Neville likes to look back on the few happy moments of his childhood. Sometimes he thinks they're all he's got. Everything else makes him want to screech his throat raw and cry his eyes dry. So he thinks back to that fragment of time that seems so long ago now, when the house wasn't so fucking silent, and his parents remembered his name. He never remembers being sad then.
He remembers the perfect smile that his mother's long since forgotten how to make. She would pinch his cheeks and his nose until they went rosy and red. She's crinkle her nose – smiling – at sightly shooting stars. He remembers he trying to teach him how to walk and talk and use the bathroom on his own. He remembers the way her eyes would widen and water when he fell or played dangerous games.
He remembers dad wittily remarking on their cursed last name and the way he held mum and how he'd promised to be there forever and then some more.
It was a lie. Everything was, but they couldn't have knows. Neville keeps wishing they wouldn't have left him the way they did because their physical prescience only serves as reminder of what was then.
Neither is really there any more. They hadn't been for the longest of times. They'd missed his acceptance to Hogwarts, and the easygoing way he had with plants. They missed his helping bring down Voldemort, and when exactly he learned not to fear his name. They'd even missed his wedding and the birth of his children and his first white hair.
Draco says that's the difference. Neville's parents can't help themselves. His just want revenge. And at least Neville has happy memories. But nothing made it any better. So they'd kiss.
'You've got me, love,' Draco would whisper against his chest. But he wouldn't promise to be there forever because he knows how Neville feels about that.
Neville's eyes water against his heartbeat. Draco can live, though. You can't miss what you never had. It still hurts some times.
He just remembers bits of moments when his mother would smile or place her hand on the small of his back, but the Dark Lord always came first for them. And now he regrets the way he let himself be used that way. Neville can only kiss the tears away, but the sadness is still there.
But he can't do anything, so he writes to his children and goes to work.