Lightning Has Just Struck My Brain (The Déjà Vie Remix)
Remix Author: Nope
Original Story: Lightning Has Just Struck My Brain by Mousapelli
Summary: It's on the tip of Harry's tongue...
Rating: PG
Fandom: Harry Potter
"There's something," says Harry, and stops.
They're lying side by side on Neville's bed, staring up at black cloth spelled to much the stars outside.
"Something?" prompts Neville.
"Is there a word...?" Harry frowns up at the twinkling lights. "Is there a word for when you're trying to remember something and it's on the tip of your tongue but you can't, you just can't, quite, get it?"
"Um... No? I don't think so."
"Oh."
#
Harry wasn't sure exactly when he started watching Neville. Maybe at the start of the year. Maybe even before summer, after the battle in the Department of Mysteries, after Dumbledore told him about the prophecy. Maybe it was earlier, Neville fighting in the DA, or before that, maybe when Crouch told him about Neville's parents. Maybe he's always watched and just hadn't noticed. Harry only knows that he does, that he can't stop. Harry watches Neville. At breakfast, at lunch, at dinner. In classes and corridors, on stairs and lawns, in the greenhouses and the common room, watches out of the corner of his eye in the showers and during exams, watches him in their room. Harry falls asleep to the sounds of Neville breathing, wakes out of disquieting dreams already listening for the soft snore, for the little catch of breath that means Neville is about to wake up.
#
"It's just," says Harry. "I've been having this dream."
Neville turns over onto his side, looking at the other head on his pillow. "Oh?"
"It's like before. Dreaming about the Department of Mysteries. A little different every time. Except... Except it's not like that at all."
"Tell me," says Neville, resting a hand on Harry's chest.
Stars reflect in Harry's glasses.
#
And if you asked, people would say:
"Longbottom? Isn't he the fat kid, hangs round with Potter?"
"Oh, yeah, I think I know -- didn't he blow up a cauldron."
"A cauldron? More like one a week. Remember the boils? And the blotches?"
"One a lesson you mean. If not more. Snape's always ragging on him, using him as an example."
"Hey, and the spikes! They were cool! And remember when Weasley--"
"Yellow feathers! And when he put asphodel in the pepper-up potion--"
"Ha ha, and then he turned bright green, and did you hear--"
"--fell off his broomstick before he even got close to a--"
"--still no better than a squib even with his own wand now and--"
"--have a thing for Snape, he gets detention so much--"
"--remember when he destroyed the--"
"--remember how he lost his--"
"Do you remember--?"
"--Ha ha ha! Do you--"
"--remember--
#
"The prophecy."
"I broke it."
"No. Yes, but. Dumbledore knew it."
"Oh."
"Born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies... and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal..."
Harry rubs at his scar until Neville catches his hand and moves it away, holds it, says, "Harry."
Harry says, "I've been having this dream."
#
Hermione has to repeat his name twice before he drags his eyes away from where Neville is bent over between piles of books, sucking at a sugar quill.
"What?"
"I was asking about your cloak."
"Trunk," says Harry, turning back, but Hermione waves the cloak at him to get his attention. It's already in her hands, shimmering as the fabric moves. Harry blinks at it, then at her.
Hermione sighs, holding the cloak out. "I really don't know what is with you lately Harry. Sometimes I'd swear you were being deliberately oblivious."
"What?" asks Harry. "What did you
(obliv--)
say?"
"Look."
He takes it, running his fingertips across the material. Light warps strangely where the cloak has been pulled. "I, uh. It got... caught on something, I guess."
"I know that," says Hermione patiently. "I asked if you wanted me to fix it. Are you sure you're okay?"
"Yeah. Yes. I just..." Harry looks up as Neville makes a triumphant noise, scrawls across parchment. "I must not have noticed."
Hermione mutters, takes the cloak back. Harry watches Neville study in the flickering fire light.
#
"I've been thinking about," starts Harry and shivers when Neville's lips brush against his scar.
"Is this okay?" asks Neville.
"Yeah," says Harry. "It feels... It's comfortable, you know? Familiar. Necessary, somehow. Like it was meant to be. ...And that was really sappy, wasn't it?"
"Yes," says Neville, smiling widely. "Very."
"Neville," says Harry and starts to say something else and then stops and Neville starts to speak as well, so Harry kisses him.
#
And if you asked, people would say:
"Neville Longbottom is, without doubt, the worst wizard Hogwarts has ever seen."
#
"Mmm."
"Ohhhh!"
"Neville?"
"Mmm? Do that again, Harry."
"What happens?"
"Huh? When?"
"You see Dumbledore
(I am the Headmaster and)
all the time."
"Yeah."
"Even though you never really do anything."
"I dunno. We just talk." Neville sits back. "Look, Harry, just say if you don't want to--"
"I do."
"You're. I don't know. Distracted. I won't, won't mind if you--"
"You're not a distraction." Harry reaches for him. "This is-- I want this. You. It's real."
"Don't pity me."
"I don't."
"Don't."
"I don't, Neville. You're the bravest person I know."
Neville smiles slightly. "Worth a dozen of Malfoy."
"Fifty times," says Harry, laughing. "A hundred. A thousand."
"Worth you?"
"More than."
"Oh."
#
"I don't get it," says Ron. "I just don't get it."
"It's simple, really," says Hermione.
"For geniuses like you, maybe."
"I'm hardly a genius, Ron. Let's try another one... If you have Sardaplant root and bismuth flakes--"
"--add soot to neutralise and stir counter-clockwise over a low heat," finishes Neville absently from where he's packing his stuff up. "Harry, could you pass me Poselthwaite's Compendium? Harry."
"Mm?" Harry looks up blankly, quill still absently moving. "Oh. Right."
"See, Ron," says Hermione as Harry hands the book over, "it's easy. Even Neville can do it!"
Harry lets out an indignant "Hermione!" before he can stop himself, and she blushes.
"I'm sorry, Neville, I didn't mean it like--"
"That's okay," says Neville, pushing his stuff into his bag. "I've got to go see Dumbledore again."
"Neville--"
"Really, Hermione, it's fine. Everyone knows I'm not the brightest apple in the bunch." Neville smiles at them, at Harry. "See you later?"
"Sure," said Harry. His quill swirls across the parchment, trailing colour-changing ink in endless loops.
#
"What it is," says Harry, and Neville moans, and Harry laughs and pushes the other boy over onto his back, straddles him. "What it is, see... I've been having this dream."
Neville smiles up at him. "Am I in it?"
"No," says Harry; then: "Yes. Maybe."
"Okay," says Neville, laughing.
Harry picks up Neville's right arm, his wand hand, kisses the back of Neville's fingers. "It starts differently, but there's always stairs."
"Stairs," repeats Neville, only it comes out more as "staheh" as Harry licks his wrist.
"And I climb them," says Harry, and kisses Neville's forearm, "one," Neville's elbow, "at", Neville's upper arm, "a," Neville's shoulder, "time," and he licks Neville's neck, making the other boy twist and moan.
"What," says Neville, and clears his throat and starts again, "what's at the top?"
"Something," says Harry, starting down the other shoulder.
"Suh?" manages Neville.
"I don't
(you're fooling around with his mind)
remember," says Harry and, "what's this?"
He's touching an odd shaped blotch on Neville's forearm.
"Nothing," says Neville. "Pomfrey says it's nothing."
"You didn't have this before," says Harry, slowly, like he's not sure, except he is, he knows he is.
"Came up after, you know, with the Death Eaters."
"Oh," says Harry.
"It's okay," says Neville. "Just a little mark. It's nothing, really."
"Does it hurt?" asks Harry.
"No," says Neville. "Sometimes, a little. I think..." He frowns, smiles suddenly, says, "yes, yes it does. Kiss it better?"
Harry does.
#
Sometimes Harry wonders if the teachers are really all watching Neville, or if it's just that he's always watching Neville so that's the only time he notices them. Sometimes he wanders why Snape is always haunting Neville's desk during potions and then a cauldron melts of explodes or grows legs and runs off and he thinks maybe that's it.
Sometimes Harry watches Neville fly when Hooch isn't around and wonders if it just isn't that adults make Neville nervous.
Sometimes he thinks about his parents are just dead dead but Neville's are walking around dead and that yeah, he got possessed and almost killed but so did Ginny and really most of that was his own fault, anyway, that maybe he, Harry, when it comes right down to it, got the better the deal of the two, that Neville deserves the title of Boy Who Lived far more than he does.
Sometimes, when Dumbledore touches Harry's shoulder in the corridor, or smiles at him from the end table, or cheers from the stands, a cold shiver races down his spine and he clutches convulsively at his wand without knowing why.
Sometimes.
#
And sometimes Neville makes this little breathy whimper that sets off explosions at the back of Harry's skull and makes him dig his fingers in and shove, hard, harder, faster, and Harry thinks that maybe his dream is nothing, maybe it's just about this, just sex, both a relentless climb to inevitable conclusion, fraught with anticipation, and, really, it's no wonder he dreams about wands, weak and strong, and Neville tightens around him, and Harry thrusts and thrusts and Neville's mouth forms a perfect O and in the sudden perfect white heat he can't remember who he is or where or why or (decoyI'mthe) anything, all erased, everything gone save Neville's name trapped between them, dissolving in a tangle of tongues, and later they both sleep, wrapped up in each other so close that neither can tell where one begins or the other ends, and it's simple, and perfect, and just the way it's supposed to be.
#
But Harry dreams.
(I am the Headmaster, I can do whatever I like)
(whatever I like)
(obliv--)
Send Feedback to Nope for
Lightning Has Just Struck My Brain (The Déjà Vie Remix)
|
Disclaimer: All recognizable characters
belong to their owners/creators/copyright holders. This fan-written
fiction intends no infringement on any copyrights.