And if I believe you,

Will that make it stop?

If I told you I need you,

Is that what you want?

And I'm broken and bleeding,

And begging for help.

And I'm asking you,

Jesus, show yourself.

"If I Believe You" — The 1975

1994— Fourth Year

The day that McGonagall announced the upcoming Yule Ball in Transfiguration, Neville knew exactly who he wanted to ask. He knew that Ron and Harry were Hermione's friends, and nothing more, so he wasn't worried about either of them getting to ask her before he had the opportunity.

The day that Neville had finally managed to show accidental magic, the day that Uncle Algie had shoved him off the pier and into the Irish Sea, his gran had given him one of the few items that remained from his parents.

"Neville! Come down here, boy!"

Neville walked down the stairs hurriedly, trying not to stomp or clomp and make her angry. She didn't sound particularly angry, and she rarely was, but Neville frequently felt his grandmother's anger and frustration with her situation. Rationally, of course, he knew that she couldn't possibly blame him for what had happened to his parents. That didn't mean, of course, that he wasn't a constant reminder of the son she'd lost.

Finding her in the drawing room, Neville stood in the doorway, waiting for her direction. She was standing in front of the wide curio cabinet that held the few remaining items that she'd been able to salvage from his parents' home.

While Bellatrix had held Frank and Alice beneath her wand, Rabastan and Rodolphus Lestrange had taken the time to move systematically through Longbottom Keep. Both careful and haphazard bombardas, confringos, expulsos, and reductos had destroyed nearly everything inside the house. The ensuing fight with the aurors who came to capture the Death Eaters had seen that many things that had survived the assault of the Death Eaters joined in the rubble.

Augusta had spent days picking through the rubble, searching for anything that was salvageable enough to take home. There was very little to keep, but the things that she had been able to save had found a home in the curio cabinet in the drawing room where she spent most of her time— a shrine to the son and daughter-in-law that had been reduced to shells of their former selves.

Augusta lifted out a long, flat box that looked similar to a wandbox. She walked over to the settee before the fireplace, and beckoned Neville to join here.

"Sit down, child. I have something for you."

She placed the box in Neville's slightly shaking hands as he fumbled with the clasp on the side of it. It was rare that she took anything out of the cabinet, and rarer still that she would let him touch any of it. Even rarer, was the thought that she would be giving him anything that had once belonged to his parents instead of leaving it in the cabinet for herself to keep.

He finally managed to open the box, and carefully lifted the lid. Inside was an oval locket necklace, the face of it brass and filled with pearl. Two small, pink birds, surrounded by delicate gold flowers were inlaid in the pearl. With his hands renewed in their shaking, he messed with the clasp of the necklace, attempting to open the locket.

"I took your father to nearly every store in both Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley. When nothing there had anything he wanted, we went into Muggle London and tried nearly every store within walking distance of the Leaky. He eventually found this one in the window of a shop full of vintage jewelry. This was a gift your father bought for Alice for their first anniversary. He told me that day that he wanted to marry her. Fortunately, her mother gave him her ring to propose to her with, because I don't know that I would have been able to do all of that shopping again to help him find a ring that he thought was suitable for her."

When Neville got the locket open, he found a picture inside of one side of both of his parents at a Quidditch game. In the picture, Alice wrapped a scarf around Frank's neck before raising up on her tiptoes to press a kiss to her lips. On the other side of the locket, was the wrapper to a piece of Drooble's Best Blowing Gum.

"Your mother has always liked to chew Drooble's. That isn't a new thing, since she's been in Mungo's. She always smelled of crazyberry, and I can't remember many times save for their wedding that she didn't have a piece of it in her cheek."

In an uncharacteristic show of emotion, Augusta pulled a handkerchief from her sleeve, although she didn't yet wipe her eyes with it. "I want you to have it. You're 10, and you'll be on your way to Hogwarts soon. It's only a matter of time before you find the witch that you want as much as your father wanted your mother. When you find her, and when you're sure that she's the one for you, I want you to give her this necklace. It's yours, and one day it'll be hers. Do you understand?"

Neville nodded blankly, struggling to imagine his parents as young and infatuated. He knew his parents of course, but he knew them as the shades that Bellatrix had turned them into. He didn't know them as vibrant and vital, and rarely heard stories about them from the times before.

"Can you tell me something about them?" he asked her, trying to take advantage of her uncharacteristically open mood.

"Your parents were more in love than any couple I think I've ever had the privilege of meeting, myself and your grandfather included. There isn't anything that they wouldn't have done for each other. I truly think that they asked to be paired together after auror's training because they didn't trust anyone else to properly take care of the other.

Your mother was loud, but in the sense that her mind worked twice as fast as her mouth, and she always tried to force out her thoughts before her brain raced ahead of her words. Your father was much quieter than she was, but had one of the sharpest wits that I've ever seen. If your mother could command a room with her voice, your father could command a room with his presence.

There was something about both of them, though, that naturally made people gravitate towards them. Although they were quintessential Gryffindors, they would've been equally at home in Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff. They were fiercely loyal, and would have done anything imaginable to protect those they love. I believe that the reason they held out against Bellatrix so long was because they were trying to prevent Bellatrix from learning where you were.

In many ways, you're a victim of the Lestranges yourself, since she deprived you of the right of growing up with such wonderful parents. You are certainly the only person they've ever come close to loving as much as they loved each other. Everyone loves to talk about the love and sacrifice of James and Lily Potter, and I certainly don't want to invalidate what they did. But your parents met on the train in first year, and your father told me her name in his first letter home when he told me where he'd been sorted. Although they waited until fourth year to officially become a couple, they were inseparable from the start, and I know the Potters certainly didn't have that."

With that, Neville could almost see the shutters drop back down behind her eyes as she steeled herself again. For the first time, Neville fully appreciated her loss, specifically. He couldn't remember his parents as who they had been, and could only grasp at the straws that people had felt like giving him over the years.

But his Gran had known them in their prime, had known them as fully functional people, with hopes, dreams, love, and a future. Neville always found it hard to miss what he'd never known, but his Gran must look at him everyday, with his father's eyes and mouth and his mother's nose and hair, and see a constant reminder of all that she'd lost.

He gently closed the lid on the necklace, and held it close to himself. It was one of the only tangible things that actually belonged to him now that had belonged to his parents, and it was his until he found a girl that he loved as deeply as his parents had loved each other. Assuming, of course, that he could ever hope to meet someone who moved him that strongly.

Much like his father, from that first day on the Hogwarts express Neville had felt magnetically drawn to Hermione Granger. Even when she was spending more of her time with Harry and Ron after that fateful Halloween, he'd found himself missing her company. She was warmth personified. Even when their friends teased her for her obsessive nature when it came to her studies, Neville had never seen anything in her but that unerring warmth.

Even when Professor Snape was ridiculing him for ruining his potion for the 4th time that week, or when he struggled to remember his uniform tie in the morning, or when he forgot to banish the dirt from his shoes before reentering Gryffindor tower, she had always been kind and patient with him. Her eyes rarely held anything except patience and compassion for him. But unfortunately, he had no idea if she felt the same way about him. Patience and kindness was a far cry from the all consuming love that he knew his parents had had.

But if there was a Yule Ball coming, surely he could ask her to go as his date. He knew enough to understand that her and Harry truly had no romantic ties, despite what Rita Skeeter kept pushing in the Prophet. Ron, on the other hand, he wasn't certain about. There wasn't anything to strongly indicate that she had feelings for him, but he hadn't seen anything to strongly confirm that she didn't, either.

In the days after McGonagall's announcement, he'd taken to carrying the necklace around in his pocket. He wouldn't give it to her yet, but its heavy weight in his pocket reminded him of his parents, and what they'd had. He'd tried to find Hermione, but she was uncharacteristically elusive in the days following the announcement.

The first time he found her, she was sitting out by the lake. It was cold outside, but sunny, and she was reading on a thick flannel blanket with a heavy cardigan across her shoulders. He walked up beside her, and waited for her to notice him while he gathered the courage to speak.

"Neville! How are you? Do you want to sit?" she scooted over on the blanket, making space for him. He lowered himself beside her, clumsily taking a seat. Hermione pushed a bookmark into her spot, and placed the book beside her.

"Hi," he said, unable to find many more words at the moment. In the sun, her hair was far lighter than it looked indoors. It wasn't a flat brown, and the light wind stirring it made it clear that it was a myriad of colors. Paler now that winter had started, the freckles on her cheeks and nose stood out in sharp relief and her eyes reminded him of the whisky that Uncle Algie liked to hide from Gran. Merlin, he sounded ridiculous even to himself, mooning over the color of her hair and eyes like he didn't see her every day.

"Was there something you wanted to talk about? I don't usually see you out here. It's such a nice day that I'm surprised you're not in the greenhouses."

He took a deep breath and steeled himself, rubbing a hand in his pocket over the birds on the face of the locket.

"I was just… I wondered-"

"Hermione! There you are!"

Harry and Ron dropped down heavily on each side of her, each throwing an arm across her shoulder.

"We've been looking for you," Harry said. "We spent a few hours trying to figure out what exactly Snape wants in the essay due on Tuesday, and nothing about his instructions made sense. Do you have your essay done yet?"

Hermione rolled her eyes and lightly scoffed. "Of course I do. His instructions made perfect sense. Didn't you copy down what he wrote down on the board?"

Ron shook his head, "why would we? Didn't you? Can't you just tell us?"

Neville could tell his chance was gone, and stood to leave. There was no way that he'd be able to ask her in front of them, and with the ball still two or three weeks away, he figured he'd just have to try to find another opportunity.

"Weren't you going to say something, Neville?"

Ron looked up at him suspiciously, and Neville steadfastly avoided eye contact. "It's okay, Hermione. I'll find you later to talk about it. Enjoy the sun."

He turned and quickly walked back towards the castle. He'd just have to find another opportunity.

It took some time before Neville was able to find Hermione alone again. She'd been spending time holed up in the library researching to help Harry with the Tournament, and when she wasn't working on research for him, the Golden Trio were usually together. Neville felt like one of the castle's ghosts, following her around the school waiting for an opportunity to speak to her one-on-one, the weight of the locket heavy in his pocket.

The second time he was ready to ask her was at breakfast one morning. He hadn't been able to sleep in and couldn't believe his luck when he found her alone in the Great Hall— no Harry, and no Ron.

He took a seat across from her, and tried to muster the courage to ask. In those moments before she noticed him, he was once again filled with affection for the girl who had been the first person to show him kindness on the train three years earlier. Despite the early hour, she was already buried in a book, and didn't seem to notice him.

"Good— good morning, Hermione," he said, trying to force himself to ask her before he lost his courage.

"Hmmm, hello," she said, not looking up from her book and absently stirring her tea.

"Did you… did you sleep well?"

'Did you sleep well?' What kind of question was that? Merlin. He'd be lucky if she thought there was a single thought rattling around in his head if he continued on like that.

"Mmmhmm," she murmured, taking a quick bite of her toast and not still looking up from her book.

"Hermione, can I a-ask you something?"

"Hmmmm?"

Oh, Merlin. He should've known better than to try to get between her and a book first thing in the morning.

"Can you pass the marmalade?"

He'd try again later.

Neville's memory often tended to fail him in times of stress. Was the saying that good things come in threes, or that bad things do? Third time's the charm? At any rate, he was running out of time and he wanted to ask her again. He'd been sitting up in Gryffindor tower looking for her for a few hours, and wasn't having much and Harry were sitting beside the fire, playing a game of exploding snap, and Neville was curled up in armchair watching the portrait, waiting for her to come through it.

"Do either of you know where Hermione is?"

Harry and Ron looked at each other and seemed to somehow talk without using words. Ron eventually shrugged and Harry nodded, pulling a parchment out of his pocket and tapping it with his wand. Had Hermione shared her studying timetable with them?

"She's in the library, Neville. It's still open for a few hours, so she'll probably be able to help with whatever assignment you're working on."

Neville stood, and lightly patted his pocket, checking again for the locket. "I'm not… okay, yeah. Thanks mate."

The walk to the library wasn't far, but it felt as if it simultaneously took him a lifetime and only a few seconds. No matter what, he was going to ask her tonight. He couldn't wait any longer with only about a week left until the ball. Hermione was beautiful, and surely he wasn't the only person who could see that. He hadn't heard about anyone else asking her yet, but if he couldn't muster the courage and ask her soon, someone else would certainly beat him to the punch.

He patted his pocket again, double checking that the locket was still in his pocket where it had been for almost two weeks.

This was it. Now or never. 'Piss or get off the pot', as Uncle Algie would say.

He gently pushed open the doors to the library, waving silently to Madame Pince before she had an opportunity to shush him. She nodded at him, recognizing him as someone who was quiet and neat, if not a bit clumsy in the stacks.

It didn't take him long to find Hermione. She definitely had a corner of the library that she favored, near enough to a fireplace to get the warmth without putting her materials at risk of stray sparks, and close enough to a window that she could look out over the grounds when she felt like taking a break from her books to rest her eyes.

He made his way back towards the table that she frequented, almost running headlong into Viktor Krum.

"Oh!" Neville cried, taking a quick step backwards. "I'm so sorry, I didn't see you. You alright?"

Krum looked at him with an uncharacteristically pleased look on his face, and dismissively waved a hand. "Is fine. Haff a good evening."

Neville took a deep breath before turning the corner to where Hermione was sitting. He could do this. If Harry and Ron could kill a troll as first years, he could ask Hermione to go with him to the Yule Ball. After all, she was a far sight less intimidating than a troll.

She was sitting at the table, books and parchment strewn around her, but for the first time in a while she wasn't studying. Hand on her chin, she was looking out of the large window across from her at the rain softly falling on the glass. A soft smile was on her lips, and he would give anything to be the subject of that look again.

"Hello, Hermione," he said softly, pulling out a chair across from her. "Can I sit?"

She turned to him, waving a hand towards the chair and pulled her parchments and books into a neat pile. "Of course! How are you?"

"I'm alright," he said, slipping a hand into his pocket to tangle his fingers into the chain of the necklace. "I have something I want to talk to you about."

"Of course! I know you've been trying to talk to me for a few days but I've been so busy trying to get everything together before break starts. What's on your mind?"

This was it.

"Professor McGonagall announced last week that we're having the ball on Christmas this year. I was wondering if you'd like to go with me," her hands flew to her mouth, but he tried to keep pushing on. "I'm not a strong dancer, but I promise to pay attention when McGonagall teaches us how, and I'll try not to trod on your toes."

She slowly lowered her hands from her mouth, and looked at him with a look a little too close to pity for his liking. "Oh, Neville… I'd love to. Really and truly. But Viktor Krum just asked me to go with him, and I said yes. Oh, Neville. That's what you've been trying to talk to me about, isn't it?"

His heart continuing to sink, he nodded and tried not to look downtrodden, dropping the necklace chain and crossing his hands on the table. "I went looking for you that day down by the lake, and at breakfast on Tuesday. I was sat up in the tower for a few hours tonight waiting for you to come in before Ron and Harry told me to check in here. I should've just bucked up and asked you earlier. It's my fault."

Hermione shook her head quickly, and reached across the table to lightly touch his clasped hands. "I should've been a better friend, and I should've listened better when you were trying to talk to me. I wish I'd listened to you, because I would have been honored to go to the dance with you."

He nodded at her, and tried not to cry. He had missed his window by minutes. Moments. "Thanks for saying that. It means a lot. I'll catch you in Potions tomorrow, yeah?" he said, pulling his hands from under hers and standing to leave.

"Neville, wait!" he stopped and turned to look at her, blinking quickly to try not to cry. "I'm not just saying that. I mean it. You're wonderful, and any girl should be grateful to be on your arm all night. Do you have your eye on anyone else?"

He shook his head, swallowing hard. "No, I'll probably just go home to Gran instead of staying for the ball."

Even before he finished talking, Hermione was shaking her head. "Don't say that. You don't have to go home. What about Ginny? She's a third year, so she can't even go unless someone asks her. She'll be so glad to be there that she won't give you a hard time about anything, or force you to dance with her."

Even now, she was still trying to help him find a solution. He gave her a soft smile, and pushed his chair in. "Yeah. Maybe I'll ask Ginny."

"Great! I'll be sure to save you a dance!"

He turned to leave, and this time the walk to Gryffindor tower felt like it took ages. He stopped to talk to Ginny where she was sitting with a few friends. Taking no mind of the girls she was surrounded by, and without any of the anxiety he'd had talking to Hermione, he said something to her, but had no idea of the words he said to her to ask her to go with him. Whatever he said though must have worked, because she beamed widely at him and quickly stood to give him a fierce hug before turning back to her friends as they all began to chatter excitedly.

He walked heavily up to his room, kneeling before his trunk and pulling out the velvet box that his gran had given him the locket in. Nestling it down into the silk lining, he closed the box and buried it down at the bottom of the trunk.

At least she'd save him a dance.