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lomonaaerenTitle: Shining Among the Ruins
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: Harry/Theo/Neville
Content Notes: Ignores the epilogue, angst, references to child abuse, discussion of past violence and character death
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 4100
Summary: Rebuilding Hogwarts after the war is exhausting. Maybe it’s that very exhaustion that allows Theo, Neville, and Harry to drift together and prove that they’re more than just their fathers’ sons.
Author’s Notes: This is one of my “Songs of the Stormy Season” one-shots being posted between Halloween and the winter solstice. Piitviiper asked for a Harry/Neville/Theo story about rebuilding after the war.
Shining Among the Ruins
“Need a hand there, Potter?”
Harry blinked and looked over towards Nott, who was standing behind him with his hands in his robe pockets. Harry blinked again, because he didn’t think he had ever seen Nott look so casual—not that he had many memories of the Slytherin—and then nodded cautiously. “Sure.”
Nott nodded back, then took his wand from the holster at his waist and gestured sharply up and down. The stone block that Harry had managed to make hover but not cement itself in place floated up, then settled with a little grinding noise into the wall between the others.
Harry smiled. “Thanks.”
“Of course.” Nott turned around and began walking towards the lake, where the goblins had dropped off the load of stone blocks to be melded into the walls. Harry walked next to him. It was surprisingly peaceful, with the light of early morning striking across the grounds and the castle looming over them.
Even with the castle still half-destroyed from the war, it was peaceful. Harry took a deep lungful of the clear air.
“I’m going to relax by the lake this afternoon,” Nott said, voice and face still calm, with no sign that he was saying words to Harry he’d never said before. “Want to come?”
Harry tilted his head and looked at Nott. Nott stared back, as if the peace all around them had invaded his body. He had clear blue eyes Harry had never noticed before, and flashes of chestnut in his dark hair that caught the light.
Harry smiled again. “Sure.”
*
“I want to show you something.”
Theo blinked and turned around. He’d been on his way to join the research team that was working on fixing the magic of the Room of Requirement; the Fiendfyre that had burned in it hadn’t damaged it beyond repair, but it was pretty close. It would take a combination of Runes, Arithmancy, and Potions to get it working again, and now a few people were saying Divination, too.
Theo banished that from his head when he saw Neville Longbottom standing behind him, looking nervous but determined. How someone who had cut the head off a giant snake belonging to the Dark Lord could ever look nervous was beyond Theo, but Gryffindors managed all kinds of things on a daily basis that no Slytherin would think of.
“Yeah? What is it?”
Longbottom licked his lips nervously. “Er. It’s a specimen of Shining Root in the greenhouse.”
Theo’s eyes widened. That would be the very thing to help bind together their disparate disciplines that were supposed to be fixing the Room of Requirement, someone had said last night, but they’d also acted as though it was hopeless trying to find a sprouting. “Really?”
“Really.” Longbottom nodded and took a step back. “I found it this morning, and I asked someone who I should talk to, and they said you.”
“Someone?”
“Professor McGonagall.”
The news surprised Theo all over again, and he blinked at Longbottom. The Head of Gryffindor, suggesting a Slytherin work with one of her lions?
But then again, things had changed after the war. During the war. Theo honestly wasn’t sure when to suggest that the changes had begun, and he didn’t care, not when he had come back to rebuild Hogwarts and been accepted with open arms.
“Lead the way.”
Longbottom smiled, and did.
*
Neville crumpled the letter from his grandmother in his hand and closed his eyes. It didn’t matter, he told himself fiercely, ignoring the stinging behind his eyelids. It didn’t—nothing mattered. He had always known that she would react badly to—it didn’t matter.
“Nev?”
It was Harry. Neville turned around, swallowing, and wondering with a distant part of his mind what Harry was doing near the greenhouses. He’d been concentrating more on rebuilding the outer wall and the side of the Astronomy Tower, which had been damaged by a Death Eater’s Blasting Curse.
“Hi, Harry,” Neville said, and tried to ignore the way that the letter burned in his hand like a coal.
“Are you okay?”
Neville closed his eyes and shook his head. “It’s nothing,” he said, telling himself again that nothing mattered. Of course Gran would be upset that Neville didn’t intend to become an Auror like his parents. “Did you need something?”
“I noticed you were missing from dinner. I came to see if you were okay.”
Neville opened his eyes and blinked. Harry stood just a meter from him or so, staring at him earnestly. Neville didn’t know how Harry still had this much compassion to spend. He’d walked to his death for everyone, spoken at the Death Eater trials, attended so many funerals and galas that Neville had no idea how he’d kept his feet, and now here he was, rebuilding Hogwarts.
He wasn’t thinking about the letter, which meant the parchment slipped out of his hand and floated towards the ground. Harry cast a charm to catch it and smoothed it out as it settled into his hold.
“Harry…”
“Do you want me to not read it?”
Neville opened his mouth, then ended up shaking his head. No. He wanted someone to know. And he knew he would never be able to speak his grandmother’s words aloud, let alone try to pretend that they meant nothing to him.
He did watch Harry’s face as he read through the letter and saw his eyes widen, then narrow. Then Harry looked up at Neville and ripped the letter in half.
“Hey,” Neville said weakly.
“Sorry if you wanted to keep it,” Harry said. “But I just—it’s offensive, that she would act like you didn’t do enough when you fought for everyone here for a year and beheaded Nagini and now you’re rebuilding Hogwarts. You’re more than Frank Longbottom’s son! It’s a shame she doesn’t recognize that.”
Neville swallowed, and swallowed again. He couldn’t remember ever feeling the warmth that was filling him before. Everyone had always just—acted as though it was such an honor to be Frank Longbottom’s son that he should be content with that.
He cocked his head at Harry as a thought struck him. It had been sort of like that for Harry, too. His parents were dead heroes, forever frozen in time. People looked at Harry and told him he had his mother’s eyes and his father’s hair; Neville had heard them doing it often enough. Even his grandmother had said it, even though she’d never met Harry. But Harry was more than a copy of his parents.
And neither of us should have to live the lives our parents would have lived because they didn’t get to.
“Neville? Are you okay?”
“Just—realizing some things,” Neville said, and grinned at him. “Like working in Herbology and discovering new plants and breeding experimental ones is important because it would make me happy. The world doesn’t need another Auror.” He nudged Harry’s shoulder with his own. “Besides, you’re going to be an Auror, aren’t you?”
“I don’t know,” Harry said slowly.
Neville felt a little flash of embarrassment that he’d assumed what Harry was going to do, just like everyone else. But—“I thought I heard you say that you wanted to be an Auror in the common room once.”
“I did,” Harry whispered. “But I think I’ve had enough of fighting Dark wizards to last me a lifetime.”
Neville nodded. He might be a hero in some people’s eyes, Harry’s included, but he never wanted to do anything like that again. “I understand.”
Harry smiled at him, and Neville felt a different kind of warmth fill him.
*
“Harry?”
Neville’s voice sounded incredulous. Harry opened his eyes and flushed. Neville was standing over him and Nott, gaping at both of them, and Harry supposed he had cause. It wasn’t every day that you found the Boy-Who-Lived lying on the lakeshore with his head resting against a Death Eater’s son’s.
But Nott was more than his father’s son, Harry reminded himself as he stared at Neville, the way that both he and Neville were. Harry hadn’t talked to Nott in depth—they didn’t even call each other by their first names—but Nott hadn’t said anything about blood purity. He’d worked as hard on restoring Hogwarts as Harry had.
And Neville seemed to recognize that without Harry having to say it, because he abruptly lay down on the ground near them and rolled to arrange himself. Harry lay slowly back down, touching Nott’s shoulder with one hand to ease some of the tension there. He thought he knew what Neville was doing.
And sure enough, soon the crown of a third head touched Harry’s and Nott’s.
Nott still seemed to breathe more slowly and noisily than before, but Harry reminded himself that he wasn’t a good judge of that. After all, he didn’t really know Nott.
He was getting to know him, though. Building walls with someone and hauling blocks with magic and listening to Nott discourse about the difficulties of rebuilding the Room of Requirement were teaching him. Meeting up in private and walking slowly along the lakeshore with Nott was teaching him.
Lying in the sunlight with his head barely touching Nott’s hair was teaching him.
Harry closed his eyes and smiled into the sky.
*
“Are you gay?”
Theo paused. He’d been walking along one of the secret passages that most of the time was little-used, since it led almost directly from the Slytherin common room to the base of the stairs up to Gryffindor Tower. He’d been going to meet Potter and Longbottom for a look at a magical map of the school that Potter apparently had. Supposedly, Longbottom thought he could use the cutting of Shining Root in conjunction with the map to help recreate the Room of Requirement.
But he recognized Granger’s voice right around the corner, and Potter’s loud answering sigh. Theo was sort of surprised they were having this discussion in public, but then, not nearly as many people were in the castle this summer as there would be during the school year. Theo pressed a shoulder against the wall and eased forwards to look around it.
Potter was sitting on the steps, staring at Granger. She stood by him with her hands on her hips, facing him, so that it was hard for Theo to see the expression on her face.
“Why would it matter if I was, Hermione?”
“I don’t—I wouldn’t disapprove, Harry.” Granger’s voice softened. “I just want to know, so that I can tell Ginny if she needs to stop holding onto hope.”
“I told her that myself.”
“What?”
“That she shouldn’t hold onto hope.”
Despite Granger’s claims of accepting Potter if he wanted to date blokes, she seemed flummoxed. Theo smiled a little and leaned against the wall. He caught Potter’s eye and winked. Potter flushed, but Granger seemed to think it was about the topic they were discussing, because she didn’t look over her shoulder.
“I just…”
“I thought you wouldn’t disapprove.”
“Not like that!” Granger swiped her hands around, making Potter duck. “It just surprises me, I suppose. Because you were dating Ginny before the war, and you were happy, and now that you’re back, you’re spending all your time with Nott and Neville. Neville I could see, if you wanted to date a boy, but Nott?”
Potter locked eyes with Theo. Theo blinked a little, thinking distantly that the decent thing to do would probably be to move away and not put Potter on the spot like this, essentially confessing his feelings in front of his—
Study partner? Rebuilding partner? Friend?
Theo didn’t know the right word. He also knew that he wasn’t moving.
“Nott is more than the reputation of his father,” Potter said slowly. “He’s incredibly smart, did you know? He was so quiet in class that I never realized. And he’s not afraid of hard work, either. He’s laboring on rebuilding the Room of Requirement, and that’s probably the hardest task in the castle. And he came back to Hogwarts to help rebuild. He’s the only Slytherin who did, other than Professor Slughorn. That’s brave.”
Theo licked his lips. He didn’t know how to speak through the rebounding noise of his heart.
“What are you saying?” Granger whispered.
“War changes people, Hermione. Death changes people.” Theo was abruptly reminded of those rumors that Potter had died and come back to save everyone. Potter stood up and clapped his friend on the shoulder. “I’m not the same person I was when I was dating Ginny in our sixth year, and neither is she. And I’m not my father, to marry a red-haired witch I met in first year for a fairy-tale ending.”
“I didn’t mean that you were.”
“I know. I’ve just had my fill of hearing that I’m his son lately.”
“I think going to visit Professor Snape’s portrait is a very worthwhile endeavor…”
Theo eased backwards, and bumped into someone behind him. He jumped and turned with his wand out, but Longbottom held up his hands, a much too understanding expression on his face.
“Hurt to hear?” he asked softly.
Theo shook his head as he put his wand away. He didn’t have the words to say what hearing Potter defend him had made him feel, which meant he was going to keep it to himself for a while.
“She’s accepted it and gone off to think it over.”
And now Potter was walking around the corner, his smile bright as the sun they’d spent time in by the lake the other day. Theo felt a tug of wistfulness that it was raining, and that they couldn’t lie like that this afternoon.
But he extended a hand to Potter, and Potter clasped it and bent his head a little.
Theo had to speak, even if he couldn’t say everything he felt, because his heart was full. “Shall we go to the library?” he asked, and his voice was a little thicker and huskier than normal. Longbottom seemed to notice. Potter pierced him with those bright green eyes and just nodded, maybe because he had words of his own that he would have had trouble speaking.
“Let’s.”
And spending time with them in the library, listening to Longbottom’s Herbology expertise and Potter’s unexpected flashes of insight about how one kind of magic might fit into one another, was what started Theo calling them Neville and Harry in his head.
*
“I thought you should know what people were saying.”
Neville winced to himself as he watched Theo stand in front of him with his head bowed. They’d met up in the library, as usual, but Harry had sent a Patronus—a glowing stag charging through the wall would never not be impressive—to tell them that he would be late. One of the blocks had fallen out of the Astronomy Tower, apparently pushed by some Dark magic trap a Death Eater had left behind, and Harry was working with other people to dissipate the trap and secure the stone in place again.
So Neville had found Theo alone in the library, and had decided that now was the perfect time to tell him the rumors that had started swirling around Gryffindor Tower.
Theo still hadn’t moved or spoken. Neville leaned back against a shelf and watched him. They’d all granted each other permission to call each other by their first names, but it was probably still too soon, Neville thought, to tell Theo that other people thought all three of them were dating. Theo was so much more proud and aloof than Harry, and even though he didn’t take offense aloud, there were still times he started at what Neville said and glared with sparking eyes.
Then explained with scathing words.
Neville sighed. It probably didn’t help that he’d given the rumors unwitting fuel because of the way that he couldn’t help watching Theo when he explained like that, or how he looked at Harry when Harry laughed, full and free, tilting his head back at some joke Ron made, in the Gryffindor common room in the evenings.
Theo blinked and looked up. Neville would have taken a step back at the expression on his face, but he already had a shelf behind him.
“Do you understand what would happen if my father found out I was dating two men?” Theo whispered.
“I—er, no. Would he be more upset about that than the fact that Harry’s a half-blood?”
“About equally. He raised me not to make a fuss, to be quiet and traditional and not attract attention.” And then Theo smiled, an expression that stretched slowly over his face and fetched an answering smile from Neville before he could think to suppress it. “Would you like to join me in giving my father an aneurysm?”
“Don’t we need Harry here for that?” Neville asked, although his breath was already coming faster as Theo took a long step towards him.
“Harry’s here.”
And he was, stepping around the corner of a shelf and looking ragged and tired, but he was smiling, too. Neville reached towards him, but Harry shook his head a little. “The first time, I want to watch.”
Theo promptly fluttered his eyelashes and reached out to Neville with a swoony dramatic gesture. Neville laughed.
That wasn’t a bad way to get his first kiss.
He heard Harry’s breath quickening as he watched, and felt Theo’s hand smoothing down his shoulder, and sighed a little as they parted. Then he turned and reached out and drew Harry into a kiss of their own before he could protest.
Not that Harry protested much with his hands on Neville’s shoulders and his mouth pressing so deeply that his tongue caressed Neville’s. Neville pulled back, closing his eyes and sighing as Harry’s hand traced down his shoulder in the path of Theo’s.
He kept his eyes closed for a moment, which meant he missed Harry and Theo’s first kiss, but honestly, he had to do that to keep the exalted tears from falling.
*
“Mr. Potter, a moment of your time.”
Harry turned around and frowned at the man who was walking briskly towards him. He was clad in finely-tailored dark robes, but Harry didn’t recognize him, and it didn’t seem to be the uniform of any particular department in the Ministry. “Yeah?” Harry asked, a little impatient.
“Roderick Davies from the Wizard’s Times,” said the man, and whipped out a small device that Harry blinked at. It seemed to be a metal quill. “Our readers want to know how you feel dating two men.”
Well, that didn’t take long to make the rounds, Harry thought, exasperated. Then again, it wasn’t like he and Neville and Theo had been trying to hide.
“And whether,” Davies was going on, his voice rapid-fire quick, “you intend to marry them, and what you think about the tradition of triad marriages that’s fallen out of favor, and whether you feel responsible for breaking witches’ hearts all over Britain—”
Harry narrowed his eyes, and the metal quill burst into flames. Davies yelped and shook his hand as he dropped it, staring at Harry.
“My life is my own,” Harry told him coolly. “The only people who have the right to ask me those sorts of questions are Neville and Theo.”
“So you do confirm that you’re dating them?” Davies was staring at him, the burning quill—which might be the equivalent of a microphone—forgotten.
“Yes,” Harry said, and turned his back, ignoring the reporter as he called questions after Harry.
Well, this was one of the challenges that they would have to live with. At least Neville and Theo had both been around to see the Prophet printing stories about him, so this wouldn’t come as a surprise.
We’ll make it. No stupid reporters are going to keep us apart.
*
Theo touched the thick letter resting on the table in front of him for a moment. It had come to the Slytherin table that morning, carried in the claws of a very familiar Great Grey owl, which even now perched on the back of his chair and pecked at the back of his head. His father was waiting for a response.
People were staring at him. Well, Harry and Neville were doing more than that, they were getting up and moving forwards, but they stopped when Theo made a small gesture at them to stay back. Harry hovered a little. Theo didn’t think he knew how often he did that. Neville was biting his lip.
Theo had to face this alone in the initial moments, and decide how much he would want them to know later.
His hands were steady as he picked up the letter and slit it open. At least it wasn’t a Howler.
My dear son,
What are you doing? I have taught you to survive, to be quiet and calm, to take everything in its season and your stride. And now you allying with two of the most reckless Gryffindors in the castle. Your life will never be quiet with Harry Potter by your side. The press will never leave you alone. What are you doing?
The Longbottom boy is a little better, but I’ve already received a Howler from his grandmother. You won’t have a quiet life with him, either, not with that woman in it. And I know many who still think that his slaying of the Dark Lord’s serpent was a fluke, and that he’s a near-Squib. Even if that’s not true, do you want that reputation extended to you?
I have left aside all my reservations about you engaging in a triad marriage. You came of age last year, and I cannot make you do what you should, Theo. But I beg you will reconsider.
With love,
Atherus Nott.
Theo took a deep breath and looked up.
Harry and Neville walked the rest of the way to the table and sat down on either side of him, an easy thing to do with no other Slytherins there. Harry took his hand. Neville was the one who asked quietly, “Are you okay?”
“I will be,” Theo said, and crumpled up the letter.
He had made his decision. He would not live the way his father had taught him to live, because what was good for the father was not so good for the son.
*
This time, Gran had sent a Howler.
At least it had found Neville when he was alone, working in the greenhouse with the cutting of Shining Root, urging it towards maturity. But he still stood with his head bowed as it exploded, and took a deep breath when it finished.
There was a ringing silence inside his head, which had been full of her disappointment. Not the kind she’d voiced towards him right now, but the disappointment she always showed when she glanced at him.
Now it was gone.
Neville shook his head in wonder. It wasn’t the healthiest response to a Howler, perhaps. He knew that Theo would probably frown and talk about how Neville needed to get some revenge, and Harry would urge him to talk to someone about it, even though he was a hypocrite and would never talk about his own past.
But…
Neville really didn’t think he needed to. Gran had finally gone too far. He loved her, but he wouldn’t allow her to treat him this way.
He wasn’t Frank Longbottom. And he was the better for it.
*
“Are you ready?”
Harry glanced at Neville with a smile. They were sitting on the front steps of the school, watching the line of carriages make its way up from Hogsmeade. The school was rebuilt as much as it could be, and the students were returning.
“Yeah.” Harry exhaled. “In a way, it’s probably good that they’ve read about us in the Prophet, because that way they’re less likely to freak out about it.”
Neville snorted. “True enough.” He glanced up, and Harry turned his head with a welcoming smile. He would know Theo’s footsteps anywhere.
Theo sat down on Harry’s other side and leaned over to let his shoulder touch Harry’s. He was asking the same question, although without words. Harry nodded to him. “We’ll make it.”
*
“Yes,” Theo said, contentment washing through him. He let those words replace the ones that Father had written to him in the letter. The past few letters, really, all of them endlessly arguing the same thing.
*
“Yes,” said Neville, and smiled to think of the children who would write to their parents, and the parents who would write to his Gran, and her outraged response.
Harry’s hand took his. Theo’s hand reached around Harry’s shoulders to touch Neville’s.
Together, they stood and moved forwards to meet the other students, to welcome them back.
The End.
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: Harry/Theo/Neville
Content Notes: Ignores the epilogue, angst, references to child abuse, discussion of past violence and character death
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 4100
Summary: Rebuilding Hogwarts after the war is exhausting. Maybe it’s that very exhaustion that allows Theo, Neville, and Harry to drift together and prove that they’re more than just their fathers’ sons.
Author’s Notes: This is one of my “Songs of the Stormy Season” one-shots being posted between Halloween and the winter solstice. Piitviiper asked for a Harry/Neville/Theo story about rebuilding after the war.
Shining Among the Ruins
“Need a hand there, Potter?”
Harry blinked and looked over towards Nott, who was standing behind him with his hands in his robe pockets. Harry blinked again, because he didn’t think he had ever seen Nott look so casual—not that he had many memories of the Slytherin—and then nodded cautiously. “Sure.”
Nott nodded back, then took his wand from the holster at his waist and gestured sharply up and down. The stone block that Harry had managed to make hover but not cement itself in place floated up, then settled with a little grinding noise into the wall between the others.
Harry smiled. “Thanks.”
“Of course.” Nott turned around and began walking towards the lake, where the goblins had dropped off the load of stone blocks to be melded into the walls. Harry walked next to him. It was surprisingly peaceful, with the light of early morning striking across the grounds and the castle looming over them.
Even with the castle still half-destroyed from the war, it was peaceful. Harry took a deep lungful of the clear air.
“I’m going to relax by the lake this afternoon,” Nott said, voice and face still calm, with no sign that he was saying words to Harry he’d never said before. “Want to come?”
Harry tilted his head and looked at Nott. Nott stared back, as if the peace all around them had invaded his body. He had clear blue eyes Harry had never noticed before, and flashes of chestnut in his dark hair that caught the light.
Harry smiled again. “Sure.”
*
“I want to show you something.”
Theo blinked and turned around. He’d been on his way to join the research team that was working on fixing the magic of the Room of Requirement; the Fiendfyre that had burned in it hadn’t damaged it beyond repair, but it was pretty close. It would take a combination of Runes, Arithmancy, and Potions to get it working again, and now a few people were saying Divination, too.
Theo banished that from his head when he saw Neville Longbottom standing behind him, looking nervous but determined. How someone who had cut the head off a giant snake belonging to the Dark Lord could ever look nervous was beyond Theo, but Gryffindors managed all kinds of things on a daily basis that no Slytherin would think of.
“Yeah? What is it?”
Longbottom licked his lips nervously. “Er. It’s a specimen of Shining Root in the greenhouse.”
Theo’s eyes widened. That would be the very thing to help bind together their disparate disciplines that were supposed to be fixing the Room of Requirement, someone had said last night, but they’d also acted as though it was hopeless trying to find a sprouting. “Really?”
“Really.” Longbottom nodded and took a step back. “I found it this morning, and I asked someone who I should talk to, and they said you.”
“Someone?”
“Professor McGonagall.”
The news surprised Theo all over again, and he blinked at Longbottom. The Head of Gryffindor, suggesting a Slytherin work with one of her lions?
But then again, things had changed after the war. During the war. Theo honestly wasn’t sure when to suggest that the changes had begun, and he didn’t care, not when he had come back to rebuild Hogwarts and been accepted with open arms.
“Lead the way.”
Longbottom smiled, and did.
*
Neville crumpled the letter from his grandmother in his hand and closed his eyes. It didn’t matter, he told himself fiercely, ignoring the stinging behind his eyelids. It didn’t—nothing mattered. He had always known that she would react badly to—it didn’t matter.
“Nev?”
It was Harry. Neville turned around, swallowing, and wondering with a distant part of his mind what Harry was doing near the greenhouses. He’d been concentrating more on rebuilding the outer wall and the side of the Astronomy Tower, which had been damaged by a Death Eater’s Blasting Curse.
“Hi, Harry,” Neville said, and tried to ignore the way that the letter burned in his hand like a coal.
“Are you okay?”
Neville closed his eyes and shook his head. “It’s nothing,” he said, telling himself again that nothing mattered. Of course Gran would be upset that Neville didn’t intend to become an Auror like his parents. “Did you need something?”
“I noticed you were missing from dinner. I came to see if you were okay.”
Neville opened his eyes and blinked. Harry stood just a meter from him or so, staring at him earnestly. Neville didn’t know how Harry still had this much compassion to spend. He’d walked to his death for everyone, spoken at the Death Eater trials, attended so many funerals and galas that Neville had no idea how he’d kept his feet, and now here he was, rebuilding Hogwarts.
He wasn’t thinking about the letter, which meant the parchment slipped out of his hand and floated towards the ground. Harry cast a charm to catch it and smoothed it out as it settled into his hold.
“Harry…”
“Do you want me to not read it?”
Neville opened his mouth, then ended up shaking his head. No. He wanted someone to know. And he knew he would never be able to speak his grandmother’s words aloud, let alone try to pretend that they meant nothing to him.
He did watch Harry’s face as he read through the letter and saw his eyes widen, then narrow. Then Harry looked up at Neville and ripped the letter in half.
“Hey,” Neville said weakly.
“Sorry if you wanted to keep it,” Harry said. “But I just—it’s offensive, that she would act like you didn’t do enough when you fought for everyone here for a year and beheaded Nagini and now you’re rebuilding Hogwarts. You’re more than Frank Longbottom’s son! It’s a shame she doesn’t recognize that.”
Neville swallowed, and swallowed again. He couldn’t remember ever feeling the warmth that was filling him before. Everyone had always just—acted as though it was such an honor to be Frank Longbottom’s son that he should be content with that.
He cocked his head at Harry as a thought struck him. It had been sort of like that for Harry, too. His parents were dead heroes, forever frozen in time. People looked at Harry and told him he had his mother’s eyes and his father’s hair; Neville had heard them doing it often enough. Even his grandmother had said it, even though she’d never met Harry. But Harry was more than a copy of his parents.
And neither of us should have to live the lives our parents would have lived because they didn’t get to.
“Neville? Are you okay?”
“Just—realizing some things,” Neville said, and grinned at him. “Like working in Herbology and discovering new plants and breeding experimental ones is important because it would make me happy. The world doesn’t need another Auror.” He nudged Harry’s shoulder with his own. “Besides, you’re going to be an Auror, aren’t you?”
“I don’t know,” Harry said slowly.
Neville felt a little flash of embarrassment that he’d assumed what Harry was going to do, just like everyone else. But—“I thought I heard you say that you wanted to be an Auror in the common room once.”
“I did,” Harry whispered. “But I think I’ve had enough of fighting Dark wizards to last me a lifetime.”
Neville nodded. He might be a hero in some people’s eyes, Harry’s included, but he never wanted to do anything like that again. “I understand.”
Harry smiled at him, and Neville felt a different kind of warmth fill him.
*
“Harry?”
Neville’s voice sounded incredulous. Harry opened his eyes and flushed. Neville was standing over him and Nott, gaping at both of them, and Harry supposed he had cause. It wasn’t every day that you found the Boy-Who-Lived lying on the lakeshore with his head resting against a Death Eater’s son’s.
But Nott was more than his father’s son, Harry reminded himself as he stared at Neville, the way that both he and Neville were. Harry hadn’t talked to Nott in depth—they didn’t even call each other by their first names—but Nott hadn’t said anything about blood purity. He’d worked as hard on restoring Hogwarts as Harry had.
And Neville seemed to recognize that without Harry having to say it, because he abruptly lay down on the ground near them and rolled to arrange himself. Harry lay slowly back down, touching Nott’s shoulder with one hand to ease some of the tension there. He thought he knew what Neville was doing.
And sure enough, soon the crown of a third head touched Harry’s and Nott’s.
Nott still seemed to breathe more slowly and noisily than before, but Harry reminded himself that he wasn’t a good judge of that. After all, he didn’t really know Nott.
He was getting to know him, though. Building walls with someone and hauling blocks with magic and listening to Nott discourse about the difficulties of rebuilding the Room of Requirement were teaching him. Meeting up in private and walking slowly along the lakeshore with Nott was teaching him.
Lying in the sunlight with his head barely touching Nott’s hair was teaching him.
Harry closed his eyes and smiled into the sky.
*
“Are you gay?”
Theo paused. He’d been walking along one of the secret passages that most of the time was little-used, since it led almost directly from the Slytherin common room to the base of the stairs up to Gryffindor Tower. He’d been going to meet Potter and Longbottom for a look at a magical map of the school that Potter apparently had. Supposedly, Longbottom thought he could use the cutting of Shining Root in conjunction with the map to help recreate the Room of Requirement.
But he recognized Granger’s voice right around the corner, and Potter’s loud answering sigh. Theo was sort of surprised they were having this discussion in public, but then, not nearly as many people were in the castle this summer as there would be during the school year. Theo pressed a shoulder against the wall and eased forwards to look around it.
Potter was sitting on the steps, staring at Granger. She stood by him with her hands on her hips, facing him, so that it was hard for Theo to see the expression on her face.
“Why would it matter if I was, Hermione?”
“I don’t—I wouldn’t disapprove, Harry.” Granger’s voice softened. “I just want to know, so that I can tell Ginny if she needs to stop holding onto hope.”
“I told her that myself.”
“What?”
“That she shouldn’t hold onto hope.”
Despite Granger’s claims of accepting Potter if he wanted to date blokes, she seemed flummoxed. Theo smiled a little and leaned against the wall. He caught Potter’s eye and winked. Potter flushed, but Granger seemed to think it was about the topic they were discussing, because she didn’t look over her shoulder.
“I just…”
“I thought you wouldn’t disapprove.”
“Not like that!” Granger swiped her hands around, making Potter duck. “It just surprises me, I suppose. Because you were dating Ginny before the war, and you were happy, and now that you’re back, you’re spending all your time with Nott and Neville. Neville I could see, if you wanted to date a boy, but Nott?”
Potter locked eyes with Theo. Theo blinked a little, thinking distantly that the decent thing to do would probably be to move away and not put Potter on the spot like this, essentially confessing his feelings in front of his—
Study partner? Rebuilding partner? Friend?
Theo didn’t know the right word. He also knew that he wasn’t moving.
“Nott is more than the reputation of his father,” Potter said slowly. “He’s incredibly smart, did you know? He was so quiet in class that I never realized. And he’s not afraid of hard work, either. He’s laboring on rebuilding the Room of Requirement, and that’s probably the hardest task in the castle. And he came back to Hogwarts to help rebuild. He’s the only Slytherin who did, other than Professor Slughorn. That’s brave.”
Theo licked his lips. He didn’t know how to speak through the rebounding noise of his heart.
“What are you saying?” Granger whispered.
“War changes people, Hermione. Death changes people.” Theo was abruptly reminded of those rumors that Potter had died and come back to save everyone. Potter stood up and clapped his friend on the shoulder. “I’m not the same person I was when I was dating Ginny in our sixth year, and neither is she. And I’m not my father, to marry a red-haired witch I met in first year for a fairy-tale ending.”
“I didn’t mean that you were.”
“I know. I’ve just had my fill of hearing that I’m his son lately.”
“I think going to visit Professor Snape’s portrait is a very worthwhile endeavor…”
Theo eased backwards, and bumped into someone behind him. He jumped and turned with his wand out, but Longbottom held up his hands, a much too understanding expression on his face.
“Hurt to hear?” he asked softly.
Theo shook his head as he put his wand away. He didn’t have the words to say what hearing Potter defend him had made him feel, which meant he was going to keep it to himself for a while.
“She’s accepted it and gone off to think it over.”
And now Potter was walking around the corner, his smile bright as the sun they’d spent time in by the lake the other day. Theo felt a tug of wistfulness that it was raining, and that they couldn’t lie like that this afternoon.
But he extended a hand to Potter, and Potter clasped it and bent his head a little.
Theo had to speak, even if he couldn’t say everything he felt, because his heart was full. “Shall we go to the library?” he asked, and his voice was a little thicker and huskier than normal. Longbottom seemed to notice. Potter pierced him with those bright green eyes and just nodded, maybe because he had words of his own that he would have had trouble speaking.
“Let’s.”
And spending time with them in the library, listening to Longbottom’s Herbology expertise and Potter’s unexpected flashes of insight about how one kind of magic might fit into one another, was what started Theo calling them Neville and Harry in his head.
*
“I thought you should know what people were saying.”
Neville winced to himself as he watched Theo stand in front of him with his head bowed. They’d met up in the library, as usual, but Harry had sent a Patronus—a glowing stag charging through the wall would never not be impressive—to tell them that he would be late. One of the blocks had fallen out of the Astronomy Tower, apparently pushed by some Dark magic trap a Death Eater had left behind, and Harry was working with other people to dissipate the trap and secure the stone in place again.
So Neville had found Theo alone in the library, and had decided that now was the perfect time to tell him the rumors that had started swirling around Gryffindor Tower.
Theo still hadn’t moved or spoken. Neville leaned back against a shelf and watched him. They’d all granted each other permission to call each other by their first names, but it was probably still too soon, Neville thought, to tell Theo that other people thought all three of them were dating. Theo was so much more proud and aloof than Harry, and even though he didn’t take offense aloud, there were still times he started at what Neville said and glared with sparking eyes.
Then explained with scathing words.
Neville sighed. It probably didn’t help that he’d given the rumors unwitting fuel because of the way that he couldn’t help watching Theo when he explained like that, or how he looked at Harry when Harry laughed, full and free, tilting his head back at some joke Ron made, in the Gryffindor common room in the evenings.
Theo blinked and looked up. Neville would have taken a step back at the expression on his face, but he already had a shelf behind him.
“Do you understand what would happen if my father found out I was dating two men?” Theo whispered.
“I—er, no. Would he be more upset about that than the fact that Harry’s a half-blood?”
“About equally. He raised me not to make a fuss, to be quiet and traditional and not attract attention.” And then Theo smiled, an expression that stretched slowly over his face and fetched an answering smile from Neville before he could think to suppress it. “Would you like to join me in giving my father an aneurysm?”
“Don’t we need Harry here for that?” Neville asked, although his breath was already coming faster as Theo took a long step towards him.
“Harry’s here.”
And he was, stepping around the corner of a shelf and looking ragged and tired, but he was smiling, too. Neville reached towards him, but Harry shook his head a little. “The first time, I want to watch.”
Theo promptly fluttered his eyelashes and reached out to Neville with a swoony dramatic gesture. Neville laughed.
That wasn’t a bad way to get his first kiss.
He heard Harry’s breath quickening as he watched, and felt Theo’s hand smoothing down his shoulder, and sighed a little as they parted. Then he turned and reached out and drew Harry into a kiss of their own before he could protest.
Not that Harry protested much with his hands on Neville’s shoulders and his mouth pressing so deeply that his tongue caressed Neville’s. Neville pulled back, closing his eyes and sighing as Harry’s hand traced down his shoulder in the path of Theo’s.
He kept his eyes closed for a moment, which meant he missed Harry and Theo’s first kiss, but honestly, he had to do that to keep the exalted tears from falling.
*
“Mr. Potter, a moment of your time.”
Harry turned around and frowned at the man who was walking briskly towards him. He was clad in finely-tailored dark robes, but Harry didn’t recognize him, and it didn’t seem to be the uniform of any particular department in the Ministry. “Yeah?” Harry asked, a little impatient.
“Roderick Davies from the Wizard’s Times,” said the man, and whipped out a small device that Harry blinked at. It seemed to be a metal quill. “Our readers want to know how you feel dating two men.”
Well, that didn’t take long to make the rounds, Harry thought, exasperated. Then again, it wasn’t like he and Neville and Theo had been trying to hide.
“And whether,” Davies was going on, his voice rapid-fire quick, “you intend to marry them, and what you think about the tradition of triad marriages that’s fallen out of favor, and whether you feel responsible for breaking witches’ hearts all over Britain—”
Harry narrowed his eyes, and the metal quill burst into flames. Davies yelped and shook his hand as he dropped it, staring at Harry.
“My life is my own,” Harry told him coolly. “The only people who have the right to ask me those sorts of questions are Neville and Theo.”
“So you do confirm that you’re dating them?” Davies was staring at him, the burning quill—which might be the equivalent of a microphone—forgotten.
“Yes,” Harry said, and turned his back, ignoring the reporter as he called questions after Harry.
Well, this was one of the challenges that they would have to live with. At least Neville and Theo had both been around to see the Prophet printing stories about him, so this wouldn’t come as a surprise.
We’ll make it. No stupid reporters are going to keep us apart.
*
Theo touched the thick letter resting on the table in front of him for a moment. It had come to the Slytherin table that morning, carried in the claws of a very familiar Great Grey owl, which even now perched on the back of his chair and pecked at the back of his head. His father was waiting for a response.
People were staring at him. Well, Harry and Neville were doing more than that, they were getting up and moving forwards, but they stopped when Theo made a small gesture at them to stay back. Harry hovered a little. Theo didn’t think he knew how often he did that. Neville was biting his lip.
Theo had to face this alone in the initial moments, and decide how much he would want them to know later.
His hands were steady as he picked up the letter and slit it open. At least it wasn’t a Howler.
My dear son,
What are you doing? I have taught you to survive, to be quiet and calm, to take everything in its season and your stride. And now you allying with two of the most reckless Gryffindors in the castle. Your life will never be quiet with Harry Potter by your side. The press will never leave you alone. What are you doing?
The Longbottom boy is a little better, but I’ve already received a Howler from his grandmother. You won’t have a quiet life with him, either, not with that woman in it. And I know many who still think that his slaying of the Dark Lord’s serpent was a fluke, and that he’s a near-Squib. Even if that’s not true, do you want that reputation extended to you?
I have left aside all my reservations about you engaging in a triad marriage. You came of age last year, and I cannot make you do what you should, Theo. But I beg you will reconsider.
With love,
Atherus Nott.
Theo took a deep breath and looked up.
Harry and Neville walked the rest of the way to the table and sat down on either side of him, an easy thing to do with no other Slytherins there. Harry took his hand. Neville was the one who asked quietly, “Are you okay?”
“I will be,” Theo said, and crumpled up the letter.
He had made his decision. He would not live the way his father had taught him to live, because what was good for the father was not so good for the son.
*
This time, Gran had sent a Howler.
At least it had found Neville when he was alone, working in the greenhouse with the cutting of Shining Root, urging it towards maturity. But he still stood with his head bowed as it exploded, and took a deep breath when it finished.
There was a ringing silence inside his head, which had been full of her disappointment. Not the kind she’d voiced towards him right now, but the disappointment she always showed when she glanced at him.
Now it was gone.
Neville shook his head in wonder. It wasn’t the healthiest response to a Howler, perhaps. He knew that Theo would probably frown and talk about how Neville needed to get some revenge, and Harry would urge him to talk to someone about it, even though he was a hypocrite and would never talk about his own past.
But…
Neville really didn’t think he needed to. Gran had finally gone too far. He loved her, but he wouldn’t allow her to treat him this way.
He wasn’t Frank Longbottom. And he was the better for it.
*
“Are you ready?”
Harry glanced at Neville with a smile. They were sitting on the front steps of the school, watching the line of carriages make its way up from Hogsmeade. The school was rebuilt as much as it could be, and the students were returning.
“Yeah.” Harry exhaled. “In a way, it’s probably good that they’ve read about us in the Prophet, because that way they’re less likely to freak out about it.”
Neville snorted. “True enough.” He glanced up, and Harry turned his head with a welcoming smile. He would know Theo’s footsteps anywhere.
Theo sat down on Harry’s other side and leaned over to let his shoulder touch Harry’s. He was asking the same question, although without words. Harry nodded to him. “We’ll make it.”
*
“Yes,” Theo said, contentment washing through him. He let those words replace the ones that Father had written to him in the letter. The past few letters, really, all of them endlessly arguing the same thing.
*
“Yes,” said Neville, and smiled to think of the children who would write to their parents, and the parents who would write to his Gran, and her outraged response.
Harry’s hand took his. Theo’s hand reached around Harry’s shoulders to touch Neville’s.
Together, they stood and moved forwards to meet the other students, to welcome them back.
The End.
