Snapshots

“Neville?”

“Hmm?”

“Do you like having a pet toad?”

Neville looked up, standing knee-deep in the lake. His pants were rolled up above his knee to stay dry and he held a jar of water with something green in it.

“Trevor? I… guess so. He’s my first ever pet. Or only pet I guess.”

Harry pointed further down the shore. He was not in the water, are you kidding it was freezing out there Neville was insane, but was instead comfortably seated near the bank on his cloak.

Neville turned to see what had Harry’s attention, and frowned when he saw it was his black toad. Neville hadn’t seen his pet in over a week. “...oh.”

“Well aren’t you super fucking excited to see him.”

Neville ignored the sarcasm to wade out of the water and drop the jar into Harry’s hands. He shivered as he grabbed at the toad who at the last moment tried to leap off into the lake. “I’m am! Sorta.”

“So… Nev… do you really like having a pet toad?”

This time when Neville looked up, both hands wrapped around the wriggling creature, he noted that Harry had one of his knives in hand. Yes, one of them, as in Harry had multiple knives and usually at least one on his body somewhere. This one looked to be the smaller silver blade from his potions kit.

“You aren’t killing Trevor.”

“Why not?”

“Because…” Neville’s mind blanked out for a moment. “...he was a gift from my Uncle. When I got my hogwarts invitation. He was so happy for me because it meant I really was magical and not a squib.”

“So he’s a living, leaping reminder of how your family tortured you until you proved to have magic?” Bless him, Harry actually sounded interested in the matter. How like Harry to be able to find and poke one of the remaining sore spots in Neville’s psych.

Remembering the years before Hogwarts didn’t hurt as much as it used to though. Sure they were proud of him now that he was obviously a powerful Wizard, but their opinions had long since lost his interest. Neville didn’t need that sort of negativity in his life.

“You aren’t killing Trevor.”

He couldn’t help a fond smile as Harry pouted. The small knife vanished, up his sleeve perhaps, and Harry sulkingly turned his attention to the jar on his lap. “What is this stuff?”

“Common pond scum.”

Harry wrinkled his nose. “We came all the way out here for this shit? What use could you possibly have for dirty water?”

Neville jammed the wriggling toad into his robe pocket, it was almost too small for the poor thing, and held out a hand for the jar. “Lots of things! I could use it to prank Ron. I could charm the plant bits to glow and use it for a nightlight, I could hatch some frog eggs…”

He grinned as Harry rolled his eyes, waiting it out before adding- “or I could use it for making a potion that would allow someone to breathe underwater.”

“...you have my attention.”

“I thought so. Come on, I need to bottle this and let it sit for a couple days.” He held out his other hand to help Harry up, and then pulled him in close. He pecked a small kiss to the tip of Harry’s cold nose. When Harry snapped his teeth at him in irritation, Neville just twisted his head to the side and out of reach with another grin.

“I remember when you were just a chubby-cheeked coward. What the hell happened?” Harry complained as he shook out his cloak and Neville rolled his pants legs back down. Put on his shoes.

“Well, I ran into this asshole of a Hufflepuff on the train and he sort of beat it out of me.” Neville waggled his fingers at Harry and waited. And waited. And...

Finally Harry let out a grumpy huff and grabbed his hand. Fingers twined together, the pair walked along the lake edge and towards the school.

“You’re sure I can’t kill it?”

“Why are you so intent on murdering my poor toad, after all this time?”

“I don’t like frogs.”

“He’s a toad.”

“I need the skin of a black toad for a spell.”

“What sort of spell?”

“Why should I tell you if you won’t let me collect the skin?”

“Because maybe if I thought it worth my while I would let you.”

Harry considered this, idly swinging their joined hands as they walked. “...shit.”

“You don’t have a spell do you.”

“Nope.”

Neville shook his head. “Truthfully then. What do you have against Trevor?”

“He reminds me that your family is a bunch of fucking pricks who tried to kill you and I don’t like it.”

Ohhhhh. Harry hadn’t been trying to poke at Neville’s sore spots at all. He’d been poking at his own. It shouldn’t surprise Neville, for as much as Harry acted like he didn’t care what other people said or did towards himself, he cared an awful lot when it affected Neville. Always had.

“Don’t worry about it Harry. I stopped fretting over what they thought of me a long time ago,” giving Harry’s hand a squeeze. “There’s only a couple of people whose opinions I listen to now.”

“..don’t get so fucking sappy..”

“Says the guy who wants to get rid of all my rotten memories.”

Harry squinted at him. “You owe me a birthday present. I want the toad.”

“Oh look, there’s Hermione. And Viktor. Do you want to say hi? You were pretty happy talking to him at dinner yesterday.” No, Neville was not jealous. The Quidditch player was muscular and surly and famous. Nothing to be jealous about.

Certainly not when Harry perked up, head turning to look for the Durmstrang student. “I was asking him how he dealt with bludgers in the field. There has to be some sort of trick that works on a Seeker rather than only depending on sheer chance.”

Harry frowned as he recalled more of the conversation. “I don’t think he liked my questions.”

Neville could only assume it was because Harry had gotten a little too excited about the violence of being a Beater, as he usually did. Admittedly, when you weren’t used to him, Harry could come off as kinda terrifying. Poor Krumm likely wasn’t used to eyes that glowed red either.

Well, it sucked to be him didn’t it.

“You don’t want to go say hello then?”

“Nah, let Hermione have him. He’s been stalking her in the library lately so I guess he has plans.”

“Well that’s not foreboding or anything,” Neville’s tone went flat.

Harry just shrugged. “She’s a witch, she can handle herself. And if not, then she shouldn’t wander off with a strange man to places with no witnesses. Wait- Neville that wasn’t- Fuck.”

Hermione didn’t appreciate the sudden appearance of a chaperone, especially not that of Neville. Krumm didn’t appreciate it either, stumbling through his request for Hermione to join him at the Yule Ball under Neville’s accusing eyes. Harry appreciated it least of all because he thought he’d stomped that nobility streak out of Neville ages ago.