Author's Note: okay so there are a couple SU songs in this chapter, but I might edit them out later. I just found it fitting~ of course the lyrics would've likely been changed to fit their situations and in this universe(lol) and the songs would've been made up completely by the characters

Harry always hated taking his morning shower. He couldn't say that Privet Drive was the best home he had ever had, but he could at least say he preferred the bathrooms there. They were solitary there, but here at Hogwarts he had to take community showers. Everyone got their own protected stall, but he still worried someone might peek in while he was bathing. He hoped his stall was protected by magic. After six years, he's gotten used to it though.

"Singin' a song, don't cost nothin'," Harry sings as he soaps up his sponge. "palling around, don't cost nothin'. So how do I spend, all this money? I'd rather spend my time with-"

Harry jumps a foot in the air as he hears a loud argument break out in the sixth year boy's bathroom. It's Dean and Seamus, they're fighting over their previously romantic relationship and whether or not they should get back together. Dean wants to, but Seamus doesn't. Unfortunately, this heated discussion causes Harry to lose the soap he was just holding, so he has to go get it back.

Harry wraps a towel around his waist and walks out of the stall. He looks around suspiciously before slipping away in the direction of the soap trail. It leads into another stall. Harry rolls his eyes. His bad luck continues. Anyhow, he knocks on the wall of the stall. The person inside is also singing, and seems to be unaware of what's happening around him.

"Hey, I- I- er... um... I lost my soap? I kinda need it back." Harry pleads.

Whoever's in the stall doesn't answer, and keeps on singing. It's something about being over. He has surprisingly good pipes, but the voice is unrecognizable.

"Hey, can I have my soap back?" Harry asks. No-one answers. "Hallo?" he persists. No answer there, either. He decides he has no choice but to be a hypocrite, and peek in.

He was only going to pull back the curtain a tad and talk to the person in the stall to get his soap back, but when he saw who was inside, he couldn't help but pull the entire curtain back and step inside.

It's Neville, and he seems blissfully unaware of his visitor as he keeps singing. It seems to be a song about his unrequited love for Draco, but Harry doesn't care about that.

He cares about the huge, dark red, spiral scar that takes up Neville's entire back.

Harry audibly gasps at the sight of it, and Neville is finally aware of the shorter boy in his shower stall. He quickly pulls a sponge over his privates(it's obviously too small though), and backs away into the wall underneath the shower head.

"W- what are you doing here? Please get out." he stammers while looking away from Harry. His face is completely scarlet.

Harry decides it'd be best to ignore what he's seeing, so he focuses on what he was originally there for. "I've been trying to tell you that I need my soap back." he huffs. "It slipped under your shower curtain."

"Well how was I supposed to know?" Neville mutters under his breath as he bends down to pick up the soap. He hands it to Harry with a perturbed look and shoos him away.

After Harry finished his shower, he began brushing his teeth at one of the ten sinks. He was slightly embarrassed by what he had just done, but it wasn't his fault Neville was practically numb to the world.

Speak of the Gryffindor; the fellow black-haired boy came out with his clothes on and a towel wrapped around his head. He removed it and began drying his messy, wet hair surprisingly aggressively.

"Sorry about earlier." Harry says after even more aggressively spitting out his toothpaste.

"It's fine, I should've paid more attention." Neville smiles that same, irritating, goofy smile. Harry looks at him with a furrowed brow and quickly looks away once he stops smiling. "I guess it just says a lot about our relationship."

"What do you mean?" Harry asks honestly.

"Well, there's a magical barrier in each shower stall. It keeps people you don't trust from getting into your stall. Most people don't out of respect, but those who do come in are only people that you have the highest level of trust and respect for." Neville explains.

"I never knew that." Harry smiles, looking in the wide mirror at himself and Neville. So he actually trusts him that much? Harry asked the blonde this to affirm it.

"If we're going to be partners... I guess I have to." Neville shrugs. "That doesn't matter though because..." It seems as if he's getting ready to put his hand on Harry's, but he flinches and puts his hands together when Harry removes his from the sink and puts it behind his head. "Well, I trust you anyway. I always have." Neville manages to say without any awkwardness in his tone or voice.

Harry sat at breakfast, not thinking about the Quidditch game today- which was unusual for him- but instead thinking about the scar he saw on Neville's back. It was extremely big compared to his own lightning scar from the killing curse of Voldemort. He knew where Neville's scar came from. He knew it had to be the Cruciatus Curse, and he knew it was from Bellatrix Lestrange. It was different from Harry's scar in the way that he was sure Neville couldn't hear Bellatrix's voice because of it. He would've heard it by now.

What he didn't want to hear was Ron and Hermione's bickering about something that happened last night.

"SHUT UP, RON!" Hermione screams at the freckled boy sitting two seats away from her.

"Why don't you! You don't know anything about Malfoy, and yet you claim to know everything about him! Just like everything else you're involved in!" he grunts every word out erratically.

"You don't either! At least I've actually spent time with him." Hermione folds her arms angrily.

"Let's just stop talking about this." Ron says, rubbing his temples in a disgruntled fashion. "Harry, how do you feel about the game today?"

"Lucky. I think we'll be pretty lucky today." Harry smirks to himself, getting a good idea.

"What makes you say that?" Ron asks, slightly worried, and also slightly excited.

"You'll see."

It's nighttime. Everyone's been partying with Harry since he led the Gryffindor team to victory. He enjoyed it, but someone just wasn't there. Ron and Hermione were, but it was a different someone.

Once Harry goes up to the sixth year dorms, he finds Neville sitting on his bed, looking down at a piece of paper in his hands. It appears to be a gum wrapper.

"Hey, what's up?" Harry asks, sitting beside him on the four poster.

Neville looks up at the boy next to him with a dismal expression. His eyes appear tired and red, and he's frowning a very dreary frown. Harry would take the goofy smile over this any day.

Thankfully, in a few seconds, Neville does smile, but it's more downbeat than silly. He turns his attention to the ceiling and just, dispiritedly smiles. "Do you know what it's like?" he asks vaguely.

Harry shakes his head. He doesn't have the first clue as to what Neville is talking about. "No." he answers truthfully.

"I mean, having someone close to you, who you want to talk to, but they're just so confused about everything that they can't... I don't know... respond; reply; talk back to you." Neville explains. "They don't know what- what it is you're saying."

Harry is silent.

"Do you know how that feels?"

"No." Harry says again.

"It's agony." Neville comments. "You might think I'm talking about my parents. Am I correct?"

Harry nods.

"You're half-correct. I was at first, but the more I think about it... I'm talking about someone else too." Neville says before getting up and getting into bed, still holding onto that gum wrapper.

Harry still sits solemnly on the edge of Neville's bed.

"Don't you remember yesterday?" Neville whispers. It's dark now, since Neville put out the candlelight.

"Of course." Harry says. "It was horrible what happened to Katie."

"That's all you remember?"

"What else happened?" Harry asks.

"I'm sorry." Neville says and turns over, hiding his face from Harry.

"Just tell me," Harry says, getting further up on the bed.

"I can't. You'd hate me." Neville responds, moving his legs away from Harry.

"I can take it." Harry pleads, getting so close, that he's literally touching Neville's back with his nose, legitimately being that much shorter than him. He decides to cover up as well.

"That Obliviation Charm really worked well, didn't it?" Neville stares unsurely into Harry's confused eyes.

"Tell me everything."

AN: Also, I wanted to note that at this point, Neville is in full denial of what Draco has been doing. Harry is sort of just existing?

that Crucio scar tho

also soz but chapter 9.5, while being v important, will either be uploaded after chapter eleven or twelve idk