Fic: Gifts of Change
Apr. 17th, 2021 12:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
paulamcgI can't resist making another entry so soon, as I submitted this fic to a fest almost full two months ago, and it was also posted on AO3 more than a month ago. The reveals are finally up at Remus Lupin Fest, and I can take the blame for this small fic. If anyone at the fest knew my other work, they would have easily recognised this one as mine. It's set in the universe which diverges from canon right after OotP, and it features Neville/Harry. And it must be unusual (at the fest) that a fic that is essentially about Remus, and that is not Remus/Neville, is written all in Neville's POV.
Title: Gifts of Change
Author: paulamcg
Pairing: Neville & Remus, (emerging) Neville/Harry, Remus/OC, (past) Remus/Sirius,
Summary: By Halloween 1996 Neville knew a lot more about Remus Lupin's past and present. Now it was time for change and for encouraging each other.
Word Count: 2700
Rating: G
Warnings/Contains: Politics, anti-racism, friendship, mentors, friends to lovers, grief/mourning, coming out, non-human and part-human characters, cameos of Alice and Frank Longbottom, POV Neville Longbottom
Notes: This was written for the Remus Lupin Fest. The prompt I chose was: Remus gets to experience a happy (or at least healing) Halloween … Thank you for the beta,liseuse!
Disclaimer: Neville, Remus and Harry won't help me make any money.
Read on AO3
or right here:
Gifts of Change
The memories of Lupin's party on Halloween 1996 would remain a treasure for Neville to enjoy sharing in common with Harry. Remus's, as he'd been ordered to call his former teacher, unless he wanted to be called Professor Longbottom.
This October's visit was making Neville consider whether he wanted to be called just that. Or rather reconsider. For three years, ever since he'd got some boost to his self-confidence in Defence Against the Dark Arts, too, he'd dreamed that some day he'd teach Herbology at Hogwarts. But now Professor Lupin had become someone else, and this changed everything.
Neville had never been to a pub like the Headless Queen before, never taken part in a gathering of such varied creatures. There was the motley crowd of protectees he'd met when coming to the peculiar, ancient house, where Remus had returned, defying the Ministry further, after he'd first, in a public trial, protested against legalising the use of Unforgivable Curses on others than full humans. Besides, tonight they were joined by other allies.
Tearing his eyes away from Thisby, who now, singing alone on the small stage, looked more like a veela than when working with him in Remus's herb garden, Neville scanned the faces of the audience, all coloured by the orange lanterns. The non-human features – small horns, luminous manes, floppy ears – were combined with intelligent eyes and sympathetic smiles. And other faces belonged to people who were no less human or less magical than he was, but who had grown up in the margin, in grinding poverty, without a chance for education. Here they were all together, celebrating the fifteenth anniversary of Voldemort's first fall.
And their teacher and protector was turning into a leader of a revolt.
Neville glanced across to the opposite end of the long table. Remus was allowing his facial expressions to reveal the emotion evoked by the song about cross-breed creatures' plight. His posture showed more confidence than in August, when Neville and Gran had run into him at St Mungo's. Back then he must have been shocked about Amelia Bones's murder, although he'd barely referred to it when saying that the two of them had failed to do anything to secure better treatment for their friends – now the only ones left of his friends from school.
And now here were Mum, swaying to the rhythm of the music, and Dad, almost smiling, with eyes fixed on the stage, sitting next to their old Gryffindor mate, who had been right. It was wrong to keep anyone confined in a hospital bed for research purposes. Even if Mum and Dad should always remain with only the mental capacity of small children, they could enjoy life in a better environment. When Neville had seen this community – like another school, where creatures learnt from each other – in Remus's childhood home, and dared ask if his parents, too, could be welcome, Remus had been eager and prompt to arrange for his friend Tonks to sneak them here from St Mungo's.
He welcomed all those who needed protection and who, to his surprise, wanted to join him.
Remus may have been reluctant to lead... Yes, Neville understood easily that kind of hesitation and humility. Tonight when telling Neville and Harry about the new allies, Remus seemed still amazed at but not in denial of being needed for uniting the creatures.
A lot of full goblins, too, now supported the struggle for all intelligent creatures' rights. In the non-violent rebellion first propagated by the theatre troupe, the wealthiest goblin families had recognised a profitable business opportunity. This pub had got severe warnings from the Ministry, and the goblins invested in it with full intention to defy Umbridge's racist regulations. With them as the main share-holders, the Headless Queen continued to hire others than full humans and to host the performances by Remus's protectees.
One of the small bearded waiters, perhaps half goblin, half elf was now forcing a drink on Remus, who must have wanted to concentrate on the show and hadn't ordered anything. But the frown of irritation gave way to an embarrassed smile, even blushing, when Remus followed the waiter's gesticulation.
This embarrassment, too, was familiar to Neville. He was aware of watching Remus so closely partly because he was afraid that sitting right next to Harry was making him too excited tonight.
Having glanced quickly at Harry's face, which was sullen and... too cute, Neville tried his best to figure out who made Remus react like that. At the table closest to the other end of the stage, there were four goblins in their extravagant outfits: the leading banker, whom Remus had pointed out earlier, and two ladies, equally decked in precious stones, who could be his wives, but also...
The fourth member of the group couldn't possibly be a full goblin, and he was the one staring across at Remus. He looked younger than his companions, and taller, not much too short for an adult human. The style of his trimmed beard, which framed a chestnut-brown face, differed from the trend common among wizards, and his slanted eyes and wide mouth were clear goblin features. But winking, he flashed such a grin which didn't look alien at all even to Neville.
The next expression – one of happy amazement, maybe – he caught on Remus's face helped bring back the memory of watching a self-confident wizard laugh while dueling.
Harry's friend, Harry's godfather. The mysterious man whom they – six members of Dumbledore's Army – had thought they'd save in London, and who had come to save them, instead. And got killed by the same witch who had tortured Neville's parents and now Neville, too.
Turning his gaze from Remus, who, with his eyes half closed and smiling wistfully, was now savouring the drink, Neville ventured another look at Harry. He felt like wrapping an arm around Harry's shoulders, and doing more than...
Fighting alongside Harry and witnessing his grief had started to change Neville's feelings towards him. Neville could now imagine the two of them as equals, as friends who'd got something to offer to each other. The idolizing and the sense of inferiority had given way to compassion, and since the beginning of the term, to camaraderie.
Harry had even told Neville about the prophecy which could have meant either of them. When Ron and Hermione had become a couple, it felt no longer too unbalanced that Neville regarded Harry as his best friend. Perhaps Harry, too, believed that Neville was able to understand the depth of his gloom better than anyone – except perhaps Remus, as Harry started calling him after receiving a few letters.
At the moment Harry was frowning at his goblet. He was clearly not comfortable here, even though they'd concluded together that this event focused on hopeful defiance against all Remus's enemies, not on Harry's parents' deaths.
He can't have ever mourned his mother and father in the way he missed Sirius Black, in addition to feeling both guilty and angry. Having no memory of them, he perhaps now dwelt on having failed to even ask about them much. After the recent letters, he complained to Neville that Remus kept telling him too much about the rat, who didn't deserve to be called a Marauder. And he definitely didn't want to commemorate that rat's betrayal.
He'd been irritable, and regarded some members of Remus's brotherhood with disdain. And disobeyed the restrictions designed for his safety, even in relation to the lessons in the magic of Animagi that Remus had agreed to give him. Still, Neville could not blame him, and only felt more tenderness towards him – as well as a new bold desire.
Now after emptying a couple of goblets himself, Neville couldn't resist reaching out by saying something.
"Great to be here with you!" he said in Harry's ear, and dared add, while he could hear the slur in his voice, "Tis the best party ever! The best pub, the best Butterbeer..."
"This is not Butterbeer. The goblet's smoking." There was a suspicious tone in Harry's voice.
And just as his hot breath brushed Neville's cheek, the fluorescent spiral rising from the admittedly fey drink coloured his eyes more turquoise than green. But at the same moment the table shifted a bit, making Neville move enough for his arm to touch Harry's, and for him to look again at Remus.
Remus must have pushed the table when standing up abruptly. Neville hurried to glance at the group of goblins, and had just enough time to see that the curiously good-looking – sexy, he caught himself thinking – half-goblin with a luminous smile was leaving his company and pointing an inhumanly long forefinger towards... the loos?
The play had reached the point when Thisby's song ended in its last cry of lament and darkness fell over her and all of them.
A shaggy mane tickled Neville's chin, as Harry lay a heavy head on his shoulder, drawing in a shuddering breath, and breathing out some muttered words, "I can't take..."
"This crowd?" Having attended a rehearsal, Neville knew to act quickly, as long as there was no light and nobody could see them, and he touched Harry's face with a fingertip, and even pressed his lips on Harry's forehead for a second before continuing, "Is it too crowded here?"
He was barely pulling back when the series of enchanted lightning strikes started. The first flash made the infamous scar on that forehead visible so dramatically that Neville felt an acute, aching... closeness... to what could have been his fate, and what he could still share. The magic of art made it hard for him to grasp what was illusion and what was reality. He grasped what he could – Harry's hand. Bewildered, he looked aside while squeezing it down in his lap.
The last flashes revealed to his eyes how Remus was leaning against the wall. The half-goblin was right beside him, and the long fingers were feeling the cheap and worn fabric of a sleeve, then caressing a collarbone, perhaps inching towards where Neville had once, when working next to Remus, seen a glimpse of the bite scar.
Was the part-human taunting Remus, or flirting? No. Now the brilliant quarter-giant actor in the role of a daft Death Eater was making the audience roar in laughter at his vain attempts to conjure the Dark Mark. In the glow of the green fluorescent smoke, which was hovering above, taking one funny shape after another, Neville saw those two only talk animatedly and smile.
Neville caught himself stroking the back of Harry's hand with his thumb – at least not wanking under the table, and this thought made him chortle. To his further joy, Harry was now looking at the stage and first chuckling, then biting his lip when the final scene was reaching its more solemn, hopeful end.
Remus's encounter with the new ally was ending in a seemingly formal handshake, but Neville couldn't help suspecting that they both let the touch linger and enjoyed it. Just when they turned each to his direction so as to return to their tables, the audience erupted in applause and burst into singing.
Arriving at his seat, Remus was clapping his hands and joining in the refrain. "Let us share the gifts of change, gifts of magic, gifts of love."
Perhaps this was the first time he managed to sing after he lost his Sirius again.
Perhaps he'd needed to talk to someone about his loss, revealing what Sirius Black had meant to him. He must have intended and again hesitated to do it in the letters to Harry.
He'd ended up telling Neville when walking with him through the rain after the herbology workshop they'd arranged in his father's old greenhouse. He'd treated Neville to descriptions of Alice and Frank as members of their small Gryffindor gang, then admitted that the Marauders had been its core for him, and that since their fifth year at school Sirius had been closer to him than anyone ever since.
"We even lived together as a couple... for some time after Harry's parents, and yours got married," Remus had said, with his face tilted to be washed by raindrops, "but for us it was different, of course, because it was illegal, doubly illegal because of what I am. He was so bold but... He loved watching me dance, but couldn't make himself dance with me in public. And then, more seriously..." At this point he had grinned. "There was the matter of the traitor. When I got him back, after thirteen years, I shouldn't have agreed to go on all those missions. He needed... Harry needs you, and you..."
That's when Neville had fully understood and accepted how he loved Harry. That it wasn't a phase of experimenting with emotions – and with more, in case he dared and was lucky – as he had thought Gran and his teachers, and his parents, too, if they should have their minds intact, would assess it. His favourite teacher had become – among other things – one of the gay protagonists in a tragic love story, and helped him – as one of the children of the prophecy, or rather as one of his best friends' children – realise that caring for someone intimately was real and to be taken as seriously as any responsibility.
And at this moment Neville understood that Harry would resent Remus taking part in too much merrymaking at the anniversary of his parents' deaths and so soon after the loss of Sirius. It was, however, Remus's responsibility to help raise the spirits of the united creatures. Caring for them all, he was perhaps also finding a new, meaningful direction in his life.
Some members of the audience were already climbing onto the stage and starting to dance with the actors. Harry had better get away from this crowd for now. And Neville was thrilled when it occurred to him that this offered him a chance to share a private moment just when they both were drunk and emotional.
"I'm sure you can get Butterbeer or anything you want," he said with his lips close to Harry's ear. "Let's go to the bar, and..."
When Neville began to stand up, Harry wriggled his hand free – but followed. Neville led the way, first behind the row of seats towards Remus's end of the table. They passed Mum and Dad, who were now both clapping their hands, and Neville patted them on their shoulders.
Now Remus was right in front of him, standing tall and confident, looking around and beaming at both the actors and the audience. At the sight of the two of them, perhaps due to some signs of indignation in Harry, his expression changed – just slightly but enough to bring back a memory.
Another image from the Department of Mysteries, one that Neville understood only months later. The pale face which managed to regain calm and turn away from what was lost again, who was now gone forever, while words were forced out, in a breaking voice, but caring, helpful, "Let's... find the others. Where..."
"Great show! You must be happy." Neville grinned, hoping that a pat on Remus's shoulder would help convey everything he meant with that. "But I... asked Harry to come out with me." He winked for good measure. "For a walk, I mean."
No, that was not enough. Neville wanted to encourage Remus, who had encouraged him, and to express his approval, although, of course, it wasn't Harry's or Neville's business whether it was time yet for another romantic relationship in Remus's life. In any case Neville felt that, after all the hard years, Remus was again – still – starving for joy and for a loving touch.
A new, more cheerful tune rang out, and in a rush, feeling a blush on his cheeks, Neville gave Remus a half hug and whispered in his ear, "Maybe it's time... Dance! As if your Sirius were dancing with you."
Title: Gifts of Change
Author: paulamcg
Pairing: Neville & Remus, (emerging) Neville/Harry, Remus/OC, (past) Remus/Sirius,
Summary: By Halloween 1996 Neville knew a lot more about Remus Lupin's past and present. Now it was time for change and for encouraging each other.
Word Count: 2700
Rating: G
Warnings/Contains: Politics, anti-racism, friendship, mentors, friends to lovers, grief/mourning, coming out, non-human and part-human characters, cameos of Alice and Frank Longbottom, POV Neville Longbottom
Notes: This was written for the Remus Lupin Fest. The prompt I chose was: Remus gets to experience a happy (or at least healing) Halloween … Thank you for the beta,
liseuse!Disclaimer: Neville, Remus and Harry won't help me make any money.
Read on AO3
or right here:
Gifts of Change
The memories of Lupin's party on Halloween 1996 would remain a treasure for Neville to enjoy sharing in common with Harry. Remus's, as he'd been ordered to call his former teacher, unless he wanted to be called Professor Longbottom.
This October's visit was making Neville consider whether he wanted to be called just that. Or rather reconsider. For three years, ever since he'd got some boost to his self-confidence in Defence Against the Dark Arts, too, he'd dreamed that some day he'd teach Herbology at Hogwarts. But now Professor Lupin had become someone else, and this changed everything.
Neville had never been to a pub like the Headless Queen before, never taken part in a gathering of such varied creatures. There was the motley crowd of protectees he'd met when coming to the peculiar, ancient house, where Remus had returned, defying the Ministry further, after he'd first, in a public trial, protested against legalising the use of Unforgivable Curses on others than full humans. Besides, tonight they were joined by other allies.
Tearing his eyes away from Thisby, who now, singing alone on the small stage, looked more like a veela than when working with him in Remus's herb garden, Neville scanned the faces of the audience, all coloured by the orange lanterns. The non-human features – small horns, luminous manes, floppy ears – were combined with intelligent eyes and sympathetic smiles. And other faces belonged to people who were no less human or less magical than he was, but who had grown up in the margin, in grinding poverty, without a chance for education. Here they were all together, celebrating the fifteenth anniversary of Voldemort's first fall.
And their teacher and protector was turning into a leader of a revolt.
Neville glanced across to the opposite end of the long table. Remus was allowing his facial expressions to reveal the emotion evoked by the song about cross-breed creatures' plight. His posture showed more confidence than in August, when Neville and Gran had run into him at St Mungo's. Back then he must have been shocked about Amelia Bones's murder, although he'd barely referred to it when saying that the two of them had failed to do anything to secure better treatment for their friends – now the only ones left of his friends from school.
And now here were Mum, swaying to the rhythm of the music, and Dad, almost smiling, with eyes fixed on the stage, sitting next to their old Gryffindor mate, who had been right. It was wrong to keep anyone confined in a hospital bed for research purposes. Even if Mum and Dad should always remain with only the mental capacity of small children, they could enjoy life in a better environment. When Neville had seen this community – like another school, where creatures learnt from each other – in Remus's childhood home, and dared ask if his parents, too, could be welcome, Remus had been eager and prompt to arrange for his friend Tonks to sneak them here from St Mungo's.
He welcomed all those who needed protection and who, to his surprise, wanted to join him.
Remus may have been reluctant to lead... Yes, Neville understood easily that kind of hesitation and humility. Tonight when telling Neville and Harry about the new allies, Remus seemed still amazed at but not in denial of being needed for uniting the creatures.
A lot of full goblins, too, now supported the struggle for all intelligent creatures' rights. In the non-violent rebellion first propagated by the theatre troupe, the wealthiest goblin families had recognised a profitable business opportunity. This pub had got severe warnings from the Ministry, and the goblins invested in it with full intention to defy Umbridge's racist regulations. With them as the main share-holders, the Headless Queen continued to hire others than full humans and to host the performances by Remus's protectees.
One of the small bearded waiters, perhaps half goblin, half elf was now forcing a drink on Remus, who must have wanted to concentrate on the show and hadn't ordered anything. But the frown of irritation gave way to an embarrassed smile, even blushing, when Remus followed the waiter's gesticulation.
This embarrassment, too, was familiar to Neville. He was aware of watching Remus so closely partly because he was afraid that sitting right next to Harry was making him too excited tonight.
Having glanced quickly at Harry's face, which was sullen and... too cute, Neville tried his best to figure out who made Remus react like that. At the table closest to the other end of the stage, there were four goblins in their extravagant outfits: the leading banker, whom Remus had pointed out earlier, and two ladies, equally decked in precious stones, who could be his wives, but also...
The fourth member of the group couldn't possibly be a full goblin, and he was the one staring across at Remus. He looked younger than his companions, and taller, not much too short for an adult human. The style of his trimmed beard, which framed a chestnut-brown face, differed from the trend common among wizards, and his slanted eyes and wide mouth were clear goblin features. But winking, he flashed such a grin which didn't look alien at all even to Neville.
The next expression – one of happy amazement, maybe – he caught on Remus's face helped bring back the memory of watching a self-confident wizard laugh while dueling.
Harry's friend, Harry's godfather. The mysterious man whom they – six members of Dumbledore's Army – had thought they'd save in London, and who had come to save them, instead. And got killed by the same witch who had tortured Neville's parents and now Neville, too.
Turning his gaze from Remus, who, with his eyes half closed and smiling wistfully, was now savouring the drink, Neville ventured another look at Harry. He felt like wrapping an arm around Harry's shoulders, and doing more than...
Fighting alongside Harry and witnessing his grief had started to change Neville's feelings towards him. Neville could now imagine the two of them as equals, as friends who'd got something to offer to each other. The idolizing and the sense of inferiority had given way to compassion, and since the beginning of the term, to camaraderie.
Harry had even told Neville about the prophecy which could have meant either of them. When Ron and Hermione had become a couple, it felt no longer too unbalanced that Neville regarded Harry as his best friend. Perhaps Harry, too, believed that Neville was able to understand the depth of his gloom better than anyone – except perhaps Remus, as Harry started calling him after receiving a few letters.
At the moment Harry was frowning at his goblet. He was clearly not comfortable here, even though they'd concluded together that this event focused on hopeful defiance against all Remus's enemies, not on Harry's parents' deaths.
He can't have ever mourned his mother and father in the way he missed Sirius Black, in addition to feeling both guilty and angry. Having no memory of them, he perhaps now dwelt on having failed to even ask about them much. After the recent letters, he complained to Neville that Remus kept telling him too much about the rat, who didn't deserve to be called a Marauder. And he definitely didn't want to commemorate that rat's betrayal.
He'd been irritable, and regarded some members of Remus's brotherhood with disdain. And disobeyed the restrictions designed for his safety, even in relation to the lessons in the magic of Animagi that Remus had agreed to give him. Still, Neville could not blame him, and only felt more tenderness towards him – as well as a new bold desire.
Now after emptying a couple of goblets himself, Neville couldn't resist reaching out by saying something.
"Great to be here with you!" he said in Harry's ear, and dared add, while he could hear the slur in his voice, "Tis the best party ever! The best pub, the best Butterbeer..."
"This is not Butterbeer. The goblet's smoking." There was a suspicious tone in Harry's voice.
And just as his hot breath brushed Neville's cheek, the fluorescent spiral rising from the admittedly fey drink coloured his eyes more turquoise than green. But at the same moment the table shifted a bit, making Neville move enough for his arm to touch Harry's, and for him to look again at Remus.
Remus must have pushed the table when standing up abruptly. Neville hurried to glance at the group of goblins, and had just enough time to see that the curiously good-looking – sexy, he caught himself thinking – half-goblin with a luminous smile was leaving his company and pointing an inhumanly long forefinger towards... the loos?
The play had reached the point when Thisby's song ended in its last cry of lament and darkness fell over her and all of them.
A shaggy mane tickled Neville's chin, as Harry lay a heavy head on his shoulder, drawing in a shuddering breath, and breathing out some muttered words, "I can't take..."
"This crowd?" Having attended a rehearsal, Neville knew to act quickly, as long as there was no light and nobody could see them, and he touched Harry's face with a fingertip, and even pressed his lips on Harry's forehead for a second before continuing, "Is it too crowded here?"
He was barely pulling back when the series of enchanted lightning strikes started. The first flash made the infamous scar on that forehead visible so dramatically that Neville felt an acute, aching... closeness... to what could have been his fate, and what he could still share. The magic of art made it hard for him to grasp what was illusion and what was reality. He grasped what he could – Harry's hand. Bewildered, he looked aside while squeezing it down in his lap.
The last flashes revealed to his eyes how Remus was leaning against the wall. The half-goblin was right beside him, and the long fingers were feeling the cheap and worn fabric of a sleeve, then caressing a collarbone, perhaps inching towards where Neville had once, when working next to Remus, seen a glimpse of the bite scar.
Was the part-human taunting Remus, or flirting? No. Now the brilliant quarter-giant actor in the role of a daft Death Eater was making the audience roar in laughter at his vain attempts to conjure the Dark Mark. In the glow of the green fluorescent smoke, which was hovering above, taking one funny shape after another, Neville saw those two only talk animatedly and smile.
Neville caught himself stroking the back of Harry's hand with his thumb – at least not wanking under the table, and this thought made him chortle. To his further joy, Harry was now looking at the stage and first chuckling, then biting his lip when the final scene was reaching its more solemn, hopeful end.
Remus's encounter with the new ally was ending in a seemingly formal handshake, but Neville couldn't help suspecting that they both let the touch linger and enjoyed it. Just when they turned each to his direction so as to return to their tables, the audience erupted in applause and burst into singing.
Arriving at his seat, Remus was clapping his hands and joining in the refrain. "Let us share the gifts of change, gifts of magic, gifts of love."
Perhaps this was the first time he managed to sing after he lost his Sirius again.
Perhaps he'd needed to talk to someone about his loss, revealing what Sirius Black had meant to him. He must have intended and again hesitated to do it in the letters to Harry.
He'd ended up telling Neville when walking with him through the rain after the herbology workshop they'd arranged in his father's old greenhouse. He'd treated Neville to descriptions of Alice and Frank as members of their small Gryffindor gang, then admitted that the Marauders had been its core for him, and that since their fifth year at school Sirius had been closer to him than anyone ever since.
"We even lived together as a couple... for some time after Harry's parents, and yours got married," Remus had said, with his face tilted to be washed by raindrops, "but for us it was different, of course, because it was illegal, doubly illegal because of what I am. He was so bold but... He loved watching me dance, but couldn't make himself dance with me in public. And then, more seriously..." At this point he had grinned. "There was the matter of the traitor. When I got him back, after thirteen years, I shouldn't have agreed to go on all those missions. He needed... Harry needs you, and you..."
That's when Neville had fully understood and accepted how he loved Harry. That it wasn't a phase of experimenting with emotions – and with more, in case he dared and was lucky – as he had thought Gran and his teachers, and his parents, too, if they should have their minds intact, would assess it. His favourite teacher had become – among other things – one of the gay protagonists in a tragic love story, and helped him – as one of the children of the prophecy, or rather as one of his best friends' children – realise that caring for someone intimately was real and to be taken as seriously as any responsibility.
And at this moment Neville understood that Harry would resent Remus taking part in too much merrymaking at the anniversary of his parents' deaths and so soon after the loss of Sirius. It was, however, Remus's responsibility to help raise the spirits of the united creatures. Caring for them all, he was perhaps also finding a new, meaningful direction in his life.
Some members of the audience were already climbing onto the stage and starting to dance with the actors. Harry had better get away from this crowd for now. And Neville was thrilled when it occurred to him that this offered him a chance to share a private moment just when they both were drunk and emotional.
"I'm sure you can get Butterbeer or anything you want," he said with his lips close to Harry's ear. "Let's go to the bar, and..."
When Neville began to stand up, Harry wriggled his hand free – but followed. Neville led the way, first behind the row of seats towards Remus's end of the table. They passed Mum and Dad, who were now both clapping their hands, and Neville patted them on their shoulders.
Now Remus was right in front of him, standing tall and confident, looking around and beaming at both the actors and the audience. At the sight of the two of them, perhaps due to some signs of indignation in Harry, his expression changed – just slightly but enough to bring back a memory.
Another image from the Department of Mysteries, one that Neville understood only months later. The pale face which managed to regain calm and turn away from what was lost again, who was now gone forever, while words were forced out, in a breaking voice, but caring, helpful, "Let's... find the others. Where..."
"Great show! You must be happy." Neville grinned, hoping that a pat on Remus's shoulder would help convey everything he meant with that. "But I... asked Harry to come out with me." He winked for good measure. "For a walk, I mean."
No, that was not enough. Neville wanted to encourage Remus, who had encouraged him, and to express his approval, although, of course, it wasn't Harry's or Neville's business whether it was time yet for another romantic relationship in Remus's life. In any case Neville felt that, after all the hard years, Remus was again – still – starving for joy and for a loving touch.
A new, more cheerful tune rang out, and in a rush, feeling a blush on his cheeks, Neville gave Remus a half hug and whispered in his ear, "Maybe it's time... Dance! As if your Sirius were dancing with you."
