dumbledore wants to do some research on the creation of new spells, ones that may counteract some of the spells favored by Voldemort and his Death Eaters, like the Imperius. But the creation of magic requires special preparation. We need to make a laboratory."

"There's one here," Neville piped up, pleased that his voice wasn't shaking too hard from Lupin's use of The Name. "It's upstairs. I saw it when I was looking around the house."

His suggestion seemed to please Lupin. "Yes, that's the room Dumbledore wants us to use."

"But why here?" Harry asked. "Why not make the laboratory at Hogwarts? Hagrid always says there's no place safer."

"And in every other circumstance, he is correct. But you forget, Harry: some students at Hogwarts have connections to people who might be very interested in our laboratory."

"Like Malfoy," Harry scowled.

"Among others. Hogwarts is safe from invasion, but alas, it is not safe from spies or gossip. Grimmauld Place, however, is guarded by the Fidelius charm. We know that only those who are trustworthy may enter it."

"So how do we create a magic laboratory?" Harry asked.

"We start," Lupin smiled, "with a little bit of elbow grease."

*****

"You have *got* to be joking."

They were standing in the middle of the laboratory, and Neville silently echoed Harry's sentiments. The place was filthy: stacks of bottles with goodness only knew what crud caked in them; a layer of dust half an inch thick coating everything; cobwebs as think as cotton wool strung from every vantage point. There were even some suspicious-looking lumps in the corners that might be dead animals.

"I never said it would be easy," Lupin quipped. "But you boys don't have to help me. You could just do your homework instead."

"I want to help," Neville hastily said.

Lupin grinned. "There's my man."

"Me too," Harry protested. "It's just - it's an awfully big task."

"Then we'd best get started, hadn't we?" Lupin rolled up his sleeves and clapped his hands. "Let's start in this corner. We need to go through everything, keep what is useful, and throw the rest away. Then we need to clean the whole place until it's shining."

Reluctantly pushing up his sleeves, Harry glanced askance at the dust-covered mess. "Are you going to spell it clean?"

"Can't do that," Lupin replied, beginning to pick his way through a stack on one table. "Any spells we do now would only make the purification harder. When the place is clean and we've gathered everything we'll need, then the room will have to be purified of all previous traces of magic. Old, lingering spells could interfere with the creation of new ones, especially when those spells are likely to have been dark magic. The Blacks, you know, weren't exactly the most pleasant of wizards."

Peering into a bottle of congealed goo, Harry said, "Except for Sirius, of course."

"Of course," Lupin agreed, though his voice was a bit flat. "But even Sirius inherited some of the Black family's foul temper and penchant for egotism."

Neville cast a nervous glance at Harry, who had tensed, but Lupin continued fondly, "He could be a right stubborn bastard, and he could throw a fearsome tantrum when he didn't get his way. The only person I ever knew who could get Sirius to change his mind was your father, Harry. Unfortunately, James usually liked all of Sirius's ideas."

"Wait a minute," Neville interrupted. "You mean you knew Sirius, and Harry's dad?"

"Yes. We were best friends at school. The three of us - and Peter Pettigrew. I never had such good friends, either before or since. Now...well, I guess there's really only me left."

He seemed very sad, and Neville said, "I'm sorry, Professor."

Lupin shook himself. "Thank you, Neville. They were the truest friends anyone could ask for. After all, not many people would choose to stay friends with a werewolf."

Neville started at that. He'd forgotten about the rumors from the end of their third year. He hadn't wanted to believe what people had whispered about Lupin, but Ron and Harry had said it was true. "I always thought werewolves were really scary," he confessed. "But you aren't scary at all. You're the best professor I ever had."

Lupin smiled. "That's very high praise, coming from a Hogwarts student who has many fine professors. However, people have good reason to fear werewolves. During the three nights of the full moon, I am quite scary. Lycanthropy is a very serious, very dangerous condition."

Neville gulped. "So what - what are we going to do when...?"

"Don't worry. It'll be taken care of. I'll be confined, and someone else from the Order will come to stay with you. You'll be quite safe."

They focused for a while on their cleaning. But Neville simply couldn't reconcile the kind, caring man he knew Lupin to be, with all the horror stories he'd ever heard about werewolves. "So you were a werewolf by the time you went to school?"

"Yes. I was bitten when I was six years old. It's a miracle the werewolf that bit me didn't kill me."

Neville gasped. "When you were only six? How awful! To be just a child and have to go through that!"

"Indeed. I'm afraid it proved to be a bit too much for my parents to handle, to have their first-born son turn into a dangerous wolf cub every month."

"What did they do?" Harry asked.

Lupin busied himself with a stack of moldering packets. "They felt, understandably, that they couldn't take care of me. There is no cure, after all, and the wolfsbane potion hadn't yet been invented. They had to think about the safety of my younger brother and sister, so they had me institutionalized."

Both boys gaped in shock. Harry found his voice first. "Institutionalized?! What does that mean?"

"I was sent to St. Mungo's. I actually grew up in the ward where your parents live now, Neville."

"But how could they do that?" Harry protested. "How could your parents abandon you?"

"What else could they do? They couldn't take care of me --."

"Yes they could! You're their son! They shouldn't have abandoned you. That's ghastly!"

For a moment Lupin seemed to struggle to find words. At last he said, "I know it's hard for you to believe, Harry, but not all parents are as loving as James and Lily were."

Neville could believe it. He knew perfectly well what it was like to be a disappointment to his family, though right now he wouldn't trade Uncle Algie for Lupin's parents for anything in the world. To get them off that unpleasant subject, he asked, "How did you get to go to Hogwarts, then?"

"Dumbledore. He knew of me, and he made a deal with the Ministry of Magic to place me under his guardianship. He made arrangements for me during the full moon and gave me a full scholarship. He even arranged it so I could stay at Hogwarts over the summer, rather than go back to St. Mungo's. I owe him everything. My parents weren't too pleased about it, though. They ended up sending my brother and sister to Durmstrang so they wouldn't go to school with me. I don't think they even know I exist."

"You're better off without them," Harry said fiercely.

"I agree with you there. Still, it would have been a lonely existence for me at Hogwarts if your dad and Sirius and Peter hadn't befriended me. Growing up at St. Mungo's, I'd never really had any friends."

"I never had friends before school, either," Neville said. "My gran thought I was slow, so she home-schooled me. She didn't really let me get to know other kids."

"And Dudley made sure I didn't have any friends," added Harry. "My first friends were at Hogwarts."

"You know, the three of us are a lot alike," Neville said slowly. "We didn't have friends, and none of us grew up with our parents."

"Yes, but the two of you still have your friends," replied Lupin. "You can be thankful for that."

"I'm your friend!" Neville protested.

Harry added, "I am, too. The three of us can be our own gang, just like the Marauders."

"Well, not *quite* like the Marauders, I hope."

"Right. None of us will turn out to be a traitor."

"That, too, but I meant that I hoped we wouldn't get into as much trouble as the Marauders used to."

Neville wasn't sure who these Marauders were, but with Harry in their gang, he was sure they'd get in trouble.

"Well, what should we call ourselves? The Orphans Welfare League?"

"I like that!" Harry grinned. "We'll be OWLs! My aunt and uncle are always threatening to send me to an orphanage. Now I can tell them I'd love it if they did!"

Lupin laughed. "What do you say, Neville?"

Neville hesitated. He wasn't exactly an orphan. Then again, neither was Professor Lupin. And he *did* want to look out for the welfare of both Lupin and Harry. "Sounds good to me."

"The Orphans Welfare League it is, then. I think this calls for a celebration. What do you say we go out for lunch?"

Harry grinned, and Neville said, "Thanks, Professor!"

Lupin laughed and clapped them on the back. "How many times do I have to tell you, Neville: I'm not your professor anymore. Instead, since we're all fellow orphans, I think you should start calling me Remus."

*****

They flooed over to Diagon Alley, but Lupin didn't take them to the Leaky Cauldron. Instead, he took them to a place that had been a favorite haunt of the Marauders when they were at school.

"Help yourselves to whatever you want, boys," Lupin said as they studied the menus. "It's my treat. Though technically speaking, Harry, you're paying, since the money I have belongs to you."

"What?" Harry asked, his spiky head peering over the top of his menu.

"Padfoot withdrew all his money and signed it over to me in order to keep his accounts from being seized, but you're his heir. It belongs to you. For that matter, so does the headquarters."

Neville's eyes goggled at that, but Harry looked unhappy. "But I don't want it. I don't need it. You do."

Lupin shook his head. "No, Harry, it's yours."

"Then I'm giving it to you."

"That's very generous of you, Harry, but it's *too* generous. You don't know what you're talking about."

"Yes, I do!"

Lupin pressed his lips together. "Well, now is not the time to discuss it."

With the matter dismissed, if not settled, they turned back to their menus and ordered lunch. It was a pleasant, sunny day, and they sat at one of the outdoor tables where they could watch the crowd go by.

It seemed that back-breaking, filthy work agreed with Harry. While they had cleaned out the laboratory, Harry's gloomy mood lifted, and he was more talkative and friendly than he'd been all summer. Out in the sunshine and fresh air, his good mood continued, and he and Neville chatted away while Lupin listened, a smile brightening his normally careworn face.

Somehow Neville and Harry got off on the subject of Umbridge and what an awful teacher she'd been. It took Lupin a little while to relinquish his accustomed role of responsible adult, but before long he began regaling them with tales of the teachers from when he'd been in school.

They were just starting in on their dessert - a mountainous ice cream sundae - when a voice that Neville dreaded above all others interrupted them with a sneer.

"Good afternoon, Lupin," said Professor Snape, as Neville squeaked and dropped his spoon. "Out with your two young and very vulnerable charges, I see. Is that really prudent?"

Lupin smiled pleasantly up at Snape. "I hardly think that an occasional trip to Diagon Alley presents much risk. Young boys get impatient with being cooped up day in and day out, especially during the summer holiday."

"As you no doubt are personally very well aware," Snape said. "Nevertheless, you cannot be too cautious these days."

"Indeed not. With that in mind, perhaps you'd care to join us for dessert?" Lupin helpfully indicated an open chair. "With both of us present, I'm sure the boys will be safe from attack."

Snape arched an eyebrow at that, his lips twisted into something that almost resembled a smile, or at any rate a smirk, and for one terrifying moment Neville thought he might actually accept. Fortunately, the unnatural expression on Snape's face transformed into a more familiar sneer as he turned his attention to Neville and Harry. "Potter, Longbottom, I trust you're keeping up with your summer assignments? Though I doubt that either of you scored high enough on your OWLs to qualify for my advanced-level class."

"I'm afraid I've commandeered some of their time to help on that project Dumbledore asked me to work on," Lupin said.

Snape seemed genuinely shocked. "Are you sure that's wise, given how important that project is? Longbottom in particular can't so much as boil water without causing a major explosion."

"Actually, I was thinking of putting him in charge of the purification ritual. It would be an excellent opportunity for him to learn."

Snape leaned over the table, and Neville shrank back reflexively, even though for once Snape's baleful eye was not cast in his direction. "This project is too crucial to be botched up by your charitable impulses, Lupin."

"Indeed." Lupin's voice was cool, but underlaid with steely resolve. "But Dumbledore put me in charge of the project. If you have concerns about how I'm handling it, you can bring it up at the next meeting."

"Rest assured, I will." Snape glanced quickly at Neville and Harry, and the air grew several degrees cooler, as if a dementor had just walked by. "Enjoy your ice cream, gentlemen."

When Snape had left, Neville felt like he could breathe again. Panicked, he turned on Lupin. "You can't put me in charge!" he squeaked.

Calmly returning to his ice cream sundae, Lupin asked, "Why ever not?"

"Because - because Snape's right! I'll mess it up!"

"And why would you do that?" Lupin said pleasantly. "You heard him. This project is important. I know you won't be careless."

"But I'm - I'm clumsy. Everyone knows that."

"Do they? Then they must know something I don't, because I never experienced you as clumsy in my class."

"That's only because you never yelled at me."

"In that case," Lupin smiled, "if I want you to do well on this project, I shall have to remember not to yell at you."

"But Professor, I can't do this all by myself."

At last Lupin put down his spoon. "I never said you had to, Neville. This isn't for marks; you don't have to do your own work. I simply want to put you in charge. That means enlisting whatever help you need in order to get the job done. Harry here is well aware of the importance of having good assistance to count on. And since I am ultimately in charge of the project, you will have to present all your plans to me for final approval. I'll certainly notice if you miss anything important."

"But - but Snape - ," Neville sputtered, at a loss as to how to convince Lupin. He'd never had to protest against someone's good opinion of him before. "And - and besides, my Gran always says I'll never amount to much."

Lupin scowled. "Neville, there comes a time when you must stop listening to what other people say and make up your own mind. Do you want to amount to something?"

"Y-yes," stammered Neville uncertainly.

"Then will you accept the charge of this purification ritual? If you think it's too much for you, you'd better refuse." Lupin's brows drew together in a frown. "But know this, Neville: I wouldn't ask you if I didn't think you were capable of it."

Neville looked anxiously to Harry, who no doubt knew his limits better than Lupin did. But Harry merely smiled at him and nodded eagerly. Uneasiness curdled in his stomach. He didn't know why anyone would place such an important task in his hands. But then...he *had* done well at the Ministry, hadn't he? Tonks admired the way he'd stabbed Macnair in the eye, and Harry himself had praised Neville for breaking the Prophecy rather than let the Death Eaters get it. And he'd done well in the DA lessons with Harry. For that matter, he'd earned an E in Lupin's class. Maybe Lupin was right. Maybe he *could* do the job.

Swallowing down his doubts and trying to sound confident, he looked up at Lupin. "All right. I accept."

"Excellent," Lupin beamed. "Now let's finish our ice cream before it completely melts into soup."

*****

The rest of the day passed pleasantly as well. When they returned to the house, they got some more work done on the laboratory, and they were all good and hungry again by dinnertime. Harry kept up his good-natured chatter while they fixed a huge plate of sandwiches and settled down to a well-earned meal.

They had just finished the last of the sandwiches when the fire in the grate flashed green, and a small bundle of soot tumbled onto the hearth. The bundle fluffed up, shaking off a cloud of ash, then blinked golden eyes up at them.

"Pigwidgeon!" Harry exclaimed, bending down to pick up the tiny owl and place him on the table. Neville brushed the bird off with his napkin and Lupin set a cup of pumpkin juice in front of him, but Pigwidgeon valiantly refused the drink, holding out one twig-like leg, on which was tied a tightly folded piece of parchment. "Good boy, Pig," Harry complimented, as he untied the note from the owl's leg. Pigwidgeon gave a little sneeze, scattering soot across the table, and dipped his beak into the cup Lupin had offered.

Refreshed from the drink, Pigwidgeon hopped back down to the hearth and flapped his wings, signaling that he was ready to head off again now that he had discharged his duty. Lupin threw a handful of floo powder into the fire and called out, "The Burrow," and Pigwidgeon disappeared into the flame.

"Who's it from?" Neville asked curiously as Harry unfolded the parchment.

"Hermione," he said. As Harry silently read the note, his lips curled into a frown, and Neville and Lupin exchanged a worried glance.

When Harry rolled up the letter, Lupin asked, "Bad news?"

"What?" Harry said absently. "Oh, no. No, it's sort of about you, Neville. You know that thing we were talking about the other day? The...the gift for your grandmother?"

"What gift?" Neville asked in confusion. "I don't remember talking about a gift."

"You know. At the Burrow." Harry's eyes widened, as if he were trying to point at Neville with his eyeballs.

Neville watched this strange display for a moment before finally figuring out what Harry was talking about. "Oh! The gift for Gran. Right."

Lupin's mouth twisted in a wry smile. "Well, I can see you boys have important business to discuss. You go on, I'll take care of the dishes."

Calling out their thanks, Neville and Harry hastily retreated upstairs where they could talk in private. Harry had scarcely closed the door behind them when Neville eagerly asked, "So what did she say? Did she find out anything about what driftwood means?"

"Um, well, not exactly," Harry said as he crossed the room to his bed, Hermione's letter crumpled in his hand. "She says she hasn't found anything yet, and she asked whether you could get hold of your parents' medical records. If we knew something about their treatment, it might give us a clue about the driftwood."

Neville nodded, settling onto the bed and wrapping his arm around the bedpost. "That makes sense."

"Think you can get their medical records?"

Neville shrugged. "I don't know, but I'll make sure I do." When Harry added nothing more, Neville asked, "Is that all she said?"

"Yeah," Harry answered absently.

"But - you didn't look very happy. I thought it must be bad news."

"Oh." Harry glanced down at the note again, then stuffed it in his pocket. "It's nothing. It's just Hermione going off on one of her sermons. You know how she is."

"Oh," said Neville. "A sermon about my parents?"

"No." Harry leaned back on the headboard, wrapping his arms around his knees. "It's just...she said I shouldn't be mad at her and Ron, that we're all still friends."

"Are you mad at them?"

Harry sullenly picked at his shoelaces. "I don't know."

Neville pulled his feet up onto the bed and settled cross-legged at the foot of the bed opposite Harry. "I guess Ron and Hermione are kind of official now, eh?" he ventured.

Harry didn't reply, just kept picking at the plastic bit at the end of his shoelace. It belatedly occurred to Neville that Harry might not want to talk about the fact that his two best friends were now an item, one that by definition would exclude him.

"I don't see why everyone has to be paired off," Harry groused.

Neville could think of some very specific reasons why people would want to pair off, but he refrained from mentioning them.

"I mean, it's an awful lot of bother and stomach-ache, and then it's all wet and blubbery, and I don't see what the big deal is."

"Um," said Neville. He wasn't exactly certain what Harry was talking about.

"*I* didn't think it was so great anyway."

Neville's brows knit in confusion. "What wasn't?"

"Kissing!" Harry said, as if it had been obvious.

"Oh." Neville was glad Harry wasn't looking at him, because he could feel his cheeks burning.

They sat in silence, and it seemed like Neville ought to have some kind of response, but he couldn't think of anything particularly insightful to offer.

After a while, Harry stopped picking on his shoelaces. He wrapped his arms around his knees again, chewing on his lower lip. "Neville...."

"Yes?"

Harry glanced at him, those preternaturally green eyes curious. "Have you ever kissed anyone before?"

"Oh." Neville swallowed hard. "Um, well, yes."

"You have?" Harry didn't even try to mask his surprise.

Neville knew he should feel indignant about that, except for the fact that he could perfectly understand it. "Yes."

Harry considered this. "Have you done it...um, very much?"

Neville scratched his nose. "Depends on what you mean by 'very much'."

"More than once?"

"Yes," he hesitantly confessed.

"With more than one person?"

"Yes."

Harry's jaw dropped in shock. "Who have you kissed?" he demanded.

"Well, I don't think it's very nice to say." Besides, he didn't particularly *want* to say.

Chastened, Harry settled back down on his elbows. "Sorry. You're right: I shouldn't pry. It's only - I never knew you had a girlfriend."

"I didn't exactly," Neville said, and immediately regretted it.

Harry peered curiously at him. "What do you mean?"

"It's just that it wasn't exactly a girlfriend kind of situation."

"What kind of situation was it, then?"

Neville tried not to grimace. It was all really so very complicated, and definitely not the kind of thing he wanted to tell Harry about. "It was sort of like...practice, I guess."

"Practice? Like when Ron and Dean and Seamus...?"

The infamous wanking sessions. Neville had been shocked when Seamus had first proposed them their third year. Ron and Dean had seemed familiar with the concept and were eager enough to practice, but neither Harry nor Neville had ever been very comfortable with it. Harry had joined in a few times, but soon stopped. For his part, Neville always hid on his bed with the curtains drawn. The last thing he needed was to see boys wanking.

He envied the others their comfort with their sexuality. Seamus, Dean, and Ron talked freely about sex, about hard-ons and wet dreams, and girls. They would debate the merits and demerits of all the girls in the other houses, often in very crude terms, but it was generally understood that they should only say complimentary things about Gryffindor girls, and no one ever, ever was to discuss Hermione. While the others knew Ron had fancied her since third year, they were kind enough to wait for him to figure it out for himself. His perpetual confusion over her owed more to his inability to understand girls in general, than to any ignorance of sex.

As Dean and Seamus gained some real-life experience, they were eager to share what they had learned - again, so long as no Gryffindor girls were involved. It was all very enlightening, and Neville would lie silently on his bed listening to the conversation, but he never joined in. He didn't exactly have anything to share.

"It wasn't that kind of practice," he said at last. "Just kissing."

Harry actually looked impressed. "Wow. You never said anything when the others talked about it."

"You never said anything about Cho Chang, either," Neville countered.

Harry's cheeks colored. "I didn't particularly care to talk about that."

"Nor did I."

Harry pondered this. "So, is it nice at all? I mean, do you like it?"

Neville hesitated. "Yes, it's nice."

"Maybe I just wasn't doing it right."

"It does take a bit of practice," Neville admitted. "It's kind of weird at first, until you get used to it."

"Perhaps I *should* practice," mused Harry. "With a friend, someone I trust. So the next time it's important, I'll be ready."

"That would be a good idea." He wondered if Harry would ask Hermione, and if she would agree. But of course Ron wouldn't like that.

While Neville pondered whom Harry could practice with, Harry remained silent. At last Neville looked up, only to see Harry contemplating him warily. "Um, Harry?"

"I was just thinking," Harry said slowly. "You're a good friend. And you know a lot about kissing, so...maybe you could show me?"

Neville squeaked.

"It doesn't mean anything!" Harry protested, hastily sitting up. "It's just that - there aren't any girls I could ask. I mean, who *would* I ask? And you know, it's all so complicated - with girls, I mean. And anyway, Ron and Seamus and Dean do it."

"They don't kiss!"

"Well, I--." Harry turned bright red and rolled over onto his stomach, facing away from Neville. "Never mind. It was a stupid idea. Sorry."

Neville stared at the back of Harry's head, where a cowlick was sticking out at an odd angle. He'd always been rather fond of Harry's perpetually mussed hair. More to the point, he'd always been rather fond of Harry. That was the problem. He didn't want to kiss Harry for practice, because he'd very much rather kiss him for real. All his other crushes were on hopelessly unattainable boys - good-looking, confident, sexy boys like Oliver Wood or Cedric Diggory. But despite the fact that Harry was the Boy Who Lived, he had an ordinaryish quality about him. It could be remotely conceivable that a boy like Harry might fancy a boy like Neville.

That is, if he fancied boys at all.

Unfortunately, the chances of that were pretty slim. Harry was about as unattainable as all of Neville's other crushes, so perhaps kissing for practice wouldn't be such a bad deal after all. "All right," he said at last.

Slowly Harry rolled over and studied Neville with guarded eyes. "Really? You wouldn't mind?"

That was different. None of the others Neville had kissed had ever exactly asked his permission. They just assumed that Neville would want to practice with them. "Really, it's fine."

"Oh." Harry appeared to consider this for a long moment. "All right then."

But he did not move, and he did not say anything else. For his part, Neville did not move or say anything else, either. They both just sat there on the bed, casually but studiously not looking at each other.

The minutes ticked slowly, painfully by, and Neville reluctantly realized that something would have to be done. They should either get on with the practicing, or he should leave. Harry had made the suggestion, so he ought to make the move, but he continued to do nothing, and at last Neville offered, "So...."

"So," Harry echoed, and Neville thought he sounded embarrassed. "You want to practice now?"

"All right," said Neville, trying with great effort to sound casual.

Harry sat up and crossed his legs, facing Neville.

"You want to take off your glasses?" Neville suggested.

Harry appeared to be taken aback. He started to ask a question, then closed his mouth and obediently removed his glasses, folding them and placing them on a shelf on the headboard, before turning back to face Neville.

Again, Neville was struck by how different Harry looked without his glasses. Younger somehow, and his eyes seemed closer together, yet so much more vividly green. It was a bit unnerving.

"So...how do you start off?" Harry asked, and Neville was reminded of Hermione, parsing out the steps of a hex for them to practice in Dumbledore's Army.

"Well, you just sort of...." Neville hesitated. There was no point in trying to explain, not to mention the fact that he would die of embarrassment if he tried. So, taking a deep breath to fortify himself he leaned forward until his lips were pressed against Harry's.

Neither of them moved. Harry's lips were dry against his. It wasn't very interesting, but it was a start.

He leaned back and looked at Harry, who blinked and said, "That's it?"

"Hardly. But it wasn't wet and blubbery, was it?"

"No," Harry answered with the tiniest of smiles.

"Only, you have to move a bit, and sort of...." Again he lacked words, so he leaned forward and kissed Harry once more, really kissed him this time. A bit of pressure, a puckering of the lips. Only that sounded so crass. More like an embrace of the lips, only that sounded like romantic twaddle, but it was more accurate. And this time Harry's lips felt soft, and Neville moved his own lips a bit over Harry's, still a very chaste kiss, but definitely a real one, only without the hurry and the sweating and the wandering hands, and it was quite nice really.

He released Harry and sat back again, feeling pleased and nervous at the same time. "Better?" he asked.

"Um...," Harry licked his lips, and Neville's stomach did a flip at the sight. "Yes, that's better. Is that all?"

Neville couldn't hold back a smile. Was Harry really so ignorant? "Of course not. There's a lot more."

Panic flickered over Harry's face. "A lot?"

"Don't worry. You can handle it."

"Erm, right."

"You just do what I did, only more. You'll pick it up pretty quick."

Harry nodded and took a deep breath, like the brave Gryffindor that he was, prepared to face any terror no matter how daunting. This time when Neville leaned toward him, Harry met him half way.

It went much better. At first Harry just gnawed on Neville's lips, but he quickly got the hang of it. It might not exactly be full-fledged snogging, but it was well on the way, and was most distinctly pleasant.

Neville's previous kissing experience had more closely resembled assault. Hester's kisses had been much like what Harry had described: wet and blubbery, and not at all pleasant. He had only been nine at the time, and she was a neighbor girl several years older than him. His grandmother often asked Hester to watch him while she went to her canasta club, and he hadn't really known what she was going to do to him when she took him behind the garden shed. Snails: that's what it had reminded him of. He'd been too young and too frightened to tell her no, and afterward he would scrub his mouth with his sleeve until his lips bled. Gran could never understand why his lips were so chapped that summer, and he had been very glad when Hester went away to school.

The experience with Ginny hadn't been a whole lot better as far as the kissing was concerned, except that Ginny didn't make his flesh crawl. Plus she was shorter than him, so he hadn't felt as powerless. He'd known that if he said no, she would listen. But he had let her kiss him, because she'd been nice enough to go to the Yule Ball with him, and really she had always been decent to him. It never felt like she hung out with him only because Ron, Hermione, and Harry ignored her. He and Ginny were good friends, so he didn't mind letting her kiss him. Especially since she only ever asked twice.

But Ainsley Wooding was different. The Hufflepuff was two years older than Neville, and Muggle-born, and he had his own peculiar ideas about things. For one thing, he didn't mind people knowing that he was gay. He even flaunted it. He started stalking Neville in fourth year, catching him alone in hallways or in quiet corners of the library. He claimed he could tell Neville was gay, too, which Neville resented. "Gay" was such a vile Muggle term. He didn't know how Ainsley had figured him out, and he certainly didn't care to have him broadcast this knowledge to the whole school.

But he *did* want to know what it was like to kiss a boy, and flamboyant as Ainsley was, he was definitely handsome, far beyond the league of anyone Neville had any right to hope for. So they had practiced, and it was from Ainsley that he had really learned how to kiss: tongues and hands, and sucking and grinding. He'd learned how kisses could be really wet, but not feel like snails at all. He'd learned what it was like to feel a hard cock pressed into his thigh, and to feel his own cock harden in response. He'd learned what it was like to spill his passion in the presence of another person. And there was a lot more Ainsley had been willing to teach him. But the most important lesson he'd taught Neville had also been the cruelest.

It was one of those many days when Neville's potion assignment had gone horribly wrong. A common enough occurrence, yet Snape had given him a particularly humiliating dressing-down in front of the class and taken a whopping fifty points from Gryffindor.

Neville had been scampering down the hall, head down in a desperate effort to keep anyone from seeing the tears that kept threatening to overcome him, when he'd collided headlong with Brutus Bole. The strap of his bookbag broke, and books, scrolls, and ink had spilled everywhere. Bole, flanked by a pack of Slytherins, had glared at the ink spilled on his robefront and then turned his carnivorous gaze on Neville. "You ruined my robes, you worthless squib!" Bole snarled, shoving at him.

He'd tripped over his books and fallen hard. The Slytherins crowded around him, and Bole looked ready to pound him until he was nothing but a bag of jelly. He'd glanced wildly around, hoping to find someone to come to his aid, and that's when he heard the laughter.

A group of Hufflepuffs had stopped to watch, including Ainsley Wooding. He was laughing along with his housemates, and when he saw Neville's glance, he sneered, "Way to go, Widebottom. Winning yet more glory for Gryffindor, I see."

Bole reached down and grabbed the front of his robes, hauling him to his feet, but none of the Hufflepuffs, including Wooding, moved to help him. Wooding just leaned against the wall, crossing his arms across his chest, as if preparing to enjoy the spectacle.

In the end it had been Snape, of all people, who had rescued him, swooping down on the scene like a vengeful bat. He'd taken twenty more points from Gryffindor for Neville's clumsiness, but he'd also stopped Bole from pummeling him by looming over Neville like a sinister angel of mercy until the Slytherins finally moved on.

The worst thing was that the next day Wooding had cornered him in the library for another snog as if nothing had happened. He'd even tried to stick his hand down Neville's pants, but in a rare burst of self-protection, Neville had shoved his elbow into Wooding's stomach and made an escape. After that he kept a careful eye out for Wooding and managed never to be caught alone with him again.

So Neville had a fair amount of experience in kissing, especially for a fifteen-year-old misfit who fancied boys. But none of it compared at all to the sweetness of kissing Harry Potter. It was still pretty mild - no tongues yet - but he became aware that he was gripping Harry's forearm, that Harry's free hand was on his shoulder, that they'd been kissing a long time, and his lips felt swollen.

So did the bulge in his crotch.

He didn't stop kissing Harry, but the realization that he was getting a hard-on made him self-conscious, and Harry seemed to pick up on his awkwardness. They broke off the kiss, and Neville was too mortified to meet Harry's eyes.

"You're right," Harry said, a bit too loudly. "It's not bad at all. Thanks."

"You're welcome," Neville whispered. He watched out of the corner of his eyes as Harry reached for his glasses and put them on. Neville started to wipe his mouth with the back of his hand, then realized what he was doing and jerked his hand away. This was awful. He didn't know what to say or do now. It wouldn't do to acknowledge his arousal, but he couldn't bear to pretend like it all meant nothing.

Silence stretched between the two of them, as effective as any cold shower. Indeed, Neville felt himself shriveling: not just his erection, but his whole ego. He wished Harry would say something, but he was terrified of what Harry might say.

In the end it seemed that he would have to take matters into his own hands. "It's been a long day. I think I'll turn in."

"Yeah."

As Neville still couldn't meet Harry's eyes, he didn't know how to interpret that. An old familiar shame filled him: the certainty that he would never, ever fit in, and he sadly turned away, sliding his legs over the edge of the bed. "Good night, then," he said as he got to his feet.

"Good night."

Trying to keep his stride casual, Neville walked the long, long distance to the door, wishing he could go back home to Lancashire, maybe even leave Hogwarts and never have to see Harry again.

He reached the door and turned the handle just as Harry called out, "Neville."

He wanted to pretend he hadn't heard, but that would be too obviously rude. He paused and turned a fraction back toward Harry. "Yeah?"

"Pleasant dreams."

A small smile tugged at his lips. "You, too," he said, and headed into the hallway, closing the door behind him.

*****

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