Personal Hell

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He had ranted, raved and even stood up to his formidable witch of a grandmother. However, he was *still* going.

She just didn't understand. They *weren't* friends. He really didn't have any friends in his year. Though... he definitely had crushes. He was the odd one out in his dorm, there was Seamus & Dean, there was Harry & Ron and to the side was poor little Neville. It wasn't that he wanted it that way, he just didn't seem to fit in. He often wondered why the Sorting Hat put him in Gryffindor, and not Hufflepuff. At least there he would have fit in better. Even the head of the Hufflepuff House, Professor Sprout, liked him better than his own head of House. However, he was a Gryffindor, and just this once he would show his bravery.

How could he do it though? Spend the *whole* summer with *him*. He had tried to convince his grandmother that he could spend the summer at home. He was seventeen and didn't make the mistakes he had made when he was younger. But it all broke down to one thing, she didn't trust him, and that *hurt*. So now, in just a few hours, he was going to the Burrow, was going to be sleeping in Ron's room, and had to pretend he didn't have *those* feelings for him.

This was going to be hell.

He could remember exactly when these feelings had started. It had been in the middle of first year. He had gone to take Ron his homework, both Harry and Hermione were in a detention with Filch because Professor Snape said they had done something wrong in Potions...

----------------flashback--------------------

The walls of the hospital wing were white as always. He had been here so many times already this year, that he was sure that Madam Pomfrey had a bed just for him. At least it seemed that way, he was always getting the same one. This time was different though, he wasn't the one coming to be treated, he was the one coming to visit.

Harry had come to him at the end of Transfigurations and asked if he could bring Ron his homework. He and Hermione had a detention with Filch (because of a spilled potion) and Neville couldn't say no. Actually, he was thrilled to do it, they were trusting him with something. He had done his best to remember everything, the notes from Potions, Transfigurations and Astronomy that Hermione had given him, all the books that Ron would need, parchment, a quill and ink and even Ron's star charts. And at the end of gathering everything up, he had picked up his Rememberall to see if he had forgotten anything and it had stayed clear. He was so proud of himself.

Madam Pomfrey had started fussing over him the moment he had walked into the hospital wing. She had thought at first that he had done something again and been sent up. However, finding nothing wrong with him, she *finally* let him move over to Ron's bed.

Even though Harry and Hermione had told him what to expect when he got there, he still felt his heart jump into his throat at his first sight of Ron. His right arm was so swollen that the arm of the hospital PJ's had been cut off. Ron's skin was a brilliant red that even out did his hair, and speaking of hair... Ron's normally untameable bright red locks were slicked to his head. Beads of sweat seemed to make trails down his forehead, past his closed eyes.

Neville whimpered, he hadn't expected Ron to look this bad. they had said it was a dog bite, but could a dog's bite do this?

Putting the books on the stand beside Ron's bed and picking up a cloth, Neville took a seat beside him and gently wiped away some of the sweat that beaded his forehead. Neville had done this with his parents so many times over the past few years, it was just second nature to try and soothe Ron.

Ron's head lulled to the side and seemed to relax some as Neville continued to gently wipe his face.

'He looks like an angel in his sleep.' Neville thought to himself. 'He doesn't deserve this.' He finished wiping Ron's forehead and moved on to gently working on Ron's arm. 'This just isn't fair. This shouldn't happen to someone so beautiful.'

He stopped in mid-stroke, as realization of what he just thought hit him. Jumping up from the chair, he dropped the cloth onto the bed, and practically ran from the room.

Never hearing someone softly say, "Neville?"

-----------------end flashback-----------------

Falling backwards onto his bed, Neville groaned. It had been only a few days later when he found out what really had bitten Ron, or at least what he thought had done it. A dragon, an illegal baby dragon. He had gotten a detention trying to help Harry and Hermione, trying to do what Ron would have done, would have wanted him to do. To warn them that Draco knew.

----------------flashback--------------------

Neville's life had turned into pure hell. The only people still talking to him where Harry and Hermione, and that was because no one was talking to them either. Well, maybe Ron was, but he wasn't out of the hospital wing yet.

Neville hadn't dared go back and seem him after he had started thinking of Ron as beautiful. He just couldn't face Ron after that. Hell, he didn't even know if Ron wanted to see him, no one else did. Not after the night he had lost fifty points for Gryffindor, along with Harry and Hermione, practically *giving* the House Cup to the Slytherins. Why was it the one night that he had tried to prove that he was worthy to be a Gryffindor, things had turned out so badly?

No, from now on, he was just going to stay in this little corner of the common room and never try and do anything again. It would just go wrong anyway. It was safer to stay out of everyone's way.

"Neville?"

He practically fell out of his chair in shock when he heard his name spoken, he hadn't heard anyone approaching him. He hadn't *expected* anyone to approach him.

"Neville, I'm so sorry."

It was Ron. When had he gotten back?

"You didn't do anything wrong, you shouldn't have to deal with all of this... this... crap." Ron raked his right hand through his hair, a faint scar visible in the shape of a bite mark on it.

"Anyway... I'm... I'm just sorry... and... thank you." With that, Ron turned and went over to where Harry and Hermione were playing chess in another corner of the room.

Neville sat there with a dumbfounded look on his face. Ron thanked him? Apologized? He groaned and hid his head in his Herbology book.

-----------------end flashback-----------------

It hadn't gotten any easier after that day, Neville mused to himself. If anything, his feelings grew every day he say the handsome redheaded man. He could remember the bone crushing hug he had gotten for winning the 10 points that had won Gryffindor the House Cup, along with the whispered 'Remember, you're worth 12 Malfoy's'. He remembered when Ron actually spent time with him in the forth year when he wasn't talking to Harry. And most of all, he remembered the smoldering look in Ron's eyes, that he seemed to have for the past six months. Just seeing those eyes was like going to heaven.

"NEVILLE! Get down here."

He winced hearing his grandmother's bellow.

"Yes Grandma," he called down to her while closing his trunk that held all his things. "I'll be down in one minute."

Neville sighed, took one last look around his room, his sanctuary, and whispered a quick prayer to whatever gods or goddess that were listening that this summer wouldn't be as bad as he thought it was going to be.

He then picked up his trunk and headed down the stars toward the fireplace, and his own personal hell.