Lifeguard Duty
Written for Nevillosity
Disclaimer: None of these characters are mine.
Title: Lifeguard Duty
Rating: PG for what might be perceived as slashy-ness, but may or may not actually be.
Pairing/Character(s): Harry, Neville
Warnings: None. Just a little hurt/comfort fic.
Author's Notes: Same story from two points of view, first Harry’s, then Neville’s. This is movie canon, with the gillyweed and all.
Lifeguard Duty
After it’s over ~ the crazy day and the crazy party ~ Harry falls into bed last of all and revels in the fact that he is still alive, and warm and dry, and alive.
Harry closes his eyes and tries to relax, but he still feels like he’s moving through water, as if his muscles are having a memory independent of his brain. He resists the urge to reach for his wand and do a quick Lumos, much as he’d enjoy the nightlight. It seems almost ridiculous to do that now, in the safety of his dorm room, after he’d toughed out so many stretches of true darkness in a broom closet. Besides, what was there to fear for a Completer of the Second Task? He nudges the curtain open a little bit with his foot to let in a splash of moonlight. It’s over, he tells himself. He made it.
After a while, Harry becomes aware of a sound. He’s heard it enough times before to know what it is ~ it is Neville crying, softly, the noises pillow-muffled. But something about it is different this time. Something that makes all of Harry’s pleasant feelings of relief drain away, leaving a deep kind of worry in their wake. Neville sounds really strange. Harry remembers Seamus and Dean teasing Neville at the party about freaking out on the dock after the second task had started. Harry hadn’t thought it was funny, but he’d found himself laughing along with everybody else, almost hysterically, as if that would somehow make Neville laugh about it, too. It hadn’t exactly worked, and afterward he’d felt guilty about it, and he’d tried all evening to get Neville alone to apologize, and to thank him for the gillyweed again, too, but he hadn’t managed that, either.
Well, they’re alone now, judging by the snores coming from their three dorm mates. Harry slips through his bed curtains and creeps across to the other bed. It’s a well worn path that he’s taken many times, Neville has nightmares as frequently as Harry does, and the two of them often come over to wake each other up, or to bring a glass of water.
Harry pushes the curtains back, spilling moonlight across the sheets. Neville puts a hand up in front of his face to shield himself from either the light or Harry’s gaze, or both, but Harry sees enough. He sees that Neville is drenched in sweat, and shivering, as if he’s just climbed out of a lake onto a dock himself. His face is soaked with tears, and there’s a dark stain spreading across the pillowcase.
There’s so much Harry wants to say that he finds he can’t say anything. And he senses that perhaps this isn’t a time for words, anyway, his friend is drowning and he has to do something.
He reaches down and touches his friend’s dark hair, smoothes the tangled curls off Neville’s wet forehead. He turns his hand around so that the back of it, the dry side, is against Neville’s temple, and runs his fingers gently down the heated cheek.
Maybe it’s the surprise of it, but Neville’s sobs shudder to a shaky halt. He waits, frozen, as if not sure what’s coming next. Harry’s not either, but he supposes that it’s his job at this point to come up with something comforting.
Harry figures it might be best to stick with what’s working, so he continues to stroke Neville’s hair. It feels very strange to Harry, this intimacy, but he tells himself that it’s no different from petting Professor Vector’s black grouse-spaniel, as least not the surface mechanics of it, and it’s the least he can do for someone he cares about so much who is hurting so badly. No one’s ever stroked his hair like this, but he thinks he would’ve liked someone to, he must’ve picked the gesture up from television, or a book, or maybe it’s just human instinct. He would’ve liked someone to lean down and kiss him, too, there..... here....on the forehead, and Harry tastes salt, and there is no scar beneath his lips to mar the moment with grim portents, thankfully.
He realizes suddenly that maybe he’s gone too far, draws back in confusion and a graze of fear. He pulls his hand away and turns to the bedside table, and busies himself with finding a handkerchief in the cluttered drawer. His fingers brush a book, a scarf, a wand, and candy wrapped in paper, before he finds a soft, folded square of linen. He’s aware of Neville sitting up, turns to give him the handkerchief. Neville blows his nose, and it sounds so normal and ordinary that Harry finds it possible to shake off the surreal quality of the last few minutes.
Harry wants to tell him he understands. That he remembers about Blackpool. That he remembers Neville had thought the screeching egg had sounded like people being tortured and that Harry’s figured out there’s probably a reason Neville doesn’t live with his parents. That he knows the hour of the second task must’ve seemed like a year. He just doesn’t know how.
But Neville probably wants to explain, and doesn’t know how either, so maybe it’s just better if neither one of them tries to say anything.
Harry picks up the blanket and shakes the twists and rumples out of it, and Neville picks up on the cue. After all, it’s not as if they haven’t done this for each other before. Neville turns his pillow over, and lies back down, and Harry covers him up, then steps back and pulls the curtains almost, but not quite, closed.
Harry returns to his own bed and lies back down as well. The uncomfortable sensation of drifting that he’d had before is gone, now. His body feels back on dry land again, motionless and calm. Only his hand still feels the slightest bit damp, and there’s a faint taste of the sea on his lips.
~ ~ ~
Neville is the first one that night to go to bed. He battens down the curtains against the noise of the party downstairs, and waits, until one by one his dorm mates return and retire, and Neville is granted the kind of privacy that only comes with insomnia.
Everyone seems asleep, so he yields to the tide that’s been pulling on him for hours. He has never been able to stop tears once they threaten to start, for him it is like trying to stop the rain. The best he’s ever been able to hope for is that he reaches some kind of sanctuary first.
Two down, he tells himself, only one to go. Sometimes Neville feels that the three tasks are more trials for him than for Harry. Watching a friend’s life endangered is not his idea of fun, and the tournament is a poor substitute for Quidditch, in his opinion, but he can’t not go. The second task had been even worse to endure than the first, with Ron and Hermione at the bottom of the lake, as well.
He thinks of Ron, who didn’t even speak to Harry for all those weeks before the first task. It was Neville who had stuck by him and kept him company, and yet Ron was chosen to represent what Harry would miss most if he lost. Neville wonders if anyone would ever miss him most of all. If he’d ever be at the top of anyone’s list for anything.
Neville tries to just be grateful that he’d been able to help. That the gillyweed had worked like the book said it would. Generally Neville tried to stay out of other people’s decision-making processes, he just didn’t want to be responsible. But how could he not have shared what he knew, when it had been so close to the wire and Harry had run out of ideas and time.
He could have lost him today. Harry doesn’t know it, but he is the person whom Neville would miss most of all.
Neville’s lost in his sea of thoughts and his relentless tears, and he doesn’t hear cat-footed Harry until the bed curtains open and the silver light from the window washes over him.
He instinctively covers his face with his hand - it’s not like they haven’t seen each other in such condition before, but that never makes it any less embarrassing.
He expects Harry to say something, but Harry doesn’t say anything at all. He just reaches down, and brushes his hair back - a surprisingly tender gesture, one that is followed by a caress down the side of his face, and that is so surprising that Neville is knocked out of his despondent thoughts mid-sob.
Neville has not been entirely bereft of such attention in his lifetime. His grandmother was not above dabbing a fevered brow with her lavender-scented handkerchief, and Madame Pomphrey has always been kind whenever he’s landed in the hospital wing. It is nice to get a bit of affection when he isn’t sick, though.
It is also nice to know that however oblivious Harry might seem to people’s feelings sometimes, he is actually paying attention. If the clue is obvious enough, if the course of action to take is clear enough.
Harry doesn’t seem all that clear on the course of action now, however. His hand feels uncertain as it begins to repeatedly brush back his hair, but in true Gryffindor fashion he presses on anyway. Harry’s upbringing, or lack thereof, has been painfully obvious on any number of occasions, he didn’t always seem to know what he was supposed to say or do, but he was trying to learn. He was trying to reach out, to connect, and Neville admired him for that.
If the hair stroking had surprised him a little, the kiss on his temple shocks him like a lightening bolt. Neville hardly dares move, lest he startle Harry so badly he cause him some kind of emotional damage. Even so, Harry pulls back abruptly, like he’s just woken up from a dream, or realized he’s possibly committed some kind of faux pas.
Neville wants to tell him that it is all right, that as far as Neville is concerned too much is better than too little - so much better - and that the gesture is appreciated. He sits up while Harry rifles frantically through the bedside table drawer. When he finally produces a handkerchief and offers it, Neville puts it immediately to good use, while watching Harry with some concern.
Neville wants to tell him he understands. He just doesn’t know how.
And then Harry is busy straightening out the blanket, and his intent is plain, so Neville follows the routine. He flips his pillow over to the cool, dry side and lies down, letting Harry cover him up. Neville wonders if Petunia Dursley ever once tucked Harry into bed when he was small, and if she didn’t then he hates her for it.
Harry pulls the curtains closed, mostly, he leaves a tiny triangle of light to keep the dark at bay.
Neville hears Harry’s bed creak a little when its owner climbs back in. He hears a moment of settling, and then it is quiet.
Neville lets his eyes fall closed. Twice in one lifetime now, he has been saved from drowning. The first was by a mermaid in Blackpool who had pushed him back up toward the light, and the second was by The Boy Who Lived, who had just done the same. Neville thinks he will not mind if he dreams of either of them tonight.
Disclaimer: None of these characters are mine.
Title: Lifeguard Duty
Rating: PG for what might be perceived as slashy-ness, but may or may not actually be.
Pairing/Character(s): Harry, Neville
Warnings: None. Just a little hurt/comfort fic.
Author's Notes: Same story from two points of view, first Harry’s, then Neville’s. This is movie canon, with the gillyweed and all.
Lifeguard Duty
After it’s over ~ the crazy day and the crazy party ~ Harry falls into bed last of all and revels in the fact that he is still alive, and warm and dry, and alive.
Harry closes his eyes and tries to relax, but he still feels like he’s moving through water, as if his muscles are having a memory independent of his brain. He resists the urge to reach for his wand and do a quick Lumos, much as he’d enjoy the nightlight. It seems almost ridiculous to do that now, in the safety of his dorm room, after he’d toughed out so many stretches of true darkness in a broom closet. Besides, what was there to fear for a Completer of the Second Task? He nudges the curtain open a little bit with his foot to let in a splash of moonlight. It’s over, he tells himself. He made it.
After a while, Harry becomes aware of a sound. He’s heard it enough times before to know what it is ~ it is Neville crying, softly, the noises pillow-muffled. But something about it is different this time. Something that makes all of Harry’s pleasant feelings of relief drain away, leaving a deep kind of worry in their wake. Neville sounds really strange. Harry remembers Seamus and Dean teasing Neville at the party about freaking out on the dock after the second task had started. Harry hadn’t thought it was funny, but he’d found himself laughing along with everybody else, almost hysterically, as if that would somehow make Neville laugh about it, too. It hadn’t exactly worked, and afterward he’d felt guilty about it, and he’d tried all evening to get Neville alone to apologize, and to thank him for the gillyweed again, too, but he hadn’t managed that, either.
Well, they’re alone now, judging by the snores coming from their three dorm mates. Harry slips through his bed curtains and creeps across to the other bed. It’s a well worn path that he’s taken many times, Neville has nightmares as frequently as Harry does, and the two of them often come over to wake each other up, or to bring a glass of water.
Harry pushes the curtains back, spilling moonlight across the sheets. Neville puts a hand up in front of his face to shield himself from either the light or Harry’s gaze, or both, but Harry sees enough. He sees that Neville is drenched in sweat, and shivering, as if he’s just climbed out of a lake onto a dock himself. His face is soaked with tears, and there’s a dark stain spreading across the pillowcase.
There’s so much Harry wants to say that he finds he can’t say anything. And he senses that perhaps this isn’t a time for words, anyway, his friend is drowning and he has to do something.
He reaches down and touches his friend’s dark hair, smoothes the tangled curls off Neville’s wet forehead. He turns his hand around so that the back of it, the dry side, is against Neville’s temple, and runs his fingers gently down the heated cheek.
Maybe it’s the surprise of it, but Neville’s sobs shudder to a shaky halt. He waits, frozen, as if not sure what’s coming next. Harry’s not either, but he supposes that it’s his job at this point to come up with something comforting.
Harry figures it might be best to stick with what’s working, so he continues to stroke Neville’s hair. It feels very strange to Harry, this intimacy, but he tells himself that it’s no different from petting Professor Vector’s black grouse-spaniel, as least not the surface mechanics of it, and it’s the least he can do for someone he cares about so much who is hurting so badly. No one’s ever stroked his hair like this, but he thinks he would’ve liked someone to, he must’ve picked the gesture up from television, or a book, or maybe it’s just human instinct. He would’ve liked someone to lean down and kiss him, too, there..... here....on the forehead, and Harry tastes salt, and there is no scar beneath his lips to mar the moment with grim portents, thankfully.
He realizes suddenly that maybe he’s gone too far, draws back in confusion and a graze of fear. He pulls his hand away and turns to the bedside table, and busies himself with finding a handkerchief in the cluttered drawer. His fingers brush a book, a scarf, a wand, and candy wrapped in paper, before he finds a soft, folded square of linen. He’s aware of Neville sitting up, turns to give him the handkerchief. Neville blows his nose, and it sounds so normal and ordinary that Harry finds it possible to shake off the surreal quality of the last few minutes.
Harry wants to tell him he understands. That he remembers about Blackpool. That he remembers Neville had thought the screeching egg had sounded like people being tortured and that Harry’s figured out there’s probably a reason Neville doesn’t live with his parents. That he knows the hour of the second task must’ve seemed like a year. He just doesn’t know how.
But Neville probably wants to explain, and doesn’t know how either, so maybe it’s just better if neither one of them tries to say anything.
Harry picks up the blanket and shakes the twists and rumples out of it, and Neville picks up on the cue. After all, it’s not as if they haven’t done this for each other before. Neville turns his pillow over, and lies back down, and Harry covers him up, then steps back and pulls the curtains almost, but not quite, closed.
Harry returns to his own bed and lies back down as well. The uncomfortable sensation of drifting that he’d had before is gone, now. His body feels back on dry land again, motionless and calm. Only his hand still feels the slightest bit damp, and there’s a faint taste of the sea on his lips.
~ ~ ~
Neville is the first one that night to go to bed. He battens down the curtains against the noise of the party downstairs, and waits, until one by one his dorm mates return and retire, and Neville is granted the kind of privacy that only comes with insomnia.
Everyone seems asleep, so he yields to the tide that’s been pulling on him for hours. He has never been able to stop tears once they threaten to start, for him it is like trying to stop the rain. The best he’s ever been able to hope for is that he reaches some kind of sanctuary first.
Two down, he tells himself, only one to go. Sometimes Neville feels that the three tasks are more trials for him than for Harry. Watching a friend’s life endangered is not his idea of fun, and the tournament is a poor substitute for Quidditch, in his opinion, but he can’t not go. The second task had been even worse to endure than the first, with Ron and Hermione at the bottom of the lake, as well.
He thinks of Ron, who didn’t even speak to Harry for all those weeks before the first task. It was Neville who had stuck by him and kept him company, and yet Ron was chosen to represent what Harry would miss most if he lost. Neville wonders if anyone would ever miss him most of all. If he’d ever be at the top of anyone’s list for anything.
Neville tries to just be grateful that he’d been able to help. That the gillyweed had worked like the book said it would. Generally Neville tried to stay out of other people’s decision-making processes, he just didn’t want to be responsible. But how could he not have shared what he knew, when it had been so close to the wire and Harry had run out of ideas and time.
He could have lost him today. Harry doesn’t know it, but he is the person whom Neville would miss most of all.
Neville’s lost in his sea of thoughts and his relentless tears, and he doesn’t hear cat-footed Harry until the bed curtains open and the silver light from the window washes over him.
He instinctively covers his face with his hand - it’s not like they haven’t seen each other in such condition before, but that never makes it any less embarrassing.
He expects Harry to say something, but Harry doesn’t say anything at all. He just reaches down, and brushes his hair back - a surprisingly tender gesture, one that is followed by a caress down the side of his face, and that is so surprising that Neville is knocked out of his despondent thoughts mid-sob.
Neville has not been entirely bereft of such attention in his lifetime. His grandmother was not above dabbing a fevered brow with her lavender-scented handkerchief, and Madame Pomphrey has always been kind whenever he’s landed in the hospital wing. It is nice to get a bit of affection when he isn’t sick, though.
It is also nice to know that however oblivious Harry might seem to people’s feelings sometimes, he is actually paying attention. If the clue is obvious enough, if the course of action to take is clear enough.
Harry doesn’t seem all that clear on the course of action now, however. His hand feels uncertain as it begins to repeatedly brush back his hair, but in true Gryffindor fashion he presses on anyway. Harry’s upbringing, or lack thereof, has been painfully obvious on any number of occasions, he didn’t always seem to know what he was supposed to say or do, but he was trying to learn. He was trying to reach out, to connect, and Neville admired him for that.
If the hair stroking had surprised him a little, the kiss on his temple shocks him like a lightening bolt. Neville hardly dares move, lest he startle Harry so badly he cause him some kind of emotional damage. Even so, Harry pulls back abruptly, like he’s just woken up from a dream, or realized he’s possibly committed some kind of faux pas.
Neville wants to tell him that it is all right, that as far as Neville is concerned too much is better than too little - so much better - and that the gesture is appreciated. He sits up while Harry rifles frantically through the bedside table drawer. When he finally produces a handkerchief and offers it, Neville puts it immediately to good use, while watching Harry with some concern.
Neville wants to tell him he understands. He just doesn’t know how.
And then Harry is busy straightening out the blanket, and his intent is plain, so Neville follows the routine. He flips his pillow over to the cool, dry side and lies down, letting Harry cover him up. Neville wonders if Petunia Dursley ever once tucked Harry into bed when he was small, and if she didn’t then he hates her for it.
Harry pulls the curtains closed, mostly, he leaves a tiny triangle of light to keep the dark at bay.
Neville hears Harry’s bed creak a little when its owner climbs back in. He hears a moment of settling, and then it is quiet.
Neville lets his eyes fall closed. Twice in one lifetime now, he has been saved from drowning. The first was by a mermaid in Blackpool who had pushed him back up toward the light, and the second was by The Boy Who Lived, who had just done the same. Neville thinks he will not mind if he dreams of either of them tonight.