"Lavender?"
The girl could barely see, spots clouding her vision so that she could only make out the vaguest of shapes, but she could hear fairly clearly.
"What did — oh! Lavender!" the speaker exclaimed again.
It's Neville, she thought, her thoughts feeling slower than usual, as if she were drowsy or in the midst of a dream. She tried to open her mouth to greet her classmate, but she couldn't seem to move her mouth.
In a burst of understanding, she realized the horrible truth. He would never hear her confession. Because she was going to die there, on the cold floor, another victim of Fenrir Greyback.
It's not fair! she screamed inside. She'd fought so hard, so long … how could it end so abruptly?
"Lavender," Neville was muttering. He knelt beside her and took her head in his hands, peering at her with concern. "Are you going to be okay?"
She thought she murmured a "no" in response, but she wasn't sure.
"Oh my god," Neville whimpered. He bent down and kissed her lips, gently at first, then urgently, as if she were a sleeping princess he could awaken.
But she never felt the kisses. She was already gone.
When Neville pulled back, he saw her lifeless eyes. He had quickly learned to recognize the look of death, and seeing it on her face terrified him.
"I loved her," he breathed to himself.
In the midst of the battle, he knew he could spare little time to mourn her. But neither could he seem to pull away.
He felt a gentle hand on his shoulder and started. He hadn't heard anyone come up behind him. "I'm sorry, Neville," a soft voice said. He turned his head to see Luna, her expression as distant as usual but edged with sympathy — or, he wondered, was it empathy? "But you know, it's not as if you won't see her again," she continued. "Don't you remember what Professor Dumbledore told Harry once? 'Death is but the next great adventure.'"
She meant well, he thought, but her vague descriptions of an afterlife weren't especially relevant in the moment. "I don't care," he said sullenly, then immediately regretted his words. Luna was daffy, to be certain, but she was also a loyal friend.
Before he could apologize, though, Luna took on a sad smile. "You fancy her, don't you?" she asked, as if making an unexpected observation about a strange animal.
Neville blinked, then choked back his sobs. "Yes," he managed to get out.
Luna patted his back affectionately. "I'm sure it's all right if you want to take a moment," she assured him before rising to her feet and leaving him, as silently as she had approached.
"Lav," he muttered when he had turned his attention back to the body on the floor. It didn't seem possible that the girl he'd spent so much time working up the courage to ask out would now be unable to see him, or anyone else. But another thing he'd learned from Albus Dumbledore, and from Harry Potter, was that death was final. To try to defeat it, as Voldemort did, was to tear oneself away from fully living.
He must have leaned down to see her closer, for the next thing he knew, his face was against hers. For the last time, tears rolled down Lavender Brown's cheeks. But unlike the times before, they were not her own.
They were the tears of the boy who had loved her.