It was over. And he thought it would be different.
When he was living in the room of requirement it had felt different. It had felt almost glamorous to be fighting the good fight against the Carrows and Snape. He'd been living in a hammock, and other students had flocked to him. He had been a leader, for the first time in his life. For once he was not in the shadow of the boy who lived. He'd felt brave and adventurous.
That's not what this felt like, here, sitting next to his grandmother as people laid out the bodies, and found their loved ones, hugging those who they thought had been lost and sobbing over those who had. As the house elves, retired from battle, had brought out refreshments for the survivors. There was no glory. There was no feeling of accomplishment, not like he had when he had thwarted the Carrows plans or snuck out to leave messages in the hallway to remind the other students to not give up hope, to not give in.
Gran was talking to Kingsley on the other side of him, they were discussing the aftermath or something. He could see the Weasleys over on the other side of the hall. One of the twins had been killed, he had seen the body, but he did not know which. They'd always been completely identical to him. That seemed cruel of fate. What happened when one was taken away?
The Malfoys were huddled in a corner, at the very edge of one of the house tables, or what used to be one of the house tables. No one had approached them, and he was not quite sure what would happen to them. Malfoy was a Death Eater so he should be arrested but not one of the aurors had made any move to do so.
Maybe it was because they had made no effort to flee.
When Voldemort had fallen, the Death Eaters still alive and fighting had tried to fight their way to freedom. To escape the justice they so deserved. Some probably had made it; others were imprisoned in one of the dungeons that had not been damaged.
But, he no longer believed it would be justice. Nothing could make up for what these people had done. There was no way to get back the lives lost, the families injured and forever maimed. Everything they had stolen from the world was impossible to replace.
Somewhere in the back of the mind he had been hoping. If she died, maybe it would change everything. Maybe he would be able to go to St. Mungo's and his parents would recognize him.
True, he had been hoping to do it himself. To fix everything she had stolen from him sixteen years ago. It would be poetic, the thing legends were made of. He had been waiting for the moment, but it had never shown itself. Molly Weasley's curse rang true, striking the woman who had featured in so many of his nightmares, and his heart leaped. It was over; it was done!
But, he had felt nothing. Not even satisfaction she was dead. Because she would never be dead, not as long as his parents were in the long term ward at St. Mungos, giving him gum wrappers and stupid grins. She had stolen them from him and her magic stayed in them. Irrevocably broken.
When Bellatrix Lestrange had hit the floor, so had all his pathetic childhood dreams of getting his parents back. No magic could fix it. Nothing could fix it. Crushing defeat rushed in.
He thought it would be different.
But in the end, Neville Longbottom was still a boy with no parents.