So there's over a year's difference between my writing style for this chapter and the last. I know that there's an effect, despite my attempts to hamper that. But I couldn't let this poor thing just rot here the way that it was. For better or worse, here's the second and final chapter. *shrugs*
*****
"You're awfully big for a dog, you know." Neville sighed quietly, shifting slightly underneath the dog so that his arm wouldn't fall asleep. The creature in question raised its head at the sound of his voice and then, as if the beast had remembered just how much of a non-threat Neville posed, groaned slightly before flopping over in a different direction, thumping its tail against Neville in an idle rhythm.
"You could use a bath, too. You stink." He added quite frankly as he hesitantly placed a hand on the matted fur. The dog certainly wasn't much to look at now that he'd actually taken the time to study it a bit closer. Even through the thick mud-coated fur, Neville could feel the stark relief of the animal's ribs, and the dog's hips were currently digging into his stomach as the animal shifted once more in an attempt to get comfortable.
It didn't seem to matter that the creature was both bony and smelly, though, he noted with a small amount of chagrin. It was still a warm body to curl up against in the frigid chill and loneliness of the hallway. "I'm sick of being scared all the time." He whispered, wrapping an arm around the animal's ribcage. He was sick of being so painfully isolated all of the time as well.
And there was a part of him that could really identify with this poor mangy mutt.
After all, weren't they both strays? Who would care if they just up and disappeared one day? Who would notice if they just wasted away slowly?
No one.
That would be who noticed. The only time anyone paid him any attention was when he was messing everything up. It was only after he'd fudged a potion, or tripped over someone's shoe, or somehow incurred the wrath of one of their teachers—usually Snape—that anyone even acknowledged that he was there.
In an odd way, screwing up all the time was an assurance of sorts that people at least knew he existed. Even if it was only so that they could yell at him over his latest infraction against the social norm.
"It sucks to be alone, doesn't it," he heard himself say as he stroked over the gritty fur. "Gryffindor isn't supposed to be like Hufflepuff and be all about loyalty and whatnot. But it's still a given, you know. It's unspoken that Gryffindors stick together. And they do…" He trailed off, feeling vaguely guilty for not being like the other kids inside the dorms past the portrait door. It wasn't like it was their fault that he didn't know how to act like them.
"I suppose it's my fault. I can see it in their eyes sometimes. I'm an embarrassment to the house. Can't really blame them then for not wanting to admit that I'm here and a part of their group." He sighed, and the dog gave his cheek a tentative lick, which made him smile, even as he wiped the drool off on a sleeve. "Ew."
The dog snorted in reply.
"Yeah, yeah, so pretty much everyone has it bad. Everyone has issues, and I shouldn't let it get me down, right? I can do this." Except sometimes it just seemed so pointless, but then he supposed that was what growing up was about. It meant giving up on an idealistic vision of the world. It meant giving up on the idea that people would be willing to look past the surface to see the person inside, and that the people who were supposed to love you would always have your best interests at heart. Growing up meant giving up on the innocent belief in universal karma and that bad guys always got their due in the end while the good guys always won.
Because the good guys didn't always win. Sometimes they ended up in the psychiatric ward of St. Mungos.
And sometimes bad guys survived unscathed to torment the next generation.
"Besides," he confided in the mongrel curled up against him, "Harry probably has it worse than me. At least no one expects me to save the world single-handedly." Hell, they didn't even expect him to pass his NEWTs. In fact, he'd always imagined that they would probably be somewhat relieved if he failed or had to leave. Most people seemed thankful when he left the room; conversations always flowed back into their comfortable tones when he excluded himself from them.
It was like they were all afraid that his ineptness might be catching. As if by lowering themselves to associating with him, or befriending him, that they were committing some sort of social suicide. Which, who knew, maybe they were. He was like a plague.
"Maybe you can understand what it's like though. To always be the one that no one is ever happy to see. You look like a stray, you look like no one gives three damns about you either. Maybe it's just that they don't like the reminder that maybe everything isn't perfect. Because if things were perfect than you'd belong to a loving family who would take care of you, and as for me…as for me, I'd just belong." The words came out more bitter than he'd intended. Sometime he had to remind himself that no one ever did it on purpose. People didn't deliberately avoid him to be cruel. He didn't merit that much attention, and any pain that he felt because of it was simply a result of their carelessness. There wasn't a malicious intent behind it.
"In a perfect world, neither of us would be so alone." He told the dog, the pathetic excuse of a death beast, matter-of-factly. "In a perfect world, they'd believe you when you told them about the bad guys in your life and they wouldn't yell at you or mock you for making the accusation." For all that Gram claimed to love him, she'd never believed a word he'd ever said about Great Uncle Algie. She'd dismissed every incident he'd ever told her as an exaggeration, an overreaction on his part, or an outrageous lie.
She told him it was his fault in the first place for incurring his Great Uncle's displeasure.
Because no one was ever happy with anything that he could do. Because it was his incompetence that fueled people's contempt. Because he couldn't blame his own failings on other people. Because it was always, always his fault.
And if he told her about the mark he'd seen on Professor Snape's arm? He knew who would have more credibility in her eyes. Who would believe the words of the incompetent squib when he accused one of Hogwarts respected teachers of being one of them? It wasn't worth the effort to even try to explain to her that he wasn't whining. And he didn't want to hear her tell him about how she thought he was a crybaby, hurt at the smallest of insults.
Because he knew the truth. Because he had thicker skin than most everyone else his age. He had to have, just in order to make it through some days without flinging himself out of some tower window.
"I try not to envy them. But I do. Even if Harry doesn't have his parents either, even if he is expected to save everyone…I still envy him. And…and," he swallowed hard, before forcing his voice out past the lump in his throat, "I wish I could be like that. Like he is. Not afraid of Snape, strong enough to make people listen to him, talented enough to not get laughed at. If I could be like that for just one day, then maybe I could learn how to not be like me."
He curled up tight against the dog then, knowing even as he did so that when the house woke up in the morning and found him like this that they wouldn't be surprised. They'd simply laugh, and he'd force himself to laugh with them. Because wasn't he such a complete and utter joke. Wasn't it funny how he forever made mistakes and couldn't remember the simplest of things. Wasn't it just hysterical how he could fail so spectacularly at everything…
*****
Sirius hesitated as the boy's breathing evened out into sleep. It wasn't that Gryffindor was a bad house. Or that it was filled with selfish, self-righteous children. To say either was to stereotype all the children inside into two-dimensional paper cut-outs who intentionally hurt those around them in the guise of helping. And in all honesty, for the majority of children just past the portrait wall, that was giving them way too much credit.
They were just children. Just kids awkwardly learning how to maneuver the social ropes of society and taking their cues from the adults around them. He couldn't really blame them for instinctively not wanting to align themselves with the social pariah of the house. But at the same time, it was no more Neville's fault that he was the way he was than it was that Remus was a werewolf. Sometimes there were aspects about a person that they simply had no control over.
When he was Neville's age, he had been guilty of the same crimes that the kids in the tower now were guilty of, even if he could recognize that he had no way of understanding how his actions could be conceived that way at the time. He hadn't known what it meant to be this painfully isolated when he'd been that age. He'd always been good at surrounding himself with people, even if sometimes he felt alone in their presence.
After a few more moments of indecision, Sirius finally made his choice and switched back into human form. If he was quiet, and if he were careful, the boy would never know. He'd seen the circles under Neville's tired eyes. Hopefully the boy was so exhausted that the sleep he was in, would be fairly sound.
Or maybe it was simply that there was something about the kid that Sirius could so strongly identify with that it overrode his extreme cautiousness. Which was strange, because Neville reminded him more of Remus than of himself, but still…Sirius' life had changed so completely in the last twelve years that it was hard to know who he was anymore.
He did know what it meant though to be the one that everyone instinctually pulled away from. Humans were social creatures, and he was no exception. Even more so, he'd thrived on connections between friends and family and lovers before Azkaban. He knew now how painful it was to have that part of yourself lanced off. He understood how sometimes isolation was the worst punishment that could ever be meted out.
He echoed Neville's simple wish to be someone else. Anyone else. Because being himself was a blood-letting process in which he learned over and over again the evils of his own nature, and which he began to understand why it was and why other were justified in reacting with horror whenever they caught glimpses of him.
Because there were monsters everywhere and no one believed the beast when he accused another of being the abomination.
Gently, he traced a hand over Neville's blond hair, pulling it back out of the boy's face. Neville shifted fitfully, and Sirius made himself sit still long enough for the boy to fall back into a deeper sleep before continuing to carefully stroke the blond hair.
Really, what kind of a world were they a part of when it was acceptable for kids like this to grow up the way they were? In what context was it alright for Harry to grow up in a house of muggles that rebuffed him at every turn? Where was it right that a boy like Neville could suffer in silence without feeling as if there were someone he could turn to or without anyone else realizing that something was amiss?
But then again, who had been there for him and the rest of the Marauders to turn to? The whole reason they'd become the group they'd had no one else to look to for the basic emotional things that every child desired deep down. And when those connections between the members of their close-knit group had started to disintegrate, his world—all of their worlds—had fractured into thousands of irreparable pieces.
Each prank they'd pulled had been a reaffirmation that they indeed had a place in which they belonged, and people they belonged with. Each secret they made, and each secret they kept was a promise between them to never give up on a member and to never leave someone out to fend for themselves in the cold halls late at night. Secrets had been a pact made between friends that made them family. Remus had said so on many occasions.
But like Neville, he no longer had friends to share secrets with, and no one to believe him should he ever try. And it was his own fault really, he'd broken the pact of his family. It was his fault that the band had disintegrated. In breaking—however unintentionally—those bonds, he'd inadvertently made certain that no one would ever believe a word he said again.
No, the world wasn't a perfect place. He'd known that for a while now. But sometimes he wondered if it simply wasn't a perfect place because he existed in it. Who knew, maybe if he hadn't messed everything up, Harry and Neville's lives might have been vastly different from the way they'd turned out.
He could sense that dawn was drawing near. The castle would be waking up soon, and so he switched back into his canine form. He wished there was more he could do, he wished that things were different. Hell, he fervently wished that he could be someone else too. Someone who could be believed. Someone who hadn't messed everything up and brought so much pain to so many people. Someone who could offer comfort and understanding where it was so obviously needed…
But sometimes, some aspects of life were simply beyond his control. So he gave Neville a sloppy lick on the cheek to wake him up and then trotted away from the portrait entrance and back to his cubby hole to hide for the rest of the day.
Some things he just couldn't change, no matter how much he might want to.
*****
Neville flopped down in his bed the next night, listening once again to the soft noises of his dorm mates sleeping peacefully in their beds. He would be staying in the tower tonight, he decided. The well-intentioned mocking he'd gotten this morning when they'd found him waiting in his pajamas outside the portrait door was enough to deter him from attempting anything that might draw notice to him in a negative light.
And as for the death beast who had shared the wee hours of the morning with him in the cold hallway?
Well, he could keep that secret, would gladly keep that secret.
In the twilight of the room, he made out the orange blur of Crookshanks' fur as the cat trotted in nonchalantly through the door and made his way over to Neville's bedside. The cat hesitated for a moment when he realized that Neville wasn't asleep, but Neville's lopsided smile and inviting pat on the bed seemed to reassure the creature. With a light bounce onto the bed, Crookshanks allowed Neville one quick stroke across his silky fur before leaning over and grabbing the slightly crumpled sheet of paper from Neville's bedside table.
The cat's eyes met Neville's, if just for a brief moment, before he hopped off the bed and made his way out the same way he'd come in.
Neville knew that he would only get in trouble for this later on. But then again, it was sort of inevitable that he get in trouble. What was the saying? "The road to hell was paved with good intentions"? They all meant well, his teachers, his house…the whole school. And they would do whatever they thought appropriate to "help" him understand how important it was to be like them.
But the truth was, he wasn't like them. All the effort and all the wishing in the world wasn't going to change that. But maybe there was a bright point to living on the outside such as he did. He saw things differently than they did. He saw people differently than they did. Maybe he was different than them, and while he didn't like the isolation or the loneliness, maybe it really was better this way.
Because, truth was, none of them would have stuck around long enough to be comforted by an escaped convict.