hackthis_archive (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
hackthis_archive) wrote2004-10-15 08:12 am
hackthis_archive) wrote2004-10-15 08:12 am
HP - The Kindness of Butterflies - Neville/Harry post-war
Insomnia makes for a productive Hack Writer:
Smallville: Everything Will Never Be Okay: Lex/Clark, R.
Harry Potter
Neville/Harry
The Kindness of Butterflies
The sinking feeling is there even before he picks up the parchment on the table. He doesn't know exactly what it says, but he can sense the wrongness on it. He can tell he won't like what it says. He knows his life is about to change, yet again.
Dear Harry:
I know you're not going to understand why I'm gone. I won't pretend otherwise, you always hated pretending anyway so there's no point in me saying this is anything else but what it is. You're probably frowning right now, I can imagine the lines that are crossing your forehead, running perpendicular to that scar you hate so much. I know you're angry. You probably hate me right now and you're not even certain why. The thing is though -- it's that...
Wait. I'm going about this the wrong way.
Things aren't working between us. You know that and I know that. We've been trying for a long time now, but that's all we've been doing, trying. You want to be somebody else, you hate being This Boy Who, and I don't. I don't hate The Boy Who. I love him more than I love myself, but I can't sit around and watch you disintegrating, because that's what you're doing. Every day that you refuse Hermione's owls and sit around the flat wondering if things might've been different if you'd done something else or said something else is just your way of saying how much you hate yourself, and I can't be around to watch that.
I like to think that I made you happy once, but that was probably a long time ago before -- before the war and Hogwarts and Dumbledore and Ron and all the things that have happened since. I was never the smartest person in our class, but I like to think that I've learned a few things in my time. I like to think that I know you, and you don't love me anymore -- but you're comfortable with me and that's close enough for you.
It's not enough for me though. I don't want to be someone's close enough. I don't want to be your routine.
We have sex and we fuck but I don't think we've ever made love, and I'm twenty-six now, Harry, and I want to know what that feels like. I want to know what it's like to be loved by the person you love too.
I know that sounds really selfish of me, but the thing is, I learned how to be selfish from you.
It's always been about you and about what you want. It's always been about what you say to do and what you think is the right thing. Even when we were in school, in DA, I took my cues from you. Everyone did. And that was fine when we were younger, and it was fine when we were at war, but the war is over now. It's been over for a long time, and it's like everyone's moved on except for you.
It's time to move on, Harry. It's time for you to make your own life and make your own way. Living through me is no kind of life for you. You don't like plants; you don't like Herbology. My talk of flamingo croquet bores you, and even when we talk of Quidditch you don't talk to me the same way you used to talk to Ron. I know because I used to listen to your conversations. You probably never knew that, but I did, and you never noticed because you never really noticed me until I became who you might've been.
I've never blamed you for my parents and you've never blamed me for yours, but you hold their lives against me even though my parents don't know me at all.
This isn't about them though, and it's not about how much you miss Ron or Sirius or all the other people we lost in the war, this is about your suffering. This is about my suffering too, because I have suffered and I don't think you see that. I think you're so caught up in your own misery that you're blind to what I've lost too.
Luna was my friend and Ron was my friend too. I knew more things about Terry Boot than you ever did and when Lavender went to St Mungo's I cried, but you, I've never seen you cry. All I've ever seen you do is hold things inside, and the thing is life's too short to live those kinds of lies.
I read once in Care of Magical Creatures that the memory of a goldfish is wiped clean every thirty seconds and the Monarch butterfly only lives a week before it dies. Have you ever really looked at butterfly, Harry? I have. They're beautiful and delicate, and if you catch one it's almost guaranteed to die because human fingertips brush away the tiny hairs on their wings.
There are some things that shouldn't be caught and caged, and there are some people who should just be alone because they're too fragile otherwise. I'm not sayingyour you're fragile because you're probably the strongest person I know, but if you were a butterfly or if I was, maybe the best thing would be just to let me go because being with you and seeing how you're dying is killing me inside, and I don't want that for me.
I don't want that for you either.
I want you to live and go out and travel and see the world. Visit Ginny and Dean in America or go to Ireland and see Seamus in his pub. Go to the British museum and see the Muggle art that never moves -- they have Beatles paintings there and I know how much you love their music. Just do something with your life, Harry.
Just because other people have died, doesn't mean you should lie down and play dead too.
And the thing is, I think as long as I'm around you'll never do any of these things and I don't want that for you. I want you to live and have a good life -- so I'm leaving you, not because I want to, but because I think it's the right thing to do. And you can hate me, you probably do, but I don't love you any less.
Chances are I'll always love you more than you do.
Neville.
Smallville: Everything Will Never Be Okay: Lex/Clark, R.
Harry Potter
Neville/Harry
The Kindness of Butterflies
The sinking feeling is there even before he picks up the parchment on the table. He doesn't know exactly what it says, but he can sense the wrongness on it. He can tell he won't like what it says. He knows his life is about to change, yet again.
I know you're not going to understand why I'm gone. I won't pretend otherwise, you always hated pretending anyway so there's no point in me saying this is anything else but what it is. You're probably frowning right now, I can imagine the lines that are crossing your forehead, running perpendicular to that scar you hate so much. I know you're angry. You probably hate me right now and you're not even certain why. The thing is though -- it's that...
Wait. I'm going about this the wrong way.
Things aren't working between us. You know that and I know that. We've been trying for a long time now, but that's all we've been doing, trying. You want to be somebody else, you hate being This Boy Who, and I don't. I don't hate The Boy Who. I love him more than I love myself, but I can't sit around and watch you disintegrating, because that's what you're doing. Every day that you refuse Hermione's owls and sit around the flat wondering if things might've been different if you'd done something else or said something else is just your way of saying how much you hate yourself, and I can't be around to watch that.
I like to think that I made you happy once, but that was probably a long time ago before -- before the war and Hogwarts and Dumbledore and Ron and all the things that have happened since. I was never the smartest person in our class, but I like to think that I've learned a few things in my time. I like to think that I know you, and you don't love me anymore -- but you're comfortable with me and that's close enough for you.
It's not enough for me though. I don't want to be someone's close enough. I don't want to be your routine.
We have sex and we fuck but I don't think we've ever made love, and I'm twenty-six now, Harry, and I want to know what that feels like. I want to know what it's like to be loved by the person you love too.
I know that sounds really selfish of me, but the thing is, I learned how to be selfish from you.
It's always been about you and about what you want. It's always been about what you say to do and what you think is the right thing. Even when we were in school, in DA, I took my cues from you. Everyone did. And that was fine when we were younger, and it was fine when we were at war, but the war is over now. It's been over for a long time, and it's like everyone's moved on except for you.
It's time to move on, Harry. It's time for you to make your own life and make your own way. Living through me is no kind of life for you. You don't like plants; you don't like Herbology. My talk of flamingo croquet bores you, and even when we talk of Quidditch you don't talk to me the same way you used to talk to Ron. I know because I used to listen to your conversations. You probably never knew that, but I did, and you never noticed because you never really noticed me until I became who you might've been.
I've never blamed you for my parents and you've never blamed me for yours, but you hold their lives against me even though my parents don't know me at all.
This isn't about them though, and it's not about how much you miss Ron or Sirius or all the other people we lost in the war, this is about your suffering. This is about my suffering too, because I have suffered and I don't think you see that. I think you're so caught up in your own misery that you're blind to what I've lost too.
Luna was my friend and Ron was my friend too. I knew more things about Terry Boot than you ever did and when Lavender went to St Mungo's I cried, but you, I've never seen you cry. All I've ever seen you do is hold things inside, and the thing is life's too short to live those kinds of lies.
I read once in Care of Magical Creatures that the memory of a goldfish is wiped clean every thirty seconds and the Monarch butterfly only lives a week before it dies. Have you ever really looked at butterfly, Harry? I have. They're beautiful and delicate, and if you catch one it's almost guaranteed to die because human fingertips brush away the tiny hairs on their wings.
There are some things that shouldn't be caught and caged, and there are some people who should just be alone because they're too fragile otherwise. I'm not saying
I don't want that for you either.
I want you to live and go out and travel and see the world. Visit Ginny and Dean in America or go to Ireland and see Seamus in his pub. Go to the British museum and see the Muggle art that never moves -- they have Beatles paintings there and I know how much you love their music. Just do something with your life, Harry.
Just because other people have died, doesn't mean you should lie down and play dead too.
And the thing is, I think as long as I'm around you'll never do any of these things and I don't want that for you. I want you to live and have a good life -- so I'm leaving you, not because I want to, but because I think it's the right thing to do. And you can hate me, you probably do, but I don't love you any less.
Chances are I'll always love you more than you do.
Neville.
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But --
FLAMINGO CROQUET.
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WOOBIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!
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*lump in throat*
I love Neville.
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Oh. Neville, Neville, Neville.
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There there.
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Oh, my heart. Oh. Beautiful.
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I keep trying to rewrite the story that you are writing... the parts of it that haven't even happened yet, because I think that in your story, this really is the end for them and I can't seem to accept it. I have a *thing* I suppose about people who leave with letters or with decisions already made... who decide to leave or decide it is the end all on their own without giving the other person a chance to try to fix what is broken. So the story gets all twisted up in my head, and I want this letter to be Harry's catalyst for change, and for him to go find Neville and show him that he really does love him and for this to not be the end.
But I don't think that's your story. So I'm just paralyzed. Which I think means that you wrote something very powerful indeed. Because I think I became Harry, reading the letter.
I don't think I make any sense.
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Breathe.
The thing about trying to fix what's broken is that maybe Harry doesn't think he's broken and he'll resent Neville for not loving him the way he is. You have to want to change, being forced will only make things worse. I don't think this is Neville being passive-aggressive, I think he genuinely wants Harry to be happy, he just doesn't think he's the means for Harry's particular ends.
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This is so a version of adult Harry that I can see.
*hugs Neville*
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Beautiful. Absolutely incredible. I love your portrayal of Neville's emotions.
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Re: That was so real.
Yeah, that's my biggest complaint with the series. The constant Harry POV irks me sometimes.
Re: That was so real.
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N.