I seize the descending man and raise him with resistless will,
O despairer, here is my neck,
By God, you shall not go down! hang your whole weight upon me.
I dilate you with tremendous breath, I buoy you up,
Every room of the house do I fill with an arm'd force,
Lovers of me, bafflers of graves.
Sleep – I and they keep guard all night,
Not doubt, not decease shall dare to lay finger upon you,
I have embraced you, and henceforth possess you to myself,
And when you rise in the morning you will find what I tell you is so. – WW
***
"Ready?"
"Yes."
"We've got one down from Beta Red," Hermione called over from the other side of the bunker.
"Which?"
"Seventeen."
"Alright. Ready?"
Neville tensed, raised his wand. "Yes."
"Go."
He appeared very briefly in the middle of the battle, but had barely materialised before he grabbed Seventeen's hand. A dark mask imprinted itself behind his eyes as the wounded man and he Disapparated.
All of the medics had been given a different location where they could take their wounded and tend to them safely. It was not safe to simply Apparate back to the base, as an especially alert Death Eater could, conceivably, track them back.
Neville's chosen spot was a little shack on the Welsh seashore, where it was now nighttime. The deadweight of Seventeen pulled his arms down towards the floor and he fought it, slinging one of the man's arms over his neck and starting the trek upstairs to the bedroom.
As Neville ascended, a voice floated up the stairs after him, accentuated by the dull thud of wood on wood:
"He alright?"
"I don't know yet, Professor," Neville called back down. He still called Moody 'Professor', out of sheer habit.
"Well, Creevey and I are down here playing cards if you need us." Dennis Creevey, a fresh-faced young man, was too young to fight, and so had chosen to participate by helping guard the wounded.
Neville mounted the last step, trying to remember. Seventeen…
Seventeen was Percy Weasley.
Percy was shivering and moaning as Neville laid him on the bed, his freckled face scratched with what looked like briar-marks. His glasses were gone, and he groped around sightlessly, exclaiming:
"Where am I? Where's my wand?"
"You've been downed," Neville informed him, taking his own wand and using it to monitor Percy's vital signs. "Your wand must have been lost in the fight."
"No – she took it from me, used it against me – "
"Which curse? Do you remember?"
Percy's face twisted grotesquely, and he moved in little tremors upon the bedsheets. "No…"
His temperature was elevated, as was his heartbeat, and he was perspiring, but other than that and the shallow scratches on his face, Neville could find nothing wrong with Percy Weasley. As his skilled hands moved over the older man, Percy seemed to calm down and he lay still, staring at the ceiling, as Neville removed his muddy boots and unbuttoned his battle robes, densely woven with magic-repelling filigree. Spelling his wand to point to any signs of a curse, Neville examined his bare chest, then moved down over each leg. Nothing.
Sighing, he went and got a glass of water, which Percy accepted and drank. The only remaining sign of his nervousness were his hands, which fisted themselves into the bedsheets and clenched and unclenched of their own free will.
"Thank you," Percy whispered after awhile. Pause. "Who are you?"
Neville rubbed rather self-consciously at his beard. It was now nearly three inches in length. He rather liked it himself, but most of his friends had thought it absurd, and it must be, if Percy didn't even recognise him.
"It's the beard, huh?" Neville said, remorsefully.
Percy's face worked more. "No."
"What?"
"I can't see."
Neville went over and turned on the lights, then knelt on the bed next to Percy, examining his eyes without touching him. They were vacant and the pupils were rather small, which was odd in the light, but otherwise, Neville could see no damage. Using his wand, he found evidence of a spell, but not a curse.
"Whatever it is, it'll probably wear off," Neville said, unconvinced but tired. He rose and shut the light off again. "You should probably get some sleep. If you're not right again by morning, I'll contact base and let them know."
"Don't – " Percy called from the bed.
"What?"
"Stay. Please."
It was indeed an odd thing to hear Percy-of-the-unruffleable-demeanor calling for him like a lost child in Diagon Alley. He went back and sat on the bed, and out of sheer impulse took up one of Percy's hands. The fingers dug into his palm for a second, and then relaxed.
"Stay," said Percy in a whisper, and then faltered.
Neville leaned closer to hear him, and Percy kissed his cheek.
***
It was a strange thing, taking a wounded man in the dark, kissing his scratches so hard that they began to bleed again with a vague metallic tinge on his tongue, and all the while Percy thrust upwards and mewled, kittenish. Neville put his head hard down, forehead against Percy's chin, his beard buried in Percy's chest. Such a thing, in the midst of war and death and even blindness, a thing groping for touch and life in the smoking swamp of hurried and peat-covered life, pulsing and oscillating in slow circles below him. Neville breathed short puffs into the skin at the base of Percy's neck, and Percy opened and closed his mouth spasmodically, making hot, clicking noises that rolled around in Neville's brain as he panted and came, flashes of heat wavering over his skin.
***
Neville woke the next morning with a gutty feeling of remorse and a hard-on, and he took off his shirt and went over to the window and stared out of the fly-specked panes to the sands below. He heard the sheets rustling behind him and half-turned, watching Percy sit up. Percy blinked, and swallowed, and from the shameful look on his face it was clear that he could see once again.
"Oh," he said, squinting. "Neville."