Rain taps softly against the window, a steady hush that wraps the room in calm. You’re already tucked beneath the covers, the lamplight low and honey-warm, when Neville slips in beside you. He smells faintly of rain and clean parchment, hair still a little damp where he forgot to dry it properly.

“Sorry,” he murmurs, ever gentle, as if the night itself might be disturbed. The mattress dips with his weight, and the sound of the storm seems to lean closer, curious.

You turn toward him. The blankets are cool at first, then warming quickly as he settles in. Neville’s hand finds yours without ceremony - no grand gesture, just a quiet certainty. His thumb traces a thoughtful line across your knuckles, absentminded and comforting, the way he does when he’s thinking about plants or courage or both at once.

Outside, rain streaks the glass in silver lines. Inside, the world narrows to shared breath and the small sounds of being together. Neville tells you about the greenhouse earlier that day - how the Mimbulus mimbletonia finally bloomed, how he almost missed it because he’d been too busy worrying it wouldn’t. You listen, smiling into the dim, because he always does this: hopes carefully, fiercely, even when he pretends not to.

“Do you ever notice,” he says, voice low, “how rain makes everything feel… braver? Like the sky’s done being polite.”

You laugh softly, and the sound seems to anchor him. He squeezes your hand, a little shy, a little proud. The rain grows heavier, drumming a lullaby against the roof. Neville shifts closer, the space between you disappearing as naturally as if it had never been there. His shoulder is warm; his presence steadier than the storm.

You talk about nothing and everything - plans that might happen, fears that probably won’t, memories that still glow. At some point the lamp clicks off, and darkness settles like a blanket over the room. The rain keeps watch.

Neville’s breathing evens out, slow and deep. He turns, half-asleep, and you feel the gentle weight of his arm across you, protective without meaning to be. It feels like choosing each other, again, in the smallest way.