adjunct | Predictably, Neville was left partnerless.

[There's a small crash as the knocking makes Neville jump up so fast that his chair topples over backwards and hits the floor. He stands there for about three seconds without moving or blinking or breathing, one hand slapped over his mouth, while where he is and what he's doing all comes flooding back at once.

Oh. Oh, bugger.

That voice can only be Harry's mum. Snape's best mate, according to his last, rather unpleasant bracelet-conversation with Harry that he's been struggling not to be constantly peeved over.

So... this is not going to be good.]

I- [Neville coughs, because his voice is rather more squeaky than he'd like it to be, and he stares at the door as though he's not sure if he should listen to her and open it (though, it's not locked or anything.)] I'm fine, it's fine, I'm sorry about the noise.

[ Lily's just staring at the handle of the door, hand hovering near it now, listening for any signs of- well, anything. ]

You have nothing to be sorry for, I just heard shouting, that's all. Are you sure you're alright? May I please come in? Only for a moment. [ TO QUELL HER RAGING MOM WORRIES. and she's got her fingers on the handle now, but she waits.

well, she tries to wait, but then she's cracking the door open a little bit and peeking in ]

I'll need to get a look at you or I'll be worried all night, you understand.

[ LILY YOU HARDLY KNOW EACH OTHER YOU CAN'T JUST- yep, she's stepping into his room. uninvited. her voice is quieter now ]

What's wrong?

[When she peeks in, Neville is hurriedly scrubbing at his eyes with his knuckles, back to the door, shoulders hunched. He wasn't crying, but there is a bit of wetness around them that would have given him away for being damn close.

He's not a very stoic young man, despite his best efforts.]

It's nothing, I--

[He turns around quickly when her voice is no longer filtered by even the thin wood of the door. His face is still bright scarlet, and he's decidedly not making eye contact, looking at the slope of one of her shoulders instead. He's never been-- mothered before, not really (his gran was all about tough love and emotional crippling), and as a result the tone she takes, the worry evident all over her, makes his stomach do flips and he feels simultaneously very young and silly and much too old to be acting like this. She can only be a year or two older than him, at most. He makes a tremendous effort to straighten up and look her full in the face (and he even gets all the way to her nose before his eyes dart back down, which is not perfect but he'll count it as a win for now.)]

I was just... talking. [Screaming, really.] To someone on the bracelet, I mean.

It's alright.

[ to be upset, to yell, to- whatever it is that's making him nervous, really. she's trying not to jump to conclusions, but the timing of it is hard to ignore. ]

Was it Crouch? He's an awful man, truly. And not worth listening to.

[And that's what spurs him on, really. The idea that she'll scorn a man like Barty Crouch Jr., but at the same time was such great friends with someone just as bad. Maybe even worse, if the sheer scope of what he was responsible for got taken into account. There's suddenly a twinge of defiance in Neville's voice.]

No. It was Professor Snape.

[Granted, it was also Barty, but it was Snape trotting his parents out to try and distract people from the horrible things he'd done that made Neville really lose his shit.]

[ maybe she shouldn't be shocked. but it's obvious she is, a little bit at least, because what could Severus possibly say to this young man to make him react that way? why would it even be an issue? she doesn't doubt Neville at all, how could she? there's a lot about Severus she doesn't know, including how he treated his students. Harry might speak highly of him, but she knows Harry also had a much different relationship with him than his other students likely did. so. so she's shocked, but it's still laced with concern ]

Severus- [ a breath, and her voice is mmmmuch less confident than it was a second ago. ] Professor Snape can be awful too. [ it's odd to think about, but she does make the connection pretty quickly - despite the fact that she and Severus were best friends in school, he did say awful things to her whenever he was picked on, and if Barty's words got to him enough...

she knows there's a side of him that lashes out like that, that's not the shocking part. what's shocking is that nearly twenty years later, he hasn't learned to control it. ]

I'm sorry, for whatever he said. I know an apology from me doesn't excuse what he said, or- change how it made you feel, but I know how mean he can be. It's almost as if he has no idea how harsh his words are until days after he's said them.

[Neville does a one-shoulder shrug, which is all he can do to keep his head on straight. The idea that Snape ever once said anything without the intention of it hurting is baffling to him.]

He's not going to be particularly bothered, even if it somehow comes as a shock to him later.

[And that lack of regret, for anything as far as Neville can tell - word or action - all the unconvincing excuses that Snape has been sneering at him since Neville first heard the words Albus Dumbledore Academy over the network and reacted (he feels) accordingly... They all just sit in Neville's stomach and curdle there like bad milk. His fingers twist in the ends of his sleeves, and he pushes forward where any other time he might have ducked his head and deflected. Left the words uncertain and unspoken.]

It really doesn't bother you? The things he's done? [Because Harry's mum seems, by all accounts, a perfectly lovely person and not someone that would approve of the sort of things that Snape let happen at Hogwarts, no matter what Harry says.] I mean the things he says don't really matter, do they, in the end. [Not that Neville didn't still let them get to him in the worst way.]

[ honestly, she's a bit thrown off by the question, simply because- ] Of course it bothers me. It bothers me every time I think about him. [ which makes it sound like she sits around grumping about the way things turned out, but it's not like that. it's disappointment mixed with sadness mixed with anger for not being able to change things, to be there. the idea that her friendship wasn't enough to keep Severus away from that life, from making those choices, is one of her true soft spots, it's a weakness. ]

I'm- I'm not sure what exactly you've heard, but I don't approve of the things he's done, between the time when I knew him back home and the time we've spent here. I do believe he's changed, that he's trying to at least, but I'm certainly not turning a blind eye to what he's done in the past. What I know of it, at least. [ which isn't anything about what kind of professor he was, no. but Neville's body language, his tone, his expression, it all paints a pretty clear picture of the way he treated at least one of his students ] I wasn't apologizing on his behalf, I was apologizing because I know how hurtful he can be.

[Neville's brow furrows. It certainly doesn't sound like Lily had made an informed character assessment and found Snape a selfless hero worthy of Harry's sudden and bizarre adulation. What had he been playing at? What is even going on here? Neville frowns, trying to put together the puzzle with missing pieces and just growing more and more frustrated for it.

He shifts on his feet, fingers twisting in the hems of his own shirt.]

He made a lot of people think he had changed, I think. Professor Dumbledore, too. [Because Neville outright refuses to believe that Dumbledore would have ordered him to let Death Eaters torture the students, to have the muggleborns thrown into Azkaban when they arrived at the start of the school year. No matter what Harry and Hermione say on the matter. And then, suddenly, it occurs to him how she had phrased that: between when I knew him back home and the time we've spent here.

Mouth dry, he finally manages to look up into her face.] Has no one told you, what he did when he became Headmaster last time?

[ and there it is, that sinking, cold feeling she always gets when the future is being held up in front of her like some kind of threat. not that it is, technically, but the way her chest twists makes her feel threatened, and it's probably written all over her face. it's humiliating, feeling so afraid of something that ultimately can't touch her here, but she is. she shakes her head, just this little tiny movement, looking just as embarrassed as she is afraid ]

I can't know. Not yet. [ she's looking somewhere past him for a second, shaking her head again before her eyes find his again, brow furrowed ] I know it makes me weak, like I'm trying to bury my head in the sand, but I can't- know those things. Not when I know I wasn't there to help, or fix things, or stop them. [ it's all guilt and responsibility and- yeah. but. ] I'm sorry.

I've been trying very hard to focus on what we all have here, you know? Because it's technically all I really do have. James and me. [ and she pauses there, hoping he sees that that's really what scares her. not the actual information, but the fact that she won't be there for any of it, she's still dealing with that. ] Not to say I'll just excuse what people did at home, who they are or what they've done, but I'm not- ready yet. To know.

[It takes Neville a solid ten seconds, it seems like, to process that. At some point during her reply his mouth had even dropped open an infinitesimal amount.

He'd gotten so used to the extraordinary courage of his fellow students, over the last year - and especially over the last few weeks, when he'd been driven into hiding and only had contact with other members of Dumbledore's Army - that it floors him for a moment to hear anybody refuse to hear him out, on account of the information being unpleasant.

Which is, in fact, what he thinks is happening. After all, he's never had a mother, himself (at least, not one that can still feel and recognize dread or worry for the future), and the only time his grandmother had ever expressed pride in him was when he was throwing himself headlong into mortal danger, so the whole thing is treading a bit outside his scope of empathy. He blinks at her, mouth closing again.]

... Right. [He doesn't look like he has any idea where to go from there.] Well, I'm sorry for. For bothering you. Then.

[ ow ]

You're not bothering me. I wouldn't have come in here if you were a bother. I was worried, you sounded- [ that's not the point. her voice is too quiet, like she's trying too hard to keep her temper under control. not that she really has one, but sometimes it flares, times like this. when she's not expecting it. ] If telling me about the future will help you feel better, then- you should, I suppose. I only came in here to make sure you were alright. I mean that.

[ her face is hot though, embarrassed and ashamed and a number of other emotions she's not used to feeling, wasn't expecting to right now, talking to Neville. which is why, even though she should stop, she kind of- sets off. still quiet, but her brow's furrowed up, jaw tight ]

Though, since we're on the subject, please let me know the next time someone tells you that you, and the person you love most, will be dead within two years time, because two different people that you've considered a best friends at some point in your life betrayed you. And that even though things seemed impossible for you and your friends, right before your death of course, everything you know falls apart after you're gone. Everything. When someone tells you that you're not around to see your son grow up, or to help him through the hell that came as the result of a blood prophecy, or to even fight in a war that you've been too close to from the start of it, please, let me know. Because then I would understand why you're looking at me like that right now.

[ oh godric she needs to shut up. she knows she's gone too far, it's obvious by how bright her eyes are, how she kind of isn't letting herself blink because she knows she'd get all- teary. but- ]

But since you must already know what that's like, going by your judgment here, you should go ahead and let me know. No harm done, right, since I won't be around to experience any of it anyway. Shame on me, being so selfish, when I took the easy way out of everything, taking a Killing Curse instead of living long enough to know what everyone is talking about of the future.

[Neville looks quite like he'd just been slapped across the face.

He hadn't thought of that. Any of it, really. Not with Lily, and not with any of his other housemates (or Professor Dumbledore.) How hard it must be to come from the past and be unable to do anything to prepare for the future. It would probably drive him up a wall if a stranger walked in and told him that something terrible was going to happen a decade or two from now and ruin the lives of his friends and family, and that he couldn't do anything about it. Since coming here he's been so laser-focused on Snape, on how nobody is doing anything about Snape, that he'd let everything else get kicked right to the wayside.

Which is just-- well, he shouldn't be this much of a tosser. He isn't this much of a tosser, and he's letting a couple of Death Eaters turn him into one. That alone manages to make him feel even worse now than he had when Lily first walked in - and that's saying something.

In direct contrast to her relative restraint, Neville is blinking rapidly because there are definitely tears in his eyes. He's always been what one might charitably refer to as a bit emotional.]

I didn't say- I didn't mean-- [Well, he hadn't said but he had meant, which is the problem here. The war was all he lived and breathed and thought about for the past year, it was the only thing he'd ever done worth doing, and now he can't even talk about it. It's such a profoundly isolating feeling that he's lashing out at people who don't deserve it - he really doesn't want to be the kind of guy who does that. Miserably, ashamed, he ducks his head and fights back the urge to palm at his eyes.] I'm sorry.

Predictably, Neville was left partnerless.

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