Harry Potter :Diamond Heart

'That doesn't mean I can't help you, Nev.' His friend's eyes snapped up at hearing his nickname for the first time since they had talked in the dormitories of Gryffindor Tower.

'You would?'

'As long as it is within my power. I do have the tournament to consider.'

'Of course, I understand. I was hoping you'd help me with, well, everything,' Neville admitted, ashamed. 'Everyone calls me a squib and I can't ever seem to get anything right. You improved so much since last year and I hoped you'd help me.'

'Everything,' Harry murmured. He would quite like to help Neville, to give him the push that would let him stand on his own two feet, but it was a serious commitment. 'Have you asked Hermione?' he wondered aloud.

'No,' Neville denied. 'She's too busy helping Krum to speak to anyone in Gryffindor much anymore and the other guys all study different things, play different games and sports to me.'

'They left you on your own, didn't they.' Harry saw, for a brief moment, a shadow of himself in Neville Longbottom and wondered if he was left to suffer how like Harry he might eventually become.

Would he crumble, or survive his crucible?

'I'll help you,' Harry decided. 'Weekends, between lunch and dinner, for however long you need or want. Meet me on the seventh floor at the top of the stairs the third weekend after the second task. I'll help you, Nev.' 'Thank you,' Neville smiled, straightening, and Harry was gifted a glimpse of the wizard he could be if he was ever allowed to find some strength within himself.

'I'm only helping you help yourself,' Harry told him.

'At least you are helping,' Neville muttered. 'Ron, Seamus and Dean; they don't care. It's like we were never friends.'

'You can find new friends, Nev,' Harry assured him. 'You'll find equals, people who understand and respect you for who you are.' Salazar's words slipped all too easily from his tongue, as if Harry still wholeheartedly believed them. The truth was that even as he said them he could only think about Fleur Delacour, someone who should have been everything to him that he had just promised Neville. His friend stood tall, never noticing the doubt that Harry felt. 'That's what you're doing,' he realised. 'You're being yourself.' There was blatant admiration in Neville's tone and Harry remembered that his grandmother was renowned for her fierce, overbearing manner. His friend might have never had a chance to try and be anything but what his guardian had wanted him to be.

'There's nobody else we can be,' Harry finished simply. It sounded rather silly in the open, but Neville nodded and something that was almost determination flared to life in his eyes.

'Thank you, Harry,' he said clearly, without any sign of his stutter.

'I'll see you on that weekend, Nev, we'll make sure nobody ever calls you a squib again.' It was too close to the magical equivalent of calling someone nothing for Harry to stomach. 'Don't listen to any of those prats, Nev,' he added as his friend began to walk away, 'they're still just children. We're growing up faster, we've had to.'

Harry was not the only one that had been abandoned by Gryffindor Tower, it seemed. He wondered, in between returning his current book and reaching for the next, how many other students there were who slipped into the cracks at Hogwarts. Nobody really ever paid much attention to Neville except when he was causing disasters in class. Casual dismissal and neglect were what currently defined his friend.

The injustice of it remained in the back of Harry's mind as he perused through the library.

His search only came to an end when he was assaulted by a small grey ball of feathers. Sirius' owl. The Shrieking Shack, today, Harry read. The ink was still wet and had formed a faint, mirrored duplicate of the words on the other side of the piece of paper. Carefully he ushered the tiny owl into the pocket of his robes. Madam Pince would ban him from the library for life if she thought he had brought a bird into her domain.

He looked back at the small stack of books he had yet to investigate, and then down at the message in his hand.

I'm not likely to find another solution, he decided. One was probably, hopefully, enough. A change to the exterior of his lungs, allowing them to expand and contract in the same way as the book described a heartbeat. None of the books on water creatures had contained anything useful, they all had external gills and swam around to keep the water moving, or had to come up for air.

As swiftly as he could he replaced the books back on the shelves, waving his wand to levitate them up and back to their original places. The second they were in place he checked the Marauders' Map and, sure enough, right beneath the picture of the Whomping Willow hovered a label with his godfather's name.

Sirius was waiting.

Harry hurried out of the library, ignoring Hermione's shock at seeing him stride past their table. Sirius had risked a fate worse than death to come so close to the school. It must be important.

He swept down the corridor overlooking the greenhouses, scattering second years on their way to Herbology, and out into the Whomping Willow's corner of Hogwarts. Helga Hufflepuff's worst herbological creation, at least if he listened to Salazar, was suspiciously still. Either Sirius had already pressed the knot on the trunk, or it was waiting for him to stray too close before swatting him like a fly.

'Papilionis,' he murmured.

The black-winged, delicate butterfly made it halfway to the tree before being flatted by a branch the width of Harry's body.

Lying in wait, then.

Harry levitated a small piece of wood from underneath the trunk of the tree and used it to press the button. There was no sense in trying to reach it himself and being squished like his conjured insect. The tree shivered and froze immediately.

Sirius was waiting at the very start of the passageway.

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