Nelville Longbottom had some time to think. Turns out you tended to when you were rendered immobile in the Gryffindor common area in the dead of night.

Panic set in quick. Every part of him wanted to twitch and struggle against the Full Body Bind, and a great deal of him wanted to send a hex back at his friends who had now escaped out the door. His friends… They'd defended him all year. Gotten their house in a whole lot of trouble, that was for sure, but they never once had…

Nelville didn't stop struggling, but now there was a hastiness, sporadic jerks of his consciousness to make any movement, any at all. He was laying there too still, too too still and it activated a part of him that shrieked without hitting his vocal chords.

He was going to die here. Nobody had heard him fall over and he was going to die here in a lump on the floor. A distant part of him didn't think these kinds of curses were fatal but most of him reminded himself that it would be just liker him to suffer some unusual side effect that laid him out.

A memory found him of his grandfather slumping over in his chair all of sudden, no warning. He saw his parents, between fits, lying in the St. Mungo beds so quiet and eyes blasted open that they looked more ghost than anything. And somehow, somehow, embarrassment still cut through the fear, his grandmother saying, "Really? Your parents sacrificed themselves to the Cruciatus just for you to be laid low by a mere Full Body Bind. Honestly." He would've broken out into some kind of broken laugh, if he could.

It took several minutes for the attack to settle somewhere in him. He was tired. So tired. It'd been like this all through the year. Why WOULDNT the semester end with him getting permanently petrified by people he liked. He felt tears try to form again. Harry and the others, he knew, had been trying to do something they thought was crucial. Nelville sighed, but nothing came out. Had he been hasty approaching them like that? "Yes!" Something inside him sounding like his grandmum chided. Did he regret confronting them? A coldness swept through him.

Not… exactly. It felt good to try and say something. But… He tried to wiggle himself from the discomfort in his back, to no avail. Suddenly House Points didn't seem so important. For the first time, he tried to think to his coursework on counter spells for curses. No good. He'd only known about the spell because he'd heard a third year talking about it. Of course Hermione had already perfected it.

Finally, dread curled into exhaustion. He'd struggled for what he assumed had been an hour- there wasn't a clock in his line of sight. Couldn't even get a glimpse out the window if the black had changed to purple. He counted some of divots in the ceiling, tried not to think about what Harry and co. were likely doing. And about how he was still hoping they were safe, despite this.

Finally, he felt something drop from his mind, and a little part of him thought, "Huh. I guess you can fall asleep under the Full Body."

Nelville dreamed of when he was six. It had been another afternoon of his grandmother sending him through physical exercises to try drawing out his magic. As usual, ever since that day he'd bounced off the ground, his magic had stayed stubbornly silent and hidden.

He'd found himself out in his grandmother's garden. Why, he couldn't recall. He was sore, and still quiet whipped by him grandmum's cries of each new workout technique, but- He'd been passing through the house to get a glass of water, and seen the elderly woman out there, steadfastly waving her wand around at different plants. So he crept out there, slowly, not sure of himself.

He wouldn't have been discovered except that in focusing on his gran to make sure she didn't turn around, he almost fell on his face tripping over the hose laying on the ground.

Sure enough, he raised his head up and his gran was staring at him cooly from feet away, eyebrow raised. Nelville gave a sheepish smile and stood back up, but the smile faded as Augusta rose up.

"Well," she said, dignified as always. "There's still the possibility you're a squib and it was all a fluke."

Nelville looked down, heart racing.

"If so, you should probably be taught some practical skills instead. So you can pass something down, at least."

Now Nelville looked up, shocked, not quite hopeful.

Gran quirked her mouth only slightly into a smile, but it was more than Nelville got for months at a time.

"Come over here."

When they broke him out of the bind, for the next few days, Nelville couldn't stop swiveling his body parts around. In classes, professors tried to tell him to stop distracting the class, since he was swinging his arms and stretching about, Snape rolling vowels in "gesticulating." He'd move in a wide gait and flex his fingers and roll his head, and no amount of teasing would stop because– lying there on the ground like he'd never get back up like this was permanent and he had failed–

Hermione came and apologized and hugged Nelville, and he tried not to shake accepting it back, because '"She didn't know about your parents. She didn't know…"

And he went to the library, on the evening of that day after, and found a text on curses, and flipped right over to 'F'.

Ron's apology, a few weeks before Finals, was little more than a "Sorry about that night, mate. You know how 'Mione gets," and a shrug, which Neville smiled halfheartedly at.

It was after the Closing Ceremony that Harry finally came to him. He looked more how Hermione had, eyes set determined but a bit bashful. He sighed- "Hey, Neville. I wanted to apologize for leaving you there all night. I'd meant to come back after we found Snape, but, well, I never got the chance to." He stared at his shoes.

Neville nodded, lips pressed in. "It's ok, Harry," he said, and it was, wasn't it? He'd made peace with all this, hadn't he? "I just… I never actually wanted to fight you all, it was bluster. You know how I am with spells. Worst I would've tried was an Expelliarmus."

Harry looked up, guilt evident on his face. Neville swallowed. But he kept talking- "I just… I just didn't want anyone getting in trouble because of us again. Including you three. After, the Forest." He licked his teeth and tried not to think of trees lit in the moonlight like specters, Malfoy's pale hand clawing into his shoulder.

Harry shook his head. "Neville, we shouldn't have had Hermione do the Full Body Bind. Talked it out. Or something." His gaze softened. "We'd helped stick up for you all year. I'm sure you would've understood if we just-" He looked away, sighed, and looked at Neville again, a gleam in his eyes. "Do you want to know what we were doing on the Third floor, at least?"

Neville smiled. "It's ok, Hermione kinda told me some of it when she came to me afterwards." The smile dropped. "It sounded really dangerous." His face dropped a little and he said, quieter. "I'm glad you all ended up ok."

Harry came closer to Neville and sat down on the ledge next to him, looking at him intently in a way that made Neville nervous. Then Harry cleared his throat. "Can… Can I tell you something else, then?"

Neville nodded, confusion in his face.

Harry breathed out, and curled a loose strand of his uniform in his hand for a minute. Finally, he spoke in a low voice. "I… the stairs. Earlier this year, I was having trouble getting up the, uh, Gryffindor stairs."

Neville's eyes were wide. Harry admitting a problem he was having? To HIM? His heart sped up. "Which stairs?"

Harry looked back at the landing behind him. "The ones to the dorms," he said, even quieter. Neville blinked. Thought back- The stairs were enchanted to only allow their gender proceed up. Which meant…

Neville opened his mouth, but Harry was faster- "I don't think I'm a boy."

Neville stared. But it wasn't the content he was concerned with. It was why Harry was sharing this to him- He'd been on the receiving end of bullying meant to reveal things about himself- About if it was true he was a Squib; about is he really had 'freak parents put in a mental ward'… Tentatively, he put a hand on Harry's shoulder, who looked at him, clearing keeping out tears.

"Harry," Neville said, whispering in awe, "You don't have to tell me about this if you don't want to." The Prophet would have a veritable field day if this got leaked. He knew Purebloods that beat students up for much less. And Harry was entrusting this personal info to HIM?

Harry looked back, fake calm written all over his face. "Does it disturb you?"

Neville put the hand back on Harry's shoulder and shook his head with vigor. "No." And he meant it; he'd heard of wizards having changed genders before, though somewhat rare. A few years ago his first reaction would've been, "You can do that?", but Aunt Augusta had talked about an Auror family friend who "may look different when you see her in the future, but just use the name she's chosen or she'll scold you too."

"It's not that unusual. But are you sure you wanted me to know?"

Harry breathed a sigh of relief, and seemed to pick up on something. "I'm not just telling you because of guilt. I… You're a good friend, Neville. And I wanted to trust you with this, before anything happened that made me have to tell everyone."

Neville took Harry into his arms. For all of the disaster this year had been, he didn't regret getting to know the trio.

And for a second, that didn't even feel so pathetic.