Part IV

Neville didn't contact the Healer that Snape had suggested. He'd had every intention of doing so, but every time he put quill to parchment he found he couldn't get the words out. Neville had been in and out of St. Mungo's visiting his parents and around Mind Healers all his life. Some had been nice, but others had given him pitying looks or patronised him. Overall, his experience of hospitals and healers hadn't been a great one. On top of that, a part of him wasn't keen on telling a complete stranger all his problems, and the more foolish part of him thought that if he pretended he was fine then maybe it would all go away. It didn't. Neville doubted it ever would.

Draco didn't know. As far as he was aware, Neville and Healer Montfort were owling or Floo-calling each other at least once a week. Neville couldn't bring himself to tell Draco the truth, especially after spending weeks lying to him. He didn't want to see the disappointment etched on Draco's pale features, and he didn't want to face the fact that this was another thing he failed at. It kept gnawing at his conscience though; Neville had always considered himself an honest person and he made a habit out of telling the truth. As each day passed, the guilt he felt weighed on him more and more.

The shit would hit the fan at some point. It was just a question of when.

Neville found that, surprisingly, he was quite good at lying and hiding things. He figured it was a result of spending a lot of time with Draco. Some of his Slytherin traits had rubbed off on him. Draco was good at putting on a front and pretending everything was alright when it really wasn't. Neville was nowhere near as good at it as Draco was, but he liked to think he could be convincing when he wanted to be. As far as Draco was concerned, Neville was getting better. As far as Neville was concerned, he was getting worse.

Without realising it, Neville had started to distance himself from Draco. This, Draco had noticed, and it left him feeling confused and upset and just a little bit angry. It had been subtle at first; Neville started to spend more time with Seamus, Dean, Ginny and Luna, under the guise of feeling like he was neglecting his friends. Then he started spending more time in the library and the greenhouses, and spending less time in the Great Hall at meal times. They still shared a bed and sat next to each other in lessons, but Draco was starting to feel like he was hardly seeing Neville at all.

To say that Draco was frustrated was an understatement. He understood that Neville wanted to spend more time with his friends; he thought it was a sign of Neville getting better and that he didn't need to rely so heavily on Draco to get him through the day. He thought Neville had been making progress, but that couldn't be farther from the truth. Neville's nightmares were coming thick and fast and while they didn't wake Draco up every night, he was starting to wake more frequently because of them. Draco hadn't said anything, he didn't want Neville to feel guilty and he didn't want to pressure him into talking about an obviously difficult subject, but Neville wasn't saying anything at all. Before, Neville used to talk about his nightmares. Not in any great detail, but enough for Draco to get the gist of what it was about and whether Amycus or Alecto was at the centre. Now, he got nothing. Not a single word. It frustrated Draco to no end.

At first, Draco had assumed that the more frequent nightmares were a result of Neville finally seeking professional help, that talking about the trauma of his seventh year was bringing it all to the forefront of his mind and it was coming out in his dreams. Draco had thought Neville would come talk to him when he was ready, but it had been weeks and Neville hadn't spoken about any of it. Now, he didn't know what to think. Neville was starting to pull away from him and become more closed off. He didn't know what to do. He didn't want to push Neville away even more by making him talk when he didn't want to, but he didn't know how much longer they could go on like this either. He was starting to feel like he was losing Neville, and Draco wasn't sure there was anything he could do about it.

It was one particularly cold Friday afternoon when Blaise and Theo collared Neville in their dorm.

"Have either of you seen my Charms textbook?" Neville was on his hands and knees on the floor, looking under the bed. "I can't seem to find it."

"I think I saw one in the common room," Theo said, casting a nervous glance towards Blaise. He still didn't think this was the best idea, given Neville's somewhat fragile state, but Blaise was right: if they didn't do something soon, it would only be a matter of time before it blew up in their faces, and that was one particular shitstorm Theo had no desire to witness.

Neville stood up and brushed his hands off. "Thanks." He headed towards the door, but was blocked by Blaise. Neville furrowed his brow, "Blaise, can I get past, please?"

"No," Blaise folded his arms across his chest, "we need to talk."

Neville glanced from Blaise to Theo and back again; they both had serious looks on their faces, though Theo looked more unsure than Blaise did. "Erm, okay. What about?"

"Draco," Theo's eyes constantly shifted between Blaise and Neville. He looked like he was about scarper any minute.

Neville let out a nervous laugh, "This isn't one of those, 'you hurt him and we hurt you' talks is it? Because I don't think there's any need for that."

"Not exactly," Blaise gave Neville a stern look that was more than a little unnerving, "sit down."

Neville perched on the end of his and Draco's bed, Blaise and Theo taking a seat on the end of Blaise's opposite.

Theo shot Blaise a questioning glance, who just nodded in return, and then asked, "Why are you lying to Draco?"

Neville looked confused. "Lying? I'm not lying to him." Well, he was, but Neville didn't see how Blaise and Theo could possibly know about him not owling Healer Montfort.

"Well, not lying exactly," Blaise said, "but you're not being entirely honest with him either."

"Guys, I really have no idea what you're on about," Neville tried to keep his internal panic off his face. His fists were clutching hard at the duvet though and the Slytherins sat opposite him would surely be able to see his knuckles going white from how hard his grip was.

"Your nightmares," Theo clarified.

This time, Neville's confusion was genuine, "Draco knows I have nightmares."

"Not that you have them every night," Blaise gave him a pointed look.

Neville couldn't stop the guilt that crossed his face.

Blaise continued, "Draco might be a heavy sleeper, but we aren't."

Neville's eyes fixed on a spot on the floor, his shame making him unable to meet the Slytherins' eyes any longer. "I'm sorry, guys. I'll find a stronger silencing charm."

Theo stood and crossed the gap between the two beds. He knelt in front of Neville and placed a tentative, yet comforting hand on Neville's shoulder. "Neville, we don't care that you wake us up. We get that you're going through a rough time at the moment, and hell we wish that we could help you, but you should tell Draco."

Neville glanced up and met Theo's hazel eyes. "I don't want him to worry."

"He's going to worry anyway, whether you tell him or not." Blaise paused and shared a look with Theo. "And this isn't just about the nightmares."

"What?" Neville swallowed, suddenly nervous again.

Theo withdrew his hand from Neville's shoulder, but stayed where he was kneeling on the floor. "He talked to us the other day."

"He didn't..." Neville's stomach dropped. Draco swore he'd never tell anyone.

"He didn't tell us what happened," Blaise was quick to reassure, "but frankly, he doesn't need to. From the vague things he said and from what we can see for ourselves, we figured it out. You were r-"

"Don't!" Neville snapped, standing up and clenching his fists at his sides. "Don't say it. Don't act like you know a thing about me or what I went through. What I am going through."

"Are we wrong?" Theo stood up as well and brushed the dirt off his trousers.

Neville sighed, but didn't say anything. He knew his silence would be enough of an answer for them both. "What did Draco say to you?"

"He said that you're pulling away from him and that you won't talk to him anymore," Blaise said, a sad look in his eyes. "You're not as affectionate, you barely kiss him or touch him, and even though he didn't actually say it I know he thinks you don't want to be with him anymore."

Neville was about to object to that last statement, when Theo continued. "You flinch when someone so much as brushes past you in the hallway, you rarely eat in the Great Hall anymore, you won't come with us to Hogsmeade, you have nightmares every night-"

"I get it, alright," Neville interjected, hating having to listen to every little thing wrong with him, "I'm fucked up."

Blaise's eyes softened, and a gentle note entered his voice, "We didn't say that, but you do need help, Neville, and you need to talk to Draco."

"I know." Neville sank back onto his and Draco's bed, face buried in his hands as he wondered how his life had come to this.

Neville didn't speak to Draco.

The shit hit the fan about a week later.

Not for the first time, Neville woke up in the middle of the night. This time, however, he was confused as to the cause of it. He hadn't been having a nightmare; for once, his dreams were peaceful. He sat up, a bit disoriented, but a whimpering coming from his right had him fully alert. Draco was the one having a nightmare. He was muttering something unintelligible and tossing and turning slightly. "Draco," Neville said gently, placing a hand on his arm and giving him a light shake. "Draco, wake up, it's just a dream." When the Slytherin still didn't wake, Neville gave his arm a slightly more forceful shake which did succeed in rousing him.

"Nev, wha-?" Draco looked confused as he blinked up at Neville sleepily.

"You were having a nightmare." Neville's hand remained on Draco's arm in what was supposed to be a comforting gesture, but Draco shrugged it off. Neville tried not to feel too hurt by that.

"Oh, right." Draco sat up, leaning against the headboard of the bed, knees bent and arms folded across his chest.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Neville asked.

"What, you mean like you do?" Draco shot Neville a glare and curled in even more on himself. "Oh, wait a minute, that's right, you don't!"

Neville was at a loss for words, not having expected Draco to get angry with him. "Draco, I..." he trailed off, and had the decency to look a little guilty.

Draco wasn't finished there, though. "You expect me to talk about my nightmare, when you refuse to talk about yours? When you refuse to talk to me at all even! This relationship is a two-way street Neville, but you seem to have forgotten that recently!"

"Hey! That's not fair!" Even as he protested, he knew Draco was right. Neville had been a shitty boyfriend recently, and Draco hadn't deserved to be frozen out like he had been.

"Isn't it?" The coldness with which Draco spoke reminded Neville of seventh year, when they'd argued and insulted each other and not cared about the others feelings. Until they did.

Neville couldn't look Draco in the eye anymore, and so opted for staring at the bedsheets instead. "You know my nightmares are hard for me to talk about." Even to his own ears, the excuse sounded lame.

"Bullshit."

Neville flinched at the acerbity with which he spat the word.

"You always talked about them before, maybe not in detail, but you always talked to me. So why not now?"

Neville didn't have an answer to that. "I don't… I can't…" He faltered.

"All this time you've been pushing me away, did you ever stop to think how I might feel?"

Neville thought it could've been the dim light playing tricks on him, but he could've sworn he saw tears forming in Draco's eyes, and that made him feel ten times worse. "I'm sorry." The words felt hollow and meaningless, like it was too little, too late.

"You know, when you started spending more time with your friends, I thought you were getting better. But you haven't, have you? Your nightmares are getting worse." It was an observation more than a question, like Draco already knew he'd been having them more and more, so much so Neville was afraid to fall asleep at night. "Maybe we should find you a different Healer, because Healer Montfort clearly isn't working."

Neville wished the bed would open up and swallow him whole right then and there. There was no getting away from this now. Draco would find out and he would hate him for lying.

At his silence, Draco eyed him suspiciously, and even in the dimness of the room could see the guilt and shame written all over Neville's face. "You haven't been owling him have you." Draco's voice was flat, and Neville thought the lack of emotion was worse than Draco's anger or even disappointment. When Neville didn't contradict him, though, all the anger and disappointment he'd been expecting hit full force. If Blaise and Theo hadn't woken up before, they certainly would now. "I can't believe this! All this time you've been lying straight to my face! How could you?" He balled his fists where they now rested on top of his knees.

Neville, having found his voice again, said, somewhat reminiscent of the timid first year he'd once been, "Draco, I'm sorry. I meant to, but every time I tried to write to him, I just couldn't."

"That's the biggest load of crap I've ever heard."

Neville's eyes narrowed, and for the first time in a long time, he felt a wave of anger towards Draco wash through him. "You're a dick, you know that? You don't get it and you never will. You haven't been around hospitals and Healers for your entire life. You don't know what it's like to have them constantly pity and patronise you. You don't know what it's like to have them give up trying to help your parents because they think they're beyond help. You don't know what it's like to have the thought running through your head that they'd give up on you too. That you're so fucked up in the head that you're not even worth trying to help."

Draco's gaze softened slightly throughout Neville's tirade, it was the most he'd said to him in weeks, and Draco thought he was finally starting to understand just what was going on in Neville's head. "You should've just said that to me in the first place. You know I'd have helped you."

"I don't need your help, Draco. I need you to stop nagging."

Draco sat up straight, the anger that had been starting to dissipate coming back, "Nagging? Is that what you think I'm doing? Well, excuse me for giving a fuck about you and your mental health. Maybe you'd prefer it if I stopped caring altogether, and go back to being the cold-hearted Slytherin you used to think I was."

"Why change the habit of a lifetime." Neville regretted the words as soon as they left his mouth, but he was tired and angry and so emotionally drained that he barely had any control over what left his mouth anymore. It wasn't lost on him, either, that this was heading in the same direction as their fight in the Room of Requirement when Draco had first found out what Carrow was doing.

"Fuck you. If this is how you're gonna be, maybe I shouldn't have bothered in the first place."

"Maybe you shouldn't. Maybe you should've just let Carrow finish me off. Maybe then I wouldn't have to deal with nightmares every damn night and the constant fear of Carrow finding me as soon as I leave Hogwarts grounds. Maybe then I'd stop feeling like I'm broken and damaged goods and not good enough for you. Maybe then I wouldn't have to scrub myself raw in the shower everytime I relive him raping me. Maybe then-" Neville broke off, the tears that had been threatening at the corners of his eyes finally spilling over.

At the sight of Neville's distress, all the anger Draco had previously felt instantly vanished. "Ah, shit." He gathered Neville in his arms, not hesitating even when Neville half-heartedly tried to push him away. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean that." Neville buried his face in Draco's neck, as Draco ran one hand soothingly up and down Neville's back, the other running through Neville's hair.

"I just want to stop feeling like this," Neville mumbled.

"I know." Draco kissed the top of Neville's head and neither of them said another word after that.

Eventually, Neville stopped crying and his breathing evened out; Draco realised he'd fallen asleep. He lay him gently down, before shuffling in beside him, arms wrapped around the Gryffindor. It wasn't long before he was asleep either.

"So much for not witnessing the shitstorm," Theo muttered, when he figured the other two were asleep.

"Coulda been worse," Blaise replied, rolling over in bed and then going back to sleep himself.

When Draco woke the next morning, Neville wasn't there. He glanced over at the other two beds in their dorm and saw Blaise and Theo weren't there either. He got up, stretched, got dressed and then went looking for Neville. Draco hoped last night had been a bit of a breakthrough, and though he was positive Neville wouldn't want to talk about it, they definitely needed to. They'd both said hurtful things and they still needed to address the fact that Neville had been lying about seeing Healer Montfort.

Draco didn't have to look far to find Neville; he was sat in the common room at one of the tables, quill in hand, his eyes scanning over a piece of parchment. He scribbled something then put his quill down. He looked up to see Draco watching him, and gave him a small smile, though Draco could see traces of the guilt he saw last night still etched on Neville's face.

Neville stood, parchment in hand, and crossed the room to where Draco was standing. He was thankful the common room was devoid of anyone else, it was bad enough that Blaise and Theo had heard their argument last night. He didn't need nosey first-years listening in on their conversation. "I'm sorry," he said, meeting Draco's grey eyes. "For a lot of things. I shouldn't have lied to you and I shouldn't have pushed you away. I was scared, and I know that's no excuse, but I didn't want to unload everything onto you and have you realise I'm not worth it. And I'm sorry about what I said last night as well, I should never have said what I did, I know you were only trying to help."

Draco pulled Neville to him in a tight hug, before pulling back to look Neville squarely in the eyes, hands cupping the sides of his face so Neville couldn't look away. "Neville Longbottom, you will always be worth it and you will always be worth trying to help. You are not broken, you are not damaged goods, and you are most definitely good enough. I knew what I was getting into when we got together and I don't regret it for one second. I love you, please don't ever think otherwise."

A smile crossed Neville's face at these words, and it was perhaps the first genuine smile Draco had seen on Neville in weeks. "I love you too."

The confirmation that Neville loved him back made Draco the happiest he had ever been. "I'm sorry as well, I didn't mean what I said last night, about not bothering in the first place."

"I know you didn't." Neville pulled away from Draco so he could give him the parchment he'd been clutching.

"What's this?"

"I finally wrote that letter to Healer Montfort." Neville looked nervous and uneasy, but because of their argument the previous night, Draco finally understood why exactly it had been such a hard thing for Neville to do.

"Neville, are you sure about this? I'm not going to force you to do anything you're not ready for. You need to do this for you, not me."

Neville nodded, a look of determination in his eyes. "I'm sure. I meant what I said last night. I want to stop feeling like this. I think this is the only way that's ever going to happen."

Draco nodded in understanding, relieved that Neville was finally taking steps to get professional help.

"Come with me to send it?" Neville asked, holding out his hand for Draco to hold.

"Of course," Draco said, grasping Neville's hand and hoping things would finally start to get better.