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Harry Potter and the Quiet Life	By : marrjisback Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Neville Views: 15576 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 3
Disclaimer: i do NOT own Harry potter nor am I making any profit from this story

Chapter List
- 6
- 7
- 8
hey, i had a bit of trouble with this chapter. I wanted to introduce Dudley into the story but i couldn't get the timing right. i re wrote it a couple times but, i don;t know. Maybe later. Well, thoughts?

Moments Afterwards

Harry didn’t know what to do with Neville, exactly. It felt the same as always, but also vastly different. They lay on the table, well Harry on the table and Neville on Harry, panting awhile. Harry stroked Neville’s hair absently, holding him loosely in his arms. It felt right, to be holding Neville so near him. Warm and dry and earthy, Neville belonged there. He hadn’t felt like this before. It was a bit like how he felt when he was young whenever he came back to Hogwarts. He couldn’t put a name to it, or a word or even a particular feeling. It was just something large and scary and lovely. Hard to feel, almost. Like someone had flipped lonesome on its head.

Neville finally sat up, though he didn’t want to. The position was awkward but wonderful.

“I’m sorry, I got carried away.” Neville helped Harry get up. “Shouldn’t have done that in the kitchen.” Harry, still dizzy and fuzzy from the interaction made a protesting noise that clearly said he’d been perfectly fine with what occurred as he waved his hand absently and the kitchen tidied itself.

“I should shower.” Harry said. “Teddy and Nanny will be back by lunch.” He glanced at the clock, it was almost noon. He wanted a Weasley clock, he’d have to pop over and see Mrs. Weasley and ask her. Neville agreed and walked behind Harry up the stairs. He wished he would have had the patience to take Harry up these stairs and into a bedroom; instead he had desperately flattened him against any available service and rutted him like an animal. It should have been more-romantic. Neville was hardly to be blamed. He was only twenty, his libido was still raging. He felt certain, if he wanted to, he could ravage Harry in the shower and again in the bedroom, on the stairs and against the wall. His body could even handle doing it out in the snow, under the trees Malfoy had planted. A bit of a show of dominance, a celebration of winning, if you will. Neville wanted to grind (pardon the pun) his winnings into Malfoy’s showy face.

“I’m worth twelve of Malfoy.” Neville said suddenly, looking at Harry’s back as they climbed the stairs. Harry paused and turned in the narrow stairway. He examined Neville’s face thoughtfully. The curve of Neville’s jaw wasn’t anywhere near perfect, his eyes were a sweet blue, his ears were large and pleasant and one of his eyebrows was significantly higher than the other. He was simply the most wonderful thing Harry could thing of.

“A million, at least.” Harry corrected and put his hand on Neville’s cheek. The stubble scratched him gently. “I’m sorry. It should have been you.”

While Neville showered, Harry having already cleansed himself and disappeared to do some paperwork, he thought about Harry and Malfoy. It didn’t make sense to him; it confused him and flipped his mind inside out and backwards. It just didn’t seem right. Malfoy was a terrible person, not a bad person, he supposed, but not a nice one. He had ridiculed Neville his entire Hogwarts career. He had been cruel. And he’d been just as cruel to Harry. How could anyone who had suffered through Draco Malfoy ever purposefully go back? He felt a similar confusion when he thought of Severus Snape’s book downstairs. Harry had said he deserved more than he got. Harry had told the world that Snape had been Dumbledore’s man all along. But just because he was good didn’t mean he was kind. He had been heartless and cruel to them, overly so to Harry. And Neville had hated him. And the incident with Hermione’s teeth still set his own on edge. He simply couldn’t fathom it. Snape was a bully. Malfoy was one too. If Harry wanted to be bullied, well, their relationship wasn’t going to go well. Rough, sure, Neville didn’t mind a bit of rough love. But Neville, the victim of so much, would never be able to be the bully. It twisted his stomach. So, when he was dressed, he headed down for another talk with Harry. Feelings were not Neville’s strong suit and talking about them made him nauseous, but this was Harry. Things had to be done.

“Harry?” He called, wandering into the living space. Harry was perched neatly on the green armchair and was staring absently at the family tree on the wall. A network of friends made family by tiny dotted lines.

“Hm?” Harry looked away, wishing he’d been caught doing the pile of paperwork on his lap rather than staring at Dumbledore’s picture thoughtfully. He’d been wishing he could ask Dumbledore for advice and was considering visiting his old confidant’s portrait at Hogwarts. Neville’s hair was damp and dark against his skin and his clothes were fresh and hugged tightly to the slightly wet body. Harry tried to manage the fast pace his heart now occupied.

Neville sat heavily in the couch, puffing out a large breath. He leaned back into the head rest, tilting his head over the top and stared at the ceiling. Harry conjured a towel absentmindedly and walked around the back of the couch to ruffle Neville’s wet hair with it. One of the perils of fatherhood, it seemed, was the constant ache to take care of others. Neville, who thought this would be strange as it began, found it oddly comforting. Harry ruffled his hair a few more times with the fluffy towel.

“You might catch somewhat, you know. It’s winter.” He scolded lightly.

“Oh, sure.” Neville said. “The dry, heated living room is simply a deathtrap in the making.”

“Psh.” Harry said with a smile and the towel popped away. He climbed over the low couch to sit with Neville. He brought his knees up near his chin and leaned his cheek on them so he was facing Neville. His toes fiddled, bear as they were, against each other. Neville marvelled at this tiny fact, that Harry twiddled his toes, and stored it deep in his mind in the rolodex labelled Important. Neville then refocused on the task at hand.

“Harry.” Neville said seriously and then seemed at a loss. “I just don’t understand so many things.” He sounded frustrated and he ran a hand through his almost dry hair. Harry said nothing. He had learned after years of dealing with people who didn’t want to say something, that the best response is silence. Eventually they must say it. And indeed, as the silence stretched, Neville licked his lips nervously.

“He was so mean to you. To everyone. He was a death eater!” Harry instantly knew this referred to Malfoy, though Neville was thinking of two former Slytherins. Harry turned to face the painted wall again, to face Sirius.

“He wasn’t just a death eater. Just like you are not just a herbology Professor.”

“Sure, but I don’t bring a teacher personality here either. But that’s who he was, he was cruel.”

“He had a hard life.” It was almost exasperated sounding, like he’d muddled through similar conversations before.

“So did you. So did I.” Neville said resolutely. Harry smiled sadly a bit and turned to look Neville in those sweet as anything blue eyes. He reached over and squeezed Neville’s well worn hand twice before bringing it to touch his forehead carelessly.

“Nev, it’s hard, I know, to see past actions sometimes. But people hurt and carry hurt in different ways. Malfoy was mean to me but he was sad as well. And the man who showed up on my doorstep the day after you left was different. His hurt had got all twisted and I wanted to help him straighten it out. In the end I put him right back how he was before. I shouldn’t have. That twist was good for him, it straightened out his crooked. And I think he’ll get bent into shape again. But it’s different sometimes, when you see things from their perspective. I mean, look at Snape. He hated my father. He hated me. But it’s impossible for me to hate him, it’s impossible to hate someone who loved your mother.” It spilled like coins on a table, overflowing the smooth edges, bouncing and spinning onto the floor.

“Snape loved your mother?” Neville said quietly.

“Always did.” Harry nodded, some how sorrowful. “And I can’t help but feel sadness for him. We both loved her, and neither of us got her very long. You know what that’s like.”

Neville wanted to reach out and touch Harry’s face but he couldn’t bring himself too and then the moment passed.

“You see the good in everyone, don’t you? How irritating.” He kidded instead, instantly hating himself. Why the hell did he say that? Idiot. But Harry laughed lightly.

“There is good in everyone. The world isn’t split into good people and deatheaters Neville, we all have both good and bad. What matters is what we act on. Sirius taught me that.”

“Smart man.”

“Very.” They sat while.

“Will you tell me everything, someday?” Neville asked, brushing his hair with his fingers.

“Probably. But learn a bit of patience.” Harry punched Neville’s side. “We don’t have to do everything today.”

And they didn’t of course; they had all the time they wanted to have. Maybe more. Instead they talked amicably about Neville’s work and students he was teaching with familiar names. Terry Boot’s much younger brother, a few Weasley cousins and a young Vector, a Professor’s son. As Neville told an uproariously funny story about a boy who had foolishly eaten a proffered Weasley Wizard Wheezing candy and ended up with his arms and legs switched, Harry slipped his hand into Neville’s. It was calloused with years of labour and Harry turned it over in his hand to peer at a smattering of scars traced on the back were line after line had been written with a cursed quill.

“Hm,” Neville said, sounding embarrassed. “Tad ugly, isn’t? Reckon I could have it removed?” he brushed along the scar.

“No, scars from dark magic don’t leave you easy.” Harry said and thought of his scar. Then he flipped their clutched hands to show off his own cursed words.

I will not tell lies.

It blazed white against his taut skin.

“’Sides, we’re a matching set.” He smiled and flipped Neville’s hand back over. He kissed the mark.

“We certainly suit each other.” Neville was rather pleased with this conclusion. Then he reached a hand up to Harry’s face, gliding under the hair to push it up. The scar stared baldly back at him. He traced a warm line over it with his index and Harry shivered at the gentle movement.

“Sorry!” Neville jerked his hand away, startled.

“No,” Harry said, moving toward the hand a pinch. “It’s fine, just strange. Sensitive spot.” The rolodex catalogued this as well.

“Does it hurt?” Neville asked while he brushed it again more slowly.

“No.” Harry said, suppressing the shiver. “It used to, but not anymore. Now if just feels-gapping. Empty, I guess?”

“Weird.” Harry realized, a little guiltily, that Neville knew nothing of horocruxes or Harry’s scar or even what killing the snake had meant. He wanted to tell him, but some deep disgust settled in his stomach. A self disgust. He never wanted Neville to know about the dark ugly he had carried, about the stain he knew was missing and now felt bare at its black absence. Something lonely had severed itself and filled the spot but even that had left him and soon it was the dark unhappy. He tried to mentally push away what was not there anymore. It was like trying to move air with spread fingers.

Neville could see that something had upset Harry, he understood its importance. He also understood, rather wisely, that neither of them was prepared to unearth what had been hidden. Harry had planted a seed and Neville wasn’t to dig it up. It would curl up naturally as long as he cared for it. But still, the wound inside Harry’s mind, so violently linked to the mark on his forehead troubled Neville. He decided a little healing-a little watering, was necessary. So without thinking about it too much, Neville leaned forward and licked firmly across Harry’s scar.

The tongue was strong and firm and raked roughly once across the scar. Neville seemed almost catlike; his lithe body leaned sideways against Harry, his strong jaw, his long arms braced on the couch and appealing muscles flexed. And the lick itself set fire to the skin. Harry just sat still and let it burn. His heart pounded against his chest bones like wild dancers and lost any sort of known rhythm. He ached as Neville soothed the lonely right out of his mind with one swipe of his tongue. Neville leaned down slightly, so their faces were just inches apart and stared into Harry’s eyes. The first thing he would get rid of were the glasses that only just obscured his vision right into those piercing green which set light some ancient fire inside of him. Harry contained something wild, he just knew it, under those eyes.

Of course that’s when Teddy and Nana came home. And for the first time, Neville really understood that he was dating a father. It was disappointing, slightly, to be interrupted. But Neville was much too fond of Teddy to bare any real animosity. And if Harry wasn’t a father he wouldn’t be who he is now, the person Neville liked. He would be the Harry who left his godson. And that wasn’t the Harry that Neville had kissed.

It was a peaceable afternoon after that, full of tea and mild discussion. The three of them, at Teddy’s request, went out into the snow and made a snowman with a large top hat and a carrot nose. Harry charmed him and the snowman let out a great cough and rubbed his hands together until Teddy gave him mittens and a scarf. Teddy was absolutely delighted.

Inside they drank Nana’s cocoa and sat by the fire talking of other things as the radio played Muggle Christmas carols. Outside the snowman sneezed and a passing Muggle glanced around uncertainly for the source and stared for several moments at the snowman before walking away much brisker than before. It was one of those afternoons that made paintings. At night Neville gave Harry a chaste kiss before bedding down in the room down the hall. It was painful, the distance both so short and so long it yo-yoed his feelings sharply. It was too soon, perhaps for them to live together. Or maybe it was too late to start dating. Their natural timeline should have come to a start in the summer. They were missing all the proper firsts. Malfoy occupied them. Neville tried to let this musty thought go, but it bubbled in his mind. And the days past like this, casually eking towards Christmas with a general and exceedingly happy pleasantness.
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Harry Potter and the Quiet Life