Author's Note(s): My goal is to have this project finished by the start of the new semester. Which looks like it might actually be possible, since this is the second to last chapter. After I finish writing the last chapter (which is currently roughly two-thirds done already), my plan is to go back through the entire thing for a last edit before going back through Defying Veils and the first nine chapters of Through Feline Eyes for continuity edits. There's also another connector oneshot in the works so keep an eye out for that. If you have AO3 access, the name of this series is To Make a Difference and everything in this 'verse is in the proper order.

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The Schrodinger Effect

Part 06: Conflicted

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"We accept the love we think we deserve." – Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

"The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return." – Eden Ahbez, Nature Boy

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Things since the ball had been tensed in ways that Harry couldn't really understand. Finding Neville and Luna whispering together had become more common than it ever had, and Harry was happy for them—really, truly, and without reservation. The memory of them in each other's arms on the dance floor was burned into his memory: their mutual beauty glowing in the abundant candlelight was only matched by the happiness apparent on their faces as they looked into each other's eyes. Neither had said anything about getting together to Harry and any time he brought it up they'd shift the conversation to Luna's almost finished project, but maybe they were trying to spare him discomfort in the aftermath of his breakup with Ginny. That would be just like them—putting his comfort before their growing closeness—but it really wasn't needed. He was happy for them.

Harry refused to say anything about the growing ache he experienced whenever he thought of them finally recognizing that he was just in their way—and it was only made worse by Luna's hesitant reveal concerning the requirements of the ritual that would build the bridge back through time. He understood why they couldn't all go (someone had to anchor it long enough to be successful) and he could admit that the thought of Luna going alone into danger was completely unacceptable, but the idea of being left behind again by a pair of friends hurt like a basilisk fang through the heart. It was only right that Neville accompanied Luna: they made an excellent pair—really one of those couples like the ones from the romance novels he wasn't supposed to know that Aunt Petunia read. Harry didn't want to break that up—because he was happy for them, really and truly. At the same time, it hurt to see them together and know that the time was coming that he would be on the outside again, not a part of their trio any more. This time there wouldn't anyone to help him through the pain of being alone. But he understood how important saving her parents was to Luna and they were going to save so many others. It hurt to see them together; it hurt to know they were leaving; and there was no way he could say any of that to them. The whole situation just hurt beyond any kind of measure.

Harry tried to give them space without being obvious about it. He knew how important Ginny had always said time alone was for couples before pulling him away from everyone back when they were dating. The logic gave him a plausible excuse to try acclimating himself to their impending departure. He couldn't bring himself to go so far as returning to Grimmauld Place (not when he knew time was officially running out), but he did try to sleep in the room that Augusta had given him rather than the one they had shared for the last few months. On the third morning, he awoke to find that they had joined him some time during the night. Luna was tucked under his chin with his arms curled tightly around her while Neville was plastered against his back with his arms around both of them. It was unfair—everything he couldn't admit to wanting without any meaning behind it. From then on, the more he tried to pull away, to give them the space they needed as a new couple, the more often he found himself in the company of one or both of them.

He wanted to say something—he knew that he definitely should say something—but he couldn't bring himself to do it even if he could figure out what to say. He couldn't risk losing the right to linger in the library after they wrapped up their study sessions, watching as Luna double-checked her work and knowing that she was safe. Sometimes, that need burned hot and obsessive within him and he understood Snape so fucking much in those moments because he would definitely be willing to destroy every little thing that resembled decency about himself if it would protect any bit of her.

It was harder to admit how those feelings transferred to his fellow Lion. It wasn't the same intensity, that urge to protect, maybe because he hadn't found Neville in a dungeon with a haunted look in his eyes—or alone in a pub intent on dying but willing to spend his last moments being sloppily affectionate. Neville hadn't been safe either during the war; Harry knew that and every glimpse of new scar tissue that hadn't been there at the end of their sixth served as a reminder of that. Yet Neville seemed…somehow stronger than either Harry or Luna, like he had things together more. It was obvious in the way Neville just went with things until he nudged things otherwise—whether it was Luna's mad plan to change the past or Shacklebolt's increasingly insistent owls about Harry joining the Auror Corps. All of it was handled with the same patient efficiency used to manage even the deadliest of Neville's plants. Neville could make reporters silence themselves just as easily as he had stopped Hermione's retaliation at the ball.

Harry could see what drew his friends together, he really could, which was why he should say something before he ruined it for them. Except now that Harry had decided to say something, he found himself hovering in the doorway to Neville's favorite greenhouse, unwilling to interrupt the blond as he repotted seedlings. Watching Neville work soothed Harry's nerves just as much as watching Luna, and Harry honestly didn't know why that was when Ron and Hermione never had. Not even those few blissfully normal months with Ginny before Dumbledore's death hadn't held the same sense of serenity.

"So have you thought about what you want us to change?" Neville asked without turning from the potting table. Harry shook his head to clear whatever it was that had made his thoughts slow from frenetic whorls of worry to a soft trickle like water dripping off leaves after a rain. Through it all, Neville carefully extracted the seedlings from the starter tray before gently setting them in their own individual pots. He hummed as he worked, waiting Harry out with a meandering melody.

"I thought we had already discussed that. Wasn't that what those charts were for?"

"We did talk about the things that cost lives," Neville agreed. He tamped the growing medium lightly before starting on another seedling. Harry let his worries about losing everything pull him closer to the other man. Neville gave no sign of noting the change. "You realize that there are other things that can be changed if you want. Luna and I will be ourselves, but you'd be as you were then. Beyond saving people who died, we could…"

"You could what?" Harry whispered. It felt like the bottom of his stomach had dropped out on him. Neville couldn't be suggesting what he thought he was. Would that even be possible? No one had ever cared about the Dursleys' treatment of him beyond a few passing comments—and hadn't Dumbledore said it was necessary for his protection? He was freezing and dizzy and he couldn't think about what it would mean to have— A hand cupped the back of his neck, gritty but so warm. It anchored him, letting him suck in life-giving air. A shiver wracked through him and the grip on his neck tightened. Something within him softened like wax near a fire and it was like everything just melted.

"It's okay, Harry." Neville didn't need prompting to pull Harry into a hug. It was second nature after a summer sharing a bed with his two friends. He didn't even consider letting go of Harry as the man wept in a way that Neville had never seen him do—loudly and thoroughly, as if these wounds ran even deeper than the grief of losing his family or the quiet tears he couldn't stop for hours after the row at the ball. Even the nightmares of Cedric and Sirius' deaths were rarely more than a choked off scream, even when Harry spent hours after the initial jerk awake just shaking silently and tensing at any sound and shift. Neville had a feeling that Harry's flippant dismissal of his relatives went far beyond the qualification of didn't really like me.

As Neville listened to Harry's stumbling (and probably unaware) confession of no one ever bothering to even ask about the Dursleys, Neville finally received the horrifying confirmation that it was probably even worse than just neglect and bullying. He kept one hand on Harry's nape through it all, using the other hand to stroke any part of Harry he could reach, knowing from watching how Luna handled the third of their trio that Harry soaked up touch like a sponge—oh, sweet Morrigan, like he had stumbled upon an oasis after too long in the desert and wasn't that telling? Neville had the sudden urge to practice some of the Carrows' favorite curses on a certain bookworm friend (ex-friend if Neville had any say in the matter but he knew that he didn't, not really) of Harry's when he remembered how Hermione had stalked towards Harry at the ball, her hand already raising to strike, while Harry had just stood his ground resigned to taking it.

Somewhere amidst the breakdown, they had ended up on the floor of the greenhouse, with Harry half-curled on Neville's lap like a child. Neville only noticed the passage of time once Harry had wept himself into exhaustion and finally fell into a sleep that would hopefully be too deep for dreams. Feeling drained himself, Neville had to blink several times to get his eyes to focus enough to turn the hazy white figure on the other side of Harry into a vaguely Luna-shaped image.

"We aren't leaving him there," Luna declared as if it was as obvious as the sun rose in the east—as if it would be that simple. The sun rose in the east; the moon went through phases; and they wouldn't be leaving Harry at the Dursleys. Her silvery eyes flashed like light off the blade of a sword and Neville could see in her expression the man who had killed in a single battle a third of Voldemort's highest trained duelists. Even scarier were the bits that weren't Xenophilius, but something far older and more powerful than a mere wizard could ever aspire to be. The bit within him that was his mother's son stirred restlessly in answer, damaged but still angrily protective. Neville's voice held a tempest as he confirmed the thought with Magic backing up every syllable.

"Not a single moment longer than absolutely necessary to ensure he's never forced to return."

Magic sparked into a binding vow that echoed without sound throughout existence. Somewhere between, a woman with fluffy black hair laughed while her brother groused over the changes in his precious tome. The trio on the floor of Thistlewood's nursery greenhouse settled in a greatly-needed sleep from which even the ancient elf shifting to their shared bed couldn't stir them.