magic in the time of corona

by Luna Rapunzel

With Voldemort, there was Dumbledore's Army—there was a staff full of professors who were quietly on their side—there was a student body ready to mobilize when Harry appeared in the Room of Requirement asking for their help. How is he supposed to fight nature? What is he supposed to do about an enemy that no one can touch?

Whatever McGonagall wanted to talk to Neville about during their appointment on Saturday night, he's pretty sure it wasn't COVID-19. They scheduled this meeting last Tuesday, and news of the coronavirus didn't even reach Hogwarts until Thursday, when the story broke in the Daily Prophet and confirmed that, yes, wizards are starting to get infected, and no, being magical won't protect you. Neville suspects that at least some Muggle-born students heard from their parents about people getting sick before Thursday—he'd heard whispers from some of his students in the time before the bell would ring to signal class—but up until wizards started to actually catch the thing and couldn't get rid of it with a batch of Pepperup Potion, nobody would have believed that the Wizarding World was actually at risk. Neville wouldn't have believed it, and neither, it seems, would McGonagall.

"We're going to have to cancel Easter break," McGonagall is saying with a hand on her forehead and her elbows on her desk. Neville wishes they were having this conversation in his greenhouses, where he'd at least feel a little more in control of his surroundings, even if not of the pandemic endangering all their lives. He's never seen McGonagall so rattled, and he saw her in the Great Hall seven days a week during that awful last year of the Second War, when the Carrows kept cutting up Neville's face. "And we'll cancel next weekend's Hogsmeade visit, of course. There will be backlash—from students as well as parents—but Hogwarts is the safest place for these kids right now, and we have an obligation to protect them."

"I don't disagree that Hogwarts is our best bet for quarantining the students," says Neville, "but can we really keep the castle one hundred percent defended from the outside? It's not just people who could infect us: it's anything that has been handled by people, too. Do we tell our house-elves that they can only multiply the leftovers and the ingredients that they already have on hand? And—and do we stop receiving mail and quarantine all our owls? We're talking about completely cutting kids off from their families—cutting ourselves off from our friends."

McGonagall neglects to point out that neither she nor Neville has any friends outside of the castle. "Parents can be upset if they like," she says stiffly. "That doesn't change their children's best interests. If we have to quarantine through the summer—"

He doesn't say it in so many words, but he expects that there would be deafening opposition from everyone outside Hogwarts if McGonagall tried to keep the students inside the castle through the summer holidays. "Parents already only see their children who attend school here for two and a half months out of the year, Minerva." It hasn't gotten any less weird calling McGonagall by her first name in the years Neville has been teaching her, just as it hasn't gotten less weird hearing her call him by his given name, but it's no stranger than the utter look of defeat in her eyes from across that desk as she looks at him.

"It'll be the Ministry's decision, ultimately, but believe that I'll be raising the point with them," says McGonagall. "If parents disagree with keeping their children safe, they can voice that during town halls. Hogwarts is these students' best chance at staying protected while potioneers work on a cure."

"So, then, a cure is possible?"

"It must be. We eradicated smallpox long before the Muggles did, and we've knocked out a dozen others that Muggles could only dream of eliminating. Magic can cure any disease. It wouldn't be magic if it couldn't."

"But?"

"But it will take time, experimentation, and many cycles of human trials. We don't know anything about the makeup of the coronavirus yet, and that is against us."

"I guess," says Neville, sighing. With Voldemort, there was Dumbledore's Army—there was a staff full of professors who were quietly on their side—there was a student body ready to mobilize when Harry appeared in the Room of Requirement asking for their help. How is he supposed to fight nature? What is he supposed to do about an enemy that no one can touch?

Suddenly, Neville doesn't think he can stand to talk about it—to give it that power—another minute, so he says, "What is it you wanted to talk to me about?"

McGonagall's face, however, does not brighten the way Neville is expecting it to. She heaves a sigh of her own and says, "Neville, I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but I wanted you to be the first to know that I've decided to offer the Defense Against the Dark Arts post to someone else."

Neville's insides deflate rapidly. In all the chaos, he'd actually forgotten about having interviewed. "Thank you for considering me," he says quietly. "Can I ask who you've chosen for the position?"

"Harry Potter," says McGonagall crisply. "He's decided to retire from working as an Auror for the time being. I'm sorry, but he was the strongest candidate for the job."

Neville doesn't know what name, exactly, he was expecting to hear, but it wasn't this—and yet, knowing that Harry Potter gets to have the career Neville wanted feels inevitable now that he knows it. "I'm sure he'll make a fine professor," Neville says. "Do me a favor and—and don't mention to him that I applied, won't you?"

xx

With McGonagall's blessing, Neville and the other Heads of House collaborate to implement a system where parents can book time to Floo their heads into the common rooms during off hours and spend time with their children. Neville, personally, is tasked with liaising with the Ministry of Magic to get Muggle parents permission to have their fireplaces hooked up to the Floo Network. The original plan was only to schedule meetings during the week when Easter break should have been, but Neville suspects that a lot of them are going to appreciate being able to see their children every week until the end of term, if they want, in a time of such uncertainty. The thought is that any coronavirus particles a parent might inadvertently spit into the air would get burned up by the fire before it could actually infect anybody. It's sort of genius, Neville thinks, even more so because he thought of it himself.

He wonders whether these same parents will be so appreciative of the Hogwarts staff's efforts to keep their kids safe when they find out that McGonagall intends to keep the kids over summer break. In the meantime, though, it's nice to feel like everyone's on the same side for once.

Neville's life in the castle is so isolated from the outside world that he'd hardly be able to tell that there's a pandemic going on if it weren't for the Floo schedule and the thread of tension running through every interaction that anybody has with anybody anymore. He watches the kids tend to his plants, shows them how to grip them and cut them and repot them, and tosses away his dreams of livening things up with a new shipment of Venomous Tentaculas or Mandragora, now that COVID-19 is ruining everyone's life. He still loves his plants, of course, but they've never really presented Neville with a challenge the way that Defense would have.

Of course Harry Potter would be the one to snatch Neville's dreams away. The problem with Harry is that he's too kind and thoughtful and charitable for Neville to be able to hate him for always flaunting bits and pieces of the life that Neville would have wanted. He's not saying Neville would have asked to be the Chosen One or anything, but it was a little humiliating for Harry to be essentially teaching Neville Remedial Defense every time they got paired together in Dumbledore's Army because nobody else wanted to work with him. He used to want Harry's friendship so badly, and what did Neville get for it? A Full Body-Bind Curse in first year, nearly getting himself killed at the Ministry of Magic in fifth, and being told after campaigning on Harry's behalf for all of seventh year that Harry wasn't there to liberate them and didn't need Neville's help with his mission.

Even though Harry partially changed his mind on that last point, even though he's the hero who saved the Wizarding World and deigned to let Neville kill the snake, Neville swore after graduation (and he worked hard to graduate, even though he was talentless at magic) that he was done with Harry Potter, that he would fight to keep Harry out of his life for the rest of it.

Well, now Harry is coming here in September, and there's nothing Neville's going to be able to do to avoid him. Maybe Harry will take away Neville's Head of Gryffindor post, too—really add insult to the injury.

At least Neville still has his relationships with his students, which feel like the only sure thing in this world these days—that, and the fact that he's going to be stuck as Hogwarts's Herbology professor until the day he retires. All the kids have seemed on edge ever since news broke about COVID-19, and the tension keeps building until fifth year Lucy Weasley has a full-on nervous breakdown while pruning some asphodel in class one Friday afternoon. Not wanting to draw any more embarrassing attention from her classmates than they have to, Neville sends Lucy to Madam Pomfrey for a Calming Draught and instructs her to come back when class is over to chat before dinner.

It surprises Neville that Lucy would be the one to crack first. She's a Slytherin and proud of it, perhaps even more so with the entire extended Potter-Weasley family on her back about it, as she loudly and constantly laments. Strong-willed, opinionated, and rebellious, Lucy has always been everything good about Slytherin House, as far as Neville can tell, and though they don't have the close relationship that she shares with Slughorn, her Head of House, Neville has always enjoyed having Lucy in his classes.

He could have asked Slughorn to pull Lucy aside and speak with her instead of handling it himself, but Neville wants to make absolutely sure that Lucy doesn't feel embarrassed to be around him after her crying fit in his class. Anyway, maybe Neville feels a little bit better knowing that he can talk to his students about what's really going on out there. At least this way he can put on a reassuring face. The only other people in his life that Neville can talk to are his colleagues, and it's not doing any of them any good every time they get together and doomsday about the state of the world.

"Are you feeling better?" Neville asks when she returns ten minutes after the end of class.

There's no one else around, but Lucy still waits for the greenhouse door to fall shut behind her before she answers. "No," she says. Her voice still sounds thick, even with the Calming Draught in her system.

"Smart girl," says Neville gently. "It's smart to be scared with what's going on. Fear will keep you safe."

"It's like there are two types of people in the world," says Lucy, shaking her head. "People like me who can't hold themselves together and people who are sneaking out through the Room of Requirement so they can go to nightclubs on the weekends."

"People are sneaking out to nightclubs?"

"I shouldn't have said that," Lucy mutters.

"No, you were right to say it. The other professors and I aren't out to get anybody into trouble. We just want to keep you all safe, and getting out of the castle endangers not just the people doing it but everyone in the castle. One carrier could infect literally all of us after just one meal in the Great Hall."

"Is it true what they're saying that McGonagall is trying to get the Ministry to keep us here for the summer?"

"Yes," says Neville, figuring that there's no use in lying about it.

Lucy lets out a whooshing breath. "That's not going to go over well."

"Of course it's not, but sometimes the safe thing to do isn't the popular thing. Professor McGonagall has your best interests at heart."

"Are you going to back her up?"

"Yes, I am—or I would, anyway. My opinion isn't going to count for much in this."

"My parents are freaking out," says Lucy. "My mom wants me and Molly to come home for the summer. I don't think she can stand the thought of going two years in a row without really seeing us, except for these short Floo visits McGonagall is letting them do. But my dad wants us to stay here, at Hogwarts, so that we're not at risk. I didn't tell him about the passage people are using to get out of the castle."

"What about you?" Neville asks. "What do you want?"

Lucy shrugs one shoulder. "I want to go home. I can't stand the thought of my parents getting sick and dying and me not being able to see them."

xx

McGonagall loses her bid to keep students at Hogwarts over the summer. Honestly, Neville isn't surprised—too many parents lobbied to get their kids back in June—but he's feeling an odd sense of loss. It's not just the thought that they could go back to school in September with kids missing because they passed away from the virus in the time between terms. It's the fact that summer vacations are Neville's loneliest time of the year, and he allowed himself to believe for a couple of short months that he wasn't going to have to put himself through it for this one miraculous year, a small tradeoff for the horrifying circumstances.

He used to have Gran, as complicated as their relationship was, until she passed away six years ago. He has his parents, sort of, but he always leaves their hospital room feeling even lonelier than he was when he entered it. He and Hannah dated briefly after graduating from Hogwarts, but even before Neville realized he was gay, their relationship fizzled out without ever really starting.

He doesn't really have friends, exactly. Sure, there are people who say hello to him when they bump into each other in Diagon Alley, but a friend is supposed to be somebody who takes time out of their week to visit you, who confides in you and to whom you can confide in return. The closest thing Neville has to that are his students—who don't exactly hang out with Neville, but who laugh at his jokes and thank him when he helps show them the correct way to take clippings from an Asphodel—and he was just really looking forward to an extra two and a half months of their company that he managed to convince himself he might actually get. Now, he'll have to spend his birthday drinking Firewhiskey alone in his summer sublet, again.

Flitwick seals off the Room of Requirement, effectively squashing all student excursions to the outside. The upperclassmen are furious, but McGonagall could give a damn, and frankly, so could Neville. It's like he told Lucy: keeping the students safe is more important than making them like you, especially now.

Hogwarts is relatively small enough that coronavirus hasn't yet strongly affected its population, but one by one, reports of students' parents and grandparents, aunts and uncles, starting to catch COVID-19 begin to trickle in. It comes as a shock every time: coronavirus is moving through the population slowly enough that it makes you feel invincible, until suddenly you're not.

The next barrier comes in May when the faculty are starting to prepare for O.W.L.s and N.E.W.T.s. Normally, members of the Wizarding Examinations Authority would come to proctor the exams, but McGonagall is determined to keep the students under quarantine as long as she can before releasing them to their parents for the summer, and she doesn't want proctors tracking the virus into the school when it's supposed to still be under protection. Ultimately, McGonagall loses this fight: they can't find a way around bringing proctors into the school without cancelling the exams, and cancelling the exams would throw the fifth years' and, especially, the seventh years' plans for after graduation into havoc.

"There is no point in prioritizing their careers if it means there might be students who end up dead before they even graduate," McGonagall insists at the staff meeting where they're having it out.

"They're going back out into the world anyway the minute exams are over," Slughorn stresses. "We can't protect them forever."

Septima Vector, the Arithmancy professor, adds, "I think the more pertinent question here is how we're going to quarantine the entire student body when they come back from summer vacation. What are we supposed to do? Keep them locked in their dormitories for two weeks until we're certain that no one brought coronavirus into the building?"

"If we want to quarantine the students, then we'll have to find an alternative to the Hogwarts Express to get them into the school in fewer numbers at a time," points out Professor Sinistra. "If even one student carries coronavirus onto that train, they could infect the entire student population."

"We could use the Floo Network again," Neville suggests. "Have students Floo into their common rooms at scheduled times that are staggered, say, five minutes apart."

Vector points out, "What about first years who don't have a House yet? If we do go the dormitory quarantine route, where are they supposed to quarantine themselves? We couldn't hold the Sorting ceremony before we knew everyone was virus-free."

Flitwick says, "Horace, how close are we to developing a cure? If we have one before the summer is over, we won't have to trouble ourselves about any of this."

"I can't say for sure," says Slughorn, looking uncomfortable. "Because of the lockdown here, I haven't been involved in the task force working on the cure, and I haven't been able to get The Practical Potioneer anymore with the ban on owl post, but based on how soon they would have started working on it and how long these things usually go, I wouldn't expect usable results before the end of the year."

"Let's focus on one thing at a time," says McGonagall. She sounds tired and old, older than Neville has ever thought of her, even at her age. "I can Floo to the Ministry tomorrow to coordinate the details of the examinations with them—sending my head will be safer than owl post. I was thinking I'd also suggest that the Ministry set up Apparition lessons over the summer for our eligible students, since we haven't been able to have them at Hogwarts this year."

"Let's just hope this gets resolved quickly," Neville overhears Madam Pomfrey saying to McGonagall at the end of the meeting. "I can't say for certain how careful the rest of the Wizarding World is being without owl post keeping us connected, but I don't expect they're exercising as much caution as they should. The wizarding community is tightly interconnected and convinced of its own invincibility."

xx

At the end of the school year, when the students go home and Neville takes up residence in a one-bedroom flat he subleases for the summer, the thing that surprises him the most is how afraid he is of catching the virus and getting sick. Somehow, amidst all that worrying about the students' welfare, Neville never considered the possibility that he would be putting himself in more danger by leaving the safety and isolation of Hogwarts. He never leaves the flat and cooks all his own food by multiplying what he's already got, quickly getting sick of having the same old sandwiches, pasta, and pieces of fruit day in and day out.

Neville usually loses weight during the summers, when he doesn't have a kitchen full of house-elves catering his every meal, but he's caught off guard when he drops five kilograms during the first three weeks of vacation. He considers upping his food intake, but honestly, he could stand to slim down a little. He never understood why he was always the fat kid in school when all his classmates were chowing down as much on lamb chops and Cornish pasties every night as he was, but now, as sick as he is of eating yoghurt every day for breakfast and bananas before bed, maybe that will change a little.

Hogwarts may have kept Neville isolated from the world, but tucked away in his flat with no outings and no visitors, Neville is keeping himself more isolated than he ever was in the castle. He still gets the Daily Prophet, incinerating it for a couple of minutes every morning before repairing it and reading it from cover to cover, but it's Neville's only connection to the rest of the world, and he's lonely. He's so lonely that he considers doing something stupid, like Flooing his head to Hagrid's hut and listening to him talk about Grawp for forty minutes.

And then, unexpectedly one day, Neville's fireplace lights up. He only has to wonder who it is for a few seconds before McGonagall's head appears inside the hearth. "Hello? Neville? Is now a good time?"

"Sure," he says, hastily dropping his dirty dishes into the sink with a clatter and clambering back over to sit near the flames. "How are you, Minerva? Are you enjoying your time off?"

"It's hard to enjoy it with everything that's going on," McGonagall admits.

"Just let me know as soon as you could use me to help with back-to-school preparations," says Neville quickly. "Have we figured out what we're going to do about quarantining the first years before the Sorting?"

"We're going to divide them randomly into four groups and then house them in dormitories off of the house common rooms. Filius and Septima are actually lobbying to keep the first years in those groupings for the duration of the year and delay their Sorting, if not cancel it altogether, along with the House Cup—you know how damaging it can be to divide them up and put them at odds with one another."

"Cancel the Sort—"

"But listen, Neville, that's not important, or at least, that's not why I came here today. I wanted to tell you personally that—that Percy Weasley's family has come down with COVID-19. Percy and Audrey and Molly are all okay, but their youngest… she didn't make it."

It takes Neville a moment to process what McGonagall is trying to tell him. "You mean to say Lucy Weasley is dead?"

"Yes," says McGonagall in a choked sort of voice. "It'll be hitting the Prophet tomorrow, but I wanted to warn all of Hogwarts's staff beforehand. She was well loved at our school, and her teachers shouldn't have to hear about her loss from the paper."

Neville thinks about sweet, smart, driven Lucy who just a few short months ago stood in his greenhouse and told him that she needed to go back home for the summer to be there for her parents in case it was her last chance to be with them before they passed away from the virus. Now Lucy is gone, and for what? So that parents like Percy and Audrey could spend an extra two months with their kids in the year before potioneers come up with a cure for COVID-19?

McGonagall showing up in Neville's fireplace like this is the first human contact he's had since he left Hogwarts for the summer. It doesn't really sink in until she leaves how much he wishes she—or anyone, really—would stay.

In response to Lucy's death, Neville is expecting for public sentiment to shift—for parents to wish they had kept their kids quarantined at Hogwarts over the summer—but the Prophet reports that, if anything, everybody doubles down and puts pressure on McGonagall to let the kids out for Hogsmeade weekends when school resumes. A few smart parents seem concerned about their kids' welfare in the weeks remaining before school starts, but it's too late: they're out of the castle now, and there's not enough time for McGonagall to push their return date any earlier. The kids are, though, at least coming back two weeks before September first rolls around, so that the staff can quarantine them from each other without losing any class time. Professors are supposed to self-isolate, too, in the weeks leading up to August eighteenth, so that they'll be able to coordinate getting kids into their dormitories and take turns staying on guard in each common room to stop any students from trying to break quarantine.

Slughorn reports that the potioneers are on track to have a working cure by Christmas. Muggle-born witches and wizards receive permission from the Ministry to give the potion to immediate family members who know about magic so that they, too, have it available and can take it if they get infected. Muggles who don't have a magical relative, on the other hand, are shit out of luck, thanks to the International Statute of Secrecy.

Of course, there's been some talk of slipping the cure into the Muggle water supply: it's not a vaccine, it won't protect anybody from contracting the virus, but even sick people at home or in hospitals drink tap water. Even though wizards don't register their children's births with Muggle governments (and Muggle-borns usually choose to erase themselves from Muggle records come graduation), it would probably be possible to put someone in a position to contaminate the water—wizards have done it before with other Muggle systems.

According to the Prophet, some people are even saying that the International Confederation of Wizards should repeal the Statute and allow wizards to reveal themselves to the Muggle world in order to share the cure with them. It's not the first note of dissatisfaction that Neville has heard about the Statute of Secrecy in the last few years. Muggle-borns are growing more and more resistant to cutting off their connection to the Muggle world (both its technology and their families), and wizards are becoming envious of conveniences like cell phones and the Internet and something called machine learning that Neville doesn't fully understand. Neville suspects that too much time has passed—that the history of wizarding oppression at Muggle hands is too far in the past—for people these days to remember why their ancestors chose to erase themselves from Muggle society at great personal cost.

It comes as a relief when August fourth rolls around and it's time to quarantine at Hogwarts. With how little social interaction Neville has had—all of it conducted within the safety of head Flooing—Neville is basically positive that he hasn't contracted COVID-19, but he doesn't refuse McGonagall's orders that everyone self-isolate until the eighteenth.

Neville's office and quarters are outside in a little shack near the greenhouses that has been magically expanded on the inside, temperature controlled, and furnished. Unlike the rest of the staff, Neville has free roam of the grounds, and he spends most of his time obsessively pruning and weeding in his greenhouses. House-elves magic over three meals a day, but he hardly touches them and continues to lose weight. He thinks he might be losing his mind. He thinks things might have been better this way if he didn't have to get himself ready to teach in a month.

He's acutely aware that Harry Potter is right in that building over there and that the days are running out before Neville's going to have to get used to talking to him and seeing him around. They've hardly said ten words to each other since Neville killed Nagini and Harry killed Voldemort. That used to make Neville feel sad and lonely, but now, he thinks they were both better off for the years with no contact. Harry got to have the wife and family and career he always wanted without Neville dragging him down, and Neville got to establish his own life without constantly comparing himself to The Boy Who Lived.

Only—Neville never really got out of Harry's shadow, did he? McGonagall gave Harry the job Neville wanted, not him. To be clear, he loves Herbology, he loves teaching Herbology, and he will continue to love teaching Herbology for as long as he has the job. But Defense Against the Dark Arts—it's something Neville struggled with until he joined Dumbledore's Army and subsequently got his own wand, and it's something he had to work at to master. It's not something that came naturally or easily to him, and so he thinks he would have an appreciation and an understanding for the student who cares about learning the subject but whom it doesn't come easily to, just like it didn't come to Neville when he was in their shoes.

He'd been looking forward to the challenge, and he'd almost managed to convince himself for a shining moment that his personal Defense success story was so good, that he'd spun it so well, that he'd actually be offered the job. But no—apparently Harry Potter was tired of his career as the high-powered Head of the Auror Office and needed to snatch Neville's dreams away from him. Damn Harry for taking everything that Neville ever wanted, and damn him for never truly inviting Neville into his friend group when Neville had no one, not really.

It's not like Harry hadn't figured out that Neville was lonely. He must have, what with seeing Neville in all his classes and at mealtimes and in the dormitory every night and never seeing Neville with anyone for company. Considering how friendless and alone Harry was supposed to have been at his Muggle school before he came to Hogwarts, he of all people should understand that, should have enough sympathy to be inclusive. But he wasn't. And that used to just make Neville want him more, but now he's got a fire pit of anger and would like nothing more than to see the back of Harry.

(Neville tries to squash the little sensitive piece inside him that still wants love and friendship and approval. That's not what he wants. He's just being weak and vulnerable because of whom he's about to come face-to-face with.)

On the last day of staff quarantine before the students come, McGonagall comes to visit him with a Bubble-Head Charm fixed carefully in place over her head. Neville had heard in the Prophet that the Ministry was recommending that as a preventative measure, and he puts one on too when he opens the door to see her on the other side. "Come in," says Neville, so McGonagall does.

"Every other member of our staff," she says with a sort of sad smile, "has broken quarantine at least once to get some social interaction with each other."

"They have?"

"They have. But not you. Frankly, I don't know whether to be impressed or afraid."

"There's nothing frightening about wanting to be safe and follow the rules," says Neville defensively.

"No, but there's something a little bit alarming about someone who can go—from the impression you gave me, the entire summer—with virtually no social contact and think that they're fine."

"I am fine."

McGonagall gives Neville an uncharacteristically soft look that he never wants to see her direct at him ever again. "Will you come over to Horace's office? There's a, uh, sort of an impromptu gathering there, and I think you'll feel a bit better if you spend some time with other people. Harry will be there," she adds in an encouraging sort of way, clearly thinking she's giving Neville some sort of treat.

He almost turns her down, but honestly, he's going to have to face Harry sooner or later: maybe it's best to get the initial pain out of the way without students watching. So he nods and smiles and follows McGonagall across the grounds, into the castle, and up to the second-floor Defense Against the Dark Arts office.

Neville lasts for all of ten seconds before Harry locks eyes with him. "Neville, hey. How are you?"

"Fine. I'm fine. You look great." It's true: Harry looks smarter and stronger, from the hint of facial hair he's sporting to the biceps straining the sleeves of his robe. Neville feels a surge of attraction and hates himself. However, Harry, of course, doesn't seem to even be aware of his own allure, looking quiet and almost bashful as the evening presses on.

Neville manages to avoid direct contact, mostly, until a few hours pass and he tries to excuse himself to go to bed. Most of the other teachers just nod and wave, but Harry catches him right as he's crossing through the doorway. "Bedtime already? Neville, it's only eight o'clock."

"I wanted to catch up on getting the greenhouses ready for the kids. There are some Alihosty trees that I really need to—"

"But you've had nothing to do for two weeks but work in the greenhouses. I haven't seen you since… uh…"

Neville remembers exactly the last interaction that he and Harry had—bumping into each other in Eeylops Owl Emporium the week after Trevor died. Harry had Ginny and the kids with him; James was off for summer break, while Al was school shopping for the first time and Lily was tagging along and begging for a wand or a broomstick, whichever her parents would cave on first. They nodded at each other, exchanging pleasantries, before James and Lily teamed up to drag their parents off to Quality Quidditch Supplies. That was three years ago.

"…Well, anyway, it's been a while," says Harry awkwardly. "If you want, I can walk you to the greenhouses? At least let me do that."

Neville should say no. He should say he's too tired to talk more, or that he's had enough of people for the night, or even that he just doesn't want Harry's friendship after six long years of failing to measure up to whatever invisible standard would have put Neville on par with Ron and Hermione in Harry's eyes.

Instead, he says, "Sure." And so they set off together for the greenhouses.

"So, uh, how are the kids?" Neville asks for lack of anything better to say.

"Oh, they're good. They're great, honestly. I miss them a lot when they're away at school, although obviously that's going to get better now that I'm teaching here. I didn't have parents when I was a student at Hogwarts, so I never really thought about how hard it would be on parents to lose their kids for almost ten months out of the year."

"I'm betting you were glad to get them back this summer, then?"

"Very, yeah," says Harry, "though I think it meant more to Ginny than it did to me—I at least knew I would be seeing them during school years from now on. Of course, we had to rethink things after Lucy. Ginny and Percy weren't very close, and we didn't spend a lot of time with Lucy, but she's still family. Even if she weren't family—that's still somebody who lost their daughter and didn't need to. But by then, it was too late to send the kids back to Hogwarts for the rest of the summer, so…"

That's right: it didn't occur to Neville that, through Ginny, Lucy is Harry's family too. "I'm really sorry for your loss." Neville feels like it sounds disingenuous, but Harry twists his lips into a half-smile anyway. "Lucy was a great kid. I know Slughorn was her Head of House, but I always appreciated her work ethic and her—you know—her spark. She had a way about her."

"You know, all my kids think you're great," says Harry abruptly.

"That's sweet," says Neville, totally at a loss.

"No, really. Lily loves Herbology. Al thinks having you as his Head of House is one of the reasons Gryffindor is the best house. And James always talks about how you really make people think about the consequences of their actions and have patience with them when they mess up, instead of just getting mad and punishing them. I guess you've had him in detention a lot for that to have come up."

Neville bites his lip. "Sorry?"

"No, it's good. I know James is a handful, and you're helping him mature and learn from his mistakes. I think it's great what you do for all three of them."

"Yeah, well, they have good role models at home, too. It seems like you're great with them."

Harry smiles faintly. "I can't even imagine going back to what life was like before I was a dad. It's the best decision I ever made for myself." There's a pause, and Neville doesn't think anything of it, but Harry apparently feels embarrassed by this because he adds, "That's not to say that you made a mistake by not getting married or having kids. Everybody's different. And when you're at Hogwarts, it's not like you don't get to have relationships with kids."

"Yeah, well, I guess the gay thing makes it hard to settle down and start a family the traditional way."

"Wait. You're—?"

"Gay, yes. Does that really surprise you?"

"Yes. I mean, no. I mean…"

Neville takes pity on him. "It's okay. A lot of things made more sense to me after I figured that out."

And then Harry totally baffles Neville in saying, "Dumbledore was gay, too, you know."

"What? Really?"

"He and Grindelwald…"

"He and Grindelwald? I thought those were just rumors Rita Skeeter started to make trouble."

"Nope," says Harry, grinning.

By the time they reach Neville's office, he feels a lot more at ease. After bidding Harry goodnight and retreating to the relative safety of his greenhouses, though, he feels like an idiot. Isn't this exactly what happened last time? He got suckered in by Harry's charm, only to be disappointed? This is the suckering part, and he knows what comes next, just as truly as he knows his name is Neville Longbottom. This is why he knows he's better off immersed in plants and children, staying away from all things Harry Potter.

But—there's a little part of him that feels good around Harry Potter, and after months of solitude, it's damn tempting to allow himself to get close to somebody like that.

xx

He and Harry end up on the same shift every night keeping an eye on the dorms off of the Gryffindor common room. The first few nights after the kids come back, Neville has to intercept a lot of their attempts to sneak out of lockdown, but by the fourth day, they seem to get the message. Even if he and Harry have a complicated history, Neville is grateful for the company. He didn't really realize how cut off he was feeling until he had someone to be around again.

It's almost easy to start to believe that he and Harry are friends, the way they keep talking late into the night, and Neville has to keep reminding himself that Harry wasn't his friend in school and isn't really his friend now. "I'm really glad you're teaching here, too," Harry says unexpectedly one night, and Neville feels himself go hot all over. "It's nice to know we're in this together."

"Yeah," says Neville dully.

"Everything okay?" Harry asks after a pause.

It's not, but Neville's not about to tell Harry that. "Yeah. I've just been alone too long, I think."

"Well, you're welcome to come and be with me and my family anytime," says Harry. "You know the kids love you, and—and so do Ginny and I."

Neville is certain that Harry has never loved—and never will love—him the way that he loves Harry, but he's not about to admit that, either. "I'd welcome you into my family, too, but I don't have one—not unless you count my parents, anyway."

Harry squirms. "I… I don't know if I ever told you how sorry I was to learn what happened to them."

"It's fine," says Neville. It's not fine, but Harry doesn't need to know that. "It was a long time ago. I don't remember what they used to be like, anyway."

"Listen, there's something Dumbledore told me that—that I never told you—about your parents, and about my parents," Harry hedges.

Neville furrows his eyebrows and frowns. What could Dumbledore possibly have to say to Harry about both their parents? But just at that moment, they hear a door creak open and footsteps pattering down stairs. Neville thinks Immobulus! and then says to Harry, "I've got this one." By the time he's done getting the students back into bed, he's forgotten all about whatever it was that Harry wanted to tell him.

All in all, they get through the last two weeks of August with only one dormitory coming down with COVID-19. There are no casualties, mercifully, although there's some talk of taking Suzie Denton to St. Mungo's to alleviate her symptoms (though there's nothing they could do yet to treat the illness) before her condition turns around. Still, Neville hopes that the incident will make some of Hogwarts' less rule-abiding students rethink their actions the next time they try to sneak out when they think the staff aren't looking. Of course, you'd think losing Lucy over the summer would have done that, and it didn't, so maybe his hopes shouldn't be too high.

Harry becomes kind of Neville's buddy in the castle—his best friend there, he might even dare to say—joining Neville at every meal and inviting him over to spend long evenings with him in Harry's office. It's nice having somebody his own age, somebody he grew up knowing, to hang around. Most of Hogwarts's staff were working here when Neville was a kid, and it's hard to spend time with someone like McGonagall or Sinistra without falling back into a teacher-student dynamic. Finally, he feels like he has somebody he can really unwind with. Neville didn't realize how much he was missing that until he finally got it.

It's late in October when Slughorn announces during a staff meeting that potioneers should have a working cure sooner than expected—by the first week of December. To celebrate with a bottle of Firewhiskey, Harry brings Neville back over to his office after the meeting. They get a little tipsy. Maybe too tipsy.

"This is nice," Neville says, belching, as he sets down the empty bottle. "Isn't this nice? We never used to do stuff like this when we were students here."

"Yeah, well, I had a lot going on when we were kids," says Harry darkly. "I could barely wind down enough to get my homework done with Ron and Hermione in what little free time I had."

"O-kay, Chosen One," Neville teases.

Harry tosses a throw pillow at him. "You're fun," he slurs. "You were never this fun when we were young."

"I was a different person back then. I was a lot less angry. Or lonely. Or, at least, I didn't know that I was lonely."

"You're angry?" Harry asks with a frown. "You don't act angry. You're always so… so… sweet."

Something swells in Neville that he doesn't have the clarity of mind to suppress. "You're the only friend I've ever had. My whole life, nobody's ever wanted me. And even you…"

"I was never that great to you," Harry admits.

"Well, you had your moments. Remember first year? 'You're worth twelve of Malfoy?'"

Harry barks out a laugh. "I don't remember that."

"I do. I remember everything. I remember how badly I wanted you to want me back." Harry frowns, and Neville adds quietly, "I've said too much, haven't I?"

"You said you figured out you were gay," says Harry. "Was that because… when we were kids, did you ever…?"

"Yeah." There's a long silence during which he wishes he could collapse through the floor. "I applied for your job, you know."

"What?"

"The Defense Against the Dark Arts job. I applied, but McGonagall picked you. I guess my sob story about fighting to improve in Dumbledore's Army didn't compare to the achievements of the great Harry Potter."

"Oh," Harry says. "I had no idea."

"Of course you didn't. How could you know?"

Harry doesn't move to confess any romantic feelings for Neville or apologize for taking the job he wanted or, really, anything at all. He just sits there, his eyes boring holes into the floor, until Neville can't stand it anymore. "I didn't want you to be my boyfriend or anything," he adds finally. "I just wanted you to trust me as much as you trusted Ron and Hermione. I just wanted to have friends."

"We were friends," Harry insists. "Maybe not best friends, but… but I cared about you. I knew you dealt with a lot."

"What do you mean? If you're talking about Snape bullying me, or about Gran never thinking I was living up to my dad—"

"No, I'm talking about…" Harry groans, gesturing with his hands. "I'm talking about your parents. Our parents. It could have been you who was the Chosen One, Neville. It almost was."

Especially through the alcohol, Neville doesn't know how to register this. "What? No. I'm not—I was never—"

"Do you remember the glass orb we picked up in the Department of Mysteries when we went to the Ministry at the end of fifth year? It was a prophecy. Told to Dumbledore. It said that—that the person who could kill Voldemort would be born at the end of July to parents who escaped him three times. That was me and you, Neville. He only picked me because I was the half-blood, like him."

Neville is silent for a long time. "Why are you telling me this?" he says finally.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean how do you want me to feel about that? Am I supposed to feel lucky that I got off scot free? Grateful that my parents went insane instead of getting killed? Happy that it was you instead of me, because we all know I couldn't have measured up? Or am I supposed to feel guilty, because it should be my parents dead instead of yours?"

"Neville—"

"No," he says. He doesn't fully understand why he's angry, but that's okay: Neville has had a long time to get used to falling into sudden rages. "How does it help me to know this? Or are you just telling me to feel like you can lift the burden of knowledge off of yourself?"

"I'm sorry. I'm not trying to hurt you."

"Yeah, you were never trying to hurt me, right? Not when you walked away after Hermione put that Full Body-Bind on me, and not today. Well, I guess this is just like first year, when I couldn't give you what you needed from me, so you did what you had to. You're just doing what you have to to me, aren't you? You take the job I want, and then you—"

"Neville, stop it. I just thought—if it were me, I would want to know. Dumbledore kept all sorts of secrets from me for the whole first half of my life, and I always just wanted the truth."

"I should go," says Neville. "I should go to bed. Things will be easier after we sleep this off."

"Are we still going to be friends in the morning?" Harry asks, painfully sincere.

"That's up to you," Neville mutters. "I guess I'm just too lonely to be the one to walk away."

xx

They don't talk about it, but Harry sits next to him at meals the next day, and the day after that, and the day after that. He doesn't go back to Harry's office, but Harry surprises him a week later by knocking on the door to Neville's office after hours with two butterbeer bottles in hand. "Like old times?" he asks with the corner of one mouth turned up.

"It's not exactly 'old times' if we didn't start doing it until two months ago," Neville points out, but he steps back and allows Harry to come inside.

"I don't think I've ever been in your quarters before," says Harry. "This is nice. I thought it would be cozy, but this is actually really spacious and—and nice."

You said that already, Neville is tempted to say, but he doesn't. "It's bigger on the inside," he points out unnecessarily.

"Look. Neville. I just…"

"I'm really sorry for how I acted," Neville says, and he's surprised to find that he means it. "I shouldn't have offloaded all of that onto you. It wasn't fair."

"I'm sorry I didn't think harder about how I was making you feel. I want us to be friends, Neville. Real friends—not whatever it was that we were doing when we were in school together. I can't give you more than that, but—I can give you that, if you still, you know, want me."

He considers it—really considers the possibility of saying no. He'd feel vindicated in his anger that way, but maybe what Neville needs isn't righteousness—maybe, all this time, he's just needed a friend. "Okay," he says, and Harry's whole body seems to loosen. "Okay."

"Okay, then," says Harry, and he smiles.

When the cure is finalized, Slughorn brews up a few large batches and hands them over to Madam Pomfrey for safekeeping. They cancel midterm exams and let the students celebrate with a weekend trip to Hogsmeade, right before they get to go home for Christmas break. The Statute of Secrecy debate is still raging, but for now, select wizards are working to get the cure into the Muggle water supply all across Britain.

The world is safe again, and Neville isn't angry anymore. It's a good day.