Better Different
Disclaimer: None of these characters are mine.
Title: Better Different
Characters: Neville, Percy
Rating: G, and Gen
A/N: It's not slash, nor intended as future-slash implied. Just angsty. :)
Summary:
Neville had had what his Aunt Enid, with her finely honed skill for vast understatement, would have called "a day". He had started off by going to visit his grandmother in hospital, only to find the room empty, and the bed bare of linens. He'd experienced several moments of deep and dreadful panic, until someone had bothered to tell him that she'd been released earlier that morning and was probably home by now with her bedjacket and tea. She'd evidently forgotten he'd been scheduled to come and see her.
To save the trip from being completely wasted, because McGonagall didn't give out Floo passes lightly or often, he'd gone to the next floor to visit with his parents. His mother, however, had soon become upset about a bow coming off one of her slippers, which he hadn't been able to reattach, by the time he'd found someone to help she'd been wailing, and he'd left feeling drained, depressed, and useless.
Things hadn't improved back at Hogwarts. While most of his classmates were enjoying a Hogsmeade outing, Neville was at his weekly detention with McGonagall from one to three, and though not physically strenuous, the tasks she set him were always mentally exhausting. He'd had less than an hour to grab something to eat and collect his wits before showing up for another detention, which he'd earned for a Potions debacle earlier in the week. That had started at four - or rather, at three fifty-five because he wasn't taking the slightest risk of being late - and had stretched on until nearly eleven o'clock because Snape refused to let him leave until he'd demonstrated he could make the miserable potion correctly, and he'd had to scrub up the lab afterward because he'd taken so long that Snape refused to wake the house elves to do it for him.
By the time he dragged himself up the endless flights of Gryffindor Tower, only to realize there was no one left around to let him in, Neville was at the end of his tether. "Can't you let me in?" he pleaded with the Fat Lady. "You know who I am!"
"I'm sorry, dear, it's not allowed." She looked partly sympathetic for his predicament, and partly annoyed at him for being in one in the first place. It was a look Neville was all-too familiar with. He walked down the corridor and sat down heavily on the top step of the stairs, hugging his cloak around himself, and staring down into the abyss.
He didn't know how long he been there, aching in every limb, thoroughly disconsolate, but eventually, Neville realized the portrait was swinging open, and he heard a voice... Percy Weasley's voice... saying, "I'll go and have a look for him, Professor."
Neville could hear McGonagall's voice inside, high and reedy, calling,"Perhaps the library?" just before the portrait swung shut.
Percy took about two steps forward before realizing Neville was sitting at the top of the stairs.
"There you are," Percy exclaimed. "Well, at least you didn't make me go far to find you. What on earth are you doing out here at this hour?"
"Had detention," Neville mumbled, his voice nearly gone from the cold and the fumes from Snape's lab.
"That was over at three," Percy said sharply.
"Snape's detention," Neville clarified wearily. "Four to eleven, you can ask him if you don't believe me."
"Four to eleven?" Percy adjusted his glasses. "Good Lord. Well, it's over now, come inside before you freeze to death."
Suddenly Neville felt like he would rather freeze to death than go back in where he wasn't welcomed or wanted. It would just serve all of them bloody right to find him out here in the morning.... although they probably wouldn't even notice except to step over his body on their way to class....
He felt his face heating up. He told himself desperately that his nose was only starting to run because it was so cold, and that his eyes were only burning because of the cauldron cleaner. He rubbed his face against his sleeve, braced for Percy to start ordering him about and he wasn't going in no matter what. At least there wouldn't be any witnesses to this particular dressing-down, unlike McGonagall's tirade, which had been witnessed by his entire House, and his grandmother's Howler, which had been witnessed by the entire school.
A slight rustle of robes and the click of a shoe on stone made him look up, in time to see Percy sit down next to him. "It's been rather a long couple of weeks, hasn't it?" Percy asked quietly. There was no anger in his voice.
Neville nodded. Someone else apparently had a gift for understatement, too. "Everybody hates me," he murmured.
"What? That's ridiculous, no one hates you," Percy began briskly.
"You know what I'm talking about," Neville insisted sullenly.
Percy was quiet a moment, rubbed the bridge of his nose, then admitted, "Yes. Yes, I do. Everybody's a bit angry still, I'll grant you, and I'm sorry if you've been feeling like an outsider because of it. You're not."
Neville wasn't convinced, but the tight knot of isolation he'd been feeling eased a little.
"Look, I'll have a word with McGonagall to see if she'll reconsider some of your punishments, all right? She's a bit like my Mum in one respect, when somebody does something... dangerous... she just sees red. But she'll get over it. Everybody will, you'll see. If you don't mind me asking, though, why exactly did you write those passwords down like that?"
"I couldn't remember them," Neville confessed. "Sir Cadogan was changing them every day and I just couldn't remember!"
"Well, did you ever try a mnemonic device?"
"A what?"
"It's a method of remembering things." Percy conjured up an inked quill out of thin air without even using his wand, and Neville couldn't help gawking. "Here, I'll show you. Give me your arm."
Neville reached out hesitantly, Percy took hold of his arm and propped it on his own knees, pushing Neville's sleeve up.
"Today's password is quicksilver, right? Let's make it two words, quick and silver. So you could take the first letters, Q and S, only you should swap them over, make it less obvious. So we'll call it SQ." The nib brushed over the inside of Neville's arm and the letters S and Q appeared on his skin. The wet ink made Neville shiver, but he was careful not to move his arm. "Now, what's an animal that's quick?"
Neville blinked at him. He could think of a dozen animals that were fast. Maybe two dozen. He tried to hurry and pick something before Percy assumed he wasn't able to think of anything at all. Finally he said, "A rabbit."
Percy smiled a little. "Rabbit ears, then." After the Q he drew two simple loop shapes joined at the bottom. "Flip the letters, remember 'quick as a rabbit', a silver rabbit, and there you have it. Do you think that might help you remember?"
Neville nodded mutely.
"Just be sure to write it where you won't get accused of cheating in class, not on the back of your hand or anything." Percy pulled his sleeve back down, remarking, "Merlin, you're like ice."
Neville dropped his gaze back to his shoes. He was suddenly very conscious of the fact that the person whose bed curtains had been slashed by a madman was Percy's youngest brother. And it had been his fault. He felt the burning trail of a tear sliding down the side of his nose, followed by another.
"I'm sorry!" Neville gasped. He'd wanted to tell everybody that, for weeks - Harry, his gran, everybody, but hadn't been able to.
"It's all right," Percy said. He sounded strangely calm considering someone was falling apart in front of him, but then maybe somebody from a large family didn't find this sort of thing as unsettling as Neville did. When Percy reached over and put an arm around his shoulders, it was so unexpected that Neville's whole body tensed up, his fists clenching around nothing.
"I mean about - about the passwords!" he explained desperately between sobs, thinking Percy must have misunderstood.
"I know. It's all right," Percy soothed. "Nobody got hurt, and you'll know better next time. It's all right."
Neville had been braced stoically against everyone's silent disapproval for a long time, but hearing forgiveness offered to him proved too much, and he folded against Percy's shoulder, covered his face in his hands and cried until he was hoarse.
A while later, after it was all over, and he'd blown his nose so much he'd saturated not only his own handkerchief, but Percy's too, he knew it was time to go back in. They both stood up, and Neville followed Percy to the front of the portrait. Percy laid a hand on his shoulder. "Would you like to do the honors?"
Neville hadn't expected to be tested on this quite so soon and felt the familiar sink of panic in his stomach. Fast Rabbit crossed his mind, but he knew that wasn't right. Then he calmed himself and thought of the two letters Percy had just drawn on his arm. S and Q. Which Percy had said to reverse. And the two loops he'd said were rabbit ears. And rabbits were quick. "Quicksilver," Neville said hesitantly.
The Fat Lady beamed at him as she moved aside, and then there was the Common Room waiting for him, in all its comfortable scarlet and gold familiarity. He could finally go to bed.
Then he realized Percy was already moving to the fireside and gathering the tea things. "I don't suppose you had dinner?"
When Neville shook his head, Percy opened a new package of biscuits and poured some out on a tray. Neville sat on the sofa, Percy settled on the ottoman, and the two ate and drank in a tired silence. Neville couldn't remember biscuits having ever tasted quite this good, or a teacup feeling warmer in his hands.
When they were nearly through, Neville glanced up at Percy, and gathered his courage for one more necessary effort. "Thank you for everything," he said quietly.
"Not at all. I rather appreciate you giving me the opportunity."
"What?"
Percy moved the remaining items on the tray around without looking up, speaking with seeming lightness. "Well, Bill and Charlie got their turns at being big brother. But Fred and George never needed me, they've always had each other, and Ginny and Ron would rather go to the Man in the Moon than me. I never got to comfort anybody after scraped knees or listen to their school problems or heartaches, and every time I tried to look after anybody's well-being it got interpreted as just so much nagging. I thought I could be of some use here as a Prefect, at least, but to be perfectly honest I think I've always been seen as a bit of a joke."
"I think you're doing all right," Neville offered. Then he added shyly, "I wouldn't have minded having you for a big brother."
Percy smiled, a reserved but genuine smile, as he aranged the last of the things on the tray to his satisfaction. "That's kind of you to say, Neville, thank you. Well," he rose to his feet and brushed off a biscuit crumb. "I really should let Professor McGonagall know that you're back safely, and then I must get to bed myself, I have a very early class. Good-night."
"Good-night." Neville watched Percy leave, then reached for the last of the biscuits. The weight of some of his burden was eased, at least, and even if Percy couldn't get McGonagall to rescind any of her punishments, he still had a feeling things were going to be different around Gryffindor Tower. Better different. Neville could live with that.
Title: Better Different
Characters: Neville, Percy
Rating: G, and Gen
A/N: It's not slash, nor intended as future-slash implied. Just angsty. :)
Summary:
Neville had had what his Aunt Enid, with her finely honed skill for vast understatement, would have called "a day". He had started off by going to visit his grandmother in hospital, only to find the room empty, and the bed bare of linens. He'd experienced several moments of deep and dreadful panic, until someone had bothered to tell him that she'd been released earlier that morning and was probably home by now with her bedjacket and tea. She'd evidently forgotten he'd been scheduled to come and see her.
To save the trip from being completely wasted, because McGonagall didn't give out Floo passes lightly or often, he'd gone to the next floor to visit with his parents. His mother, however, had soon become upset about a bow coming off one of her slippers, which he hadn't been able to reattach, by the time he'd found someone to help she'd been wailing, and he'd left feeling drained, depressed, and useless.
Things hadn't improved back at Hogwarts. While most of his classmates were enjoying a Hogsmeade outing, Neville was at his weekly detention with McGonagall from one to three, and though not physically strenuous, the tasks she set him were always mentally exhausting. He'd had less than an hour to grab something to eat and collect his wits before showing up for another detention, which he'd earned for a Potions debacle earlier in the week. That had started at four - or rather, at three fifty-five because he wasn't taking the slightest risk of being late - and had stretched on until nearly eleven o'clock because Snape refused to let him leave until he'd demonstrated he could make the miserable potion correctly, and he'd had to scrub up the lab afterward because he'd taken so long that Snape refused to wake the house elves to do it for him.
By the time he dragged himself up the endless flights of Gryffindor Tower, only to realize there was no one left around to let him in, Neville was at the end of his tether. "Can't you let me in?" he pleaded with the Fat Lady. "You know who I am!"
"I'm sorry, dear, it's not allowed." She looked partly sympathetic for his predicament, and partly annoyed at him for being in one in the first place. It was a look Neville was all-too familiar with. He walked down the corridor and sat down heavily on the top step of the stairs, hugging his cloak around himself, and staring down into the abyss.
He didn't know how long he been there, aching in every limb, thoroughly disconsolate, but eventually, Neville realized the portrait was swinging open, and he heard a voice... Percy Weasley's voice... saying, "I'll go and have a look for him, Professor."
Neville could hear McGonagall's voice inside, high and reedy, calling,"Perhaps the library?" just before the portrait swung shut.
Percy took about two steps forward before realizing Neville was sitting at the top of the stairs.
"There you are," Percy exclaimed. "Well, at least you didn't make me go far to find you. What on earth are you doing out here at this hour?"
"Had detention," Neville mumbled, his voice nearly gone from the cold and the fumes from Snape's lab.
"That was over at three," Percy said sharply.
"Snape's detention," Neville clarified wearily. "Four to eleven, you can ask him if you don't believe me."
"Four to eleven?" Percy adjusted his glasses. "Good Lord. Well, it's over now, come inside before you freeze to death."
Suddenly Neville felt like he would rather freeze to death than go back in where he wasn't welcomed or wanted. It would just serve all of them bloody right to find him out here in the morning.... although they probably wouldn't even notice except to step over his body on their way to class....
He felt his face heating up. He told himself desperately that his nose was only starting to run because it was so cold, and that his eyes were only burning because of the cauldron cleaner. He rubbed his face against his sleeve, braced for Percy to start ordering him about and he wasn't going in no matter what. At least there wouldn't be any witnesses to this particular dressing-down, unlike McGonagall's tirade, which had been witnessed by his entire House, and his grandmother's Howler, which had been witnessed by the entire school.
A slight rustle of robes and the click of a shoe on stone made him look up, in time to see Percy sit down next to him. "It's been rather a long couple of weeks, hasn't it?" Percy asked quietly. There was no anger in his voice.
Neville nodded. Someone else apparently had a gift for understatement, too. "Everybody hates me," he murmured.
"What? That's ridiculous, no one hates you," Percy began briskly.
"You know what I'm talking about," Neville insisted sullenly.
Percy was quiet a moment, rubbed the bridge of his nose, then admitted, "Yes. Yes, I do. Everybody's a bit angry still, I'll grant you, and I'm sorry if you've been feeling like an outsider because of it. You're not."
Neville wasn't convinced, but the tight knot of isolation he'd been feeling eased a little.
"Look, I'll have a word with McGonagall to see if she'll reconsider some of your punishments, all right? She's a bit like my Mum in one respect, when somebody does something... dangerous... she just sees red. But she'll get over it. Everybody will, you'll see. If you don't mind me asking, though, why exactly did you write those passwords down like that?"
"I couldn't remember them," Neville confessed. "Sir Cadogan was changing them every day and I just couldn't remember!"
"Well, did you ever try a mnemonic device?"
"A what?"
"It's a method of remembering things." Percy conjured up an inked quill out of thin air without even using his wand, and Neville couldn't help gawking. "Here, I'll show you. Give me your arm."
Neville reached out hesitantly, Percy took hold of his arm and propped it on his own knees, pushing Neville's sleeve up.
"Today's password is quicksilver, right? Let's make it two words, quick and silver. So you could take the first letters, Q and S, only you should swap them over, make it less obvious. So we'll call it SQ." The nib brushed over the inside of Neville's arm and the letters S and Q appeared on his skin. The wet ink made Neville shiver, but he was careful not to move his arm. "Now, what's an animal that's quick?"
Neville blinked at him. He could think of a dozen animals that were fast. Maybe two dozen. He tried to hurry and pick something before Percy assumed he wasn't able to think of anything at all. Finally he said, "A rabbit."
Percy smiled a little. "Rabbit ears, then." After the Q he drew two simple loop shapes joined at the bottom. "Flip the letters, remember 'quick as a rabbit', a silver rabbit, and there you have it. Do you think that might help you remember?"
Neville nodded mutely.
"Just be sure to write it where you won't get accused of cheating in class, not on the back of your hand or anything." Percy pulled his sleeve back down, remarking, "Merlin, you're like ice."
Neville dropped his gaze back to his shoes. He was suddenly very conscious of the fact that the person whose bed curtains had been slashed by a madman was Percy's youngest brother. And it had been his fault. He felt the burning trail of a tear sliding down the side of his nose, followed by another.
"I'm sorry!" Neville gasped. He'd wanted to tell everybody that, for weeks - Harry, his gran, everybody, but hadn't been able to.
"It's all right," Percy said. He sounded strangely calm considering someone was falling apart in front of him, but then maybe somebody from a large family didn't find this sort of thing as unsettling as Neville did. When Percy reached over and put an arm around his shoulders, it was so unexpected that Neville's whole body tensed up, his fists clenching around nothing.
"I mean about - about the passwords!" he explained desperately between sobs, thinking Percy must have misunderstood.
"I know. It's all right," Percy soothed. "Nobody got hurt, and you'll know better next time. It's all right."
Neville had been braced stoically against everyone's silent disapproval for a long time, but hearing forgiveness offered to him proved too much, and he folded against Percy's shoulder, covered his face in his hands and cried until he was hoarse.
A while later, after it was all over, and he'd blown his nose so much he'd saturated not only his own handkerchief, but Percy's too, he knew it was time to go back in. They both stood up, and Neville followed Percy to the front of the portrait. Percy laid a hand on his shoulder. "Would you like to do the honors?"
Neville hadn't expected to be tested on this quite so soon and felt the familiar sink of panic in his stomach. Fast Rabbit crossed his mind, but he knew that wasn't right. Then he calmed himself and thought of the two letters Percy had just drawn on his arm. S and Q. Which Percy had said to reverse. And the two loops he'd said were rabbit ears. And rabbits were quick. "Quicksilver," Neville said hesitantly.
The Fat Lady beamed at him as she moved aside, and then there was the Common Room waiting for him, in all its comfortable scarlet and gold familiarity. He could finally go to bed.
Then he realized Percy was already moving to the fireside and gathering the tea things. "I don't suppose you had dinner?"
When Neville shook his head, Percy opened a new package of biscuits and poured some out on a tray. Neville sat on the sofa, Percy settled on the ottoman, and the two ate and drank in a tired silence. Neville couldn't remember biscuits having ever tasted quite this good, or a teacup feeling warmer in his hands.
When they were nearly through, Neville glanced up at Percy, and gathered his courage for one more necessary effort. "Thank you for everything," he said quietly.
"Not at all. I rather appreciate you giving me the opportunity."
"What?"
Percy moved the remaining items on the tray around without looking up, speaking with seeming lightness. "Well, Bill and Charlie got their turns at being big brother. But Fred and George never needed me, they've always had each other, and Ginny and Ron would rather go to the Man in the Moon than me. I never got to comfort anybody after scraped knees or listen to their school problems or heartaches, and every time I tried to look after anybody's well-being it got interpreted as just so much nagging. I thought I could be of some use here as a Prefect, at least, but to be perfectly honest I think I've always been seen as a bit of a joke."
"I think you're doing all right," Neville offered. Then he added shyly, "I wouldn't have minded having you for a big brother."
Percy smiled, a reserved but genuine smile, as he aranged the last of the things on the tray to his satisfaction. "That's kind of you to say, Neville, thank you. Well," he rose to his feet and brushed off a biscuit crumb. "I really should let Professor McGonagall know that you're back safely, and then I must get to bed myself, I have a very early class. Good-night."
"Good-night." Neville watched Percy leave, then reached for the last of the biscuits. The weight of some of his burden was eased, at least, and even if Percy couldn't get McGonagall to rescind any of her punishments, he still had a feeling things were going to be different around Gryffindor Tower. Better different. Neville could live with that.