Chapter 19 - The fog gets thicker
It's warm in the nook behind the tapestry. Theo remembers it being cold.
It doesn't matter.
Neville is here, with his sweet round face, his soft kissable lips, his strong sure hands. His intoxicating smell and his warm, bashful smile.
It was a great idea to come here again. This is fun. Not quite as comfortable as a bed, but it's kind of exciting, doing this where they could get caught. He can't quite remember whose idea it was. Or how they got here.
It doesn't matter.
Theo leans in close, bringing their lips together and slipping a hand around Neville's waist, pawing at the warm skin of his lower back. He sinks completely into the embrace.
It really is hot in here. And he really doesn't remember how they got here.
He breaks off the kiss and Neville frowns at him worriedly.
"Does it feel hot in here to you?" Theo asks, looking around for the source of the heat or a clue as to what's happening.
When he turns back, Neville's gone. Disappeared.
The room feels icy cold.
"Neville!" he calls, spinning in place. Something about this feels familiar.
Is it getting… foggy in here too, somehow?
"Neville!" he calls again. No answer.
Theo goes to look for him on the other side of the tapestry, but it's gone, the tapestry is gone. He's sealed in.
No, he's not. He remembers now. There's an ornate white door on the opposite side of the nook from where the exit should be.
From beyond the door, someone screams.
"Neville!" Theo yells, rushing toward the source of the sound. He'll save him this time.
The door opens easily and the sound of Neville's screaming gets louder. He's terrified. He's dying.
What if Theo loses him? He can't lose him. Not now. It will be his fault, all his fault.
The space beyond the door is thick with fog. There's nothing but fog and screaming and the sword, glinting silver on the ground.
He steps forward, and the door slams shut behind him.
Theo steps forward again, reaching a hand toward the sword. If he can just get it, he can save him. He can't say how he knows this, but there's no doubt in his mind.
Get the sword. Get the sword. Save Neville. Get the sword.
It moves further away with every step he takes. Or the room gets bigger. Or he's walking in place. He can't reach it.
Everything else is fog. He needs the sword.
He runs, trying to close the distance.
The screams get louder.
"Theo! Theo!"
Someone's shaking him awake. Neville. It's Neville. He's here, he's alive, he's safe.
Theo releases a breath.
"You were having a nightmare," Neville whispers, his face tight with concern. "You were saying, er, my name."
The room is dark, not even a hint of moonlight coming through the window. Someone's snoring.
"Oh," Theo says. He can still see the sword, pushing through the fog in his mind.
He glances up at Neville's worried eyes and the events of the past day return to him. Going in search of privacy, but finding Draco and Hermione instead. Finding out secrets, bigger and heavier and stranger than he has any desire to bear. Talking with Neville after, neither of them knowing what to do. Being so bloody fucking far out of his depth.
"Do you want to go back to sleep?" Theo whispers.
Neville shakes his head. "Not really."
"Then will you stay with me for a while?"
Neville nods and Theo makes room in his small bed. Neville slides in under the covers, his face inches from Theo's on his pillow.
"What did you dream about?" Neville murmurs, his voice low and soothing.
Theo sighs and closes his eyes, picturing the dream. "At first, we were behind the tapestry - just like on Halloween, remember?"
Neville hums in acknowledgement, letting the weight of his hand rest heavy on Theo's hip.
"But then you were gone and I was trapped and there was this fog… and you were screaming. And then there was this other room and it was even foggier, but there was a sword, and I couldn't get it. I needed it to save you, but I couldn't get it," Theo says, his voice breaking.
"Hey, I'm here. I'm fine. Everything's okay."
Theo shudders pathetically. "It felt so real, I was so scared."
Neville presses his lips against his forehead. "Do you think it meant anything?" he asks softly.
Theo considers. He's never had prophetic dreams before. He's not that much of a seer. But he's also never had the same dream twice before, so who knows?
"I don't fucking know. It might just mean Draco's really stressing me out," he says, a half-formed chuckle spilling from his lips.
Neville's quiet for a moment, and Theo really feels the 3am-ness of it all. The darkness. The sense that whatever they say is simultaneously intangible, unreal and yet more true than anything that could be said in daylight hours. The way they're in pyjamas (Neville's have Fanged Geraniums on them).
"We have to stop him," Neville whispers.
"I know," Theo says.
"If they get in, they could take the school. People could die… We should go and destroy the cabinet tomorrow. Or right now, even."
He said the same thing this afternoon.
"Draco's mother is innocent," Theo responds, just like he did earlier.
"She's letting him live in her house," Neville says bluntly. "She supported her husband when he almost killed Ginny. I know she doesn't deserve to — but if it's between her and the school…"
"I know," Theo says again, sighing in frustration. "But there's time still."
"How do you know?" Neville says after a moment, impossibly quiet.
"It's like Hermione said earlier… Draco's nowhere near fixing it."
"That's what he says."
Oh. That's new.
"You think he's lying?"
Neville chews his lip. "I don't want to think that. I know he's your friend, but… we have to consider the possibility, right?"
"He has no choice," Theo says quickly, jumping to Draco's defence. "He didn't ask for this."
"But he supports them, doesn't he? Voldemort and everything he stands for. He's always been on their side."
"He was, yeah," Theo admits. "But I don't think he is anymore, now that it's all real. And with the school and everything, he wouldn't want… I don't think he's lying."
Neville grimaces. "It's always been real," he says pointedly. "It shouldn't have taken him this long to change his mind. If he even has."
It's like a punch to Theo's heart. The only difference between him and Draco is their circumstances over the past few months. And to hear it like that, from Neville, he can't —
"I'm sorry," he breathes. "I'm sorry."
"What do you mean?"
"It shouldn't have taken me as long as it did to change my mind, either." Theo closes his eyes as he speaks. Even though the room is nearly pitch-black, there's too much light.
"That's not what I meant," Neville says gently. "You were never the same as him."
"Yes," Theo says emphatically, "I was."
"No, you never —"
"I wasn't as loud as Draco. But I never told him to stop. I never thought he should stop. When he called Hermione a mudblood or when he started talking about how much power we were all going to have when the Dark Lord took over and how great it would be… I never told him to stop. And in second year, when muggle-borns were getting attacked and everyone in the common room was making jokes about it, I laughed. I laughed, Nev. And I joined the stupid fucking inquisitorial squad. I didn't even want to, but everyone else was doing it and I just — I don't know."
Theo turns his face against the pillow, because he can't look at Neville. He can't bear it.
Neville doesn't speak right away, but his hand does not leave Theo's hip. He doesn't let go.
"Maybe this is your chance to make up for it. You didn't stop him then. But we can stop him now."
It's warm in the nook behind the tapestry. Theo remembers it being cold.
This has happened before.
He will save him this time.
"Neville," he says. "We need to go, right now, before the exit disappears."
"What?"
"Just — we need to go, look, the tapestry," he says all muddled, pointing as he turns around.
When he turns back, Neville's gone.
"Fuck! Neville! Neville!"
The screaming starts, and the fog rolls in. He races through the ornate manor-like door. If he hurries, maybe he can save him.
The screams get louder.
"Theo! Theo!"
He starts awake.
"You were having another nightmare," Neville whispers.
"Sorry," Theo chokes through rapid breaths.
It's not quite as dark as it was in the room the last time he had this dream, a week earlier. It must be closer to dawn.
"Don't be," Neville murmurs. "Do you — er — want some company?"
Theo nods and Neville slips beneath the sheets. Theo holds him close and rests his head against his chest until his breathing goes back to normal.
"I love you," he says softly, so softly he wonders if Neville will even hear.
"I love you, too," Neville says gently, rubbing a hand over Theo's back.
Theo breathes a sigh of relief. He needed to hear that. He didn't doubt it was true, not really, but still. He needed to hear it.
He and Neville had their first fight earlier that day. All week, really.
After their first post-nightmare conversation, Theo had been on board with what Neville suggested. That turning Draco in, or smashing the cabinet, would not only be necessary it would be atonement. A way for him to make up for the things he'd believed. The things he'd done, and the thing's he'd let happen.
But by the time he woke up the following morning, he wasn't sure anymore. It was Draco. His closest friend since he was a kid. The only one who had been there for him through everything. It was Mr. and Mrs. Malfoy, who'd opened their home countless times and never been anything but kind to him. Theo won't betray them.
Draco needs more time.
And besides, as he's reasoned to Neville, Hermione is on it. Nothing terribly bad can happen if Hermione's around. Even if Neville can't trust Draco, he can trust Hermione, right?
"I don't think I can!" Neville had said. "The Hermione I know wouldn't date Draco Malfoy!"
"What, do you think he's forcing her or something?" Theo bit in response. "Cause she seemed pretty in control of things to me."
"No, that's not it," Neville corrected. "But she's spent a lot of time in Slytherin, she might have changed somehow! I don't know what to think!"
"So you just refuse to trust anyone who's not in Gryffindor?"
"Not if they don't act trustworthy!"
"Well just go to Dumbledore without me then!" Theo burst out. "Since you obviously don't trust me either!"
Neville's face had crumbled at that.
"We're supposed to be on the same team," he'd said softly then, rising from his seat in the dormitory and peering under his bed. "I'm going to find Trevor, it's time for his lunch."
Theo had gotten onto his own bed and pulled the curtains shut at that point, hiding away in angry shame. He hadn't meant to hurt Neville, but he should be able to say what he thinks, right?
He hated it. He hated upsetting him. He hated feeling so out of control. They had information that was never theirs to have, and trying to deal with it, trying to do the right thing, trying to know what the right thing is, he just — he hates this.
Now, he snuggles tighter to Neville's chest, holding him as close as he can for a few more moments. Then he pulls away and props himself up on an elbow.
"I'm sorry about today," he murmurs.
"Me too," Neville says. "I don't — I never want you to think I don't trust you."
Theo studies his face. His normally exuberant features are dark, shadowed like he wasn't having a restful night, even before Theo woke him with his nightmare.
"You were right," he says. "We are supposed to be a team. I want to be on your team."
Neville looks thoughtful as he brushes a bit of hair off Theo's forehead.
"Okay," he says. "Then what do we do?"
Theo scrunches his eyes closed in pained thought. That's the crux of the thing, isn't it? What do they do?
He's been thinking about it all week.
A year ago, he wouldn't have thought about it. He would have said it was none of his business and moved on.
But it's not a year ago. He's changed. Being in Gryffindor changed him. His father's death changed him. Mostly, being with Neville changed him.
And Draco, he knows, has changed too. Or he hopes he knows. Doesn't he deserve a chance?
"I think…" he starts carefully. "I think we need to give Draco a chance. Like you gave me," he adds quietly.
Neville sighs. "Are you sure? You really trust him?"
"I wish I did," Theo admits. "But no, not completely. I don't know if he'll go through with it –– letting them in, I mean. But I don't think he's lying that he hasn't fixed it yet."
"Okay," Neville agrees at a whisper. "I guess that makes sense. If he was done and wanted to go through with it, they'd already have come, wouldn't they?"
"Yeah, maybe," Theo says. "He just needs more time to figure something out. But you're right, we can't just let it be. What about a deadline or something?"
Neville rolls onto his back and looks up at the bed hangings, thinking. "A deadline… He needs to have a plan by a certain date or else we go to Dumbledore? Something like that?"
"Yeah."
"End of March," Neville suggests.
That's about seven weeks away. And since Draco's already had a week, that would be basically two full months since they found out.
"Okay," Theo says. "We can do that. Thank you."
"Everyone deserves a chance," Neville says quietly.
Theo lets out a breath. That's better. It's not a plan, exactly. Or much of anything.
But it's something. A deadline. An agreement. A way to feel marginally more in control.
It doesn't feel like enough.
It's just waiting and seeing, isn't it? Not that fucking different from what he's always done. Putting a deadline on it doesn't make it courageous.
He would very much like to do more, to prove — something. That he's changed? And not just on the inside, but on the outside too? Whatever. The point is, it's not enough.
"Nev?" he says into the soft, barely-there light of the morning.
"Yeah?"
"Remember how I told you my father left a letter for Lucius Malfoy?"
"Yeah…" Neville says again.
"I think I'm going to take it to Dumbledore."
It's warm in the nook behind the tapestry. Theo remembers it being cold.
This can't be happening again.
He will save him this time.
"Neville," he says frantically. "We need to go, right now, before the exit disappears."
"What?"
Don't turn around, don't turn around. He just needs to keep him in his sight.
He grabs Neville by the wrist and pulls him back towards where he knows the exit must be, ignoring Neville's confused protestations.
He hits a wall. There's no tapestry.
He doesn't take his eyes off him, but he vanishes anyway.
"No, no, no," he mutters. "I didn't turn away, he can't've —"
Then the screaming starts in the other room, and the fog rolls in. He races through the ornate white door. If he hurries, maybe he can save him.
The fog gets thicker.
The ruby-handled sword glints.
The screams get louder.
"Harry, I can't stand it!" someone cries, jolting Theo awake.
"You can't stand what?"
"I can't stop thinking about her!"
Theo crinkles his forehead. It's bright in the room, as though he's slept in a bit later than normal, but surely it's too early for this.
Whatever this is.
"Who are you talking about?" Potter says, his tone exasperated.
"Romilda Vane," Weasley says reverently.
Theo considers getting out of bed and going for breakfast, but well… He's never thought of himself as much of a gossip, but this particular drama is so completely nonsensical that he's glued to the edge of his metaphorical seat.
And that was before they started punching and dangling each other by their ankles.
By the time Potter and Weasley have left for Slughorn's office — another incomprehensible development — Theo's dream has been thoroughly purged from his head.
Hermione spends Saturday morning in the library, looking for… something.
It's hard to admit, but for the first time ever, the Hogwarts library may have failed her. She's spent weeks looking for inspiration to help Draco and information about Horcruxes to help Harry. She's come up short on both counts.
There's nothing, nothing, in the library about Horcruxes, other than a single sentence saying that they're such dark magic they refuse to write about them. Which, honestly. She has half a mind to march to the Ministry or the Board of Governors and give them a lesson about censorship.
And Draco's problem… well, she didn't really expect to find the answers in a book. But she sure has tried.
At first she'd wondered if maybe there was a way to damage the vanishing cabinet undetectably? Or to lock the Death Eaters in the Room of Requirement if they did come through? But all her research on vanishing cabinets and the Room of Requirement, sparse as it was, didn't suggest that such a thing would be possible.
The only idea she's left with, the only way out she can find, is for Draco to kill the headmaster first, before fixing the cabinet. But that — in addition to being horrible to contemplate and something she and Draco agreed she wouldn't help with, not even ideas — wouldn't be the end of it, would it? Voldemort would still want to get in.
If it wasn't to back Draco up on his mission, it would be for something else. If Draco gets it working, as long as the vanishing cabinet is in the school, the castle will never be safe.
"Hermione, come quick!"
"What? Neville, what's wrong?" Hermione asks, startled by Neville's sudden appearance at her table.
"Ron's been poisoned!" he says urgently. "Harry's sent me to get you, they're in the hospital wing!"
"How? When?" Hermione says, frantically throwing things into her bag and following Neville quickly out of the library, unable to form a single thought other than go fast.
"This morning," he explains. "Harry said something about it happening in Slughorn's office and a bezoar, but I don't know the whole story."
"But was he targeted? What kind of poison was it? He's going to be okay, right?"
"Hermione, I'm sorry, I really don't know anything," Neville says, his kind voice pained with sincere emotion.
Her mind races as fast as her feet along the castle floors. As fast as her heart pumping terrified in her chest. Ron has to be okay. He has to be. If she's been out here, lost in her own world, caught up in Malfoy and schemes and kissing, and something happens to Ron… Well, it simply can't. Nothing can happen to Ron.
"Oh God, it's his birthday, isn't it?" she bursts out. "I'd nearly forgotten. It is the first, right? Of March?"
Neville nods and Hermione races ever faster toward the hospital wing. Ron's seventeenth birthday and he's been poisoned and she forgot, she can't —
She spills through the double-doors into the hospital wing, Neville hovering nervously on her tail. She finds Harry pacing around outside a curtained-off area, his face drawn and pale.
"Hermione," he says, stopping in his tracks. "You came."
She throws herself at him, pulling him into a giant hug, squeezing too tight, probably suffocating him with her hair. "Of course I did."
Harry pulls back and runs a distressed hand through his hair. "He ate these chocolates with love potion in them," he starts shakily.
"What?" Hermione barks.
"They were supposed to be for me, at Christmas. Romilda Vane," Harry explains wearily. "Ron thought they were one of his birthday presents."
"And they were poisoned?" she asks, not understanding.
"No, just really strong. But I took him to Slughorn for an antidote, and he gave him one and it was fine, but then Slughorn said we should celebrate, and he had this mead… I only just got the bezoar into him in time."
Oh God.
"The poison was in the mead?" Hermione asks slowly, desperate to have misunderstood something.
"Yeah," Harry says. "Slughorn said it was supposed to be a gift for Dumbledore but he never sent it."
Oh God oh God oh God.
"Ron got a bezoar in time though," she confirms shakily, "right? He's going to be okay?"
"Yeah," Harry says. "It was so scary though, if there hadn't been one in the room…"
"But he's not awake yet?"
"Madam Pomfrey said it could be a few days. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley are on their way."
"Okay," Hermione says bracingly. "He's going to be okay." She breathes out. "Listen, Harry," she says, her eyes casting restlessly towards the hospital wing doors, "I'll be right back. I just need to do something quickly."
She spins on her heel and marches back out of the wing. She's faintly aware of Harry calling after her and the vague sounds of Neville being gently supportive, but she'll deal with that later.
Right now, she needs to find Draco and inform him that he's nearly murdered her best friend.
A/N: A couple lines in the Romilda Vane moment came from Half-Blood Prince.
Beta read by Sunshine_celine :)