A/N: My submission for QLFC Round 2 as Beater 2: Inter-House Friendship. This is an offshoot from my Michael Corner-centric fic The Heart of War and is set during the trio's would-be 7th year.

xxx

Michael crept through the early morning darkness of Hogwarts' corridors. It was the only time Hogwarts was truly peaceful. The only time the Carrows weren't watching.

"Ready?" Neville whispered beside him.

Michael nodded, a nervous grin spreading across his face. "Always."

Things had been subtler this far: "Dumbledore's Army: Still Recruiting" on a solitary wall a couple times a week. Tonight was going to be something else. Tonight the DA was deployed in pairs throughout the school—and their message was going to be just as clear: Hogwarts may not be theirs anymore, but they sure as hell weren't going to go down without a fight.

Michael had never given much thought to Neville Longbottom, at least not once the DA had ended. But when Death Eaters had flooded the school at the end of 6th year, Michael had finally seen his peer—really seen him—for the first time… and the guy was a Gryffindor through and through.

Neville glanced at a Muggle watch on his wrist, then fished a galleon out of his pocket. "Let's do this, then," he said. He muttered a few words over the galleon and returned it to his pocket.

A matching galleon in Michael's pocket warmed as it did in ten or so other pockets. He gripped his wand more tightly. His heart pounded, as though he were standing at the edge of a cliff, preparing to plunge into the water below. Finally. And he began to spell words onto the walls of the Entrance Hall.

An hour later they were all back in the Room of Requirement looking into one another's flushed faces, and Michael saw all his own emotions reflected in the faces around him. They were finally doing something, their expressions said. They didn't have to be mice anymore.

Neville's face told a different story. He was calm and focused. This was just one element in a long-reaching plan for him. Nothing, compared to the things he'd done and the things he planned to do. Michael envied him, admired him, wanted in.

The group gradually dispersed, those already in hiding off to their bunks, the others to their dormitories. Michael stayed behind and watched a moment as Neville stared down at a blueprint of Hogwarts.

"Look, mate," he said at last, "I… I wanted to thank you."

Neville glanced up at him, confused.

"You've no idea, have you?" Michael said. "You don't understand what it is you're doing for everyone. Neville, mate, you're freeing us. All the anger and the fear… you're giving us the chance to turn it to strength." He gripped Neville's shoulder. "So thank you."

It was the first of many nights spent with Neville in the Room of Requirement. Nights spent tense and waiting. Nights spent blowing off steam. Nights spent quietly planning.

Then Michael was caught by the Carrows. They'd been furious, searching for an outlet for all their frustrations, in desperate need of someone to make an example of. When Michael stumbled into the Room of Requirement some days later, it was Neville who reached him before he collapsed as everyone looked on in shock.

"Thanks, mate," he mumbled into Neville's shoulder. Pain didn't just radiate through his body; pain was his entire existence.

"You can let go now, Mike," Neville said. "Sleep awhile."

xxx

When Michael awoke, Neville was reading at his side. Michael's body was on fire. He could barely breathe for the pain, but he cleared his head as best he could. "What's the damage?"

Neville looked up and shut his book, his expression dark. "We've done what we can, but we aren't properly trained, mate, and we don't know what we're dealing with." His gaze drifted out the window. "Hannah's spent days doing her best, but… Maybe if we knew what all had been done to you…" Neville forced himself to meet his friend's eyes. "There's some curse undoing all our healing. We can't make it stick."

Michael swallowed hard. "How bad?"

Neville fixed him with a somber look—one with which Michael was all too familiar.

"Ah." Michael's thoughts swam. Was this really for him? Was he really done? He thought of Cho, of Terry, of his family.

No.

He wasn't ready to leave them. They still needed him to help them get through this bloody war. And he still needed them.

"Better get me in on the research then," he said, grimacing in pain as he swiped the book from Neville's lap.

Neville stared at him, a glimmer of hope rekindled in his eyes as he conjured a new pile of books from the Room of Requirement's magical horde. Michael grinned back and cracked open the book.

They passed the day pouring over tomes filled with obscure knowledge and technical academic jargon, searching for the curse to no avail. Some students came to help while others carried on with missions, but by the time the sun began to rise again in the sky, they had still found nothing.

Hannah had grown exhausted from casting constant and ineffective healing spells over him, and Michael had long since sent her to rest. His condition was worsening, he knew. Blood loss made him weak and blurred his vision. He felt slow and heavy, and everything felt very confusing. He barely even startled when Neville growled and threw his current text across the room with a crash.

Hannah started awake and crossed the room to them. "Neville," she said softly, her hand resting on his, "We'll figure this out."

"No. We won't." He stood abruptly. "We don't even know what we're looking for!"

"We need Madam Pomfrey," someone said. Michael wasn't sure who. His head was swimming, and everything had gone dark.

"Cho, we can't—"

"She's right. There's no other option."

"She's watched!"

"He'll die!"

"I have an idea…"

xxx

The first thing he noticed was that the pain had eased. He flexed his muscles slightly, testing them out. They were sore, and tingled strangely, but he could live with that for now. His vision had returned, and his mind was clear, and that was more important.

Neville was once more at his side. "Welcome back."

"Thanks, mate. Though I was a gonner for a while there."

"So did we. Would've been if it weren't for Madam Pomfrey."

"What?" Michael stared at him, aghast. "How did you-?"

"House elf. We had to pretend there was a medical emergency in the kitchens, and she couldn't stay long, so you're on strict bed rest for—"

"She'll still be punished, Neville! You shouldn't have—"

"Yeah," Neville interrupted. "She will. But she'll live. And more to the point: so will you."

Michael swallowed his protests. He knew his friend well enough to know it had been a tough call to make… just like all the others were. Neville put people at risk on a regular basis, was always balancing the pros and cons, was always performing risk analyses and asking others to make sacrifices. He gripped Neville's forearm weakly and said nothing more about it.

"So… bed rest, you say?" He wasn't fond of the idea.

Neville grinned slightly. "Well, it's a relative sort of term here." He dragged a table of maps and tactics over to the bed. "We've got a lot to do, mate."

xxx

Michael was healed in time for the Battle of Hogwarts. Was healed in time to watch good people fall to the savagery of the Death Eaters. Was healed, physically, in time to find himself emotionally shattered.

He stood at funeral after funeral, sometimes tearful, sometimes numb, sometimes furious. He sat at the trials of his torturers and of others, watched as they were sentenced to Azkaban or released back into the public. He watched as the wizarding world struggled to put itself back together—watched as an outsider, lost and uncertain, full of emotion and haunted by flashbacks, by angry outbursts and moments of paralyzing fear.

But, always, Neville stood with him. A reassuring word in his ear, a comforting hand on his shoulder. Neville had seen it all, had been his leader through it all, had given him power and purpose. And now that he needed him for a different sort of hope and strength, Neville was still there.

Michael sipped his tea and reached for a biscuit, at ease in Neville's house—his own second home.

"I finish Auror training tomorrow," he said, excitement making its way into his voice.

Neville nodded. "Harry said he wants you on his team. Says you excel at strategy, keep a clear head, see to the heart of the problem."

Michael's heart leapt. "Tracking Death Eaters?"

"That's right."

"Bloody hell… You're sure?"

Neville smiled. "Harry has a way of making things happen."

"Brilliant," he breathed. It felt like things were finally starting to fall into place.

The friends sat and chatted for a while—about Hannah's takeover of The Three Broomsticks, and about Neville's pending position at Hogwarts. They talked about mutual friends, Quidditch, and the ongoing post-war healing.

"Mate, there was something I wanted to ask you about," Neville said after a while.

Something in Michael's chest tightened. "Everything okay?"

A smile spread across Neville's face. "Better than. Mike… Hannah and I are having a baby."

The tension flew from his body. "For real? Mate, that's fantastic! Congratulations!"

Neville beamed back. "We've talked about it, me and Hannah, and we wanted to ask you… to be godfather to our baby."

"… You're not serious."

Neville's smile softened. "There's no one I'd trust more."

For a moment, Michael could only stare, and then a grin spread across his face, and laughter burst from his lips.

"You'll do it then?"

"Course I will—gotta show the kid the way it's done; kid's got a Gryffindor and Hufflepuff for parents for goodness' sake!" Michael leaned back in his seat, sipping his tea with a stupid grin on his face. He was going to chase after Death Eaters, Neville and Hannah had asked him to be their firstborn's godfather, and he had a date with this cute girl he met the other day. Life was looking up. He stroked a faint scar that remained from his time with the Carrows. It was almost faded.