Harry Potter and the Alchemist's Emblem

Lest Brothers be Divided

The anger came way later.

How could Harry hide such a big secret for three years?! Like really, first he'd gone off and decided to banish Neville out, and then out of sympathy made him a half-friend? From the way they were buddies since childhood, he had gone off and...

Damn. Neville was so frustrated by this whole scenario. He wanted clear answers from him, and this won't do. And he couldn't even tell anybody! Lest the secret of the Master of Death be out amongst mortals.

He sat on his favourite spot by the lake, which he presumed almost all of the student body at Hogwarts has a unique one for themselves, and just threw stones at the water, just like many frustrated kids before him. 

He felt a familiar presence beside him, a brush that made him hypersensitive, and a scent of peonies and almond shampoo.

"I don't know what you see about Harry...", she began, and Neville sighed. He knew their view on Harry, and didn't have the energy to argue against it.

He didn't know if he even wanted to argue against it anymore.

"But I'll respect that from now on", she said in a placating manner, "but you need to know to set clear cut boundaries on every friendship"

As she got more comfortable, her shoulder brushed his again, and stayed there in contact as they gazed at the beautiful way the light danced over the waves as they rippled towards the shore.

"You need to tell him yourself what you expect to be told, and what is acceptable for you not to be told. It's different for everybody, and you may think of it as a bit stringent and businessy over something fun as a friendship, but that's what works in such cases"

And although that seemed like an excellent idea, and he did file it to use later, he asked instead, "Can we stop talking about Harry and —", and her eyes told him that it was his best idea for today.

××××

And on that very same day, Harry, Hermione, Calypso and Dumbledore all returned to the Halls of Hogwarts again, spent and exhausted for reasons unaware to the general body of the school. Harry finally enjoyed his British meal after having only foreign foodstuff fill his stomach for weeks, and Dumbledore enjoyed the normalcy of heaps of paperwork associated with three positions across the Magical bureaucracy.

"You don't know at all how much I was just craving spaghetti bolognese or my dear little treacle tarts", he said to his friends at the dinner table. 

Somehow, Neville was amiss from his usual spot beside Harry, and was sitting far away eating quietly at the Hufflepuff table besides Susan Bones, who was having a high-tempered discussion with Hannah Abbott. Harry wondered what happened to him, and felt a little strange when Neville just burred at Harry's enthusiastic wave.

"Dunno what happened to him, mate. He gets all angry and puffy whenever your name is mentioned these days", Ron commented, causing Harry's smile to fade away to a thin line.

"Don't worry, Harry. I'm sure he'll come around sometime", Hermione covered his hand in hers, making it all tingle and Ron's low whistle soon removing the source of warmth sharply away.

On the way to their beds, Harry confronted Neville as he was briskly setting his bed to sleep.

"I saw you at dinner, Neville. Congrats if it is what I think it is", and Harry could swear Neville's eyebrows lightened just a bit, or the corner of his mouth curved upwards for just a second, but then he was met with a stony facade again.

"It is much better than the way you see fit to tell whom 'you told you told' before somebody who thought of you as his brother of 13 years" and before Harry could react to that, the curtains closed and silenced themselves around Neville with a single swish of his wand.